Would you date someone (male) from the MET police?

[Givemeonegoodreason]

Interested to know, would it be a non starter? I'm female and happy (lucky) to be single but might change it one day!

This is exactly my experience with my DP, FWIW. Still serving in the forces, met online, absolutely wonderful man in every respect. Honest to a fault and bags of integrity.

But for some reason, my instinct to the question re Met police is "absolutely not". I think a lot of us feel pretty triggered by the Sarah Everard case.

omg I’m so sorry that happened to you all. Glad to hear he saw some consequences for his actions

Interested to know does this prejudice extend to female police officers?

I've had poor experience with female police officers too so I wouldn't date them either.

I called to report harassment from an ex not too long ago. The female police officer I spoke to was so rude to me that I put the phone down. I left the relationship because I didn't want to be spoken to like that, so I'm not going to accept it from some arrogant woman on a power trip either.

I'm not sensitive. It's been my job to speak to extremely difficult people so I'm pretty robust. There was simply no need for her to talk to me like that.

My first experience of the police was decades ago...I was in a car accident and had to produce my documents at my local station. I was barely out of my teens, very polite and brought up to be very respectful and courteous. The woman on the desk was so unbelievably rude to me, I was absolutely aghast.

A female friend went into the police. I can't deny that she may have been hardened by it. She also had to fight off sexual advances within the force, plus see stuff that are your worst nightmare. This was in Shrewsbury, can't imagine how much worse it would be in London.

I knew a member of the PSNI from many years ago who bragged about filming drunk girls they picked up in the back of their police cars. It was also apparently just generally accepted that cops have affairs with each other due to their working hours and not always being available or being able to talk about where they've been to their spouse etc. (according to him). Sickening.

Unfortunately I think it's rife in the culture of the police. But I'm sure there are of course exceptions.

I'm sorry that happened to you. It's not right.

Thanks...it's fine. Nothing complaint worthy, or even that would be deemed unprofessional. Just a really bad attitude I felt. I was pretty young and naive and genuinely confused because I was really polite to her! The thing is things like that kind of set the tone.

Yes of course.

I judge everyone as an individual. I'm not saying i wouldn't be wary given the likely culture but were talking, what, nearly 30,000 male officers/staff - you can't tar them all with the same brush.

Some of the scandals that have come out were revealed because of whistleblowers - to me that would suggest there are people of great integrity and bravery within the police, to have come forward and risked their relationship with friends and colleagues. It would be unfair to judge them on the basis that I could assume they agreed with the prevailing culture rather when they were actually doing much more than me to change it.

Same with people of under-represented races who choose to join the police to make a difference in how their communities are treated, or rape victims who want to improve the way other people's cases are investigated.

@WiseKhakiGoose your story has given me that chills! I'm so glad you went home that night!

The problem is that attitude is exactly the sort of thing that will escalate a potential conflict. If she had done it to someone who wasn't polite and respectful like you, it could have easily turned into a combative situation that didn't need to happen.

Every man is different just the same as every woman is

What an odd world

It's not odd at all to want to minimise the chances of getting into a relationship with someone who, because of the category or group they fall into, is statistically more likely to have certain characteristics or behaviours, or who does a job which can often attract people who enjoy certain kinds of powers and privileges. Nobody owes anyone a chance at a relationship. You can (and should) avoid dating anyone for any reason you want.

Thing is…everyone knows who Shipman and Letby are. Theirs are household names- purely because they are so unusual.

In contrast, there have been numerous police officers charged with a variety of heinous offences in the last few years. Most of them are not recognisable names, because there are so many of them.

Do you not see any difference?

In addition, the type of risk is a factor. Shipman murdered elderly people, Letby murdered babies.

Many of the police who have been in trouble lately have been found guilty of sexual offences and/or violence against women. The fact that they are supposedly law enforcers is also relevant.

I’m much less likely to think ‘Better not date this Dr in case he’s the type that murders pensioners’ than ‘Better not date this copper in case he attacks me and I can’t report it because the force will protect him’.

Of course no one would want to date a murderer of old people or babies, but the level of personal risk to the individual isn’t the same.

I judge everyone as an individual. I'm not saying i wouldn't be wary given the likely culture but were talking, what, nearly 30,000 male officers/staff - you can't tar them all with the same brush.

But it's not tarring them all with the same brush. Nobody is saying that every single policeman is abusive or violent. It's just a question of playing the averages. I'm sure we all could list some traits/habits/hobbies which might put us off a potential partner because of what we think it might say about them, even though it wouldn't always be the case. So you might miss out on an ok one? So what? They won't know.

I don’t know about the Met Police in particular, but police in general…if you’d asked me 3+ years ago I’d have said no. I never liked police officers.

Then I got elected onto our city council and had to be in charge of some. I had a hard time with that because it wasn’t my thing at all, so I decided the first thing I would have to do is get to know them and see how it all worked.

Now I’m close to the Chief and the few officers we have (it’s a small town) and I have absolute trust in them to do the right thing, which is no small feat in the US. (With that being said, if they ever DIDN’T do the right thing, they’d be out so quick their heads would spin, and they know it too). So I suppose yes.

I liked/trusted the police until I had to deal with them. I was a postgrad student and living in a shared house which was burgled. We found a lot of our stuff in second hand shops (upsetting the police greatly, it seems). The detective was so staggeringly rude to me I had to get my then boyfriend to talk to them, even though he didn‘t live with me. He was polite to him.

That was years ago so had rather hoped it had changed.

Everyone talking about what an appalling thread this is but the DV statistics don’t lie.

Certain jobs attract certain types of people.

No police or military thanks.

But of course its tarring them all with the same brush - don't you understand what that saying means? It's when you make an assumption that all people of X (race/job/background) are the same, or exhibit similar values, or at the very least are significantly more likely than average to have/do/be it.

You wouldn't apply that to any other feature (on the balance of averages hairdressers are much more likely to be stupid than other professions, scottish people significantly tighter than other nationalities, black people are generally much better at sports than any other race) so why would you do it for this one specific job?

To 'play the averages' you'd have to assume that a significantly higher proportion of police officers are terrible people it's too much of a risk to date - but there are nearly 100,000 male police officers in the UK - if you added together every single one of the cases that had hit the press recently you wouldn't even get 0.5% of that.

Who would benefit/lose out from me not dating someone wasn't the question. I'm not arrogant enough to assume that me swiping the wrong way on a police officer on tinder would ruin his life. The question was would you date someone, and I would. Because I'd see them as a ONE, i.e. an individual and wouldn't make any assumptions about their character from their job. Just as I wouldn't if they held any other job.

When it comes to dating though, you are under no obligation to give someone a chance.

I would and have dated military but I wouldn’t date a police officer.

Any job that requires shift work would put me off a person rather than the profession itself. If I ever look to date again I'd want a nice straightforward, works 9-5 Monday-Friday type set-up, where he's unlikely to have to go away for long stretches with work, or get leave cancelled. So much simpler for me.