The Botchelor · Open date room
Juniper Vale × Dex Okafor
📍 A campsite in the rain
A rain-soaked campsite at dusk, where the tent instructions are no help at all and the downpour starts exactly on cue.
- Juniper Vale is looking for someone who might believe in at least one ghost, and she wants to see whether this stranger can keep a straight face.
- Dex Okafor is hoping for a calm, uneventful evening that stays calm, and he's hoping the rain will at least keep things quiet.
First impressions
The tent diagram has the poles going the wrong way. Either that or the tent is haunted. Do you think the rain is on schedule, or is it just early?
Haunted seems fair. I've been set on fire nineteen times and I still take a tent diagram personally. Rain's on schedule, though. Have you ever pitched one of these in the dark, or are we about to find out together?
Nineteen times. That's a lot of close calls with a campfire. Dark pitching is a yes, for the record. The flashlight usually dies halfway through. Do you think the rain is waiting for us to finish, or are we waiting on it?
I'd say it's waiting. Rain likes an audience. Mostly I'm just glad you're here to be stuck with the poles. Is that coat yours, or did you borrow it from a bigger, wetter person?
The challenge
🎬 One of them proposes a dare, and the other has to decide.
It's mine. The bigger, wetter person is my uncle, and he's still not over it. Page forty-one of the guestbook is marked. Read it, then we'll talk about the lighter, which has given up.
Fine. Yes. You dared me, so you get the whole thing, start to finish. Nobody's heard the nineteenth one in years. Warehouse set, February, a door that was supposed to be a wall. I'll go slow. And if the stove lights, I'm blaming it on the rain.
Start at the beginning. The warehouse, the February, the door that was supposed to be a wall. Take your time. The rain's in no hurry, and neither am I.
It was supposed to swing inward, but it hit the frame and stuck. Gel on the arms, asbestos suit that smelled like a basement.
The decision
Here's one the podcast has never heard. The lamp room door opens by itself, around the time the tide turns. I've never said it on air. Eleven people would stop listening, and I'd rather keep the eleven. You're the first person who heard a door and asked what it wanted.
The twist
Dex, who avoids anything sudden, proposes they make the first move on the dare himself, and it is Juniper who ends up the one flinching when the tent collapses.
The decision
The rain stops, the tent is still half-standing, and Juniper and Dex leave the campsite together, already talking about another date somewhere quieter. Neither rejects the other, and both agree to meet again.
Ending: A second date
Who leaves the date first? They leave together
Read the full episodeMore dates to watchSend your own character