Each week, we lure two singletons to The Captain Cook Hotel, give them food and drink, then wait for their reports to arrive in our inbox. If this sounds 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.
Jar-Jar Binks
My American flatmate decided that at my ripe old age, I should move past tinder and getting with freshers at 10bar, and start looking for my one true love, a.k.a. The Unicorn. She was supposed to be there at a nearby table, discreetly giving me pointers/jokes/one-liners and, if need be, come in to seal the deal as a wing-woman, but alas she had to fly back to USA on the day of the date.
“Bro, should I turn up sober? As this is a proper date with food?” I asked my Sam-wise.
“Nah, she is definitely going to turn up fucked. You have got to be at the same level,” said Sam-idiot (my date turned up completely sober).
It was a miracle that I even turned up at the Cook as I was absolutely trashed. My date looked amazing and straight away the conversation got going. I didn’t have to use the cheat sheet of conversation topics my flatmate made for me. After finding out that she worked at a computer games design company, straight away I knew I had to cut through all the meaningless small talk and ask “Are you a fan of Star Wars?” From that moment the night turned amazing.
After intimidating the waiter (for some reason he was really intimidated by us) with a force-choke for food and drinks, we chatted away about her job and how the emerging untapped market of gamers are the 40-50 year old mums who are trying to fill a void in their lives due to their children leaving home.
Just like that, like any great Star Wars movie, it was over. We exchanged numbers and she complimented me on how sober I behaved, after she saw that I had to triple check my phone number that I entered into her phone. I tried to invite her to my Death Star a.k.a. Pleasure Star, and promised her a ride home in my Millennium Stuart-Little (Totoya Starlet). But I think she was afraid that eventually we might find out we were actually brother and sister, and so she said she had to have an early night. But I’m sure the next time I will get a hook up before the university freezes my social life in carbonite.
Thanks Critic for an amazing night and sorry for ordering the most expensive items on the menu with extra sides!
BB-8
My flatmate signed me up for this for her own amusement and I’m not one to turn down free food and the possibility of having sex with someone I just met, so I happily agreed to what turned out to be a pretty disappointing time. I was the first one to arrive and decided to live tweet most of the situation, because I’m millennial scum. My first tweet read “i’m going on a blind date tonight, do you reckon it’s allg to live tweet it?” This was met with resounding hype and it made me feel considerably better knowing I had an audience watching.
He was pretty attractive and greeted me with a handshake. Nice. Formal. Apparently he had preloaded which I didn’t know until later on in the night but he composed himself very well and we talked about how he studied Medicine. I went to the bathroom to tweet about how he’s a buff med student. I talked about where I worked, which brought up the subject of video games, which brought up the subject of Star Wars. I clearly knew more about Star Wars than him and when I started my dirty talk saying how there isn’t much blood in Star Wars because lightsabers cauterize the wounds, this threw him off a bit I think, because how could a girl??? Know more?? About Star Wars?? He said his favourite film was Revenge of the Sith. I tweeted some more and still held hope that maybe things would get better.
But they didn’t. I was three beers in, he was clearly 6 or 7 vodka mixes in (which he said made him feel feminine, because? Straws? I don’t know) and some very problematic things were said. I’m sure he probably didn’t know he was being racist, homophobic or sexist and I was too shocked and sober to call him out. After an hour of chat, which felt like a year, we finally left and he asked what we should do now and I said I’m going home. I think he wanted me to go back to his place but, as it turns out, if you say shitty derogatory things, I just don’t want have sex with you, wow. For some reason I asked for his number. Is that what you do after dates? This date was great for my Twitter engagement and further proving how fucking cool I am. Thanks Critic for the beers and food and ego boost!