Fosse Park<\/a> to immerse myself in the grocery dating scene.<\/p>\nI arrive just before 10am on Valentine’s Day, grab a red basket to advertise that I’m “looking for love” and set off into the store, making a quick U-turn after wandering into the toy aisle.<\/p>\n
After finding a friendly bloke in the card aisle to take a quick picture, I begin meandering around, seemingly the only person with a red basket, seemingly destined to be alone forever.<\/p>\n
To increase my chances, I think, I should probably put some groceries in my basket – don’t want it to look like I’ve only come to pull.<\/p>\n
I decide against getting any meat – partly because I’d only been shopping the day before and didn’t need any, but also in case it was a turn-off for any vegans.<\/p>\n
I spy some coleslaw. Everyone loves coleslaw.<\/p>\n
I grab a pot and put it in my basket, but then realise it’s got a yellow label on it – it’s reduced. I look cheap. But I really want it by this point, so I keep it in my basket.<\/p>\n
I grab a plastic bottle of oil from the next aisle. Pure sunflower oil can only say good things about a man. There’s nothing sexier than oil.<\/p>\n
There’s some spaghetti. I grab a pack. That’s romantic – like in Lady and the Tramp. I think I’m doing pretty well on the signals I’m sending.<\/p>\n
But there’s not much point when there’s no one else in the store with a red basket. I carry on milling around, getting the chance to go up some of the aisles I never usually go into.<\/p>\n
They have shelves full of all kinds of dehydrated pot snacks. I was born in the 70s, and for most of my life, it was just Pot Noodles – nothing else. Simpler times.<\/p>\n
I pick up some bread. It could potentially put off a stunning gluten-intolerant woman and ruin my chances of eternal bliss, but I am getting low on bread.<\/p>\n
In the cereal aisle, I finally spot another red basket, but it’s a young man with his friends.<\/p>\n
I could go up to him, say I’m a journalist and ask how it’s going so I can put it in the story. But he’s clearly not taking it seriously, I think to myself, hypocritically.<\/p>\n
By this point, I’m nearly at the booze aisle – the furthest corner of the store. In the interests of thorough, in-depth journalism, I spin around and do another weave through the food aisles, noting how many people go to the supermarket in their dressing gowns these days.<\/p>\n
The boy with the red basket walks past me with his friends, turns a corner and starts giggling. I feel suddenly self-conscious.<\/p>\n
They think I’m a lonely old loser trying to find love in Asda at 10am on a Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
As I stand at the checkout queue, I put the stupid red basket down by my feet and hope nobody can see it. It’s all been nothing but a humiliating failure.<\/p>\n
Part of me wants to just leave the basket where it is and flee. But I actually really do need bread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asda are making it easier for shopping singles to meet with their Valentine’s Day red baskets Reporter Tom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[724,84,156452,59,1758,56,54,55,155908],"class_list":["post-426475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-asda","tag-business","tag-fosse-park","tag-gb","tag-shopping","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-valentines-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n