Blind Dates

Blind dates. Ugh. I went on a blind date once and.It.Was.A.Nightmare.

My date was a woman. Oy! Of course, I was in high school at the time, and not at all out, so naturally I would get set up with a woman. And we went to a drive-in movie. Oy!  

Again. Me. A homo. On a blind date. With a woman. At a drive-in.

Awkward.


Sarah and George

But my sad little one-time shot at blind dating doesn't even compare with Sarah Kemp and George Bentley's blind date. Their date would definitely fall into the worst category, and, well, yes, the best category.

Sarah Kemp and George Bentley met through an Internet dating service. She was a cleaner living in Edinburgh, Scotland, and he was a London-based builder. After their initial "meet" on ForgetDinner.co.uk last fall, they began writing back and forth, finally deciding to "bite the bullet" and meet in person.

Sarah Kemp says she would never have agreed to a blind date, but she and George "hit it off from the beginning, and our relationship blossomed as we emailed each other more and more often."

Sounds lovely, but wait.

As they met over drinks in a pub, and began to talk they both soon realized that this blind date was not going to lead to any kind of romance. They weren't suited as lovers because they are, and here you have it, brother and sister.

I know!

After about an hour of that awful first date chat, at Bentley's favorite pub, the White Horse, Bentley's favorite the two realized they were actually siblings.

Sarah Kemp: "To meet your long-lost brother, in a bar, after over 30 years would be something by itself, [b]ut to meet him in those circumstances -- on a date, for crying out loud -- really is something else. We obviously had far more in common than first thought."

Sarah Kemp and George Bentley grew up together until their parents, Felicity and David Bentley, divorced in 1975. Kemp moved with her mother to Edinburgh, while Bentley stayed with his father. Sarah Bentley married in 1989, only to divorce a year later, but kept the name Kemp, making George's search for his sister all the more difficult.

George Bentley: "I had absolutely no idea where she was. I was also searching for Sarah Bentleys, rather than Sarah Kemps, as I obviously didn't know she married. After a while, I think both Sarah and I gave up looking."

Until a blind dating Internet site hooked them up.

Awkward!

But, in the end, quite, satisfying.

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