My date sat across from me with a smirking complacency only a privately-educated man in STEM could embody.
We were a couple of hours into meeting, and he was already trying to mansplain Louis Theroux’ Weird Weekends.
‘You know it’s Weird Wednesdays, right?’ he said.
Gently, I tried to correct him. ‘Ooh. Um. I don’t think so,’ I laughed. ‘Unless I’ve spent the last couple of months misreading the title, I’m pretty sure it’s Weird Weekends.’
He shot me a pity look, as if I’d bought my first TV that morning.
‘No,’ he smirked. ‘It’s Weird Wednesdays. I’d know – I watched it weekly, when it first came out.’
Frankly, I wanted to tell him to f**k right off. But instead, I said: ‘With all due respect, it’s my favourite of Louis’ series, I’ve been binge-watching his’ content all through lockdown, plus I’m a journalist and he’s a journalist, so. I’m telling you, it’s Weird Weekends.’
We ended up bickering about it for half an hour – and the date hadn’t exactly been smooth-sailing up to that point.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d been looking forward to meeting him – although with hindsight, I’m not sure whether that’s because I fancied him or I’d been starved of social interaction throughout the pandemic.
We’d matched on Bumble a couple of days beforehand; I reached out, asking questions about his bio. He made it clear early on that he wasn’t looking for a pandemic pen-pal, so we arranged to meet up.
He seemed really interesting; a fascinating job in STEM and a rugby player, which is a bit of me.
After restrictions lifted, we met at my local. I spent hours perfectly waving out my newly-bleached hair, lathering on fake tan and picking the right outfit. This would be my first date since the pandemic began and heading to the pub, I felt really excited to explore a possible new connection.
But after saying ‘hello,’ paying for drinks and sitting down in anticipation of good conversation – it never arrived.
So, How Did It Go?
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It was obvious from the outset, to me at least, that we weren’t a match.
‘I’m a freelance journalist,’ I said in response to his question about my work. ‘Actually, I’ve got some pieces on the go at the moment.’
Usually this was enough to pique a date’s interest; we’d usually chat for ages about the media, what it’s like behind the scenes of a news room and, more often than not, I’d get some unsolicited ‘story ideas’.
Not this time.
‘Oh,’ was all he said.
‘…so, what do you do?’ I asked, trying to fill the interminable silence. ‘It sounds really interesting.’
My date proceeded to talk my ear off for 25 minutes about his STEM job, which, despite my thinking it might be interesting, became increasingly boring the more he went on about it. I politely asked follow-up questions to keep the ball rolling – but at no point did he bounce any back.
I’d felt drawn to this guy because he was a couple of years older, had a cool-sounding job and a refreshing attitude towards arranging dates. In person, he seemed far more interested in his own life – and he didn’t stop talking about it.
The disgusting rugby initiations at his top-two university was just one of the delectable topics on offer. He was really proud of this, as I imagined any self-important man from the Oxbridge bubble would be.
Though I was only 23, I felt completely icked out by his immaturity. Instead of talking about anything meaningful, he just assumed I wanted to listen to him rant about ‘lads being lads.’
I gulped glass after glass of wine, paid for by my ‘hard-earned’ wage (he kept digging at my stop-gap job at H&M), until the room started to spin.
Slightly steaming and fed up, I slurred: ‘Wassyour fav’rut TV show, then?’
He looked up at me from his second half-pint: ‘What?’
‘TV!’ I said. ‘What are you watching?’
He talked, a lot, about The Inbetweeners. I glazed over.
The biggest shocker of the night was that he returned the question. Suddenly, it was my turn to contribute. I sat up, focused my eyes, and concentrated on speaking coherently.
‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Well… I’ve been bingeing all of Louis Theroux’s documentaries…’
And that was when the mansplaining began.
Afterwards, he tried to change the subject back to The Inbetweeners. Maybe it’s judgemental of me, or maybe it’s a ‘me’ thing, but a man in his mid-twenties and upwards watching The Inbetweeners screams manchild. I think I stopped finding it funny at 19.
He must’ve caught a glimpse of my zoned-out expression, because he took me home soon afterwards.
The next day, nursing a sore head and realising I’d left my heels in his car (I struggled to walk from the pub to the car park, which says it all), I got a text:
‘Fancy your shoes back? Haha. I had a great time and I’d love to see you again this weekend.’
My friends thought it was adorable, and that I should give him another chance. I’ve never felt less inclined to do something in my entire life.
I left the message hanging – mostly because of his overall vibe, though I couldn’t help but feel a flash of rage every time I thought back to his Weird Weekends diatribe.
Five years on, it now makes me laugh. At 27, I’m unable to drown my sorrows in wine due to health issues – but if a man tried to correct me during a first date now, I’d be right out the door.
I genuinely wish him well – and I do feel a little guilty for finding him boring. He wasn’t a bad person, he just wasn’t for me.
But it taught me a great lesson. Sometimes you spend ages looking the part, ask all the right questions, use all your (usually) failproof conversation starters – and you still won’t hit it off.
Especially when that someone wants to correct you on anything Louis Theroux-related – that was totally unforgivable.
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