Love Lives - #28 Social media stalking and how to escape a bad date

Episode Date: April 6, 2018

This week on Millennial Love it's pure Rachel and Olivia, oversharing and telling all our bad date stories. Up for discussion this episode: date exit strategies. If you're just not clicking and you know there's no future should you stick it out? Or try and leave? Should you make up a reason or just be honest? It's undoubtedly a dilemma we've faced many a time.We're also talking about stalking potential dates on social media - a subject we certainly don't agree on (no prizes for guessing which of us is the serial stalker). Is it a good idea to Google someone before you meet up? Or is it best to discover everything in person?Don't forget to join our Facebook group to stay up to date! https://www.facebook.com/groups/millennial.love/Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like, and now that's what my grandma's on. Thank God phone a friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, the Independent Lifestyle Desk's weekly podcast on love, dating and relationships, hosted by me, Olivia Petter, lifestyle writer, and me, Rachel Hosey, assistant lifestyle

editor. There are endless podcasts about dating, but we didn't feel any of them really reflected our own experiences as two single ladies in our 20s navigating the very murky waters of dating today. And that's why we decided to launch Millennial Love. This week, exciting news, it's just me and Libby. Yeah, extra fun, extra bands. It's been a while. It has, we've had such good people. I know. But sometimes you just want a bit of pure us time

because we're so great and so funny. This is where everyone turns off. Jokes, please stay, we've got really good topics, really good topics. How's your week been? Actually, it's been actually a bit more than a week yeah it's the last week's episode we recorded early because i went off to the mountains yes you did catch us up on your life um well i have been busy i am busy with the boys busy with the boys yeah i've started going on bumble dates which is a new thing for me because i've actually never done that before these were the first times you went out with boys you'd never actually known yeah yeah um welcome yeah thank you and I realized

a few weeks ago I was so cynical about dating just in general particularly in the early stages I was like oh hate dates they're so boring that's because they're bad when dates are good that's great they're so fun this is a whole new world had some good ones yeah I had some really good ones went uh one of them went to the Wes Anderson exhibition on Saturday. Very cultured. It was very cool. Not just getting smashed? No.

I mean, obviously, we got smashed afterwards. Obviously, but life is about balance. Yeah. That's quite nice. This is exciting. I hope some of these dates go somewhere for you. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Yeah, ofs. What about you? Did you meet any beautiful men on the mountains? No you? Did you meet any beautiful men on the mountains? No, I didn't meet any beautiful men on the mountains, but I had a lovely time eating and skiing. So that was great. I actually, like, so probably about a week before I went, I downloaded Hinge, the dating app,

which I'd sort of like, I'd actually tried before briefly for those research for an article, but then I didn't keep with it. And then one of my my actually a few of my friends were saying yeah get hinge get hinge it's great and so I did and actually I really liked it it's it's a bit different to the other dating apps in that you sort of your profile is a mix of like it goes like a picture of you then some information and some picture of them and you can actually put quite a lot of information in and they require you to put in I think your job maybe some of your education uh you know you can

put your school if you want or your uni or um you can put as well your height and you can also like you can set it to only show you say guys that are over six foot one not that i do that that's so weird so it but it doesn't require you to put in your height it's optional i think you have to put your height in but then you don't have to specify you know a height that you're looking for okay um you can set a height range and then tick basically is this important to you and i took yes oh god i'm an awful human um but then it's fun because actually it's a bit more about getting to know people because I feel like on a lot of dating apps no one actually reads the

bios and no one does any info but on hinge you're required to sort of answer three questions and these comes they're like all suggested questions and they're actually quite fun because they're things like what would your last meal on earth be or like you know describe yourself in three emoji or best travel story or there's you can there's a lot to choose from interesting yeah and it sort of forces people to reveal a bit about themselves yeah which I actually quite like and another fun thing about it is that once you match with someone it gives you your their it gives you their full name which is great for stalking which is one of the things we're going to talk about later but anyway so yeah i got hinge and it was great and but then it got to the end of march and i was like well

it's time for a dating app free april i can't believe you're doing that i know so honestly on march 31st i was i was talking to a bunch of boys boys boys boys um but then i was like okay right time to give up the apps who do i actually want to continue talking to and I realized I was probably only one that I was interested in so I sent him this message going well I'm actually about to uh give up apps for April so if you want to carry on talking here's my number and he did message so yay but he must have thought I was a complete weirdo I didn't know that's quite normal how long had you been speaking for a few days i think that's quite normal it's so annoying to chat on those apps after after more than a couple of days you know what i think if a boy said that

