I need to come up with a venue that I will not mind going to myself and that might be conducive to Freya falling in love.
My mind’s a blank, and I’m really busy with work, so it’s a good job that Sonja texts a few minutes later to say:
Scrap that, we’ll choose. Will revert.
When she comes back to us on the group chat she tells us they’d like us to have the choice because this isourchallenge. So for the next double-header I can choose between their shortlist of Russian banya baths or feeding alpacas. And we’ll have to do a weekend day, whichever I choose. I’m a little speechless in horror.
Freya is not speechless. She shoots straight back on the chat with:
Out of those two I would choose the alpaca feeding. A Russian banya sounds great but I’m not comfortable with getting into a swimming costume with a complete stranger. However, I don’t have a lot of spare time at the weekends. Are there evening alpaca-feeding options so we can stick to Tuesdays as planned? Otherwise I think we will have to look at alternatives.
I have to acknowledge that that is punchy but fair. I can’t bring myself to agree in writing with anything Freya says, but I do thumbs-up her message. Sonja tells us to leave it with her.
Within an impressively short space of time, she gets back to us and tells us that the alpaca farm will open specially for us next Tuesday and that –brilliant idea! We’re switching things up even more!– we’re going to have our dates simultaneously from now on.
I just stare at my phone. Now I’m double-dating with Freya? While I try to set her up with the man of her dreams? And she tries to destroy my faith in happily-ever-afters?
For fuck’s sake.
I have a very busy week both work-wise and socially, so I don’t have a lot of time to think about who to ask to go on this next date with Freya, and – let’s face it – I have absolutely no idea who the right person would be so it would probably just be wasted thinking time anyway, so I basically do absolutely nothing about it.
Late on Sunday evening, though, when thinking about the week ahead, I realise that I do need to asksomeone.
I have no time to try to find a stranger, so I text another good friend, Dan, explaining the situation and telling him I’ll owe him his body weight in beers if he will help me out, and he very kindly agrees.
And here we are, on Tuesday evening, having travelled for over an hour and a half to somewhere that Sonja pretended was a very short journey away but is in fact quite a long distance into Kent, to meet Freya and whoever my date is, standing at the gates of an alpaca farm. As you do on a Tuesday evening in early March.
‘You know what,’ says Dan. ‘I’m pretty happy to get up close and personal with an alpaca. They look very cute from a distance.’
I nod. That’s the upside to this evening. I’m sure itwillbe cool to feed the alpacas and learn about them.
There are downsides though. And there’s the big one: Freya, just getting out of a taxi, followed by another woman, who is clearly my date.
She’s tall, slim and auburn-haired, with a very nice smile, which she is now directing towards Dan and me. She doesn’t really look like someone who’s going to convince me that I will never find love again.
Dan steps forward and sticks his hand out.
‘I’m Dan.’ He shakes Freya’s hand and then the other woman’s hand in turn. ‘I recognise you from the TV, Freya.’
‘Hi, Dan. It’s lovely to meet you.’ Freya bestows a big smile on him, and I see him slightly blossom under the full force of it. Ridiculous. Yes, on the one hand it’s movie-star hot, but on the other, can he not tell that it’s totally fake? She turns in the direction of her companion, and says, ‘This is Lizzie. Lizzie, this is Jake.’
Lizzie and I shake hands and then we all stand there and say that the journey was long but it’ll begreatto meet the alpacas.
I push a buzzer on the gate post, and we’re led inside. Dan and Freya walk together, and so do Lizzie and I.
‘So how do you and Freya know each other?’ I ask Lizzie, more for something to say than because I’m particularly interested.
‘We were at uni together. We shared a kitchen and were also on the same course, and just kind of hit it off in the beginning.’
‘Oh, that’s nice. Dan’s a uni friend of mine too. What did you study?’ I’m not exactly producing scintillating conversation, but in my defence I don’t like blind dates at the best of times, and knowing that this is designed by Freya to put me off dating for life, and doing it as a double date, is not making me happy.
‘Economics.’
That’s interesting, though.
‘And Freya did that too?’ I query.
‘Yep. The girl can do business stuffandwrite well. She’s a very impressive woman.’
