I Regret Nothing!

When a guy resorts to immature insults, my Ice Princess instincts kick in and I find it much easier, and more entertaining, to mess with the guy than to get upset. (You can thank my high school boyfriend for giving me the Ice Princess nickname.) However, I’ve been lucky that none of the jerks have been guys I’ve actually met in person. I have somehow managed to keep them contained to these websites.

A friend of mine wasn’t so lucky. She went out with a guy and when she told him she wasn’t interested, he went psycho to the point where he was actually being frightening. She is an attractive, intelligent, successful woman who does not under any circumstances deserve to be treated this way.

A group of us have been giving her our two cents on what she should or shouldn’t do next. I thought we could break down what happened for all of you so that this never happens to her (or any of you) again, and you all could help us decide what she should do.

His profile

I love OKCupid A-list and its invisible browsing. It means I can check out profiles for my friends and the guys will never know. So this guy’s profile has a bunch of red flags -

1. He’s listed as “replies often”. That means either no one messages him or he’s desperate and writes back to everyone who gives him the time of day.
2. In two of his photos, there’s a girl standing next to him who is cropped out. I don’t care who she is, but don’t make girls guess. Get a better photo.
3. He says he’s 5’8” but has no photos of him standing in a group where you can see how tall he actually is. The chances of him actually being 5’8” are slim to none.
4. His 2013 to-do list includes several adrenaline junkie activities, but other than one whitewater rafting photo, there’s no other mention of being an adventurous person on his profile. As a true adrenaline junkie (“Hi, I’m S. I’m an addict.” “Hi, S.”) I can tell you that he wants people to think he’s adventurous, but he’s really not. I’ll take it back if he actually ends the year with a Tough Mudder race bib like he claims he will. Even if he does, it’s a fun race, but it’s not actually that impressive.
5. He mentions something about being good at making up reasons for why he’s on an online dating site. Combine that with his height and he likely has some serious self-esteem issues. (Sorry to the short guys out there, but it’s true.) He also mentions that he doesn’t eat fruit. That’s just weird.
6. He says he’s interested in girls 18-35. 18??? That’s disgusting and nearly half your age.
7. He says you should message him if you’re an emotional drunk because watching a breakdown is entertaining. Seriously, dude? I already want to smack this guy.

Pre-date messages

The first message wasn’t too bad. A little long, which reinforces the desperation that his profile insinuates, but it was generally complimentary. It asked whether or not she usually dates Asian guys (she is Asian), again implying that he doesn’t have much self-confidence. The message was also sent at 4:15 AM. The warning bells are getting louder.

Unfortunately, my friend made a few classic blunders. First, she apologized for not living in the city. Don’t apologize for anything before you meet a guy. You’re a catch! He should be willing to go to Timbuktu to meet you. Then, she gave both her phone number and name out before he did. She hates these messaging systems, as most of us do, but it’s jackasses like this that continue to prove my point of why it’s worth keeping your information private until you meet the guy and can see if he’s going to go completely bananas on you or not.

Once they moved to texting, the guy started showing his true colors. She suggested a neighborhood for them to meet in. He started interrogating her about why she wanted to go to that neighborhood and got upset that she had plans for later in the evening on a weekend night. (This is why I don’t do weekend nights for a first date.) Then he started saying that she’s going to “dine and ditch”. She felt bad that he got that impression, but in actuality, he’s an ass for ever even implying this in the first place.

The date

The date was fine, but she wasn’t feeling any chemistry. He said a few weird things, like that he once had a girl throw a pepper shaker at his head during a date. (I’m sensing a pattern of behavior on his end.) She offered to split the bill, and he declined as he should have. His profile says he makes over $100K so it’s not like this was a big imposition. She then offered to buy him a drink because she felt uncomfortable after the “dine and ditch” conversation and wanted to make sure he didn’t feel like she was taking advantage of the situation, which does happen. It was fine for him to go for a drink, but he should have paid for the drink as well if he were a true gentleman.

Then he continued to break all sorts of first date etiquette rules and asked her what she thought of the two of them. He didn’t just ask her out a second time. He asked her to define their 5 minute long “relationship”! She told him she thought they were better as friends and immediately realized he was actually interested. Then the crazy appeared.

Post-date messages

First message from after dinner -

FYI the best etiquette is to insist to split the bill if you're not feeling a connection

Nope, buddy. You may think you’re super smart with your midwestern MBA, but the best etiquette is for the guy to pay. Period. She apologized, which was again unnecessary. And despite the apology, he started being a total f-ing douchebag.

I was trying to keep an open mind despite the ethnic studies, mannish look and marketing background. Thanks for the lesson on generosity.

My friend was obviously shocked and disturbed that she was getting this ridiculous of a response. She said that she hadn’t intended to lead him on. She was being genuine with him, giving him very straight answers. There was nothing she could have said that would have made him calm down. He went on to call her a lesbian, since in his puny little mind she must like women if she’s not into him, and said she had a thick bottom half, which she does not. She got a little peeved and called him an “MBA douchelord” (thanks for making all of us look bad, jerk). He continued to insult her personality, her appearance and her career. Mocking her career and company (saying she works on a no name product that’s destined to fail) was particularly amusing to me since he is working at a start up that is very much struggling to get off the ground and has been rejected multiple times from the company where she works. Impressively, she ended with -

I still wish you the best. It's very sad to see such a hateful litany from you. I don't think you're this kind of guy whatsoever and am hoping you're just having a bad night. Take care of yourself.

He continued to send her nasty messages, proving just how insecure and pathetic he is.

Now what?

So, my dear readers, we’re leaving it up to you to decide what she does next. Several of our friends are a little, shall we say, vindictive. Personally, I think we can take the high road (which is what she has already done and plans to do unless convinced otherwise), be intelligent and still show the asshole just how awful he was. Here are our options:

1. Online retaliation

   Example: set up a fake OKCupid or Grindr profile with his info and mess with him

2. Offline retaliation

   Example: flyer his office with print outs of the asinine texts he was sending

3. Circulate this post

Personally, I think any additional attention that she gives him feeds his pathetic little ego. She (and the rest of my friends) are better off focusing their time and attention on the nice guys out there who aren’t going to treat women like this.

If you agree with #3 (and live in or know anyone in SF), I’ll ask a few things of you:

1. Send this to all of the girls you know who are doing online dating so they know to avoid this guy if they ever run across him or a guy like him
2. Send this to any guy you know who could be a douchebag online dater
3. Repost this on Facebook or whichever other social networks you’re on

I don’t think I’m underestimating how small San Francisco is or how powerful the network of business school students is in this city when I’m guessing that this blog post could very easily reach his inbox by the end of the day. Like I said previously, when you’re online dating it’s in your best interest to treat people well.

This has been a public service announcement. The end.