to me though i'd be like this is such a line you just want my number but oh well meh but anyway so yeah i have deleted the apps and i'm a bit i what you know what i haven't actually deleted them i've just put them in a folder on my phone and moved them to a separate page on my iphone that absolutely doesn't count but i haven't opened them i've turned off notifications no you have to actually delete them rachel but i haven't even looked at them you're an addict i know i keep getting emails from the apps being like hey this guy liked you and i'm like but i haven't i haven't opened them and now i know that all the boys probably think i'm being really like but i haven't i haven't opened them and now i know that all the boys probably think i'm being really rude but i haven't i haven't gone on them which is like this

is you know good thing however the whole point of this sort of experiment was to see if i can meet guys in real life and i'm kind of slightly failing because in the next three days i've got two first dates lined up um one boy from bumble and one of them is this boy from hinge and so they were both kind of lined up before i quit the dating app so i think i'm allowed to go on them i think so yeah so i mean it's sort of cheating but i'll allow it because i want to hear how they go thanks girl so i keep you posted and that's where i'm at thanks so on the topic of social media stalking that is one of the things we're going to be talking about today rachel and i have quite different views on this i'm wondering if you can guess who is the serial stalker and who is the avid avoider oh god um and then another thing we're going to

be talking about which is actually suggested by a friend of mine so thank you sam is date exit strategies um and we also have a wonderful disaster date. Just about that. So yeah, looking forward to that. I'm excited to hear that. Yeah, I told Rachel she's not allowed to read it. No, I haven't read it because it was sent to you. So you're going to get my initial, original, honest reaction. First, though, we wanted to thank a listener

who actually got in touch in response to our period sex episode from two weeks ago, when we asked other people to share their thoughts on the matter and really enjoyed everyone's responses but we thought this one was actually really fascinating so I'm just going to read it out she said as a lesbian with a partner of three years I thought I'd give you ladies an insight since you asked my partner and I do have sex whilst on our periods however it tends to be towards the end purely due to the messiness and pain of the start of our periods however if we're drunk we don't care if it's the beginning or end i read that badly however if we're drunk we don't care if it's the beginning or end

i feel more comfortable with my partner there because she has an understanding that no man ever will which i think is really interesting because that's sort of what i suspected but it's it's interesting to have that yeah it's great imagine that must like actually just be great yeah just be like you have a period i have a period it is what it is although i guess if you're not in sync that's actually could be quite a lot of the month when someone's on their period surely you would be in sync though because i guess it depends if you're on the pill or something or some other form of contraceptive that's hormonal whole other episode yes we'll get to that but we also wanted to share another brilliant email we received from a listener called hannah who is a german girl

but lives in the netherlands and says she misses england so she said i just wanted to say how much i enjoy your podcast every week i had to stop listening to it outside of the house because i started laughing out loud sometimes in the supermarket which apparently makes other people think I'm weird. I also wanted to bring your attention to an Instagram account I just found and I've been laughing at for the past 20 minutes. The handle is at tories underscore of underscore bumble and I've never seen so much tweed and so many horses in my life. You'll also find a few gold Bumble bios in there. I think my favourite one was Oxford Dictionary in the streets, Urban Dictionary in the sheets.

I thought you might enjoy Keep Up the Great Work. We decided that that would be our bio of the week this week as well. So thank you so much, Hannah. Okay, we have looked at this Instagram account now and are both average followers. Oh my God, it's gold. It's brilliant. Tories of B it's gold. It's brilliant. Tories of Bumble, guys.

Look it up. I have to say, I've recognized someone on there. Have you recognized someone on there? There's a lot of guys in barber jackets with like guns. A lot of guns. Yeah. Oh, I know. They think they're in like Alabama.

I could have sworn Bumble had banned guns. That's what I thought as well. Maybe that's only in the US. Yeah. Obviously, these are guys with guns for like clay pigeon shooting and whatnot but it is quite quite hilarious so go give it a follow and hannah thank you for enlightening us to this brilliant brilliant instagram account so the first topic today is date exit strategies so this is how to escape a date if it's going badly now we've all been there I'll just tell you a couple of my own tales so I remember one date it was a I want to say tinder um I met the guy and I was just you know it was just quite initially like no I don't

fancy you but we went to a bar and got a glass of wine and then he took two hours to drink this one glass of wine and except i remember thinking within half an hour i was like i'll make an excuse after this after this glass after this drink and i'll go and honestly i don't know if you could sense it i'm just trying to drag this out but i like i'm probably like a reasonably quick drinker because wine is delicious and I like was really trying to match his pace and it was so hard I feel like I have a sip like every 15 minutes oh that's so annoying so painful especially the one when the wine is good and when you've been craving a drink all day I don't know I was just I don't know so I then oh I was like I'm so sorry

