the zuardian
Courtship online continues to be a risky business for some Kiwis.
Meet online. Meet in person. Fall in love... Not so fast. On the road to winning the cyber-romance lottery singles endure plenty of dull evenings, dodgy encounters and duds. We asked Kiwis about their worst digital dating disasters.
THE HERMIT
I knew I'd made a mistake the second I offered him a ride home. We'd met in the city for dinner and after a great meal, a few drinks, and hours of conversation, he sheepishly admitted he didn't have a car. Given it was nudging midnight and the public transport options were dwindling,
I offered to drive him home. Big mistake. Over our ensuing weeks of dating it transpired that I would do all of the driving.
He was extremely smart and he was tall and attractive and had a good job – all checklist points. We both liked to travel and he had a sweet disposition. He checked in regularly and he always asked about my day.
But it turned out this man, who professed to have a busy social life, in fact hated to leave his house. So I would suggest a dinner date, he would hesitantly agree, and then I would dutifully pick him up and drive him to the restaurant which he insisted on choosing (usually a cheap, brightly lit Chinese place which made my dress-and-heels combo look overly dressy). He would make a vague suggestion of paying for both of us since I'd driven us there, but when it was time to pay, we always ended up splitting it and he looked happy about that.
When I visited him at home I learned he kept salt and pepper and other condiments by his bed so he didn't have to eat with his flatmates in the living area. He professed to hate his colleagues and seemed sickened when they invited him out after work for drinks. The final straw came when he absolutely, positively, refused to get a bus or train to my home, and so I absolutely, positively, refused to keep driving to him.
I broke up with him and he responded by sending incessant messages to my Facebook, my WhatsApp, my cellphone and then, finally, to my work email. Some were pleading, others were argumentative and some simply pretended to ignore my pleas to leave me alone with questions of how my day was going with several smiley faces.
- Cara, 28, Auckland
THE CATFISHER
After swiping right and having a brief but relatively normal conversation with what appeared to be a nice, attractive young woman on Tinder, I suggested we meet for a drink. I arrived at the bar and she was nowhere to be seen so I waited outside. After about 15 minutes it had got dark and as I was standing there scrolling through my phone, I felt someone grab me.
It was my date, but she looked nothing like her photos, and I realised I had been catfished. In her photos she was tall, of slim/athletic build and had quite a nice face. In real life she was about 5ft (1.52m), very overweight, had a completely different facial structure and had even altered the shape and size of her nose. About the only thing that was similar was her skin and hair colour.
Although I knew instantly this was going nowhere, I thought there was no harm in having one drink with her since we had both made the effort to come out.
One of the first things she said was: "Well you may have noticed I have photoshopped my pictures a little bit."
It wasn't just a little bit, the girl looked like she may have been a distant relative of the girl in the photos. She then proceeded to shower me with compliments and tell me stories that were clearly more fantasy than reality. Even though the whole interaction was so awkward, I didn't want to be rude so after I finished my drink I told her I was a bit tired and it was nice to meet her but I had to leave.
As I went to walk away she grabbed my arm, leaned in and proclaimed in an authoritative voice, "You know, you can learn to like someone."
As a shudder ran down my spine I responded, "I'm sure you can, bye!" and made a break for the door.
My lesson from that experience was to just be yourself and be honest – the truth will always come out.
- Ben, 32, Auckland
THE GREEDY GUY
It started off like any romantic story on a lonely Tuesday night on Tinder. This guy was kinda cute, bio sounded good – I swiped right. We started messaging and asking questions back and forth.
He seemed sane enough and our first date went well. Then probably after about three or four dates he was like, "Look I really like you, would you like to be exclusive?"
I asked him what he meant and he said, "Oh you know we met on Tinder, and I really like you and I'd like it if I was the only person you were seeing". I had felt there was something weird about him. He kept saying I was just being paranoid and "didn't let anyone in" – literally making me feel like I was crazy. But I thought I'd give him a chance.
So after a whole week of dating exclusively, I got a message saying he thought I was amazing but there were some things he needed to tell me – that we couldn't be together otherwise.
The next day I was walking to get my son from school, and that's when the phone call happened. As he started talking, a chick grabbed his phone, asked if she and the guy could meet me, said he really cared about me, blah blah.
He got back on the phone and I asked him who his friend was. He was like, "That's my girlfriend. She's known about you the whole time... She's a really cool chick, why don't you just meet her?"
