Dating Disasters: ‘He texted that he had such a nice time. Sorry? Did we just participate in the same date?’

In Dating Disasters, anonymous readers share their most embarrassing, cringeworthy, and dramatic dates. This week: Jelle and his phone.

I met Jelle in a crowded pub where he was bored playing with his phone. I don't know what it was, but something about his complete lack of interest in his surroundings I found very interesting. It could also have been the five tequilas that made my standards drop to the basement, but at that moment I wanted only one thing: to capture his attention.

I snatched his phone from his hands, put my number in it, and said: ‘There, now you at least have something useful to do, text me.’ I immediately turned back around and felt like a woman of the world. Whether this was due to my spontaneous action or the sixth shot of tequila that had already passed, I don't know.

What I do know is that the action worked. I immediately received a text from an unknown number saying: ‘Where have you gone?’ At that moment, I was floating somewhere between here and the next dimension, I was that far gone, so I only texted him back the next morning. I didn't expect much and had honestly forgotten what he looked like, but I did notice that I really liked that he texted back right away.

Our contact continued like this for a few weeks. I have a busy job where I hardly have time to check my messages, but whenever I sent him something, he always managed to respond within two minutes. I found it a breath of fresh air. This was something different from my previous dates where I could count on three to five working days between each text. Again, I decided to take a chance and asked him out on a date. With someone I could text so well, a date had to go well.

How wrong I was, I discovered the moment I saw him. He was already waiting for me in front of the café where we had agreed to meet, and I recognized him by that same uninterested attitude he had adopted the evening of our meeting. He didn't even see me coming because he was so buried in his phone.

We walked inside and things quickly went from bad to worse. His eyes seemed glued to his screen, and I had the impression that he was typing a whole book. To everything I said, he responded with: ‘yes’ and ‘hmm,’ and when the waitress came to take our order, he didn't even look up and mumbled that he wanted a beer. In hindsight, I should have said something about this, but I was too shocked to think of anything sensible. It was as if I was having a conversation with a wall.

After the first drink, I lied that I had to leave. He didn't seem surprised by that either. He responded with a flat ‘okay’ and paid the bill. We said goodbye, and I was sure I would never see him again, until he texted me right after our goodbye that he had found it so nice. Sorry? Did we just participate in the same date? I quickly cut off our conversation by saying that I realized I wasn't quite ready for a relationship yet. He texted back that he found that a pity because he was indeed ready for one. I didn't mention that it seemed like he was already in a relationship with his phone, but I hope they are doing well. They certainly seemed to have found each other.

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