Dating Disasters: ‘I immediately regretted not calling him before our date’

In Dating Disasters, anonymous readers share their most embarrassing, cringeworthy, and dramatic dates. This week: Tim and the voice.

I'm not a fanatical online dater; I much prefer to meet someone in person. Unfortunately, due to the lockdown, there wasn't much opportunity for that for a long time. Bored and slightly shy for male attention, I decided, after careful consideration, to create a profile on a dating app.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Had I missed this huge pool of single men all this time? I heard around me that the selection wasn't great, but I was pleasantly surprised. My enthusiasm really started to flow when I saw Tim come by. He was totally my type: broad, masculine, and he seemed to really love tattoos, something I'm a big fan of as well. Luckily, we matched and quickly started chatting.

However, we didn't have much time to discover more similarities. Tim wanted to meet up soon. He felt he had already wasted too much time endlessly chatting on a dating app, only to find out later that it wasn't such a match during a date as he had hoped. I was fine with it; after all, I was blissfully unaware of the existing dating app etiquette.

Since everything was closed at that moment due to the lockdown, we decided to meet in the park for a coffee walk. Pretty smart, I thought in hindsight. Meeting a complete stranger in a secluded park. That this wasn't the biggest mistake of my online dating adventure became clear when he introduced himself to me. His ‘Hi, I'm Tim’ sounded higher than any male voice I had ever heard. I still hoped that his voice was just nervousness, but it only seemed to get worse. I immediately regretted not calling him before our date because what a mega high squeaky voice this man had.

I know it's not very mature of me, as he couldn't really help it, but partly because of his voice, our date became a complete fiasco. I tried to talk a lot myself so I wouldn't burst out laughing upon hearing his voice because with everything he said, I got a spontaneous giggle. It was also striking that he didn't say anything about it. Of course, he doesn't have to; he has to deal with it too. But if I had this, I might have said something about it just to break the ice.

Fortunately, he didn't enjoy the date either, and he let me know that right at the park's exit. I found it a relief, someone who just said directly what was going on. I can learn a lot from that. I feigned a ‘too bad,’ but I didn't mind at all that he didn't find our date worth repeating. Of course, that wasn't just because of his voice; I know that too. I had also behaved completely idiotically because I didn't know how to act. I take full responsibility for ruining our walk, but looking back, Tim, I, and his voice probably wouldn't have made it together anyway.

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