#i know people have started criticizing the#āmen are afraid of getting laughed at women are afraid of getting killedā#but this is real?
A few years ago I went to pick up a woman I met on OKCupid for a date, and a friend of hers was there. They kind of over-explained āOh, she just showed up to say hiā and there was a vague nervousness in the air that even my autistic ass was picking up on. Her friend was playing conspicuously with her phone. I went āAh, the safety. Need to get a picture?ā
Dead silence for about a second and a half, then the friend took a picture, looked at my date, and said āHave funā and walked out the door.
(I would ordinarily have been clueless, but Iād just been asked to be the safety the previous night.)
My advice to male-presenting folks: recognize that this not your problem. By which I mean, this sort of security check isnāt a problem for you. It doesnāt hurt you. You arenāt being insulted or disrespected. And if you treat it like what it isā a reasonable adaptation to an unreasonable situationā and just roll with it, your dates will be more comfortable, and you will have a better time as a result.
The same applies to phone calls mid-date. Let them answer the damn phone without drama.
They arenāt accusing you of being a dangerous person. The very fact that they are willing to go on a goddamn date with you means that they have extended a certain level of trust. But the fact remains that there isnāt really a way to distinguish between āa man who isnāt dangerousā and āa man who knows how to behave like heās not dangerous.ā