If you’re looking for love and want to give the Blind Date a go, email critic@critic.co.nz

Wonder Woman

The Critic blind date seems to have a recurring theme: turning up late and embarrassing yourself by being more drunk than your date. 

I arrived ten minutes early, but it turns out that this only makes you more susceptible to embarrassing moments. 

My intention was to wait in the car for a bit and only be five minutes early but after a copious amount of alcohol consumption, I, unsurprisingly, had to pee. 

Cue me pulling up tight jeans in a locked bathroom where much to my surprise, and his, a dude opens the door and bears witness to the struggle between myself and my pants. 

So after washing my hands, I had to walk past him, do the uncomfortable shuffle past while exchanging embarrassed apologies before heading straight to the bar, asking if he was my date (he wasn’t), and returning to the table promptly in hope of not getting into any more trouble. 

Thankfully, my luck changed when an attractive med student sat across from me at the table. Also he was the kind to share a bowl of fries and spend the rest of the tab on alcohol. Just my type. 

The conversation flowed, he laughed at my jokes, and we only talked about the weather once. Also managed to slip into the conversation my recent 2:00 yardie, probably within that same time frame. 

At probably about two hours in, a guy came up to our table and said how he was looking forward to our Critic write up. Sorry to disappoint, but it doesn’t make for good chat when the date (in my opinion) goes pretty well; we didn’t run out of things to talk about within the three hours that we were there. 

I had a really nice time and got a text from him saying he did too, however at this stage I won’t be writing a follow-up for Critic: The Wedding Issue, but super excited for the one where our date is published so I get to find out why I haven’t been texted since the day after lol.

Steve Trevor

Having flicked to the back of Critic to read the blind date column during Monday lectures more times this year than I’ve caught sight of the library, and having reached the age that freshers are almost out of bounds with the infamous half your age plus seven formula I figured it was time to see what Dunedin could muster up.

With salt still in my hair after rushing from the surf, and a few Kingfisher Strongs doing exactly what they were designed to do, I followed the Critic blind date tradition of stumbling into the Dog With Two Tails fashionably late. The friendly bar staff pointed me towards a table where my date was already seated. It’s safe to say I was a tad taken aback when she stood up to greet me and turned out to be over a foot shorter than me.

The long and the short of it is that conversation flowed just as quickly as our drinks – smoothly ticking off the natural small talk of spirit animals, crazy cousins, how to avoid the tenancy tribunal and getting free food from the fresher halls. Just a pity she declared she hated the accent of my homeland, not being from NZ originally. Guess it’s a good thing she didn’t come by mine as the national flag hangs above the bed . . .

Recovering from that minor hiccup, we quickly decided to put as much of the tab as possible into drinks, opting to share a bowl of curly fries whilst sipping on beers that put my beloved Double Browns to shame (Yea, sorry I lied, I can’t say no to DB’s metallic tones with hints of beer sprinkled through).

The night was soundtracked by a few old geezers creating jazzy tunes that would put the likes of U-Bar to shame – sending us both into a state of mourning over the late Re:Fuel. However, we were quickly brought back to high spirits as almost simultaneously we suggested absinthe to send us on our way wandering these too familiar streets.

Here’s to the Dog With Two Tails, Critic, my date and ticking another one off the scarfie bucket list.