My early 20s were a blurry, rollercoaster of working unpaid internships and low-paid gigs – then going out.
I hate to say it, but life was different in the 2010s: you worked hard all day for about 75p, went straight from the office to a bar (applying make-up en-route) and drank hard all night. Then did it all again.
For me and my friends, it was standard practice to come home with new numbers in your phone after a snog on the dance floor.
But the holy grail of dating was to find an all-male friendship group from which everyone in our girl gang could pair off. We called it ‘going out on the prowl’.
One Friday night, my friend Lucy and I were on a night out in Richmond when we spotted Sam* and Mike*. They were both fit: one tall and Asian, the other a redhead. Sam and I had a kiss and I went home with his number.
He texted when we got home to say that Mike* had liked Lucy and that we should all meet up again the next night.
This was the age when Cosmo and Sex And The City were telling us all about the joys of ‘multi-dating’, so we jumped at the chance.
On Saturday, we spent the afternoon ironing our hair poker-straight, applying body shimmer to our cleavages and dousing ourselves liberally with Angel perfume.
Sign up to The Hook-Up, Metro’s sex and dating newsletter
Love reading juicy stories like this? Need some tips for how to spice things up in the bedroom?
Sign up to The Hook-Up and we’ll slide into your inbox every week with all the latest sex and dating stories from Metro. We can’t wait for you to join us!
On the bus on the way over, Lucy and I joked about what we’d do if we couldn’t recognise our dates from our vague memories of last night.
We agreed that in this scenario we’d text them pretending to have forgotten our glasses and make them come and find us.
On arrival, we realised our first mistake was letting the lads pick the location.
The night before, we’d been in an upmarket wine bar; tonight, the guys had picked a stuffy, old man’s pub where the chatter stopped and everyone stared as we tottered in on five-inch heels, wearing our best corset tops and cropped trousers.
Luckily, two good-looking guys – one hot, Asian guy, one gorgeous redhead – shouted hello and waved us over.
They asked us what we were drinking, and soon we were chatting over vodka and lemonades about work, where we were from, music – the usual, slightly boring first date chat.
Lucy and Mike were really getting on well and Sam was actually a lot better-looking than I’d remembered. And a lot funnier. Possibly taller too. But then I really had been very drunk when we first met.
About three drinks in, Lucy gave me the signal to go reapply our lip gloss (we had to go to the toilet in pairs because we had one shared handbag). The ladies’ loos were a bit hard to find, but we finally spotted them by the booths.
Now, imagine our surprise when we saw our dates sitting in one of them.
And not the guys we’d been getting to know over three rounds of drinks – our actual dates, the real Sam and Mike.
They’d been there the entire time.
We practically froze in abject horror. Somehow we hadn’t seen them come in – and there was only one entrance.
Lucy and I hurried to the loos and desperately tried to formulate a plan. In the end this was nothing more sophisticated than, ‘S**t, we better switch back.’
So, How Did It Go?
So, How Did It Go? is a weekly Metro.co.uk series that will make you cringe with second-hand embarrassment or ooze with jealousy as people share their worst and best date stories.
Want to spill the beans about your own awkward encounter or love story? Contact [email protected]
We came out of the toilet, sat down with the real dates and greeted them. And nothing was said.
The real Sam and Mike acted like we’d just shown up. We just began the date afresh, even though they’d clearly had a perfect view of the two women they were supposed to meet accidentally greeting – then joining – two random men at the bar.
Back at the bar, our doppelgänger dates seemed to take it in their stride that Lucy and I were now on new dates with people who looked a bit like them. To this day, I literally have no idea why the two new guys didn’t say anything when we talked about meeting them the night before.
It was horrifying, but at least it could have made a good story for our wedding.
Sadly, I didn’t marry Sam. But we did date for a while, on-and-off, after that! And he always sent a text telling me what he was wearing and where he’d be standing on subsequent dates.
The ‘other’ Sam, I never saw again, but Lucy preferred the fake Mike, and I’m pretty sure she circled back for his number.
So, our dreams of double dating a pair of friends after going ‘on the prowl’ were sadly scuppered – but at least we had two great tries at it.
*Names have been changed.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
Share your views in the comments below.
