Background

Meet Joseph, 5ft 7in, forty-year-old, and he worked in the entertainment industry. Most of his profile pictures were of him posing with various VIPs like Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé, and Drake. This made me a little unsure of him right away. Basically, I thought he was trying too hard. But he was quite good-looking, and after a few emails between us, I decided to give him a chance.

After so many bad experiences, I wanted to know more before we met. I needed to know what he sounded like, and most importantly, if he was as pretentious as his photos made him appear. Pretentious people are the worst. In my humble opinion (lol), it is one of the worst personality traits in human nature.

Pre-date

I called Joseph, and to my surprise, he sounded friendly, genuine and very funny. He didn't mention anything about his celebrity friends and this reassured me about him being not bigheaded.

He suggested that we meet in my area, but after the recent dramatic episode with Gary, I decided we should meet a few miles away from mine and decided on South Kensington.

The Date

I arrived right on time to find Joseph already waiting for me. He presented me with an enormous rose bouquet, which took me completely by surprise. Everyone was staring at us, smiling, as if he was proposing in the street. Ordinarily, this extremely romantic gesture (it was very French) would have delighted me. But Joseph was practically a stranger to me at this point, and I was slightly embarrassed to be carrying a huge rose bouquet in the middle of South Ken.

We decided to have dinner together and rather than searching for ages for somewhere, we jumped into possibly the most commercial chain restaurant in that area, Carluccio’s.

I was already upset about one thing – Joseph was practically bald. I certainly wasn’t going to say anything, but I am not particularly fond of bald men. I know, I know - I was supposed to be turning over a new leaf and be less superficial, but up until then it was maybe my one non-negotiable preference. I liked my men with a full head of hair, so sue me!

I tried not to think about it too much. I figured that I was already there and maybe Joseph would impress me so much that I would forget about it.

There were some good points too - Joseph looked slimmer and younger than he had in his profile pictures. I also found his face more handsome in person, which balanced things out a bit. Joseph explained that he was a journalist working for an old-fashioned music magazine, which meant he had the opportunity to interview celebrities such as Rihanna, Beyoncé and even Michael Jackson in the past. I was genuinely impressed and asked loads of questions.

Joseph told me that Rihanna was always hanging around with her fortune teller/psychic, and that Nicki Minaj wore padded panties to make her ass look bigger, until just a few weeks before when she had finally had it surgically enhanced. He explained that she hadn’t had enough fat in her body to do so before. I was totally absorbed by these behind-the-scenes gossips.

More about Joseph: he lived in Essex, had a dog, collected expensive cars and was (obviously) fond of Beyoncé and Rihanna. Minus point – he was allergic to alcohol (I didn’t even know this was possible). I hate drinking alone; I always feel guilty, especially if I get drunk.

We had a very good night, but nothing exciting. In fact, I found him quite boring. Joseph wasn't as funny as I first thought, and was a bit too serious for me. But I was willing to give him a second chance and maybe get to know more about him. I guessed that he could have been a bit stressed for the first date.

Post-date

It was a good guess! Indeed, Joseph called after I got home to make sure I had made it safely. He admitted that he had been “blown away by my beauty” and that was why he was a bit shy during our date. This made me smile.

He asked me out again and said that we should go to the cinema for our next date. After my bad cinema experience with Adrian, I wasn't sure that it was the best activity for the early stages of dating. But Joseph was not Adrian, I reminded myself. Maybe the cinema wasn’t to blame for that experience, maybe Adrian was.

Date No.2

We met at the Curzon Cinema in Chelsea, which was local to me. But I didn’t mind this time – it was preferable to traveling all the way to Essex, which seemed like the other side of the world. In fact, if you go by the reality TV shows Made in Chelsea and TOWIE (The Only Way is Essex), they are on a different planet.

This time, Joseph brought me some chocolates for a gift. I was flattered, and chocolates are much less conspicuous than a huge bunch of roses, but I don’t like chocolate. Of course, I didn’t mention this; I just politely accepted the gift. We barely had time to talk, as our movie was about to start.