I didn't know what to do. I was like, "Uuuum no, please don't contact me again." I wished them both the best of luck.
- Beth, 29, Auckland
THE RESEARCHER
He said something about being at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne while we were chatting online, which was followed by bonding over a mutual love of borek – a delicious Turkish bread thing.
He looked handsome in the photos, but less so in real life. When we met up for a drink, he was sort of drip feeding all this information, saying, "Oh you studied in Dunedin right?" This was before Tinder had the university you went to under your picture. I said, "Oh yeah, I did." At one point he cited my exact thesis topic. I was like, "What the f...? How do you know that?" He said, "Oh, I have my sources."
Then more and more information came out... "Oh so you were born in Wellington Hospital..."
I said, "How do you know this? I'm getting really freaked out!" He said, "Oh, I have a friend who's in the army – I was hanging out with him the other night and he said he'd do a search on you."
When I got home I did a Google search on myself and I couldn't find that information so it made me feel like maybe the friend had access to different databases.
He knew my surname, qualifications, graduation dates, and the month I arrived in Australia – that's absolutely not on Google.
I think he was expecting me to be flattered he went to the effort to find out a lot of information before the date.
We were only chatting for about a day before we met. On the date he said he didn't normally meet up with girls so quickly, he liked to talk to them for a few weeks to get to know them.
He said that hadn't worked out very well for him – he went on dates and the girls didn't want to catch up again. This [honesty] did not make him more attractive to me. He said he'd had a really good feeling [about me] and he'd showed my profile to all his colleagues.
He wasn't a frightening character – he just seemed like a really sweet guy who hadn't had any relationship experience, hadn't dated all that much, just was trying really hard and completely missed the mark.
If someone gives me their cellphone number, I will put it into Facebook – just to make sure they're a real person. Once it came up with a fake profile – it had 15 friends and a weird picture that wasn't human, and a weird fake name. I don't do a really thorough background check, though. It's better to go into a Tinder date with fewer expectations.
- Phoebe, 26, Melbourne
THE SLEEPING BAG
We matched on Tinder and for our second date we walked up a hill.
Before I met up with her I slipped over in the mud and got a large stain on the back of my shorts like I had shat myself. I also forgot tissues to blow my nose. It started to rain. At that point it wasn't a great date but we seemed to enjoy each other's company.
So on date No 3, we met for dinner, finished up early and headed to my place. When we were finished [in the bedroom], it turned out it was "that time of month".
She was mortified.
I made a big effort to not make the situation worse. She kept apologising.
I stripped the bed and started washing everything. I walked past my flatmate, and he instantly saw what had happened and simply said, "I'm so glad I'm gay."
I said she should go home, I would take care of it. I didn't get to sleep until midnight and slept in a sleeping bag for two nights because I didn't have another set of bedding. We texted for awhile but I never saw her again.
- Luke, 26, Auckland
THE RISK TAKER
At university, I went through a phase of self-exploration. At the time, I couldn't afford a smartphone which I could download [gay social networking app] Grindr on, so I was using sites like NZDating.
There was man I met in the car up by the cemetery in North Dunedin... he was very overweight and he had sexual health issues.
Then there was the man with the small Jack Russell. He was in the Northeast Valley [in Dunedin] down a long driveway. He took me straight to the back of the house and the dog was angrily barking – I had to walk past it. The house was filthy. The bed wasn't even made. He was 45, 50.
I soon said, actually, this isn't working for me. He was like, "No! Stay!" And latched on to me – pawing at my clothing. I extricated myself from that.
Then there was the Buddhist who had the incense and the chanting and the single bed. I arrived, and a very tall, thin – probably because he's a vegetarian – man greeted me, silently beckoned me inside. There was a lone light in the corner with the Buddhist chanting soundtrack and the incense and lots of like, Far East, paraphernalia on the walls. It was the tiniest little bed.
I would have been 20. He was in his 50s. His picture was of an attractive dude on a beach. Then when I went back into the message once I got home really pissed off, I couldn't click on the photo again because he'd deleted it.
There was another man who didn't have a photo on his online profile. I went to his apartment and he was so physically repulsive. It wasn't an arousing hour of chit-chat and flirting. It was me prolonging the conversation because I didn't want to get to the next stage. He, awkwardly, was bleeding everywhere from his toe because he had cut it on broken glass. He had to explain why there was blood on the floor. I told him I wasn't feeling it and then I left.