it's actually my flatmate's birthday and I said we'd go home and you know do cake know so I then oh I was like I'm so sorry it's actually my flatmate's birthday and I said we'd go home and you know do cake together so I've got to go bye so that wasn't great and then another one that was more recent I actually briefly mentioned this um the other week on the podcast I went on this date and I we'd been I think he was from Bumble and we'd been talking for a while and like the chat was really good on whatsapp and i was like i thought it was gonna be quite good and then i don't know we sat down and he ordered a a bottle of wine and food like first date you just get a drink and you know what i mean so it's quite presumptuous and then within half an hour i was just like i don't fancy you and you're a bit annoying then so i had to like sit through this bottle of wine and eat all this

food such a hardship but um I was like really drinking my wine that night and towards the end I sort of said to him I was like you know the thing was it was that my brother who I'm very close with was that you know had told me that he was going out in with some mates in Brixton where I live that night and did I want to come out with her come and hang out with them and I was thinking yes I really do but I'm on this date how do I escape so towards the end of the bottle of wine I told the guy that I so lied I was like my brother's going to America for two months and he's just told me you know tonight is actually my last chance to see him and I hadn't realized blah blah it was a complete lie my brother was going to America for like two weeks in like a month's time um but I was based in the truth and so then the guy was so disappointed and then once he finished the bottle of wine he was like are you sure you can't stay for another

glass and I was felt too bad to say no so I stayed for another glass even though I just wanted to leave and then this was the same guy who asked me out to my face on a second date whilst on the first date and I said yes because I couldn't say no well I said I'd check my diary I was like yeah oh yeah you were talking about this with Sam the other day yeah so anyway that was I was really bad at exiting said date I mean it's it's really hard but I mean I like that you you always seem to go for a slight lie I do always lie take creative license I've never I don't think I've ever lied I think I've just always been like okay I need to go I've had some dire dates in my you know minimal how have you

escaped them um well fairly recently I've been on a few that have just been they haven't been bad like they didn't do anything wrong that spark isn't yeah the spark's not there it's just a bit boring and i think once you give it like the hour and a half two hours at a push mark i think by that point it's it's a yeah you can leave you've given them the chance and by that point you're bored you have nothing to say maybe you're talking about your commute like it's just the conversation is dried up to a prune and you always think that if you're feeling that the other person must surely be feeling that if the conversation just doesn't flow but sometimes it's just like you you just don't feel the spark yeah and sometimes it's like a tuesday evening or like you know it's it's a weekday it's not really the kind of night where you would go bar hopping but but then how do you if you know you can still

it could be a tuesday you can still have like a four hour date how do you then escape after like two hours because this guy from that day i just told you about was very much thinking this is gonna be he was talking about oh you can choose the next box and i was thinking there's not gonna be a next bottle well what i've done what i've done in the past is sort of done like a little trip to the loo and then come back and be like right okay i've booked an uber just like give them no choice and then they might be a bit startled but then it's like okay yeah yeah sure so then yeah then sort of scuttle out that way quite good i don't think i've ever lied but it's it's really difficult and also i always

whenever people talk about date exit strategies not necessarily in that terminology i always think of like the classic excuse of a friend calling with an emergency you know having like a friend on standby in case it's really bad to be like there's an emergency you must come home right now i feel like that is such a cliche yeah and also it's so obvious if someone does that to you especially if like if say you just go to the loo text your mate saying call me in five minutes with an emergency you come back from the loo and five minutes later your phone rings with an emergency and you have to leave there's an emergency i have to go there's an emergency like having just been to the loo it's literally so obvious yeah like i think i always might do that for the lols but it would never work i usually try and make my lies believable yeah based a bit on truth so for you when it's a bad

date that you think is worth leaving is it just that there's no spark or is there stuff that they do that makes you actively want to run away oh well that's almost a whole episode in itself isn't it i guess oh it's all i really don't like bad table manners yeah i was about to say being rude yeah yes so well that's yeah that's two things actually you know say someone is not a nice person if they're not nice to like yeah stuff or whatever which i completely agree with you know as i don't like as well when the guy just like chooses the wine or whatever and i'm like well hello why don't i get any say in this and even if i don't know that much about wine whatever I still want to get involved

and what wine would you go for New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Christ I can see why you want to have a say in it Jesus I really couldn't give a shit that does not bother me I know what I like no way I never would have guessed

