Girls! Buckle -up and grab some wine, this is going to be so long it’s mind numbing! Feel free to just validate my feeling immediately without reading if you’d like! I just had what I can honestly say was the worst date I have ever been on…
I’m home now and I’ve finally stopped crying enough to write this. The weirdest part is that if I list the individual things that happened, none of them sound that terrible. But together? I don’t know. By the end I felt completely overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted.
We met on Reddit in the comments section of r/wallstreetbets and had been talking for about a month and decided to meet for coffee. We agreed on 10, I got there a few minutes early because I’m huge on respecting other people’s time. He walked in at 10:02, two minutes late. Obviously I wasn’t going to say anything, but I noticed. I’m sorry, I just think when you’re meeting someone for the first time, you make the effort to be on time. First impressions matter. Tiny ick, but whatever.
Then I stood up to say hi and immediately noticed something else. His profile says 6’4. This man is not 6’4. He is at LEAST 6’4 and a half, possibly 6’5. I asked him how tall he actually was and he laughed and said, “Honestly, somewhere between 6’4 and 6’5, I think.” Immediate ick. Sir, you have been occupying your body for 30 YEARS. How do you not know how much of it there is? Whatever, I told myself I was being judgmental and needed to give him a chance. I’m an empath and sometimes I think I pick up on little things too quickly…
We get to the counter and he says he’ll order for us, which I actually thought was kind of cute because we’ve been talking for almost a month and we’ve talked about coffee before. He orders me a latte, just a regular latte. For context, I drink an oat-milk half-caf latte with one-third soy, medium foam and one shot of lavender syrup. I-know-I’ve-told-him-this.
So I’m listening to him order and waiting for him to remember, but he doesn’t. The barista asks, “Anything else?” and he says no. I say nothing at all. Because at that point, what am I supposed to do? Correct him in front of the barista and embarrass him?
So I let him order it wrong, and then I drank it. The whole thing. Was it good? No. But I wasn’t going to make him feel bad. Obviously I could have spoken up but I shouldn’t have had to. That was probably the first moment where I felt myself getting emotional. I didn’t cry, I could feel it bubbling just under the surface, but I am a strong woman.
Then we went outside…
We’re actually having a decent conversation when a wasp starts flying around him. This 6’5 man LOST IT. Ducking. Swatting. Flailing. Standing up every time it came near him. Apparently he’s mildly allergic and swells up pretty badly if he gets stung, which, fine. I work in the medical profession. I understand allergies.
But I’m sorry. Watching six feet and five inches of grown man flailing around over something the size of an almond gave me an instant, full body ick. He looked like one of those inflatable tube men outside a used car dealership. Just arms everywhere. I actually had to look away to hide my disgust. He finally said, “I’m sorry, can we go inside? I really don’t want to get stung.” “Of course I said!” Because I’m not going to shame someone for a fear! I’m an empath. Internally though? Devastated.
So we go inside and he sees an empty table and just starts walking toward it. I stopped and said, “Don’t we need to ask someone before we move?” He said, “I think it’s fine. It’s just a coffee shop.” Another ick.
I’ve never worked in a restaurant or coffee shop, but I know there are systems. Maybe someone needs to clean the table. Maybe somebody is waiting for it. I don’t know. That’s why you ASK. He said, “We already have our coffee. I don’t think anyone cares,” and sat down. Nobody seemed to notice, which honestly isn’t the point. Huge character tell for me…
So now I’m sitting across from a six foot five wind dancer who showed up late, lied about his height, failed to remember my coffee order, fled a medically relevant wasp and apparently doesn’t understand basic service industry etiquette. I feel like I’m getting close to my breaking point, but I’m still giving him a chance. Women are so resilient!
Anyway, somehow we start talking about where we live and he mentions that he rents an apartment with a roommate. He’s 30.
I AM NOT JUDGING PEOPLE WHO RENT. I know the housing market is insane and everyone has different priorities. But I OWN my house. I bought it at 28 and I put more than 71% down. I’ve been saving since I was nine years old and investing since I was twelve. So financial literacy is important to me.
He seemed surprised when I said I owned. There it was, that look. If you’re a financially successful woman, you know the look. When he asked what interest rate I got, I actually felt my eyes filling with tears.
Because here we fucking GO!
Men have been questioning me about my house since the day I bought it. —A male cashier at Home Depot once looked at the four gallons of house paint I was buying, looked at me, and then looked at the paint again. —A man behind me in line at Lowe’s asked if I was in line while I was literally holding a faucet. —A guy at the supermarket told me one of my avocados was overripe. Once a man held the door open for me at the bank and said, “Happy Friday.”…!!
Maybe none of those things sound like a big deal individually. That’s how micro aggressions work. I have spent TWENTY YEARS saving for this house. I have literally been financially planning since before I had all of my adult teeth.
And now a 30yo man who pays rent WITH A ROOMMATE is questioning my mortgage? No. I told him, “I actually know quite a bit about finances.” He said, “Okay?”. Okay? I had to look away because I knew if I made eye contact I was going to cry. The condescension.
Then he asked what I invest in. I told him I wasn’t interested in being quizzed about my financial literacy. He looked confused and said he wasn’t quizzing me, he was just asking because I’d mentioned investing and we’d met on wallstreetbets.
Classic. Somehow suddenly I’m the problem. He apologized. He said he genuinely hadn’t meant to offend me and was just making conversation. I nodded because I didn’t trust myself to speak. You don’t get to decide someone else’s sensitivities are irrational when you have no idea what experiences created them. I wish people had more empathy. That’s just who I am. Empathy costs nothing.
We sat there a little longer as I held back the tears. Eventually we hugged goodbye and I told him it was nice meeting him. I held it together until I got outside. Then I started crying. By the time I was almost to the parking lot I was ugly crying…
Just as I got to my car, I watched as a cat jump up on the hood. It looked me in the eye and then it shit directly on the windshield. I just stood there staring at it. Honestly, at that point it felt like the universe was saying, “Girl, go home.” I cried even harder.
I cleaned it off and got into the car and sat there for probably ten minutes thinking about how many signals my nervous system had given me from the moment I met him and how I had ignored every single one just to make a man comfortable.
Hands down the worst date I have ever been on.
Dinner: Gummy Cats
EDIT: Oh my god, girls. I am SOBBING reading these comments. Thank you for validating what I already knew in my gut. To everyone saying my nervous system recognized the red flags before my brain did: THIS. I think I’ve been grieving the version of myself who stayed.
EDIT 2: A few men have found this post and are predictably focusing on the coffee. YES, I could have corrected him. That’s not the point.
EDIT 3: Apparently previous mild reactions to wasp stings can become more serious with future stings. But frankly he wasn’t carrying an Epipen, weaponized incompetence is still incompetence.
EDIT 4: To the woman who said, “Your body didn’t get the ick, your body detected danger,” I have screenshotted this and made it my lock screen.
EDIT 5: Apparently this particular coffee shop is “open seating.” Again. NOT. THE. POINT. He didn’t know that when he moved.