“So they just…beat the child off the tree.”
There are plenty of things one can talk about on a first date.
Where you went to school is one option. Your favourite kind of cheese is another. How much you like dogs and how desperately you want this poor woman to know you like dogs is also an option.
Another potential candidate is your trip to Cambodia and the horrors that were inflicted upon those living there between the years 1975 – 1979.
Absolutely unreal first date small talk. Phenomenal stuff, mate.
Unfortunately, the above is the option that John, above, decided to go for when he was paired up with Clodagh on the Irish version of First Dates.
He started going on about his travels and about mass murder as you do, and unfortunately, Clodagh did not look all that impressed.
John said:
“I knew as I was talking I was bringing down the date… I was like: ‘John, shut up’. Even in my head I was thinking at the time: ‘John, do not talk about this!'”
But he did though.
He really did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIxDVGwb5oE&feature=youtu.be
Now, in fairness, there are absolutely worse things to end up chatting about on a first date.
For instance, you could spend approximately 45 minutes talking about your ex. You could go off on a tangent about road frontage or sillage or something equally questionable.
Or you could simply tell your date that they should get plastic surgery, that you hope their head is “as good as their kissing,” and that they’re an idiot for not eating meat.
Yeah. Not bitter at all.
In the grand scheme of things, informing somebody about the Cambodian Killing Fields really isn’t the end of the world.
At best, your date will come away with a keen sense of knowledge about a tragic event that they otherwise were unfamiliar with.
They’ll learn about the Khmer Rouge regime, the Cambodian civil war, and the senseless genocide that took the lives of more than one million people.
And at worst, they’ll be totally freaked out and never speak to you again.
Either or, really.