That’s one thing I’ll give Sonja; they aren’t being tight on the taxis.
I do a solo video outside my house, in which I repeat words to the effect of what I said at the end of the last two dates and also repeat Sarra’s words about what she gleaned from watching the montages. And that’s another wrap, as I feel they might say in the world of TV production.
As I watch the montage they put together of us for their next Thursday morning sixty-second catch-up on our challenge, I have to admit that I do enjoy Freya saying, very sunnily, ‘I had agreattime but I didn’t fall in love, and I do not believe I’m going to.’
It occurs to me that this week we haven’t yet heard from Sonja about what our next challenge is going to be.
And bang on cue, a message comes in from her.
Jake, Freya, thank you for your videos. This challenge is obviously a rolling process, informed by our rolling data. The real-time data shows that our viewers love your dynamic – the two of you together – and want to see more of you. The data also shows that no-one thinks either of you can win this challenge. But we don’t want to end this now. So we’re sending you on an experience – just the two of you, no dates required – on Tuesday, to create some more of that TV gold, and then you’re going on your bonding weekend asap, where we’ll take a lot of footage. Poll attached to see which weekends you can do. And details on your Tuesday evening date to follow.
Thank fuck for that is all I can say. Obviously I could do without a one-on-one experience with Freya, and I don’t like Sonja’s use of the worddate, and I imagine Freya feels the same way, but at least this will be the last Tuesday. The team-building thing was always going to happen, and – as Freya pointed out – we can easily each do our own thing that weekend. And then it will all be over, thank fuck.
I’m thanking my fucks less when Sonja messages us on Monday.
So we wracked our brains to think of the best evening out for two people who blatantly thoroughly disliked each other when they met lollll. We came up with an embroidery class. With a twist! You’ll be drawing portraits of each other and then sewing them. While drinking champagne! What could be more fun?
What? The woman’s a lunatic. I mean, what? That sounds like utter torture. I can’t draw and I can’t sew and I have no particular desire to learn to do either.
A message comes through from Freya:
Hahahahaha
And then another one:
I cannot imagine anyone less likely than you to enjoy that. Correct me if I’m wrong.
She isn’t wrong.
Twenty-four hours later, Freya and I are in an upstairs room in a pub just outside a train station in Wandsworth, with glasses of champagne in front of us, pencils and canvases at the ready.
‘Right.’ Petra, the very jolly woman leading our class beams at us all. ‘Everyone has their drinks, I see. Perfect. Since this is an extra-long session we’re going to have two breaks. You might want to order food in the first one to eat during the second one.’
Freya and I both smile politely. The other ten people in the class (nine women and one man) all say how great/ amazing/wonderful that sounds. They’re basically full of positive hyperbole about every single thing Petra says.
I, by contrast, am very unhappy about what’s coming up in the next hour. We’re going to begin by learning some basics of drawing faces – which, to be fair, will be very interesting, I imagine – and then each of us is going to draw our partner’s face on paper, before transferring that as well as we can to our embroidery canvases.
Before we draw our partner, each of us must study their face in great detail. I’m not looking forward to that bit. I don’t think I’d particularly enjoy doing that with anyone, but it’s got to be a truly special torture mutually staring hard at each other’s faces for an extended period when you really don’t like each other but have been forced into a stupid series of activities together.
‘Jake and Freya? Ready?’ Petra calls. Clearly, we haven’t sounded enthusiastic enough.
‘I can’t wait.’ Freya does an incredibly false smile. I’m pretty sure I know what her genuine ones are like because I think she enjoyed the karaoke evening as much as the rest of us, and she was smiling a lot then (not in my direction, obviously).
Her real smiles produce that (objectively very cute) dimple and reach her eyes. This one does neither.
‘I also can’t wait.’ I smile too; I don’t want to upset anyone.
Petra’s a good teacher. I was not a natural at art at school, and I am not a natural now, but I’m enjoying learning how to draw a face way more than I ever enjoyed school art lessons. She has some really interesting tips for us, and at one point it genuinely crosses my mind that if I’m ever at a huge loss as to how to spend my days, attending art classes wouldn’t be the worst thing I could do.
As predicted, things are not so good once we move on to the phase where we’re studying each other’s faces.
At the risk of sounding like a toddler, I just don’twantto look at all the details of Freya’s face.
We have a checklist. Apparently we would certainly not have a checklist if we weren’t total novices, but we do, which does kind of make it better, in that we don’t just have to sit with our eyes roaming across each other’s faces aimlessly.
I realise as I go through it that there’s something interesting about Freya’s face: she is – objectively – beautiful, but none of her individual features are particularly remarkable. Well, her eyes are an objectively lovely brown, very deep and chocolatey, which is a nice contrast with her dark-blonde hair. And her mouth is beautifully wide and full, and there’s something objectively very attractive about the way she constantly looks as though she’s about to smile or laugh. Other than when she’s sneering at me, obviously.
As I continue down the checklist looking at all the constituent parts of her face I try to work out what it is that does make her so beautiful. She has very symmetrical features – maybe that’s it. And her face is round but nottooround. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s just the unique way it all goes together.
