It sounds like a cruel experiment: what happens if you put a cripplingly shy young man in an invasive reality-TV show that stages a succession of blind dates? Oddly, the answer is that it radically improves his life, boosts his self-confidence and creates a social media hero.
Since Louis Gill, a former English language teacher from Oxford, appeared on Channel 4’s First Dates a week ago, the 26-year-old has been hailed as a modern model of gentlemanly behaviour and self-effacing charm, despite nerves often preventing him from speaking. When his date, Adela, told him she was from Manchester, a stuttering Gill replied: “I fell asleep on the train once and woke up in Manchester.” A long silence followed. It made for unsettling television. Yet this weekend, after appearing for a second time and featuring in a series of blogs, radio shows, articles and thousands of tweets, Gill has judged the experience a huge help.
“Absolutely no doubt about it. It has done wonders,” said Gill. “Having these dates on the show made me explore my own issues of self-confidence. The questions I was asked were quite penetrating, and I now feel there are a lot of things I don’t need to worry about any more.”
A popular TV show like First Dates, in its fourth series and set in a restaurant rigged with cameras and microphones, is a magnet for exhibitionists, so the strong national reaction to Gill is probably down to his refreshingly painful reticence. The Twitter hashtags GoLouis and TeamLouis ran wild last week, alongside the programme’s own account. “Who else wants to start a campaign to find Louis love?” asked @LadyRaaRaa, while @lauralizmorris noted: “I’m more invested in Louis’ love life than my own.” After Gill’s second outing on Thursday @cubbin10 praised his chivalry: “I reckon Louis is that much of a gentleman he’d pay the bill, pay for her taxi fare and then her Uni tuition fees.”
During his uncomfortable date with Adela, Gill broke a cardinal rule of dating by mentioning politics (he is a confirmed LibDemmer). Several members of the Channel 4 audience responded by calling for him to be offered the highest office in the land.
“I am sorry I brought politics up, because people don’t like talking about it, let alone for a television audience,” he said. “But actually I am now looking for work in politics and in the future I would quite like to stand for election.”
Although shy, Gill put himself forward for First Dates after spotting an advertisement last year. He thought: “I do want to meet someone and you never know.” He recognises this urge to appear in public is a contradiction. “I have tried hard to explain it to myself,” he said. “At some level I am willing to put myself out there.”
This weekend strangers have approached Gill in the street to congratulate him on holding it together on his latest first date with a woman called Lydia, although at one point he had to retire to the toilets to breathe slowly. “The public reaction has been touching and overwhelming,” he said.
Particularly moving was a blog written by a woman who suffers from anxiety. “It was amazing because she said what a difference it had made to her to see someone experience the same thing.”
Like all new celebrities, Gill has faced some flak. “There have been a few spiteful comments, mainly about me being a toff,” he admitted. “I object to people assuming I am a Bullingdon Club klutz, because actually I have a mixed European background. My family came here from Ireland, Poland and Italy and so, as my mother says, that means we have gone from ‘migrants’ to ‘toffs’ in two generations, which is possibly going up the derogatory scale.”
He attended a mixed private school in Oxford and has an interest in Russia. He has had two serious girlfriends and is still single, despite a recent “holiday romance” with a Dutch girl during a walking tour of Krakow. “I am in touch with both Lydia and Adela, but on a friendly basis. I am very grateful to them, because they were both lovely women. It is an extraordinary environment on the show, but once you sit down you are not aware of the cameras.”
Gill would like to get married and has an open mind about what he is looking for. “Friendship and doing things you enjoy together is important. The idea of a romantic partner is often objectified now, I think, almost as if it was an acquisition, like a new car,” he said. Living up to the label of “ultimate gentleman” is a burden, Gill knows.
“A social media slip could become a very negative thing for me, but the whole thing has actually made me kinder in general. It just confuses me why people choose to be unpleasant to each other,” he said.
First Dates is keen for Louis to return to the show’s restaurant to try his luck again and last month he was preparing for another date, courtesy of Channel 4, when the lady concerned dropped out. “I would be persuadable,” he said, “but I don’t want to become a regular there, saying to the waitresses, ‘Same again, please!’”
