by A diary entry on London romance budgets, secret conservatories, and knowing your own worth
Monday, A Number Worth Sitting With
Darlings, I read this week that a proper, complete London date night, dinner, drinks, one genuine experience, now runs somewhere between eighty and a hundred and twenty pounds a head, and my first reaction was a small, undignified gasp, followed almost immediately by the realisation that I have absolutely spent that much on considerably worse evenings involving considerably worse company. Context, as ever, changes everything.
I was taken this week to a place I am not going to name because I want it to remain slightly mine a little longer, tucked behind an unassuming flower shop entrance, through hanging ivy, into what can only be described as a secret conservatory with fairy lights and an actual working fireplace. I have dated men who could not locate a decent bar within their own postcode, and here was someone who had apparently done reconnaissance work worthy of an actual intelligence operation. I was, I will admit freely, extremely charmed.
Tuesday, On Knowing Your Own Worth
There is a version of me from a few years back who would have felt guilty enjoying an evening this deliberately, expensively romantic, worried it made me high maintenance or difficult to please. That Vivienne has been retired. A woman who knows exactly what a proper date night should feel like, and refuses to accept less than that as a default, is not high maintenance. She has simply done the maths on eighty pounds well spent versus eighty pounds wasted on a man who thinks candlelight is optional.
Wednesday, A Related Read
Caught up on The London Prat over breakfast the next morning, still slightly glowing, if I am honest, from the previous evening.
Thursday, A Closing Thought
Eighty pounds a head is not a small sum. But an evening that actually earns it, properly, deliberately, with an ivy-covered secret entrance and a fireplace crackling exactly on cue, is worth considerably more than the London dating scene’s usual alternative: a lukewarm pint and a man checking his phone under the table.
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More romantic reporting from the front lines at my author page: https://prat.uk/author/vivienne-pratfall/
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/