oh yeah that kind of annoys me um i don't know do you have anything in particular um one guy once asked me how many people i'd slept with on a day a first date yeah and i was like oh god that's something that's kind of like nervous to bring up like six dates i know i know but was it just something you would never ask outright i don't think no that's insane yeah i was actually just um i wrote an article today so i was talking to some the old dating experts about what to talk about and what not to talk about on first dates and they were you know they basically

agreed that keep it light on a first date because if you're chatting about positive stuff and then they're going to come away feeling more positive towards you um which i think is very true yeah i agree i mean there's a difference though between bad dates that are just like didn't get on it was a waste of an evening and ones where actually you feel uncomfortable yeah i agree i don't think they're ever really a waste of an evening to be honest because even if i mean unless it's a really horrible experience unless unless it's in that situation i think it's all it's just good to be out there and just because you learn more about what you want and what you're looking for by experiencing something that isn't what you want i always say that sometimes you can feel really

disheartened if you come back from a date you know that's clearly not going anywhere the spark wasn't there i didn't fancy him it was boring i don't know whatever whatever the reason may be and you can feel like that was a waste of an evening that was waste of makeup i could have been with my friends or watching friends but had you had you not been on the date you'd never know exactly exactly exactly um and so yeah you have to try and not think of it that way and you know it's always good to try new bars and stuff yeah but what i think was really interesting is that i remember there was all these news stories last year actually because there was a case of a bar actually in South Africa that put up a sign in the female loos that said, basically, if you're a woman who is on an uncomfortable date, whether they don't look like their pictures or you just don't feel right and you want to leave somehow. They basically put up this sign in the bar saying there's almost like a secret code.

You could go to the bartender and ask for an angel shot. And then if you asked for it neat, the bartender would escort you out. If you asked for it with ice, they'd call you an Uber. If you asked for it with lime, they'd call the police. And other places have done similar things. I think there was a bar in South London said that, they put up a sign saying like,

if you go to the bar and ask for Angela, they'll know that you need to escape somehow. Oh my God, that's so clever. I know. I love that. I mean, it's really interesting. I think, I guess it's like, maybe it is sort of linked to a rise in dating apps and people not looking at their pictures or being just generally not who they say they were. Yeah, just being catfished and also i you know on a minor level i've had that before where you you meet guys or even guys you don't necessarily meet they'll tell you the pictures on their profile are like three or four

years old they're not yeah i'd like oh yeah i mean i actually feel quite i like really want to make sure all my pictures are in the last couple of years or even i think i'm one of my uh i think maybe it's on bumble i actually have a picture from my 25th birthday with like a very basic 25 silver balloon in the background so you can be like this is actually me recently yeah that's good yeah but i guess with boys as well they never have any pictures of themselves no i mean to be honest i don't really either but that that all feeds into social media it was the season of chaos and all through the house not one person was stressing holla differently this year with doordash don't want to holla do the most holla don't more festive less frantic get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

I'm Jessie Kirkshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween.

Facebook is like a node. That's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts. Everywhere. Acast.com. Oh, yes. Okay.

Let's do Disaster Date. Yes. Then get onto social media. Okay. Hit me with the disaster. I'm very excited about this. Right. All right.

Thank you very much for sending this in by the way okay so i was having a good old hangover swiping session on bumble one sunday evening when i matched with this guy we were chatting away and exchanged some banter over our drunken saturday nights and eventually arranged to meet the following thursday for some drinks when i arrived he was already three quarters of bottle of wine down he then said he was relieved that my voice sounded normal as he had freaked out it would sound weird the chat was okay but he started saying some pretty cringy things like asking me what my passions were apparently the sesh isn't an appropriate answer after he got another bottle

of wine he started organizing our dates for the next week and kept saying how his parents would love me oh god at one point he asked how many guys i had slept with and when my last shag was when i said it was a month ago he said i must be gagging for it and that he lives close by and that we could go back to his he then tried to lunge and kiss at me at the table which i obviously rejected then when we went for a cigarette i went to the bathroom waited for him to come back in and then snuck out and hopped in an uber to meet my friends who were having dinner nearby i immediately turned my phone on airplane mode and didn't turn it back on for an hour when i did i got this message from him wow with lots of o's mate fair play if you didn't have a good time

but that's horrendous behavior i then blocked his number so he couldn't contact me four days later i took a different route to work as i was going to a gym class and saw him on the tube i kept my head down and ignored him then almost immediately after i got a request on facebook saying he tried to add me via my number oh god i declined how horrendous is that oh my god i mean there are just so many so many levels the fact that he'd had three quarters of a bottle of wine was she late no then what what i mean i always have a pre-date drink to be honest but like i have that yeah three quarters of bottle of wine that's a lot really weird you know considering if she says she loves the sesh sounds like he loves the sesh too that's true that's true but ask i mean that's just so weird asking like really weird deep stuff like such a cringe thing to say what are your passions

i know i like to eat i know it's just so awkward. And then saying she must be gagging for it. And that he lives nearby and that his parents would love her. That's really weird mixed signals. Because it's half just being like, hey, just shag me. And it's half being like, oh my God, lesbian boyfriend and girlfriend forever. Really strange. I'm not surprised she wanted to leave.

