When it comes to Hinge dates, 27-year-old Irina Matthews has her routine locked down: engage in a brief conversation via the app, set a time and place for a first date, exchange information, and then partake in an FBI-level background check prior to meeting up. However, on her most recent outing, this routine immediately fell apart when, three minutes in, her date said something that hadn’t come up in her pre-date screening.
Yikes! Bad start!
“Things were going smoothly until he started talking about his passion for pottery,” Irina told reporters. “He hadn’t mentioned anything about that on any of his social media, including LinkedIn and Venmo! I had prepared absolutely no pottery-related facts or anecdotes before the date! I was just raw-dogging the conversation at that point.”
Participating in authentic, off-the-cuff conversation? No, thank you!
Sources confirm that, at this point in the conversation, Irina’s demeanor completely shifted.
“I thought the date had been going really well!” Irina’s date, Devon, told reporters. “She knew so much about the inner workings of the youth softball program in Madison, WI after I told her my little sister played in it, which was weird, but cool. We also had a shared interest in Lake Michigan conservation efforts, which is so funny because I post about it a ton on my Instagram and it’s super specific to where I’m from. But when I brought up my interest in pottery, the vibe just…changed.”
Witnesses at the restaurant described what followed as “what looked like a toddler’s first conversation” and “verbal diarrhea.”
“My mind just went completely blank,” Irina said. “I think I blacked out from stress. When I came to, I was in the middle of saying something about medieval torture methods, and he looked like a trembling baby fawn caught in the crosshairs of a hunter’s rifle. I had to set him free.”
Witnesses at the scene said that at this point, Irina blurted something about a “cat emergency,” threw a bunch of Canadian dollars on the table, and ran out of the restaurant.
At press time, Devon had reached out several times to see if “everything was okay with the cat,” to inquire about why she had so much Canadian cash on her, and to possibly schedule another date because he “had a really nice time.” Irina was unable to respond as she was deep in a Wikipedia hole on pottery to ensure that “nothing like this would ever happen again.”
