One date taught me never to go out with hot men

I was equal-parts flattered and suspicious when Tom messaged me on Plenty of Fish. 

I made the first move by sending him a ‘wink’ but I hadn’t really expected a reply – because Tom was gorgeous. 

He had what I can only describe as all-American good looks. Like a literal prom king. But from Milton Keynes.

I scrutinised his pictures, and reverse image-searched them to try and find out if they’d been swiped, but he seemed legit.  

So when his chatty message came through, I was both shocked and excited. He could string a sentence together and was clearly sane, just wildly out of my league. 

I’d been single and online dating for at least a year, and was starting to feel slightly jaded. I’d had several dates with roughly a 50% success rate of the guy looking even vaguely like the person in the picture (I found the most commonly misrepresented traits were height, age, politics, and hair (‘hat fishing’ is a thing)). 

In my friendship circle, though, I had a reputation for liking ‘uggos’. My mates had even gone as far as to say that I was ‘fit phobic’. 

But, look… If you show me a Zeus-like demi-human, or a slightly more ‘homely’ looking guy and tell me they’re both single, then I’d choose to date Mr Normal 10 times over, because at least I know why no one else wants to date him. 

We won’t be going on three dates only for the guy to turn out to be someone who keeps a log book of every toilet he’s ever been into (happened), a Trump supporter (happened) or someone who claps when a plane lands (luckily, not happened yet).  

So when Tom suggested meeting up at a pub in London Bridge, I cautiously said yes. 

To say I was nervous would be an understatement. I was so nervous of Tom’s looks that I ended up buying a new coat on route to the pub in order to project an effort of ‘stylish, cool, good enough to date Tom’. So smooth. 

When I walked in my first thought was: ‘Wow, he’s even better-looking in person’. He looked exactly like his profile pictures and was tall and very clean-cut. Not my usual type, but maybe he could be!

My second thought was: ‘Please don’t let him have a weird hobby or a Nazi obsession or something’. 

Tom bought the first round without mentioning Nazis, so we settled down at a table to chat. 

Now, Tom had seemed interesting in our messages to date. Sure, maybe I was blinded by the fact he could have been cast on The OC but nothing he said pinged as weird or a red flag. 

However, 10 minutes into our actual date, it occurred to me what I had done wrong. 

With Tom, I had used my usual ‘three message rule’ of: Meet up, or arrange to, after three messages – or move on. It was designed to weed out any weird pen-pal situations and I also avoided phone calls so I wouldn’t ‘build up’ someone too much before we met.

Usually reliable, my rule was now working against me. As I sipped my rum and Diet Coke, I realised that while Tom had been first in the queue when they were handing out looks, he’d clearly missed his slot at the personality department. 

It wasn’t that he was arrogant – he was actually one of those rare good looking people who didn’t seem to realise how good looking they actually are. 

It was just that, well… He had the personality of a beer coaster. 

He had two main topics of conversation. One: computers. Two: his sister.

Now, I love a nerd. The fact he worked in IT was actually a massive draw to me. Brains and looks – our children would be God-like Einsteins. 

But I didn’t need to know the history of how computers were created, what a LAN party was (why I should go to one, and how some people make their own portable potties so that they can wee as they participate), or what a ‘sandy bridge’ is (I actually still don’t know). 

I tried to listen along politely and give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was nervous, too? 

And when he mentioned he had a sister, l breathed a sigh of relief. I love a family man (plus he had stopped talking about computers).

But that was until I realised his main personality trait was disliking his sister. 

When I asked what she was like, Tom described her as ‘entitled’ and ‘a nightmare’ but every example he gave made her sound completely normal.

Apparently, she would always ‘ruin’ family days out by showing up hungover or suggesting they drink (so, up for a good time?). Or suggesting new and novel activities such as rock climbing or paintballing (I heard: adventurous and energetic).

It wasn’t just that he was boring – he was actually really mean when he talked about her, really dissecting her personality. 

Frankly, she sounded amazing – and way more interesting than him. I wished I was on a date with her. 

It was midway through a rant about her having too many friends and going out too much (so…sociable?) that the bartender – who must’ve been eavesdropping – placed a drink in front of me, laughed and said, ‘This one’s on me. You’ll need it.’  

Tom – oblivious, despite sitting next to me – was still mid-sentence about how his sister ‘ruined his Netflix recommendations’.

I knew then that I had to escape.

My initial plan was to fake an emergency phone call that meant I had to leave, but Tom was back to talking about process systems and didn’t stop for long enough for me to get a word in. 

So, I went to the toilet to think. I’ve never felt such dread as when I thought about going back there and having to talk to Tom again. Washing my hands, I came up with a panicked plan: I was going to climb out of the window. 

There were just two issues. The first was that while I had brought my bag with me to the loo, my (new) coat was still at the table. But I was happy to chalk the coat up as a loss. There would be other coats, but I would never get the next three hours of my life back. 

As for the second issue: The window was very small. It was a narrow Victorian type with a long arm-like latch that had been painted over (and over) with coats and coats of shiny paint.

It was also fairly high up and didn’t open all the way but I managed to get halfway out – which is when I saw the drop was also longer on the other side than I’d imagined. 

This didn’t matter as much as the fact that I was stuck: one arm, one leg and my head could feel the freedom, but my arse and other appendages were wedged firmly in the bathroom.

I’d gone in at a funny angle and couldn’t maneuver my arm and shoulder any further without losing my balance and falling out, or getting wedged further.

Five minutes passed, which at this point felt like a lifetime. I was worried that Tom would think I’d gone for a massive poo – or that another patron would soon come in trying to use the toilet.

After eight minutes of sheer panic, followed by some undignified wriggling, I finally freed myself. 

I was defeated.

I returned to the table, looked Tom in the eye and said: ‘This isn’t working, I’m going home’. 

He blinked, startled, but didn’t argue. He just nodded and said, ‘Fair enough,’ and started scrolling on his phone, as I grabbed my coat and left. 

The lesson? I’ve said it before: a decent personality (and a normal set of hobbies) far outweighs someone who is gorgeous, but whose personality didn’t download properly. 

Tom’s looks were a 10/10 but he was a pompous, entitled human and would have been a bit of a nightmare to actually date.

Plus, you shouldn’t put anyone on a pedestal before a date, especially when online dating. But if you can’t do that, at least exit via a door, rather than a window.

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