However, I think the just running away thing. Is never really acceptable. Is pretty low. And she's sort of got her karma. I mean got her karma karma got her yeah by bumping into him again yeah i know yeah hilarious that he then added her on facebook i know god it's so cringe i love that he was like horrendous behavior i know he must have been the poor guy i know i do think that is quite bad yeah i mean i don't judge you because we all do things that aren't great no of course but clearly this guy was probably quite an arrogant guy and probably thought he was doing really well he was gonna bring this girl back to his and she just no idea oh god i mean we're so cruel that is so hilarious i know it is a very hilarious cruel

cruel world but i mean thanks for sending the story in yeah so much absolutely love that to be honest it was a real gem yeah okie dokie let's move on to our next big discussion point which i just like have so much to say about and this is social media stalking so by this we mean look that's pretty self-explanatory isn't it i think people know what that means when you tried to describe sex the other day i just don't want anyone to be left in the dark no you know okay you know actually some of my friends told me recently that no one knew what woke meant until we had that episode with Charlie Craggs. Yeah, my friends don't know what woke means either.

Well, you know, this is a very informative podcast. I know. Educational. We're too woke for our friends. We're so woke. We are so damn woke. Jokes. Please do listen, friends.

We love you. Okay, so social media stalking. I'm going to tell you my view, which won't surprise you. I bloody love it. media stalking. I'm going to tell you my view, which won't surprise you. I bloody love it. I stalk everyone. Like, honestly, honestly, sometimes it's very early on. Like genuinely, the other day when I was on Hinge, this guy came up, just said his first name,

but I sort of fell in love with his profile. We didn't even match, but I was like, we still might match. That's not the point. Was this the one that you told me about? Who I said was my dream man? Yes. Yes. So I came into it the next day and was like i found my dream man so anyway he came up

on hinge and he just said his first name and his job so then obviously i then like googled first name and job and found him that's what you do yeah duh so easy so i found his linkedin and i found out everything about him obviously like where he went to school where he grew up what his a levels were whether he was a prefect etc etc etc his previous jobs his uni i found him on facebook i found him on instagram i found his sisters i stalked his sisters on instagram i had not even matched or you know spoken this guy and the i've realized i'm a bit psycho actually very psych is it just out of curiosity i just i don't know what it is i sort of like got it into my head

that I was like, oh my God, this is my dream man. He's the one. I want to know everything about him. And then I'm just go down a rabbit hole and it's potentially not healthy. And like,

now I've moved on from that. I have moved on from him. However, as I said, like I do this a lot. Like the two guys that I am going to go on first dates with in the next few days actually you already know what they got in gcf french yes i do know that i do know that

and i've like it's like and i've like you know i look at their a levels and i'll look at you know oh one was head boy tick and like i'm also just interested in like the fact that i want to see if they've been if they're sporty if they've been into societies at university if they were if they're people who maybe have worked abroad i want to i want to look at i just want to sort of know every and there's much about them but you wouldn't want to wait to find that stuff out in person when you actually meet them i mean i can see your point because also then what if you start talking about school and he says oh yeah actually i was i was her boy at school you then but do you do you then say oh yeah i know of course not okay so you pretend the

thing is like what i would really what i could really be like say how was your sister's holiday south africa three years ago i'm like has your uncle recovered from that illness in 2012 how was your family christmas in mumbai so you do this all in subterfuge you don't tell them no of course not however the guy one of the guys i'm about to go out with he actually said to me he was like oh yeah when i saw that you worked for the independent i googled you and i was like fair play to you and that last guy I was seeing interestingly he told you that yeah we haven't even met up and he's told me that's why I think it's quite normal and the last guy I was seeing who obviously I went psycho on as well and like listened to

an interview that he was in from like 2012 that was an hour long good times um and yeah so he told me that he'd instagram stalked me by like date three i said he didn't say when he did it but that's why i think i realize i might be an extreme case but my reasoning is that i want to find out all these things first because it sounds really awful maybe i'm just being an awful huge snob but i'm not going to not go out with someone because they got bad a levels but it can help swing someone in my favor if like I'm not literally just judging them on their a level just building the whole picture of someone and I all that plays into what I think about them and yeah I have previously like googled guys and found