Just as I had felt during my cinema date with Adrian, I was uncomfortable all through the movie. The plot annoyed me with its predictability and its cheesy characters. I was preoccupied with thoughts of cinema-date etiquette, such as: can I speak? Should I say something at this bit? Should I keep on eating this popcorn when the rustling seems to resonate so loudly in the theatre?

Subsequently, I couldn’t wait for the movie to end. Joseph on the other hand, was really into it, laughing out loud to the cheesy jokes that had been told a million times since the eighties.

I thanked God when the movie ended and we decided to go for a drink at The Ivy. Once we sat down, he immediately started to praise how good the movie was. I studied him as he rambled on, lost in his own words. I was lost in my own thoughts, he’s clearly not my type of guy if he enjoyed that movie, I mused.

Then, to make things worse, he started talking about his celebrity buddies again. It wasn’t lost on me that it was the same stories as the week before, about the interviews with Rihanna, Beyoncé and Michael Jackson. The same gossip about Nicki Minaj. Joseph mentioned his dog and his expensive car collection again, then he apologised for not being able to drink with me because he was allergic.

I started wondering if he even recalled having a first date with me. Or had he been in a coma since the last time I had met him? Did he think that so much time had passed that I needed reminding?

I had to stop this, my ears were bleeding. I broke in by asking him what he did with his life when not hanging out with all these celebs.

I almost instantly regretted it.

He began a forty-five-minute soliloquy (that I tried to stop many times), which went a bit like this:

“On Mondays, I wake up at 6.45am usually very grumpy because I hate Mondays… Then I drink a coffee, have a cereal bar and brush my teeth before having a glass of orange juice. I like the combination of the toothpaste and orange flavours in my mouth. 7.30am, I have a very hot shower for fifteen minutes…ish.” He barely paused for breath as he continued with his daily itinerary: “Then I put some ageing cream on my face because, you know, I need to look young forever… Then, just after my shower I go to my bedroom to get dressed, because I don't have an en-suite bathroom. Around 8am, I get in the car to go to work. Where I live, there's a bit of traffic in the mornings, but I get to the office at 8.45am…ish. Becky and Edward are always in the kitchen waiting for me to make the coffee for them, as I am the best coffee maker in the office. I start working at about 9am -ish.” I think I tried to interrupt him here, I didn’t succeed. “…At lunch, I try not to eat too much as I put on weight very easily. So, I walk for forty-five-minutes and usually only eat half of my lunch. I leave work at 6pm…ish. I get to the car and it usually takes me about an hour to get home, because for some reason, there is more traffic in the evening, I have never understood why…Then I eat one of the dinners that I would have prepared the previous Sunday and watch two or three movies on YouTube or Netflix. At 11pm, I switch everything off and I go to sleep."

I wished that I could switch him off. But he seemed determined to go through every day of the week – what a treat! I wanted the ground to swallow me up, I was so very bored.

Yet, somewhere around his itinerary for Wednesday, I decided to kiss him. I don't know exactly why I did it, but I know that I wanted him to shut up! Joseph hugged me tightly after and went very quiet. It was very awkward for a long few moments...

From what he had told me, I understood that Joseph had one good friend, a local pub that he went to every Wednesday and Thursday night and he owned a house on a different planet (I didn't get the name of the town, but Essex was enough for me). He had been single for eight years following a very harsh break-up. Frankly, he led an uneventful life that I did not wish to share. I decided to leave.

He wanted to drive me home, but I declined the offer and hailed a cab instead. After I refused his offer, without even saying goodbye, Joseph probably ran as fast as Usain Bolt to his car. He was gone in seconds.

Wow, what a weirdo!

Ladies and gentlemen, I dated a robot with only two buttons: the first button would tell you of an exciting professional life where he mixed with the best and brightest. The second button would relay a list of daily mundanities to you until your mind rotted and your ears fell off.

At the end of the day, once pushed and listened to thirty-plus times, even the first button would become boring.

I had heard enough - next please!