Desk openReel 06 · OfferingsFrom £250
The girlfriend experience: an evening without a script
The phrase is worn smooth, but what guests mean by it is simple. What they are after is an evening that resembles one spent with an old friend, not an appointment. She greets you like someone who has been looking forward to it all day. You talk about your week and she talks about hers. Dinner happens if you are hungry, a walk happens if the night is fine, and nobody mentions the time. It is companionship at its most relaxed, and like every offering on this site it is time and company only.
Its figures are the ordinary ones, starting at £250 for the hour, with no premium for the warmer tone. In practice an hour is rarely enough to reach that ease, so most guests book two hours at £500 or the four-hour evening at £900, and it is the offering where asking for the same companion on your next visit makes the most sense.
Chosen for Girlfriend experience
The companions the desk puts forward first when this evening is requested. Anyone on the reel may be asked.
What makes the difference
Mostly it is time, and a good brief. When you write, tell the desk a little about yourself: whether you would rather talk or listen, stay in or walk to a bar, whether the week has been good or hard. The desk passes that on in a sentence or two, and she arrives already knowing how to begin. Nothing about the evening is scripted and nothing is performed. If a remark about a film turns into two hours on old cinemas, the evening is working exactly as it should.
Part of the appeal is not having to host. She picks up the thread when you lose it, suggests the next place when you cannot decide, and is as happy on a bench by the water as at a table with linen on it.
A slow evening on the south bank
This side of the river is made for unhurried time. From the hotels around Southwark, the Thames Path runs east past the Globe and Southwark Cathedral to the foot of the Shard, and west to the book stalls under Waterloo Bridge. On a mild night that walk, a glass on a terrace and supper somewhere small in Borough come as close to an ordinary date as London allows. In winter the same evening moves indoors: a play by candlelight in the Globe's small indoor theatre, then back to the hotel before the rain sets in.
The quiet side of the City
North of the bridge, the City of London turns almost silent once the offices close, and silence suits this kind of evening well. Leadenhall Market under its painted roof, the lake terrace at the Barbican, the narrow lanes around St Mary Abchurch: none of them is crowded after nine, and all of them are a short walk from the hotels near Bank. A slow circuit on foot, a nightcap somewhere with a view of the river, and the evening has the feel of a city you share with very few people.
Four who make it look easy
Lucy runs along the river most mornings and is happiest walking and talking; she has dark curls and a gentle way of listening. Rosa bakes on her days off, collects soul records and finds a small gallery wherever she goes, and there is flour on her sleeve more often than she admits. Nora, honey blonde and quick, spends Sunday mornings among the flower stalls and carries that brightness into a Friday night. Cindy, blue eyed and wavy haired, photographs everything once the light turns gold and is easiest to book from lunchtime into the early evening. Nora and Cindy are both in the blondes group.
The line that does not move
Warmth is not an extra, and it changes nothing about the terms. What you pay for is her company across the hours booked, exactly as with a hotel visit, and a request for anything beyond that ends the booking. Guests who want this kind of evening rarely need to be told; the ease is what they are paying for. The booking page explains how to phrase the first message.
Girlfriend experience, answered
No. The figures match every other offering on the rates page, starting at £250. Nothing extra is charged because the evening happens to be easy.
Yes. Many of these evenings are largely walking: the river, a market, a bar with a garden. Say where the two of you should meet and she comes dressed for the weather.
As much as helps and no more. A first name, the kind of evening you like and anything she should steer clear of, a subject or a place, is plenty. None of it is kept once the booking is over.
It can be, if all you want is some good company once a long day is done. Most guests find two hours is where the evening loosens, and four with dinner is the length this offering is really built for.
Usually, yes. The earlier in the day you write, the more names are free, and a sentence about the evening you have in mind helps the desk suggest the right one.
Read first
- 5 min readThe Ropewalk at noon: Maltby Street as a Saturday dateUnder the railway arches east of London Bridge, Maltby Street Market trades at weekends in a lane barely wide enough for two. Why it makes such a good daytime date, and how to plan one.
- 5 min readSunday in the Square Mile: empty floors, open doors and a calm first eveningFrom Friday night the City of London empties, and by Sunday its business hotels run at half pace. Why that makes Sunday the easiest evening for a first booking, and how to plan around Monday.
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Describe the plan in a line or two. The desk confirms a companion, a fee and the time she arrives.