A London dating diary entry on the rise of dates that exist primarily to be photographed rather than actually enjoyed
He picked the restaurant. I should have known from the restaurant. It was the sort of place with exposed filament bulbs, a single perfect sprig of something green on every plate, and a menu written in a font so thin it required actual squinting to read in the dim, extremely photogenic lighting. We sat down. He immediately took out his phone. Not to silence it. To photograph the table setting before either of us had said a single word to each other.
The First Fifteen Minutes, Documented
What followed was not, in any meaningful sense, a conversation. It was a photoshoot with dialogue occasionally happening around the edges of it. He photographed his cocktail. He photographed my cocktail, without asking, for what he called “composition balance.” He asked me to move my hand slightly so the light caught my ring in a more flattering way. I do not wear a ring. He seemed disappointed by this information and moved on to photographing the bread basket instead.
We Did Eventually Talk, Briefly
Around the arrival of the main course, we had what I would generously call four uninterrupted minutes of actual conversation, during which I learned he works in “brand strategy,” which I have come to understand as a phrase that could mean literally anything, and he learned that I exist as a person with actual opinions, a fact that seemed to mildly surprise him given how much of the evening he had spent talking to his camera roll instead of to me.
The Dessert Incident
Dessert arrived, and with it, the evening’s centerpiece: a small, architecturally ambitious tart that he spent nearly four minutes photographing from every conceivable angle before either of us touched a fork to it. I timed it. Four minutes. I have had entire relationships that moved faster than that tart got documented. By the time we were finally permitted to eat it, it had gone slightly warm and lost whatever textural integrity it once possessed, a genuine culinary casualty of the pursuit of the perfect shot.
What He Actually Posted, for the Record
I checked, obviously, because I am only human. He posted three photos: the cocktails, the tart, and a moody shot of the restaurant’s exposed brick wall. Not one photo included me. I do not know whether to feel relieved or genuinely insulted that an entire evening of my company produced zero content he deemed worth sharing, while a piece of pastry got the full campaign treatment.
A Small, Petty Confession
I will admit, in the interest of full transparency, that I did also take one photo that evening, of my own cocktail, mostly out of habit, and mostly because it genuinely was a beautiful shade of pink. I am not above this. I am simply suggesting that perhaps there is a version of documenting an evening that leaves room for also, at some point, being present for it, and that version did not appear to be on offer at Dill that night.
Would I Go Back
To the restaurant, absolutely, it was genuinely lovely and the tart, once I finally got to eat the lukewarm remains of it, was very good. With him again, I remain undecided, largely because I am not sure I actually met him, so much as I attended a very elaborate content shoot that happened to also include a stranger sitting across the table from me. Further London dating diary entries continue at bohiney.com, with additional London lifestyle coverage available at prat.uk.
SOURCE: https://prat.UK/