Things you shouldn't say at a date

The other day, I had a coffee with a guy whom I had met in one of my classes, and his friend. When I had met that guy for the first time, he seemed to be really nice – an average 21st century students actually. That is fashionable, educated, liberal, and open-minded.

I don’t remember how we came up with the subject, but at some point the guy started telling a story: “I’m not homophobe or anything. But the other day, me and my friend ended up a gay party and the guys there were hitting on me all the time. This one guy kept looking at me all the time and then he came over and started to talk to me. I told him to back off or else I would beat him up.”

My comment on that story was: “That’s what happens at a party. Now you know what it feels like, if you are at a party as a girl and straight guys hit on you constantly. I think your problem is that as a straight guy you’re not used to somebody hitting on you.”

He answered me: “Well, that’s different. If a guy hits on a girl, that’s natural!”

I wanted to shout at him, argue with him,about how wrong he was, ask him “What is natural, then?”...but after I had exclaimed: “Oh my Gosh!” his friend interrupted me.

He advised me: “Don’t take him seriously, he wants to sound tougher than he is.” And to his extremely not-tough friend he said: “Next time, somebody hits on you, just tell him in a nice way that you’re not interested. Gays will mock you even more, if they realize that you feel offended.”

So much for being an educated, liberal, and open-minded 21st century student.

I looked around the café, hoping that nobody had overheard that conversation. Then I made up a reason to leave and decided not to meet with him again.