Dating is a minefield only social savants and liquored up uni students can skip through like hopscotch. For the rest of us it is a tedious task punctuated with as much disappointment as matches.
Then, when you finally get chatting with someone cool, you meet them in person and they run over your dog. That is, if you are this unfortunate woman, who recently recounted the worst Tinder date of her life for the internet to judge.
The funny thing is, as the anonymous 9 Honey writer admits: running over her dog wasn’t even the worst thing about the guy. It was his attitude. Which takes her story from being a well-crafted pile of words to a life lesson for men everywhere — it’s not the mistakes you make on a date that determines your reputation, it’s how you deal with them.
“I met Thomas on Tinder and was excited about meeting him. He was British, had a really gorgeous accent and promised he’d be taking me somewhere special.”
So far so good.
“He didn’t disappoint me at all, and took me to one of my ‘dream restaurants,’ a place I’d always wished I could go to but couldn’t ever afford. And yes, he paid!”
“We were very attracted to each other and he kept saying he’d love to spend the night with me, but agreed when I said I’d rather take it slowly.”
They then drove to the woman’s home, where Thomas greeted the woman’s dog, Coco, before smooching her goodbye.
Thomas then got into his car to leave. But as he was reversing, “Coco started to run and then she was behind the car. I started yelling and motioning with my arms for Thomas to stop but he didn’t. The next thing I knew, he’d hit Coco,” (Nine Honey).
“I screamed, then started crying. She was okay but clearly in pain. He got out of the car and started swearing, saying he was sorry. I told him I needed to get Coco to the local animal hospital.”
This is where our antihero made his worst mistake yet — instead of offering to take the 9 Honey writer and her dog to the vet Thomas handed her $50 and said, “This should cover your vet bills.”
“I didn’t even take the money, I just got my car keys and took off with Coco in the back seat,” the woman wrote, explaining: the incident “was a real eye-opener.”
“Here was a man who was keen to sleep with me that night. But when my dog, who is like my baby, was hit – by him – he couldn’t even be bothered coming with me to see if she was okay.”
So when Thomas checked in the next day to see how Coco was — and to arrange another date — he was told in no uncertain terms that he’d blown it.
While this saga is unlikely to happen to most of us, let it serve both as a warning and — for those prone to spilling tomato sauce on their date — a pressure easer. If you have a good attitude (and it wasn’t Chanel) you’ll be just fine.