This has been great, I’ll give you a call, we should do this again sometime!

We’ve all seen the episode of Friends where Chandler goes on a date with Rachel’s boss (the one with the mascara goop – blurgh), and regardless of how badly each evening goes, he leaves her at the end of it with the parting comment; “Well, this has been great, I’ll give you a call, we should do this again sometime!”

            I’ve always assumed that this was because he’s a boy, he’s foolish and he just doesn’t really know what else to do, but having followed up on dating disasters with Tits McGee, it appears that this is something that actually does happen in real life – and to totally normal people too!

            I’m not sure if it’s been ingrained into us out of a forced politeness, or if it just sounds like the right way to round off an evening when you are 100% certain that absolutely no kissing is going to be taking place - it’s like saying “I’ll see you soon”, but a stranger-friendly version because, let’s face it, you’ve never seen them before, so the chances of randomly bumping into them are fairly slim (I have a horrible feeling that this is going to happen eventually, but until that dreaded day…).

            I suppose it stands as something of a testament as to how well the date went if nothing else; there is absolutely no chance that The Word Smith was going to get anything other than a wave and a cringing sideways glance as the bus failed to race him along the road home, leaving me huddled in a corner to try and avoid eye contact. The Biking Engineer, on the other hand, who is also never going to get a second date, at least got a fairly polite farewell, even if it was laced in lies.

            This might be something that needs to be discussed at a future Slutty Suppers Club – how do you say thanks, but no thanks, without sounding awful and without tying yourself up in tricky potential second date territory.