unfavorable things that have meant i didn't want to go out with them yeah but but like sometimes it's not just like you don't go to a very good uni like that's not one of the type of thing i'm talking about really it's for example i was gonna go out with this guy from tinder i think it was over a year ago now and then i looked him up and there were all these articles about him because he'd nearly gone to prison like a year earlier for glassing someone in a club oh my god i know so i was very much like i'm not going to go out with you obviously there is a danger element to using these apps so that's when because you know they're total strangers you have no idea and it's so easy to lie fact the matter is is like he was probably a guy who just did one bad stupid thing and that's when because you know they're total strangers you have no idea and it's so easy to lie

fact the matter is is like he was probably a guy who just did one bad stupid thing and that's probably gonna haunt him forever yeah because a lot of people when they find that out will not want to go out with him and arguably like maybe he's not a bad guy he did one bad thing and like now that's linked to his name and because of the internet anyone who googles him is gonna find that and arguably maybe he just needs someone to give him a chance or find a good pseudonym yes maybe change his name but yeah i don't know you're very anti i'm i'm not very i'm not very anti i just i don't really like the idea of going into a first date with like these preconceived notions about someone because i would hate for someone to come and meet me with all of these preconceptions which i understand is is probably quite likely given our job like

yeah you know you literally type either our names into google and you can find all this stuff we've written a lot of which is probably quite personal and they can find out all this stuff and i think maybe because of that i just i i don't want to look at someone else's profiles i mean i'll look like i'll i'll look to see if they're on Instagram maybe and have like a quick flick through their profile, but I won't delve deep into, you know, their family history or their CV or anything like that. Because also I don't want to go into a date

with too high expectations and then leave disappointed. I'd rather just go in and make my judgment based on someone who's in front of me because that's what i would hope that they would do for me yeah okay arguably more sensible what i will say though is that you and i are in a slightly more unusual situation because of what we write about and because of the podcast like and i that's i that is the thing like it does i don't love the idea of someone googling me and finding out so much and i had my blog for seven years and like so i'm an over sharer yeah i'll put it out there you know my instagram is public and i post a lot on that and i tweet a lot and so arguably i'm asking for it i can't complain however i i just some guys

essentially they have no internet presence and that kind of makes me feel like i don't want it to be imbalanced i mean i have to say like if a guy just doesn't even have a linkedin i'm a bit like mate what are you doing like come on you need the linkedin tells an ambition if you're an ambitious person unless you work in an industry like i don't know sport or you're an actor or something and then maybe you know LinkedIn is not a thing however I mean I say this about using LinkedIn for professional reasons clearly 95% of the time I spend on it is stalking boys before I go out with them so really who am I to judge I do think what you said about balance is interesting though because you and I both use social media quite differently as well like you're much more active on instagram and you share a lot

more follow me underscore hosie yeah a little bit of personal brand promotion you are you share photos of your food you you take selfies of yourself in the gym like all that kind of stuff i'm so annoying so annoying no i love it i just i don't do that at all i i have i have a few photos of myself on my instagram but the majority of them are of other people and i don't think any of them selfies or there are places you're so elusive and cool i'm just really really cool and you're not basically is what i'm saying you may have a point no my point is that i think but you're much more active on social media in a personal way than i think but you're much more active on social media in a personal way than i am which is probably why someone else's social media presence means more

to you than it does to me true actually like i'm not saying i couldn't go out with someone if they didn't have instagram but you sort of are i mean what's the point in having a boyfriend if they're not going to be like your Instagram husband to be honest that's true and also you don't want to go to brunch like I can imagine your worst nightmare

you go to brunch with someone you're having your avocado toast you go to take a photo of it and they're like what are you doing well exactly like I went on this date earlier this year

and um for me it would probably be the opposite scenario exactly you hate having food with me because I'm take pictures oh god we're going out

for dinner tonight she's gonna take so many pictures look out on rachel's instagram story guys guys we're going out for burgers um what was i gonna say oh yeah so i was on a date with this guy a few weeks ago actually was it months ago who can say it was oh maybe february irrelevant to get to the point rachel so we were having drinks in this nice bar and there were these three women next to us who just got these nice fucking cocktails and one of them starts taking a picture and the guy it's the first date he goes to me oh this was the guy that vombed remember good times oh yeah and he went to me he was like god don't you just hate that it's one thing i can't bear it's people taking pictures

of their food and drink and i was just like yeah well i actually did sort of slightly argue my point and i was like you know for some people you should in that situation and i was like you know it depends what you're into and some people like enjoy yeah seeing pictures of cool looking cocktails and interesting food things and for some people they're they're an influencer and that you know that's their job yeah and you know i bloody love a food pic yeah and also don't be a condescending prick just about something you're not into like i'm not into it but i would never be like judgy or i know weird when you do it yeah so that was sort of something on the first date i was a bit like well this will never work yeah um so yeah anyway i'm all for it and i'm not gonna change my ways i actually um

i wrote an article. Also, in case you're listening to this going, oh my God, Rachel, you're psycho. Why are you LinkedIn stalking everyone? No, you know what? I think it's much more common. As well, just in case you didn't know, you can set your LinkedIn to private viewing mode.