I never felt in danger but in retrospect so many of those situations are so dangerous. That's why I'd always leave either a Google search of their address on my laptop, or a note even, because I might be hacked to pieces but at least they could find the killer.
- James, 27, Auckland
THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY
I'd been talking to this lovely girl on Tinder and she didn't seem like an axe-murderer. We met up for milkshakes. She was super cool, worked in a very interesting and engaging industry (though her ex did work in the same office as her), had some funny stories, and seemed genuinely interested in me.
General conversation turned to the fact that she'd never skateboarded, and I happened to have one. She agreed to try, so we jumped in my car, went back to my flat, and grabbed my longboard. We moved to the school across from her flat and I taught her a few basic ideas.
After a while, she fell, ended up in my arms, and we had our first kiss. We wandered the long way back to her flat and she invited me in for a wine. She told me it was time for bed and I agreed. She told me she'd prefer if we stayed in our own beds and I agreed.
The next day we met for brunch. I don't quite know how her ex came up but I know it was her who brought it up. We decided to head back to mine where made out a little and then napped on the couches. We went for a coffee. She added me on Facebook, said she hoped I had a good night, and that she'd catch me another time.
That night, I got a message from her. She asked me if I had Sky TV – she wanted to watch the rugby at 3am without having to get out of bed. I did not have Sky, and neither did she, but she could borrow a Sky Go log-in to stream it. My flatmates were out of town, and hers were in town, so we'd watch it at mine.
I was stoked. I had Saturday night plans all of a sudden – dinner with a pretty girl, we'd watch a movie, and I'd get to watch the ABs play South Africa in the knockout stages of the World Cup. We ate takeout and went upstairs to my room.
She was kind of quiet. I asked her if everything was OK as she seemed a little off. She replied that she was fine. When I pressed her, she got choked up. "I can't be here, I just can't be here," she kept repeating. I told her if she didn't feel comfortable she should absolutely leave and that I wasn't trying to get rid of her, but thought she should look after herself. It took another 20 minutes or so before she told me why she was so stressed. It was [a very long story to do with] not having any real form of closure over either of the previous two guys she had been involved with.
I told her that I understood. She said she felt awful and didn't mean to lead me on. I told her it was fine and not to worry, and she had no obligations in coming around. She tried to put money in my pocket for dinner, which made me feel super uncomfortable, and I declined it.
I walked her down the stairs and told her to look after herself. She jumped in her car and drove away.
- Otis, 26, Auckland
THE PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT
He was great to chat to – witty, erudite, well-travelled. We arranged a date at a bar in Kingsland, Auckland, and I wanted to leave from the moment I spotted his trackpants. I can't remember what else he was wearing – but I was waaaaay too overdressed for a guy in trackpants.
He suggested getting food which I was OK with as I was starving, but before ordering he leapt out of his seat to go and chat to other diners about what they were having. He did not know the bloody other diners! They were six guys (any of which I'd rather have been on a date with) who had just had their post- work food brought to the table. He just went up randomly and interrupted them for a few minutes before they'd even had time to take a bite.
He talked "at me" the whole time (topics such as the gluten and government conspiracies – yawn). I made my excuses after realising other diners were, in fact, watching our awkward date unfold (I would have gleefully done the same thing had I spotted this). When I suggested leaving he immediately said, "Well make sure you pay your half of the bill' which I did, despite the fact he'd downed three more beers than me.
Then I got a 2am text rampage. Including the patronising line that I had "a sadness in me".
- Natalie, 39, Auckland
THE SURGEON
We'd gone on a group Tinder date where seven of us had each invited someone we'd met on the app. My guy turned up half an hour late, didn't recognise me, sat down and spent most of the night drumming with his chopsticks. He didn't speak to me but did speak to the guys either side of him and implied to one that he was as high as a kite.
He was messaging on his phone all throughout dinner and then announced to the table that he was talking to about six other girls on Tinder, and the weekend before he'd had sex with a woman whose kid had walked in on him naked in the kitchen while he was getting a drink of water. He also said he liked to take girls home, have sex with them, let them fall asleep, then rub their backs and say, "I'm going to take your kidney now".
- Sophie, 29, Wellington
* Names have been changed.
