Date triggered waves of anxiety

[MySistersPony]

I’m a woman who went on a date with another woman last night.

She asked me to Google her, apparently she is well known in her niche field.

I had a little look at her Instagram, and it seems she has been leading a very glamorous life indeed and has been in relationships with very wealthy people.

The Instagram is filled with name dropping and lots of flashy homes and big toys on display. I was pleased for her, and looking forward to having a chat about the things we have in common, of which there seemed to be a lot.

The night of the date, as I was waiting for her to arrive, I felt some anxiety bordering on nausea, I had a feeling I just wanted to leave. I don’t know why, just something I could feel in my solar plexus.

As the date went on, our chats seemed perfectly innocuous and easy, she was polite and gracious, if a bit self absorbed and with a distinct air of Hyacinth Bucket.

We had grown up in the same home town, but her accent was a close exaggerated approximation thereof, rather than relaxed and authentic. She spoke like the BBC newsreaders of years ago, or perhaps a radio show host.

There was something somehow extremely inauthentic and almost plasticky about her.

I felt she was feeling me out for my level of wealth, status, and social circles, and I didn’t quite meet the mark

I’m not sure that was really enough to make me feel as disturbed as I was. I don’t think I felt threatened or in any danger.

I have worked in the industry so it wasn’t that I was intimidated by her “status”.

I could just feel the hairs on the back of my neck almost standing up and I felt rather queazy. I’ve never had such a reaction before on a date in public in a perfectly safe place.

Anyone had anything similar? And what was your explanation for it?

I’ve actually got a group of people in my head who I suspect this person could be a member of- she isn’t in a field of work related to her sexuality at all, is she?!

I’ve been in this situation recently- I saw someone in the street who I’d matched with a few times on a dating profile and when he saw me we chatted and he said it was destiny. I was with a male friend and we both immediately felt a bad vibe. This guy persisted with me over a few weeks and said he wasn’t what I thought he was, so I did meet him for a date, giving him the benefit of the doubt but no, the feeling was still there. Had one drink and left. Lo and behold within 24 hours was getting weird slightly threatening drunk messages from him.

Glad you didn’t ignore the feeling.

I think you were probably unreasonable to go on the date at all, because it's pretty obvious all the google me stuff was an instant turn off to you, as it would be to most people. But some people give off psycho vibes and yanbu to pick up on that. As a pp said, you (and we) wouldn't hesitate to validate those instincts if it was a man we were talking about, but women can be predators too.

I had dinner once (not a date, neither of us was gay) with a woman I'd been introduced to by a mutual friend because we had a common interest, who gave me the heebie-jeebies to the point where I went to the loo and texted another friend to call and give me an excuse to leave precipitously. I just had an uncontrollable urge to bale out long before it was socially acceptable without a manufactured emergency. Anyway, to cut a long story short, she turned out to be a complete nutjob and stalked me for quite some time, going to the extent of ordering my birth and marriage certificates and pestering my friends online.

Despite your protestations, I suspect part of you is a bit glamour-struck by this woman, but given my experience my advice would be to grab the out she's given you with both hands, just in case.

She seems damn full of herself and a bit of a narc, asking you to google her and name dropping? Sad. I’d run.

You had bad vibes for a reason, trust them!

She sounds terrifying

Asking you to Google her, tells you everything you need to know.
Trust your gut.

She's not your type and you aren't hers, no big issue here.

You were in a situation where you were assessing whether you would see her again and even become intimate eventually with her. Every instinct you had was saying no this one is not for you. So you had a physical reaction.

Just don't meet her again. To be honest, it sounds like you really disliked her and are wanting to vent about her. Fair enough but there isn't any big mystery here. You met a woman. You disliked her.

I agree you are right to listen to your gut.

the only thing I’d say about ‘google me’ is that I always DO google someone I’m meeting for the first time, to see if they are who they say they are. I consider it due diligence!

OP I know exactly where you are coming from.
Some posters making me laugh about psycho analysing her as you have done because that’s the sort of thing I would do! What you have written is the sort of analysing that goes on in my mind sometimes!
I think she has made quite an impression on you (a weird uneasy impression) and you are just going over her in detail trying to find out why.
To me she just sounds very self absorbed and possibly controlling. I’ve met women like that and they have very grandiose views of themselves and their world. It all comes from a place of extreme insecurity.
’Google me darling’ that kind of thing.
You meet all sorts I guess dating and I’m guessing from googling you knew what she was going to be like.

You really think she should've stayed to get to know her?

Good that you recognised some odd behaviours and an uncomfortable feeling and have decided not to bother maintaining communication. That's good boundary keeping.

However, I agree with PP that this level of analysis is equally odd.

It takes a trained psychiatrist much more than 2 minutes on Instagram to diagnose narcissistic personality disorder so I'm not sure why you'd already decided on a subtype for this women, and then still decided to meet her. That wasn't good boundary keeping. Why not cancel?

She wasn't for you, had different values and made you feel awkward. Fine. You don't have to pathologise that. Just move on. You don't have the evidence. Diagnosing personality disorders isn't about 'visceral reactions'. How unethical and unreliable would that be? It's not about what's wrong with her. The point is, you werent a match which you could have identified earlier. Someone else might love her brashness.