Yeah. So they don't get notified. It's an essential tool. Also, another good hack is one of my tricks. If you're trying to find someone like that guy did in the disaster date story you can search them on facebook by their phone number very useful to know also friends of mine have actually got fake instagram accounts set up joint with their friend like so there'll be four or five of them that have this you know

access to the account yeah and they use it to stalk like people that they're dating but also exes okay to look at their stories because obviously you can see who views your instagram stories i'm livian i totally did this the other day oh yeah we did i was like this is that guy i was dating earlier last month or whenever it was the fuck boy and i was like he keeps posting instagram stories and i really want to see what they are we didn't even follow each other but I just really want to see what his story was so love if you did it for me and told me that that's what friends are for exactly so yeah I didn't go quite the lengths of making an account to stalk boys without them knowing wouldn't put it past me yeah yeah but when I so a while ago I wrote about how you know online dating makes it so easy to

stalk people online and you know it's i think it's very normal um for guys and girls and i actually did this um interview with a florida radio station about it because they'd seen my article and wanted to discuss it and um the interview was fine it was these two like middle-aged men who you know are not in this generation who would do that and like the interview was sort of fine they were kind of disagreeing with me and i argued my point and then when i hung up i carried on listening and they just completely slated me saying i was this like narcissistic woman and they were like it shouldn't be the girls who are doing that they were like if anything it should be like their dads and i was like what and they were saying like who's got time to spend 10

hours and i'm like it's so sexist i was fuming yeah um but he was saying like who's got time to spend 10 hours talking i'm like i don't spend 10 hours i might spend like 10 minutes it does not take long no it's so easy and quick and and the thing is as well i actually don't link my instagram to my dating app profiles but most people do that now and so that's sort of asking to be stalked i actually don't want people to stalk me no i also actually that's only something i noticed recently that yes i don't invite it i don't know but i don't think it but you can't get on am i being stupid you can't get onto their account no i don't think you actually can you can just see six photos but then again a lot of people put their instagram handle or even their snapchat yeah that's true a lot of people

in their bios yeah which i always do you know what actually really annoys me when a guy puts his instagram handle in his bio and he's got a private account. What was the point of that? Yeah, that makes no sense. I'm not gonna request to follow you. Yeah. Ugh, really annoys me. Obviously, I will always look at it, but hey-ho. God, it's weird, isn't it?

Yeah, because the whole Instagram thing, it's like, because obviously on dating apps, it's only someone's first name. So when you put in your Instagram. Except Hinge. Oh, Hinge's last, oh yeah. But yeah, often people people if they put their handle is their last name then you get their last name exactly likewise with whatsapp i get very like um almost like weirded out and i get very annoyed if i try and stalk a guy and i can't find

him anywhere that drives me nuts i literally find it so do you think you would not go on a date with a guy no no because i have done it i have done it i just find it really annoying i feel like it's not like a good kind of annoying though no no okay literally no for me i'd be like oh you're just so mysterious no i'd be like who are you you have no instagram presence or internet presence the whole i don't know maybe i'm too too involved in the internet yourself in myself no well clearly in them yeah yeah yeah true i don't know i know i completely can see the point of do you don't you want to find out everything in person like yeah i just said i know but i just i won't stop yeah can't stop won't stop no but i'm not alone like my flatmate is completely like this as well yeah it's very common she's very good actually it's almost like it's like

quite a fun challenge so if you only have someone's first name and like one piece of information about them like the uni they went to or something or like the company they work for now or and maybe it's a well-known company and their name is something like james it's like the challenge james who works with pwc how you go find him how quickly can you do it the thrill such a rush um but then it's also interesting because then sometimes you find out you've got mutual facebook friends with someone and then sometimes i ask them for a character reference a character reference yeah like i'll say to one of my mutual friends i'll be like hey i'm talking to this guy that you know right right what do you think would you recommend good or bad i do that and that happens quite a lot on these dating apps i think yeah i mean i often everything's a very small world yeah when you're

