Name: Lizzy Moony
Pronouns: She/her
Age: 22
Occupation: Social Media Editor
Dating history: Nice guys who don’t have time for a relationship
Looking for: Someone who will buy me flowers and tell me I’m pretty
I live in Barcelona, which is where I matched with this guy on Hinge. He was from Canada, and was on holiday in the city for a few days. We decided to meet on a Thursday after my classes. He didn’t have WiFi outside of his hotel so we arranged to meet in front of a McDonald’s near the bar we had planned on going to.
I waited across the road until he messaged me saying he had arrived. When I looked up and finally saw him, he was not the height that he had entered on his dating profile—his Hinge info said that he was 6’3, this guy was more like 5’7. We were off to a bad start.
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He was quite rude and didn’t ask me a single question about myself. He also kept on imitating my British accent to which I asked him, “Do I have a really strong British accent?” He replied: “No, you just look and sound like every white girl I’ve ever met.” Keep in mind that he was also white.
We sat down at the bar and to get the convo flowing, I asked him if he was enjoying his time in Barcelona. He answered with something along the lines of, “The Spanish people here are not like the Spanish people in Montreal… They are all white.” Being the polite individual that I am, I asked him what the people in Montreal look like, to which he replied, “they are all Colombian and Mexican.”
Trying to keep an open mind, I decided to educate him instead of listening to the alarms going off inside my brain. I explained that he’s actually talking about Latino people—just because somebody speaks Spanish doesn’t mean they are Spanish. He then looked directly at me and, all of a sudden, said: “My parents would kill me if I ever brought a girl home who was Latina.”
Just for reference, I am half-Latina. I’m half Venezuelan and so I felt so awkward and uncomfortable when he said that. I asked him why his parents felt that way and he replied: “They think that Latino people are lazy and they steal our jobs,” which I found confusing because how can you do both…?
He then proceeded to ask me what my parents would do if I brought home somebody who was Latino, and so I dryly replied, “they wouldn’t care because I’m half Venezuelan.” It was immediately obvious that he was angry I hadn’t told him this information beforehand (as if I need to preface my ethnicity ten seconds into a date).
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I tried to move the conversation on and so we began talking about football and he mentioned the UEFA Euro 2020 final between Italy and England. I’m not massively into football but he began talking about the racism that had followed after England lost the game. He told me how horrible he thought it was, but then proceeded to say “my parents would kill my sister if she brought home a black guy.” I mean, at this point, I was just so confused and genuinely angry about his persistence to come out with these horrendous statements.
Surprise, surprise, he then asked me what my parents would do if I brought home a black guy, and so I simply replied: “My ex-boyfriend is Ugandan and it was never an issue. My parents liked him a lot when we were dating.” He became more and more frustrated and so we fell into a seriously awkward silence.
I had half of my beer left so I tried to pass the time by asking him a few final questions. Because he was Canadian, I asked him what it was like growing up in Montreal, to which he replied: “Everyone is very close, everyone knows everyone, my parents are first cousins.” I hadn’t been fully listening at this point because I’d pretty much decided that I was over the date but I did a complete double-take when I heard his last point.
Finally, I decided that enough was enough. I ran to the loo and asked the waitress if she could bring us the bill and say that the bar was closing so that we wouldn’t be able to buy any more drinks. Luckily, she also said this in Spanish and so my date was completely clueless.
To top it all off, when they handed us the bill, which came to about five euros, he looked at me and said: “Don’t worry I’ve got this, don’t feel like you have to do anything sexually with me.” From the moment I left my house to the moment I got home, 58 minutes passed by. That’s 58 minutes I will never get back.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. There’s definitely no way she’s ever seeing this guy again, right? Well, that’s what I thought at the time too. Our first date happened over two years ago, and very recently, he reached out to me again.
I have to say, I wasn’t expecting it, and I really wasn’t looking forward to speaking to him again. But he surprised me, and now I’m unsure of what to do. Long story short, he apologised for the way he behaved at the time, as well as for the highly problematic things he had said.
He explained that he recently moved to Barcelona and would love to take me out on a “second chance date, if I let him.” I’m currently single and seriously considering it. What should I do?
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Name: Callie
Pronouns: She/Her
Age: 22
Occupation: Surveyor
Dating history: Mixed bag
Looking for: Part-time gym lad, part-time golden retriever
So, I met this boy on Hinge. I thought he was quite good-looking—you know, ticked the first impression boxes. We met at Liverpool Street Station in East London and I had been quite reserved over text to begin with because I hate it when you chat so much online that when you finally meet you end up standing there like two lemons trying to come up with things to say.
He hadn’t made any effort to book anything. Also, the station was right next to his house, how convenient? But, I tried to shake this initial hesitation off. He turns up at the station and automatically, I just wasn’t massively feeling a sexual attraction but, either way, I still wanted to try things out and see if we had a connection.
At this point in my life I also just really needed to throw myself back into the dating game so I was keen to be a bit less rigid than I may have been in the past.
We went to Eataly, only a stone’s throw away from the station, so not exactly that much effort was put in. He ordered me an Aperol Spritz (ideal) and for the first hour it was going okay, general chit chat, first date kinda stuff.
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Then we had a couple more drinks, I was a little tipsy by this point, and all of a sudden, things started to go downhill.
He invited me back to his house to “cook dinner” and because I wasn’t massively into him I decided to pass and say no. Almost immediately after, he blurted out “ok, well, what are you looking for then?”
A little taken aback, I replied saying that if I meet someone and it’s just sex that’s fine but if we get on well I’m also looking to get to know people in a deeper way. And then, he begins telling me what he’s looking for.
Disclaimer: There was nothing wrong with him having his own ideas of what he wanted his future partner to look like, it was the blatant sexism and misogyny that followed that I had an issue with.
He starts by telling me that the next person he plans on dating will need to be the woman that will become his wife. He states that this person will help him build his empire, move with him wherever he goes and raise his children. Mind you, he also goes on to insist that his kids will be superhuman.
And then, the tears begin to pour out. He goes on and on about how being a mum is the most important job in the world and how girls nowadays think that being a stay-at-home mum is so lame and how much of a shame that is. And at this point, I’m just sitting there thinking “that’s completely valid and fine if that’s what you want out of life, but that’s just not for me.”
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Nevertheless, another set of tears begin to fall down his cheeks and so out of interest, I ask him if he’d ever consider being a stay-at-home dad. He replies, “That’s just not my skill set.” When I ask him what his skill set is exactly, he informs me that he is primed to make money and that’s just the way life works.
He practically laughs his head off when I mention how I’m very focused on having a career and so I don’t even mention that I’m not even considering having kids in the future.
Either way, he finishes his speech, looks up to meet my eyeline and simply asks: “You’re going to walk out in a second aren’t you?” And that’s just what I did. I know it might seem obvious, but I’m still not 100% sure whether or not I was too harsh on him. He’s messaged me a few times on Hinge since but I haven’t yet responded. Do I want to pursue a guy who’s clearly wanting to live a very different life to me?
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