There is no way on earth I'd go on a date with anyone who said 'Google me'.

Just no, not my type of person.

Plus conversation would be difficult while their head was inserted so far up their own arse.

Brashness, yes, that’s it!

“I think she has made quite an impression on you (a weird uneasy impression) and you are just going over her in detail trying to find out why.”

You really have understood perfectly!

I’m generally usually an easygoing person, and so I really wanted to process and understand what has happened here with this reaction… I want to learn what I can from it with the help of, and input from others, which some wonderful posters have been kindly providing.

I want to neatly process and put away the feeling, which is hard to do, if you haven’t understood it properly yet.

Her field of work isn’t to do with her sexuality.

It’s interesting that you BOTH had the same reaction, it must have been very reassuring for you not to have to second guess yourself what it was about.

Regarding stalker-ish vibes, I think part of my disturbance was a short story about how Anxiety date met one of her exs, it was couched as a Disney meet cute, but sounded like a lot of military precision manoeuvring had gone on; but as previous posters said, if it’s a woman, then it can be told and seen as a harmless romantic story.

Narcissism is simply a personality style, and a common one at that, a laypersons description of a trait.

I think what you are talking about is NPD which is the diagnosable all pervasive personality disorder which requires a professional to diagnose, it is also very rare.
At no time did I say she was narcissistic personality disordered. She most likely isn’t, really.
If I was going to be foolish enough to attempt to diagnose her, I might have picked Histrionic personality disorder, due to the attention seeking, theatrics, and general shallow preoccupations, but I won’t and can’t diagnose her.

I’m simply trying to understand my own feelings, so I can understand what’s going on and what to do if it ever happens again.

"There was something very high school wannabe mean girl about her… still sort of stuck in a teenage girl mindset of popular people, not populate people, and beautiful people and such like… At some moments, I was taken aback at the incongruity of age and the subject matter, and at other moments, I pitied her. Her favourite celebrity is apparently Zayn Malik, young enough to be her son.
Her entire look and style was modelled on another celebrity, also very young.
Everything about her was shallow affect coming of age stories similar to Disney fairytales. There was a sense of a fantasy world difficult to distinguish from the real world.
I think the niggling feeling I had was a sort of Single white female / Talented Mr Ripley - lite feel.
Just a bit off and very unusual somehow. I don’t know how to describe it!"

I was going to ask how old she is but clearly she's not that young.

Her schtick and affectations must have worked wonders in the past.

I'm surprised she called you after the date (did I read that right?) because if she understood you saw right through her, I would have thought she would run a mile, unnerved.

It's also a strange feeling when two people have an understanding without speaking a word about it. She knows you know. You know she knows you know. And nothing more needs to be said.

And as others have said, never ever ignore your gut feeling. Your physical reaction was really quite strong it must have taken you aback.

I too have had extreme nerves on one date before. I simply couldn't think of a word to say to this man. This handsome, charming man. And I have absolutely zero problem talking to anyone. Never have had but on this date, my brain would not function. I didn't actually fancy him that much either so I wasn't stunned by his beauty.

On our walk to the tram after our date, he started talking about choking during sex, asking me if I was into it, that his other girlfriends had been into it. I said goodbye and leapt into the tram. It was like my brain wouldn't even begin to let me make a connection with him.

Ok but my point is you're pathologising her and pinning all of your discomfort on her when actually I think you could have taken more control. You don't really know her well enough to start assigning traits or even tentative PD differentials. Yet you're jumping to this instead of questioning the situation in the round including your own responses and frankly, why you were there.

Look, I get it. I've had some of the weirdest dates I've ever heard about (with men).

One spent 3 grand on champagne and sat there insulting me from many angles then trying to goad me into unusual kinks (only for as long as it long as it took me to down said champagne, I wasn't letting the good stuff go to waste!!).

Clearly not Joe Normal. But the point was not really trying to determine exactly what was'wrong' with him.

It makes one no better at understanding their reaction or what to do differently next time. Plus one meeting is really not a fair hearing.

You might have unwittingly made her awkward too for some reason. Perhaps Joe Normal was intimidated by my beauty into bizarre behaviour (joking).

Better to accept it felt very uncomfortable and ask what you could have done differently. I think cancelled at the insta stage. It was clear she wasn't going to be you type then. Otherwise, well, not disclosed your salary etc if not happy having those discussions? Me? The weird bloke was very late. Prob deliberately or carelessly kept me waiting. I don't regret it as it's a funny story told in full and how often will I get to taste 3 grand champagne but as a serious dating prospect, I should have left.

You've said she's the kind of woman who would turn lives upside down. Don't you feel that's quite heavy conjecture for one crap date? I really dislike this current trend for calling anyone we don't like a narcissist.

I think you're being a little over dramatic OP. The woman sounds like a materialistic snob, and you didn't like her and need not see her again. It's possible that she triggered a sub concious memory of someone else that explains your visceral reaction. However, I'd be highly surprised if she posed any danger to you or could 'prey' on you in any way. I mean, practically what do you think she could do to you?