Critic’s infamous blind-date column brings you weekly shutdowns, hilariously mis-matched pairs, and the occasional hookup.
Each week, we lure two singletons to Dog With Two Tails, ply them with food and alcohol, then wait for their reports to arrive in our inbox. If this svounds like you, email critic@critic.co.nz. But be warned —if you dine on the free food and dash without sending us a writeup, a Critic writer will write one under your name. And that won’t end well for you.
Hers - Sloppy
In true scarfie fashion, I was in the midst of a Sunday session and found myself drunkenly volunteering to take part in the infamous Critic blind date.
The night arrives and i’m at my friends flat, half a wine bottle deep preparing myself for the night ahead. I arrive at The Dog with two tails at approximately 7.35 (fashionably late) to find that my date has also taken the late approach as he is yet to arrive.
I grab myself a drink and before it even arrives at the table I see my flatmates lunch walk through the door, he’d obviously been left on the barby far too long cause he looked cooked! Realising that were both definitely not going to get laid (by each other) we agreed to make the most of the bar tab and get absolutely rolled.
His flatmate and mutual friend brought us darts on his way home from work so we found ourselves spending the majority of the night outside.During our time outside we befriended a guy and gal from west Auckland, my date excitedly jumped at the chance to repeatedly report that he was in fact from Ponsonby.
Things turned south as the west Aucklander pulled out his tarrot cards and started to do readings for myself and my date, at this point I was way too pissed to act seriously so I gapped inside for another drink.
The drinks had been flowing and I had already lost my phone in the bathroom twice so I thought to myself surely the bar tab must be close to finishing, I asked the bartender and realised we were only halfway through.
Time was ticking so I ordered one last drink and messaged my friend to come and pick me up. After stating ‘ill see ya at refuel’ me and my date said our goodbyes and parted our separate ways.
As the Tarrot reader predicted, love just wasn’t in the cards for me and my date. All in all, fun night, Thanks Critic!!
His - Seconds
After a somewhat quiet semester I was extremely relieved to find that my favorite Ginger flatmate and his accomplice had signed me up for the date. After an amp up session with flat the and a few 8.6%’s I found myself unable to focus on the menu.
I did notice two of my sifitiest friends taking pictures in the corner, but it took me a far too long to realise that I was sitting across from my mates ex, whose flatmate I’d slept with.
Gutted that the option of a happy ending was off, we decided to spend all our money on drinks and then spent the majority of the night chaining darts and having our fortunes told. This fortuneteller seemed delighted to meet a fellow Aucklander and was keen to hear my insights into the Ponsonby coffee scene. Being from New Plymouth, my date didn’t have quite as much to offer, and after hearing that “love wasn’t on the cards” decided to pull stumps on the evening. (This didn’t bother me, she certainly wasn’t in the same league as her flatmate)
Following a quick bathroom nap, brought about by a very deep toke on a Marlboro red, I realised that there were about four shots left on the tab. These resulted in a ripper of a night, having a good old doff in refuel and ticking a few boxes.
Thanks Critic