A very good friend of mine had an interesting, to say the least, experience a few weeks ago as a result of communicating with a man on a free internet dating site. Though she can see the humor in it now, she certainly didn't at the time; I thought it was a good reminder to anyone who has an internet dating profile that care is taken when filling out the details.
For the sake of this article, let's call him Jim and we'll call her Jill. Jim, at least on screen, ticked all of Jill's 'must have' boxes in a date. They were in similar lines of work, shared a lot of the same interests in books and movies, and both enjoy playing squash. Jill has a wicked sense of humor and their email correspondence and phone conversations seemed to indicate that they had that in common as well.
They agreed to meet at a new local restaurant, and after exchanging first hellos and how are yous, Jill ordered a glass of wine and Jim ordered mineral water. He doesn't drink alcohol, something that he made sure he put on his dating profile. While they read over the menu, they chatted and discovered that they had several friends in common. Both of them remarked that it was odd they'd never met before.
Apparently Jill noticed several dishes on the menu that appealed to her and brought them to Jim's attention. Well, didn’t THAT turn out to be a big mistake!
Understand that at this point they'd been sitting at the table for just over ten minutes, chatting quite pleasantly, when he proceeded to give her a lecture about the menu. He went through it, from the appetizers to the desserts, explaining why she shouldn't have the fish (full of mercury), neither the pork nor the beef was organic and should be avoided, the desserts were full of saturated animal fats and "seriously Jill", the only thing worth eating was the salad!!
Then he told her that he was a strict vegetarian and ate only local, organically grown produce, legumes and beans. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but when Jill said "you didn't mention that you followed a strict vegetarian diet on your profile" he replied that it was an "oversight"
That's some "oversight"! To say that Jill was stunned by all of this would be an understatement. For crying out loud, she's an adult and hardly needs a lecture about her food intake from someone she barely knows! She paid for her wine, said her goodbyes and went home.
We heard later through mutual friends that although Jim thought Jill was very nice, she didn't take advice particularly well, even when it was for her own good!
We laugh about it now, but at the time she was pretty upset that he had neglected to mention such a vital fact about himself. Had he taken the time to give his profile the once over, or had a friend do it for him, this "oversight" could have been quickly corrected and spared my friend an awkward situation.
I'd be interested to hear from our members as to how they would have handled the situation. Anyone?
Julietteisreal
39 / Female
Comments: 5
Posted on July 21, 2009, 1:53 pm
I'm a vegetarian and to me that is nothing more than my personal choice. Just because my profile says I'm a vegetarian does not in any way mean I would see fit to tell anyone else what to eat. That's just rude! So I think the issue here was more about the guy being a jerk than him being a vegetarian!
Crystalcarol
48 / Female
Comments: 1
Posted on September 4, 2009, 3:29 am
I find that men often lie about their height. The last date I went on the guy had stated he was 5ft 11ins - in fact he was about 5ft 7ins. Are some men deluded about their height or do they think that their date wont notice. Being accurate about such things can save both parties a lot of time and trouble.
