It wasn’t a Friday; it was a Saturday. It was also Valentine’s Day, and my new friend Grace had a thirst for adventure. I had met Grace at a comedy night in East London where I had foolishly volunteered to take part in a ‘valentines special’. This meant participating in a tacky (but fun) version of the TV game show Blind Date. The format was familiar: a potential date asked a bunch of suiters a set of questions. One of the questions I was asked was: ‘if you were a biscuit, what kind of biscuit would you be?’ My response was: ‘I would be the Nice one’.
I wasn’t chosen. My ‘inner macho guy’ voice grumbled, saying, ‘this just adds further evidence to the theory that nice guys don’t get many dates’.
An hour later, during the interval, I got chatting to Grace, who lived in East London. We chatted about comedy, computers, and Meetup. At the end of the night we exchanged contact details. Although I didn’t managed to get a date through the Blind Date comedy show, much to my amazement I did managed to unexpectedly manage to get a date with a member of the audience.
Our destination was the South Bank, or more specifically, outside the Royal Festival Hall. We jumped on a bus, crossed Waterloo Bridge, and then walked down a flight of stairs. We found a map, figured out where the Royal Festival Hall was, and since we were early, we decided to grab a cup of coffee. Grace was an interesting woman. Not only had we been experiencing the weirdness of Meetup events, we also had studied the same subject at university: computer science. After our coffee, we left the Royal Festival Hall and stood directly in front of a bookshop.
‘Okay, I think we meet them here’.
I looked around but couldn’t see any groups. I got out my phone but the sheer amount of people in the area who also had smartphones meant that there was no free network bandwidth. Although I had a signal, my phone was unusable. I caught a brief glimpse of the Meetup event summary that suggested the event host had pulled out. I tried to post a ‘we are here’ message, only to receive a network timeout message. This didn’t bode well. Plus, it started to rain.
‘Want to go inside?’ I asked Grace. Grace nodded. We loitered in the entrance area next to the bookshop, eyeballing the passers by, hoping to catch glimpses of confused people feverishly consulting their phones: the giveaway sign of a ‘meetupper’. The start time of the event came and went. I looked at my phone again. Still no signal. The rain had stopped.
‘Perhaps I can get a signal outside…’ I said to Grace. We walked from the entrance to the barrier which protected pedestrians from the River Thames. I had another look at the phone. There was a message from a member of the group! The message read: ‘we are under the green umbrellas next to the Foyles bookshop’.
‘They’re over there!’
I rushed across to a bunch of people standing under the green umbrellas, sheltering from the rain. I asked them whether they were in the Meetup but they all shook their heads. I looked around but couldn’t see anyone who might be connected to the event. There were no groups of people. All I could see were pedestrians promenading on the South Bank. It didn’t look like it was going to happen. A lack of a leader, communication troubles and rain had all conspired against us. Dejectedly, we walked back to where we were standing, wondering what to do. One option was to just to hang around to see if anything would happen. I started to become impatient.
‘Let’s do it anyway’ I said.
‘What… Are you crazy? Propose…?!’ exclaimed Grace.
The event had the title ‘Valentine's Day proposals flash mob and love letters’. I got down on one knee. I proposed to Grace.
‘Grace, I propose…. that you have awesome hair. I am very envious of your braids. I really like how neat you keep it. My time for hairstyles has long gone, obviously, but you still have that possibility and will continue to have that possibility. You wear your hair with style and elegance. Grace, I love your hair’.
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a milk-chocolate lollipop in the shape of a heart. I gave my heart to Grace.
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