Incomes our first contestant: The Brazilian. Having a look back at my dating life and considering my panache for dark tanned Latin American men – he has been my only one! But of boy did he live up to it: over 6 foot, tanned head to toe, and drop dead gorgeous - way better than his pictures. So yes ladies, this can happen, in delightful but rare cases; men and women looking better in real life than their photos. (We’ll put a footnote at the bottom of each page when this occurs. Note: there won't be many footnotes). The Brazilian qualified not only due to his good lucks, but also he also was a Banker (and yes that means a likely wanker, but wait) but that means he had a good education, and could volley with everything I threw at him.
We had a great first date, lots of interesting chat, good food, fun flirt. Sadly, on that Tuesday after work, when we were both suited and booted, an hour into the date, he asked if we could go back to mine. This is always a fail: a Tuesday, after the first hour of chatting, and you would like to go back to mine? For what? Its not like a I have puppy there.
Regardless, I felt, lets give date No.1 a break, sure, let’s go back to mine and have tea (what a fun surprise he was in for). We had a lovely cab ride over, more flirty banter, and then I made us cups of tea as we got settled on the couch. Within minutes he lunged. Within seconds I had explained I wasn’t into lunging, and he should go. When I said we would just have tea, I meant it. So he went; we didn’t part on bad terms, but I certainly didn’t think I would see him again. Fast forward to over a week later, it was a rainy Friday and incomes a text from The Brazilian. I was shockingly free with no dates lined up and The Brazilian wanted to come over and just watch TV. He promised. And at the age of 30 I believed him. The date lasted less than two hours, and not because he lunged, but because the flirty banter digressed into us showing our true colors, which in this case, did not match. It took him about 20 minutes to tell me I had shit taste in TV, and that he hoped someday he would make £60,000 – this was his major ambition. Recall: he is a banker? For all the ladies out there who make cash, hearing your potential man tell you that a salary you smashed already is their dream, is disappointing. Its just not ambitious, and not reflective of how to survive in London (which makes sense as he lived with his sister and aunt, whereas I was living alone).
For those reading this, thinking that I’m a judgy gold digger, you’d be….semi-right. I want someone who plays the same game of me; similar aspirations and goals, who will be able to pick up a bill and not balk at me when buy groceries from Waitrose. Sadly, I had been down this road before. I never took a second thought to dating someone who is in a significantly different salary bracket. However just the year previous, the man I thought I wanted to marry dumped me to due to the tension our money difference caused. I paid for flights for him and his family, Christmas gifts for him and his mother, never mind all the groceries and toiletries. Apparently this grated on him so much that he walked out.
You may think that was the end of our story. 13 months later, the Brazilian texts me out of the blue (and no there wasn’t any texts in between) to ask about hanging out. The answer was no (in fact the answer was no text at all).
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