MX Columns
mX Column: Blind Dates? Bad News.
Despite the Austen-like images my moniker may conjure, I’m not much of a matchmaker.
I don’t believe in the ‘set up’, and especially not since one of my best friends, N. sent me on a blind date.
On paper, it should have worked perfectly.
He was cute, fun and intelligent, as promised. He even had just the right amount of eccentricity to keep me interested (I love a bit of quirkiness… past flings of mine have included a Reiki practitioner and a macrobiotic vegan).
N. certainly had my type pinned. Why wouldn’t I take a recommendation from her?
We did click. We even had a pash at the back of a dark bar later that night. And then it started to get weird. We hadn’t even wrapped up the date when…
“I can’t wait to introduce you to my parents.” (Wait, what?)
“We’re going to be so happy together, we’re perfect for each other.”
(Sorry, I can’t hear you over the alarm bells in my head!)
And then, after I had escaped to what I thought was the safety of my own home, the phone calls started. Legions of them.
I was forced to have a break up conversation with a guy I had been on one date with. Not that that put a dent in his phone-stalking. An age later, he must have realized I hadn’t taken any of his calls for months, and they stopped. As for what I had to tell my friend about this “great guy” she’d set me up with… Awkward much?
Now, I know I’m not the only one with a story like this to tell. In fact, I couldn’t find a single happy set-up story (Do email me if you have one; we’re all dying to hear it.).
I heard tales of girls turning up at apartments late at night with no invitation after only one date, abusive phone calls, broken hearts and well-meaning matchmakers caught in the middle of it all.
My theory is that you should never set people up, because no matter how much you may adore your friends, you have no idea what your friends’ moral love codes are. They can’t necessarily be trusted when it comes to relationships.
I have seen some of my dearest, most wonderful friends turn to a quivering heap of hormones and emotions around a new love interest.
If you do find yourself caught in the middle of a friend that wants to set you up, you can first try diplomatically telling them you’re not interested.
If they’re insistent, try a group scenario rather than a one-on-one set up. Your friends will make a great buffer for the night and if you hit it off, then great! But if you decide you don’t like your potential flame, then you can walk away at the end of the night – no harm, no foul.
This column was originally published in MX News on Friday 5 February 2010.
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Writer, dating columnist, wife, coffee addict, foodie, fashionista... Melburnian through and through. Muser, dancer, blogger, tweeter. Likes to get her head on telly now and again. Sleeper, dreamer, a sucker for romance. And of course... a cheap date.
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Fun article.
Positive blind date story: My in-laws met on a blind date set up by their sisters. They’ve now been happily married 30 years with 2 children, both now happily married as well. (And I was lucky enough to snatch their son, not through a blind date though.)
I think blind dates can be a lot of fun myself, you never know what will happen until you take a chance!
I spent six years with a wonderful man I was set up with. We had the stereotypical first blind date – we had to describe to each other what we looked like. We broke eventually, but I still value his friendship and am glad for the years we spent together. So yeah, it can happen.