in this similar age group and you both live in london like chances are you're gonna know some of the same people yeah 100 100 it's almost weird if you don't actually it's always reassuring if you do i think so it's like okay they're maybe not a psycho and also a real person and a real human being not a robot or a 12 year old boy in their bedroom or more likely like a 70 year old man yeah one of the two depressing pray for me on my first dates i'm really excited to hear how these go we'll tell you all next week's episode i'm so excited i'll have hopefully if they go to plan if they don't bail on me i want to bail on them two dates to report on exciting well have you got any dates coming up um i don't think so no maybe we'll see i'm a bit of a last minute planner which rachel oh god we're so

different we are so different i always she'll be like oh aren't you supposed to be going on that date tomorrow like where are you going i was like oh i don't know yet i haven't like decided i can't deal with her i literally can't chase them like no i'm so annoying i want to keep it like laid back i I don't care. It's casual. It's spontaneous. But that's why I like going to different bars on dates. Whereas you don't like that. I like being spontaneous. I don't not like that.

I just don't think it's practical. Why? If you're going out in central London. Because of service charges. No. No. Literally no. That hadn't even crossed my mind. That actually did cross my mind.

Spend station. It's bloody expensive. it's so expensive no my thinking was if you're going out for drinks in central london on friday saturday night no reservation and you want to try and hop around that's just not feasible everywhere's busy most bars don't take reservations like bars and pubs unless you're going to like swanky places i never go to swanky places well okay judging you feeling charged that's a whole other date topic about going on going to nice places or you know yeah true true which will obviously have very different views on again well this is it because

we're gonna do something about a scene something about what to wear on dates because i'm going on my date tomorrow and we are going to a nice place obviously this is already planned it's been planned since like whenever we decided we're going out on the date and but i'm like i need to dress accordingly for the environment and it's a nice place but you don't act like you you don't look like you've tried too hard anyway this is another topic whole other topic stay tuned exactly but through my social media stalking i might be able to you know discover the vibe of the guy a bit better match your outfit accordingly so then we can begin matching outfits although what i'll say is wear what you want not what you think the guy will want yeah

totally i love that i mean we spoke about this on a few episodes ago the whole like process of getting ready for a date i do that for me because it makes me feel great well this is it this is it it's all about how you feel this is literally another topic yes let's save it let's save it final words on social media stalking argue Argue. Try and persuade me. Okay. I don't want to be judged based on my online persona because... Of the ship. Joking.

You're really witty. Because it's so much funnier in real life. Interesting. And so much prettier. I'm also actually not very photogenic. That's actually true. I'm not photogenic. I don't think that's true. I hate... Thank you, Rachel, but you have to say that. But I actually not very photogenic that's actually true i'm not photogenic i don't think that's true i hate thank you rachel but you have to say that but i actually

hate having photos you're not gonna be like yeah actually but i hate having photos taken of myself i seize up and so i just don't like it okay that's my that's my pitch to you right pitch it to me well i should stalk everyone to the last you know gcse french grade they got um do you know what i don't even know if i can actually argue this point it's just a personal thing that i feel better and more comfortable if i've found out some background info and because i kind of actually do care about I care about what someone's into and if someone's driven and if someone has varied interests and you know if I look that up beforehand doesn't does it matter I don't think so and then arguably I'm more excited to go on

the date when when you find out stuff you like. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And yeah, maybe it's not always the best, but it's kind of fun. We're not going to change our ways. No. No. Until we're like single age 50, then maybe we try each other's ways.

Oh God, don't say that. All fun and games will be on episode 3000 of Millennial Love. Oh God. But anyway, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. We hope you've had as much fun as we've had. Please do subscribe. Subscribe to Millennial Love.

Tell your friends. Rate us, hopefully very highly. We really enjoy a five-star rating, just saying. Give us a nice little review on Apple Podcasts because this really helps other people discover the podcast and also, you you know makes them more likely to subscribe when they see such lovely feedback which we hope you will leave because that will make our day also please do keep sending in your hilarious dating disasters and any dilemmas that you have that rachel and i will try and solve with our mastery of dating wisdom so was um yes, if you want to get in touch,

please email us at millennial.love at independent.co.uk or you can tweet us at Rachel underscore Hosey and Olivia Petter one and everything you send will be kept anonymous. You can also join in the fun on our Facebook group. If you have Facebook, that is. And this is where we discuss topics from the podcast,

news from the dating world and we ask you guys questions because we love hearing your feedback and if you ever have anything you want us to talk about you can post it in there as well or email us so to join you just go to facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash millennial dot love and that's it thanks for listening everyone living we will see you next week for a very exciting episode. Oh, it is going to be fun. Good guess. Next week's going to be fun. Hope you tune in then, guys.

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