Awful date. Tried to embarrass me the whole evening...

It's not society that paints single women as tragic.

It's the patriarchy.

'Life is too short to deal with crap men.'

The Op summed it up well, I wish some of the Op's on other threads would realise / know the same.

Reply to him and move on. Something like "Your repeated pedo joke was really boring. In my work as a paediatrician I meet lots of lovely young babies, children and young people who are going through horrible things and in my free time I really don't want to make light of the nightmares some of them live through. Pedo joking in general is a huge ick. Get some new material and in future don't take the piss out of your date's job, it's belittling and it's not a great way to start things off."

He might have been doing that. Perfectly possible.

He could just be an absolute twat, or a massive stupid idiot, or a total cockwomble with an appalling sense of humour,

Paediatrician / paedo pun - 0.5/10 at best

Paediatrician / paedo pun when on a date trying to impress a paediatrician - a long way below 0.5/10

I would respond: Thank you but no - you were very rude and condescending which I find very unattractive, therefore there isn't any point trying to take this further.
Then block

It really is painful out there, I am seriously considering remaining single. I had a man find the fact that had a "facial" utterly hysterical. He couldn't stop giggling and bringing it up. I was openly very unimpressed but it doesn't deter them. I could tell many similar stories

Not petty at all. It’s really dire out there for single women of a certain age. I’m just back on the dating scene myself and I am terrified I’m going to end up alone because I sure as hell won’t be with one of these men children.

He clearly thinks he’s funny as fuck.

Call him out on it. I can imagine the response will be along the lines of ‘ lighten up’ , ‘can’t take a joke’, ‘unclench’ and os on and so forth. But so what. U don’t intend to see him again so give him what for. He’s tried to undermine you as he feels threatened by you being academic. HIS problem. It may (unlikely) enter his pea head and it may (likely) not. However, it will give you the satisfaction that you stood up for yourself.

What a pelican?
Yep!

What a pelican?

Please don't respond to his blandishments. He has the intelligence of a doorknob - but at least they're useful. Be really happy that you'll never look over and find him on the other pillow.

You can't always find the words at the time and I've no doubt the op was gobsmacked that he didn't take hints, was completely unaware.

Op, just don't see him again, block him.

OP ended the date early and didn't stay for dessert once he started repeating his crap joke. You can't argue with stupid and this guy was clearly very dim. Not worth OP's effort to point out where he's going wrong. That would only help him hide his dumbness on future dates with other women. It's best people see what a twat he is

I don't understand why you didn't speak up right there at the time. Since you could tell this wasn't going anywhere, you could have said, "This is insulting, not humorous, and I don't appreciate your demeaning my profession."

But, sure, you should say something similar. If you just block him, he'll be puzzled and clueless. Say something like, "I appreciate the follow-up, but although I let it pass at the time, I felt you were juvenile and insulting about my career, and it's clear that this is an insurmountable obstacle."

He sounds insecure and utterly repulsive. Continuing to persevere with a “joke” that has fallen flat doesn’t scream high EQ at all. You’d be better off collecting souvenir teaspoons (utterly pointless things) than continuing to communicate with this gnome. I am pleased to see your self respect is intact enough to not feel obliged to continue.

What an absolute arse.
You’re worth a million of him.

A friend told me about this once. She went on a first date and he spent the whole time putting her down. She is a strong, self confident woman. She straight out asked him why he would do that. He told her he gets off on putting women down. What a completely f’ed up little swamp monster.

Don’t let this little nothing piece of shit get to you. He clearly felt insecure and tried to bring you down to his level. Stay confident, strong and wonderful!

You should have cut him off at the first joke by explaining that they are similar words because they come from the same Greek root paidos meaning child - whilst staring at him with a completely humourless expression and then changing the subject completely

Good call, OP. He's obviously of very low intellect. There are plenty more fish in the sea.

What a pathetic man-child.

I always think that honesty is the best policy, so go ahead and text him OP - and tell him exactly why you don't want a second date! Hopefully with a bit of feedback he'll realise that his "jokes" aren't funny at all.

What an immature twat

Exactly this. What an insecure and incredibly immature idiotic dickhead he must be.