It’s one of the oldest proverbs in the book: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. But unfortunately, I’ve never heard anyone say that if you give a man a fish, he’ll take a picture with it and post it on his Tinder profile. But that’s exactly what he did.
I thought everything was going great with George. We’d gone on four dates in one month, and to me it seemed that we were embarking on a beautiful relationship together. On one of our first dates he mentioned that he had a guppy fish as a pet when he was a kid, and that he was thinking about getting another one. Maybe it was a little soon in the relationship for gifts, but I went to the pet store the next day and gave him the most beautiful guppy I could find.
I thought that he would take really good care of the fish, but George had different plans.
Not only did he ghost me, unmatch with me, and block me the next day, but I also saw him on Tinder again a week later with a new picture of him and the fish I generously gifted to him.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I guess what they say is true. I should have showed George how to get a fish instead of just giving him a fish. Maybe if I did that we’d still be dating right now. Who knows? All I know for sure is that you should never give a man a fish, even if just to feed him for a single day.
Now when I go on first dates, I usually opt for going to the pier and casting lines together. At least if I teach men to fish, they won’t take my gift and run away with it. I also make sure to steer clear of any seafood restaurants, just in case.
I wish someone would’ve told me the real dangers of giving a man a fish, and if you’re considering doing the same thing, I hope this can serve as a cautionary tale. Nothing can prepare you for giving a man a fish and seeing him holding its dead carcass in a new picture to lure more women the next week.
On the plus side, I’ve taught over 100 men to fish!
