Blind Date

Chaudhry enters the Italian restaurant known as Vespaio Ristorante, looking for her blind date. She spots Archbold. After ordering their dinners, a nice pizza for Archbold and a delicious pasta for Chaudhry, they begin to discuss careers. Archbold talks about the “Death of Pretty”, his post which talks about how women are degrading themselves so that they can be seen as “hot”. He blames this on the media, and, after, of course, a few glasses of wine, he brings up how he believes that the women’s liberation movement has had a clear role in this. He goes on to say that for every woman with “projected innocence”, there will be hundreds of women who do not have what can only be put down to sexual purity. She hesitantly agrees with some points, blatantly taking offense to his view that only virginity keeps a man interested in a girl. Once the food arrives, they begin to eat, making casual remarks about the restaurant, the food, and their mutual friend. After they finish with their food, they sit and wait for their dessert. They get to talking about Chaudhry and her work “Men Growing Up to be Boys”. She explains that men have degraded since the fifties, thanks to the media, but not that they were that good in the first place. She then goes on to say that men seem to be pushing back responsibilities, but most embrace these same responsibilities when they get married. After sitting through dessert, both quietly eating their gelato, musing about the other’s work, deciding that a second date is not an option. After the meal, and the discussion which ended in both agree that the women’s liberation movement and the media is responsible for the degradation of society, and also both agreeing, not aloud, to not see each other again.