It’s wild to me how dating apps have turned into a game of survival, and I mean, I met my husband on one a decade ago. But dating apps are addictive, and they make window shopping for a partner all too easy. They play more into gamification and short-term gratification than finding real connections.
Dating apps are hard to navigate nowadays, and she’s vowing to never use one again after an awful first date she recently went on.
Earlier in the year, this 30-year-old woman’s five-year-long relationship came to an end, and she only recently dipped her toe back into the dating pool.
Actually, this all came about on Halloween. She was feeling super alone without any plans, and so she downloaded a dating app for the first time.
“[I] was shocked I got 100+ likes the first day and got overwhelmed. I also was shocked [that] a few men already asked me out within two days,” she explained.
“So one guy who was pretty attractive and lives in my town (most [of] the others seem to live farther) asked me out and we had a good text convo on Friday, and Saturday, so I said yes.”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t usually say yes so [quickly], but I want to get out there and practice, so I had low expectations for the date.”
This guy said he could pick her up for their date as soon as he was done at work, but she didn’t feel comfortable with that. He kept on saying he wanted to because it was the gentlemanly thing to do, but she opted to drive herself to the date.
He picked out a pricey restaurant, and while she felt anxious, that all went away when she got to see him in person. He looked exactly like the photos on his dating profile, and he was extremely nice.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
He pushed her chair in when she sat down and had gotten there before her, so he took the liberty of ordering her a drink, which arrived at their table not long after they got seated.
“So we end up talking mostly about what we are looking for and our jobs, he gets vulnerable and says he truly wants love, blah blah, and he feels something different about me versus other women he has met, blah blah,” she added.
“Honestly, I wanted it to be true, but I have always been a pretty skeptical person? Well, we are there an hour, he ordered another drink, two appetizers, and [an] entree. I just ordered my entree.”
“I denied the second drink, but he kept insisting. He ordered it anyway, but I didn’t drink it, so he had to drink it. I get tired when I drink, and [I] told him I don’t do more than one.”
He laughed, then mentioned he had to get up to go to the bathroom. She thought it was odd, and she had a bad feeling that he was about to dine and dash.
Five minutes later, her date still had not come back from the bathroom. Their waitress stopped at the table to see how she was doing, and then she started to cry in front of this girl.
She was so humiliated because by then it was entirely obvious that her date had lied about his bathroom trip to stick her with the check.
“…The guy ordered all this stuff and left me with the bill and told her I only got the entree. I could tell she felt really bad for me, and she said she is [going to] get her manager,” she continued.
“I gave the manager his name and showed his photo to them, they said they will split the check to just include my entree, and at this point, it’s been 15 minutes, so it was very clear he left.”
“Just want to say that I’m never in my life going on another first date off an app because what the actual [heck] was that.”
I know I haven’t been single in a hot minute, but my first date rule was always coffee, no commitment greater than that, and certainly not dinner.
There’s nothing worse than being stuck across the table, eating with someone with whom you have no interest or spark, which is why I always went the coffee route.
The other good thing about only meeting up for coffee first is that people like her can avoid getting stuck with the bill in the future. While this guy sounds like a terrible person for sure, she shouldn’t let this interaction stop her from finding love!
What advice do you have for her?
You can read the original post below.
By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
