The hopeful lovers on the Critic Blind Date are provided with a meal and a bar tab, thanks to Mamacita. If you’re looking for love and want to give the Blind Date a go, email blinddate@critic.co.nz

Romeo

I was pretty excited, to tell the truth. Why? I’ve never actually been on a real date before. Everything is all hook-ups at parties or via Tinder, there’s none of that nerve-wracking “asking someone on a date” business anymore. So, this was my first ever date.

I arrived fairly early, and my date wasn’t there yet. After about 5 minutes, a gorgeous girl walked through the door. She had short dark hair, beautiful eyes and was wearing really bright lipstick. She looked really fun and I couldn’t wait to find out if she was as cool in person. I wasn’t disappointed! She was super smart, super funny and just really fucking cool. She was a chemistry student and shared her hopes for postgrad, which were really interesting topics, and she seemed just as interested in hearing about my studies as well (comp sci), even though most would consider comp sci to be boring. The food was delicious and the drinks flowed easily with conversation. After dinner we wanted to keep hanging out, so we went to Pequeno for a cocktail, then walked around. We ended up walking down to Zanzibar for another drink, and then just kept walking and chatting until we found ourselves way down at Woodhaugh gardens, where we just lay on the grass and looked at the stars (corny I know!). After hours of chatting and holding hands, we stood up to leave and I finally got up the courage to go in for a kiss. She went for it! We made out for what felt like ages, then swapped numbers and parted ways. Thanks Critic for a magical night, romance is not dead.

Juliet

I preloaded with the girls at home before heading out because I was quite nervous. A Spotify playlist steeped in Arctic Monkeys and Unknown Mortal Orchestra was just what I needed to calm the nerves along with the Long Whites. My flatmate did my makeup, because when else can you force your mates to do your makeup for you? She took me from a 7.5 to a 9.5 and I was on fire!

I got there a little late but my date didn’t mind. He was cute for a computer science student and actually had personality plus! After about 10 mins I was hooked, he was actually the total opposite of what I had been expecting, and we had good bants and great eye contact. I really didn’t want the night to end but also I’m not a one night stand kinda gal so we went to a couple of bars and ended up wandering the streets of Dunedin, chatting away a mile a minute. The night ended with an impromptu visit to the gardens, where we talked about life and did some stargazing holding hands. It felt like a rom-com, tbh.

We had a goodnight kiss that felt perfect, and we’re going to see each other again. Yay!!!

Highly recommend blind date, 10/10 for finding unexpected love.