ROMANTIC beach walks are the ideal date, unless the beach in question is South Shields. These activities lose their Instagram sheen the moment you step on broken glass:
Long walks at sunset
A dating profile staple. Hand-in-hand, the sun setting over a golden horizon, waves gently lapping. Also the time of evening in Southend-on-Sea when young men on quadbikes patrol the seafront shouting incomprehensible insults which your insecurities will fill in for you. Did someone say bald?
Burying each other in the sand
Perfect photo: girlfriend buried to the waist, an expertly-sculpted and anatomically accurate mermaid’s tail curling out below her? Perfect location: Bahamas. Not Southport, where you’ll find used plasters, syringes and Lyft pouches mixed in with the 40-grit sand.
Skinny-dipping
Ideally enjoyed at midnight in a hidden cove, the sprawling, featureless Skegness seafront provides as much cover for skinny-dippers as the Normandy beach on D-Day. The likelihood that you will be spotted and filmed by a third party, body white and twitching like a gutted cod, is high.
A romantic picnic
Timing is a problem. You need to run out between squalls, anchor your tartan blanket and get munching cocktail sausages before the weather turns and the rainstorm starts. Crabs, gulls, and cheerful seaside wasps will all take an intense interest in your mini pork pies. Ensure you’re not downwind of a sewage outflow.
A hotel spa day
A master suite carpeted in rose petals is the dream. Your spa day in Bognor Regis Butlins comprises a 90p face mask and a painful massage carried out by a man evidently undergoing an epic dry spell. After which the romance you’ve paid for is over and you’re expelled to the seafront where Polish men drink powerful lager.
Sex on the beach
You can’t blame the resort for this one. You have to ask yourself some hard questions: when, how and why? Even on the most liberal Spanish nudist beach, no-one wants to see your pasty arse slipping out from under a towel. In Filey? You might climax out of shame, but you’ll spend the next week using Sudocrem on the saltwater-and-sand induced friction burns which make your body resemble Billy Bear meat.
