Update: The Guy, the Fridge & the Mega Trip

Hello, beautiful people – it’s been a while! As my dear concerned friend Mr Agard asked me to verify the other day, no – Blue Monday did not take me. And I’m pleased to see it didn’t take you, either! : )

There’s been sooo much stuff going on in the background… Things had been kinda crazy at work (I’d been a (wo)man down since December – there were only two of us to begin with); and things had been kinda crazy at home (like, almost literally – my sister will happily fill you in on all of that – read her blog here); and I was basically heading for burnout. It was definitely time for a holiday – and what a holiday it was: a solo trip (my first ever!) to Melbourne, Hamilton Island and Bali!

OMGGGG… I cannot WAIT to tell you all about my adventures – check out my Instagram for a sneak peek at the holiday snaps!

Clearly, we’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do (well, quite a heap, actually). So grab a cuppa and a HobNob and we’ll begin at the beginning. Now, if I remember correctly, we probably left off somewhere just afteeeeer… oh yes – Blind Date Guy.

The Guy

I arrived at the Korean barbecue in town as instructed and scanned the restaurant from the doorway as I waited to be seated. There were about three people in front of me and I wondered if one of them was my date. You have to remember, all I’d been given was a time and a place – I didn’t even have a name, let alone a description. I was petrified.

After a while, a guy came in behind me and tried (unsuccessfully) to hide behind a curtain whilst surreptitiously sending a text on his phone. He had the face of a kind, happy soul and we happened to be wearing matching outfits – burgundy sweaters (plus tassly earrings for me) and dark blue jeans. He looked as nervous as I felt and I had a strong inkling that this was my mystery man. So I took a chance and introduced myself: I was correct.

I have to hand it to my girls: Korean barbecues are a fantastic choice for a first date. The act of cooking your own meal on the tabletop’s inbuilt grill is inherently interactive – a brilliant icebreaker. The conversation was flowing and so was the wine. “I usually find it really difficult to talk to girls, but it’s so easy talking to you!” he confessed with visible relief about two hours in. Which did make me wonder whether he perceived me as a bloke – but it’s best not to overthink these things. There was heaps of eye contact. I made him laugh. He held my hand. We arranged another date.

Aaaaaaaaaaand I’m still single.

It seems that horrid little sh*t Cupid got the last laugh after all – for, despite being perfectly normal and lovely and the two of us getting along like a house on fire, I never heard from him again. And so, having already been given the cold shoulder, I figured I might as well try looking for love in the fridge – God knows I’ve looked everywhere else.

The Fridge

Whilst being ghosted by Blind Date Guy in the run-up to V-Day, someone at work sent an email round stating that Samsung had launched a new dating app called Refrigerdating. “It’s the inside (of your fridge) that counts,” the website proclaimed. “Simply upload an image [of the contents of your fridge] and let the world know what kind of person you are. Refrigerdating will then hook you up with a variation of fridges of different tastes to choose from.”

A bit like Blind Date – with household appliances.

The company even offered some handy tips for getting started. Things like: “Don’t go styling your fridge now! If this is to work, it needs to be the real thing. Cheating and relationships don’t go well together.” And “A good icebreaker is to send a personal message that reveals something about yourself, and at the same time, try to compliment the other, eg: ‘Hey, love – that spicy taco sauce makes me think of my exchange semester in Mexico’.” Ummm… okay.

The whole office was in uproar. “That’s a terrible idea!” someone exclaimed. “Such a pathetic attempt to cash in on Valentine’s Day by just shoehorning any old thing into it – I mean who in their right mind would sign up to this ridiculous site anyway?!” “I have nooooo iiiiideeeeaaaaaaaaaaa,” I replied whilst tapping my personal details into the registration form.

And so it was that the wee hours of the most romantic day of the year found me creeping downstairs like a thief in the night to take sexy snapshots of my refrigerator (which just so happens to be a Samsung). Obviously the first obstacle I encountered was: how the heck do you take sexy snapshots of a refrigerator?! I can’t tell it to ‘smize’ or pout – what’s it supposed to do, show me some (chicken) leg?

Plus there’s nothing sexy about gone-off yoghurt and some withered spring onions – from Lidl, at that. No M&S food porn here.

Still, I gave it a wipe, gamely arranged the groceries I had as quietly as I could (what on earth would my housemate say?!) – taking great care to hide all the sell-by dates and branding labels – and hoped I wouldn’t be judged too harshly on my sparse and basic selection of consumables.

The next day, I went online to upload my efforts – only to discover the whole thing is just a marketing ploy to showcase the capabilities of Samsung’s internet-connected Family Hub refrigerators. They feature interior cameras and exterior touchscreens with a whole host of apps, and it seems Refrigerdating is meant to be used in conjunction. So perhaps money can buy you love – if you’ve got $4,000 to spend on a fridge. Plus there only seems to be about eight blokes on the app, and most of them live in Stockholm.

But in the end, it didn’t matter. Because soon enough, I’d have a plane to catch – right round to the land Down Under!!!

: D