I’m finding it very therapeutic to get views on dating encounters here, so here’s another one…
His profile gave his location as ‘Kensington & Chelsea.’ After our first date he made a big thing about getting a train off in the other direction from me.
Second date he got on my train home. Said he was going to visit some friends who lived out near me. This seemed a bit odd and unlikely somehow but whatever. He was clearly interested and wanted to keep the conversation going so I didn’t question it.
On date three he revealed that actually he lived in a flat-share in the very same dull end-of-the-line suburb I live in. Said he previously lived in ‘Kensington & Chelsea’ and hadn’t got around to updating his profile yet. (So what was all the pretence about going to visit friends last time then?). When quizzed a bit more carefully, it was quite a while back that he moved. He moved because ‘the landlady went barmy’ apparently. Not sure how this would be justification for moving right out to the sticks but anyway.
For our fourth date he suggested meeting up actually in Kensington or Chelsea.
I said I’d rather not go all the way into London after a long day at work in the opposite direction and that, since we were practically neighbours, I’d be quite happy just to meet somewhere locally. He seemed reluctant but went along with it.
Then I’m afraid I ended it. What was his obsession with Kensington and Chelsea about? What other shallow pretences was he keeping up? There was evidence of a few more. And how insulting really to lie about where he lived when he knew all along it was my own hometown. I’d have been mortified if we’d ended up a couple and he’d kept up this sort of thing, falsely bigging himself up to everyone we knew and met.
Would others have found this off-putting too? Or would you have given him a chance since there are so few truly decent men out there it seems?