Lizzie and Liam
On a freezing night in early January 2018, the Guardian organised a blind date in Manchester for two hopeful singles, Lizzie and Liam. It was lust at first sight: they ended up on the roof of an NCP car park, kissing – and last summer, they wrote in to the magazine to let us know that they had just got married. The ceremony took place just half a mile from the car park where they had shared that first kiss.
Five years after their first date, I rang up Lizzie and Liam to find out how their romance had progressed. Liam tells me that the day after that fateful night, he had texted Lizzie to tell her what score he was going to give her before sending it into the magazine, as a kind of wooing tactic. “I wanted to give her a 10 but I didn’t want to come across as too keen, so I settled on eight,” he says. “Luckily my plan to get into her good books worked.”
Lizzie tells me the clincher for her was that she felt almost uncannily at ease in Liam’s company. “I’ve been on dates where I’ve had to hide in the loo just to give myself time to think of something to say,” she explains. “Everything with Liam felt so natural. We were instantly familiar with one another. Also, I instantly fancied him.”
The immediate connection Lizzie and Liam felt also helped them to resist a temptation of many first dates, particularly blind ones: the urge to get completely wasted. “We didn’t have to get drunk to make the date bearable because we were genuinely enjoying ourselves,” Lizzie says. “That was something I thought about, going into the date. I didn’t want the write-up to say that I was slurring my words by the end of the evening.”
The Blind Date column was a surprise fixture of Lizzie and Liam’s wedding last summer. Liam’s best man printed copies of the article and left one on each table at the wedding supper, so every guest would be able to read the story of how the couple met. Today, they remain religious readers of the Blind Date column, often sending particularly romantic dates to one another and discussing the scores. “It’s not like we’re willing everyone to fall in love and get married,” Lizzie says. “But that would be nice.”
Juliet and Dennis
In January 2023, Juliet, 74, met Dennis, 73, for a blind date at a country pub in Leicestershire. Juliet was recently widowed, Dennis had been living alone for 20 years, and both applied to do a Guardian Blind Date on a whim, as a leap of faith. They shared a “little kiss on the lips” at the end of the evening, and have been meeting up regularly ever since, for canal-side lunch dates and walks.
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Dennis says their relationship is a friendship: “I’m a never say never kind of person but she did say she’s not really ready to move on.” Juliet is grieving and he wants to give her space to do that. In their monthly meet-ups, they talk about their children and grandchildren, and discuss politics (Juliet is a member of Extinction Rebellion). It’s unconventional, but Dennis says he’s happy with the pace at which things are going. “Perhaps we’re being a little cautious but I don’t want to push anything,” he says. “I’ve been there, done that, and got the divorce papers.”
Juliet tells me she is pleased she took the plunge and applied to do the column. “It’s a positive thing that has happened to me, meeting Dennis. I was feeling a little lonely and it’s really nice to have another aspect to my life.” They’ve recently started talking on the phone and are planning a trip to a festival this summer, as well as an outing on Dennis’s motorbike. “I’m not rushing into a romance,” Juliet says. “But watch this space.”
