After her twenty-sixth birthday, Qiao Anning felt more and more the fear of being urged to marry.

The friends around me are all married and have children, and the dynamics of the circle of friends have changed from posting single travel photos to posting objects and children.

The distance was slowly widened invisibly, and Qiao Anning's life circle had not changed, but there were already several more important people in her friend's life.

Although it is often said that whether we are married or not will not affect our relationship, what was before and will be what will be the case in the future.

But the fact is that when she wants to ask a friend out for dinner and shopping on weekends or on a boring evening as usual, the other party is often dragged either by her husband or by her children.

A one-sided date can only end in an apology.

I didn't make an appointment once or twice, and my enthusiasm was completely consumed little by little.

Later, after a lot of times, Qiao Anning stopped disturbing other people's family life with self-deprecation, and often took the initiative to dispel the idea as soon as he started.

And that's not the main stress.

Even more pressure comes from parents and relatives.

In the two years since she first chose to work in Shanghai after graduation, her parents had to ask her on the phone if she had met the right person.

Later, because she was not used to the fast-paced life in the big city, she chose to go home to work, and after living with her parents, the original side-knocking became increasingly blatant urging her to find a partner quickly.

Visiting relatives during the New Year's holidays, the chat topics of the seven aunts and eight aunts have also changed from discussing the children's academic performance to gossiping about the lifelong events of the school-age single young people in the family.

Qiao Anning does not like to be the focus of discussion in the crowd, especially when the focus of this discussion is his own personal and private matters. But she couldn't stop the talk of others, because her mouth grew on other people's bodies.

She could only pretend to be stupid in embarrassment, and laughed to bypass the topic from herself, but she couldn't avoid the gossip and criticism that fell on her.

To say that it is not uncomfortable is false.

Knowing that you are being talked about behind your back, there is always discomfort.

But the marriage problem is not a simple math problem of addition and subtraction.

Qiao Anning has never been in a relationship, so she is more cautious about her relationship than many people.

I'd rather be single than compromised.

Her attitude has always been like this.

Even in the face of his parents' incessant chatter, Qiao Anning did not compromise with them. She just clearly expressed her thoughts to her parents: "I am the one who wants to get married, if I want to marry someone I don't like, I can't face him day and night, have children, what is the meaning of such a marriage?"

was probably choked by her questioning, and his parents rarely stopped for a while.

The pressure at home has lessened slightly, but the pressure from the outside world still exists.

Qiao Anning was home from the annual local civil service recruitment examination, and most of the colleagues in the unit were older than her, and people of her same age were in the minority.

Among them, most of these young colleagues who account for a small number of them got married early or got along with each other.

Unmarried single comrades have become the focus of attention in the eyes of the leaders.

Qiao Anning never thought that if she worked in the unit, she would be called into the office by the leader and ask personal questions.

The embarrassment happened very suddenly.

Dealing with the unexpected situation, Qiao Anning replied to her overwhelm with a blushing face.

The leader smiled and spoke, trying to make her not so nervous: "You see that I just introduced you to each other, and what happens after that depends on you young people, what do you think?"

What do you think?

Actually, it's really not that good.

She was completely unprepared to be caught off guard, but under the eaves, Qiao Anning, whose skin was as thin as tissue paper, didn't know how to open her mouth to say a word of refusal.

Especially this person is still her leader.

In particular, she is also particularly thin-skinned.

She was afraid that the leader would not come to power.

Although this step was not something she had put on the other party.

Qiao Anning didn't even know how he walked out of the leader's office and returned to the office window of his post.

She sat in her seat stunned, the flush on her face still not subsided.

She was remorseful, and even struggled, why couldn't she be brave enough to say the truth in her heart?

But the facts have happened, and she can only think about how to complete the difficult task of the first blind date in her life.

After getting off work, I called my mother to report the news that I would not go home for dinner, and my mother immediately asked who she was eating with. Qiao Anning told her mother what happened in the afternoon, and listening to her mother's voice on the phone, her mother was obviously much more excited than her, and even reminded her to go to the barber shop to wash her hair and paint her makeup.

Qiao Anning just went to meet a stranger with the idea of completing the task, so naturally he didn't take his mother's reminder seriously.

She took the bus to the appointment, and the meeting place was chosen by the man, in a small restaurant in the center of the city, which was not very luxurious.

Qiao Anning was a bit of a road idiot, and it took a long time to find the so-called restaurant after opening the navigation. When she went in, the man had been there for a long time, she blushed and kept saying sorry to the other party, the other party's look couldn't tell if she was angry, just glanced at her phone several times, and then invited her to sit down first.

The waiter came, and the man nodded and said that the food could be served.

Qiao Anning looked up in a daze, and then realized that the man had already ordered the menu.

"I don't know what you like to eat, I just waited for you and ordered a few signature dishes, which should be pretty good. ”

Maybe that's an explanation?

Qiao Anning pursed his lips and nodded: "I'm really embarrassed, I haven't been here before, so I've been looking for a while." ”

The man shook his head and cut to the point of the blind date: "I heard my cousin say that you were just admitted to their unit at the beginning of this year?"

Qiao Anning was frightened by the word cousin.

"Cousin?"

She figured her expression must have looked a little silly.

"Yes, my cousin. The man smiled and nodded, I don't know if it was her delusion, I always felt that there was some arrogance in the man's expression, "It's Director Yang of the XX Bureau of your unit, she is my mother's cousin, and I have been very close to her since I was a child!"

"Oh. ”

Qiao Anning silently lowered his head, picked up the teacup and took a sip of tea.

The ordered dishes were served, and the three dishes and one soup with meat and vegetables were rich in color, and it still looked very appetizing.

Qiao Anning was embarrassed to move the chopsticks first, but fortunately, as soon as the dishes were served, the other party automatically picked up the chopsticks and ate the dishes, so that she could start eating without waiting.

After an afternoon of work, my stomach was already hungry.

The passive question-type conversation did not end.

The other party threw a bite of food and a question at a time.