Should I go on another date with a man who was bad-mouthing his ex?

On the 'mad woman' trope in literature, and with advice from Pride & Prejudice

Dear Emma,

I have been going back and forth about a Hinge date I went on last week (I’m a 28 year old woman). To cut a long story short, it was 96% perfect - I liked the guy a lot and we talked until the pub closed. He was really funny, weird in a way I liked (like goofy), and asked lots of questions. The only thing is… at one point he started talking a lot about how badly his ex-girlfriend had treated him and told me about some of their fights. I also think he used the word ‘emotional’ to describe her but maybe I’m remembering wrong. . . Anyway, I had agreed to go on another date with him, but now that I’m not drunk (haha) the way he talked about his ex is starting to bother me more. Do you think it’s a deal-breaker?

HD xx

Hi HD! Thanks for writing in, and I’m sorry that you’re in this conundrum. I’d like to begin by offering some unsolicited advice to the man you met, or anyone thinking of badmouthing their ex on a first date: don’t do it. Maybe your ex was genuinely terrible, but the person sitting opposite you can’t possibly be the judge of that yet. To them, you’re still an unreliable narrator (literature term in the first paragraph, points to me). It will only bring the mood down, and leave your date wanting to write in to their friend’s newly founded agony aunt column. So don’t do it. I’m sorry. Just don’t.

But - is the negative ex-talk reason enough to turn down a 96% perfect-seeming partner? I think you need to pay close attention to how he talked about her. If he sounded bitter, upset, and angry, he probably hasn’t processed his last relationship yet, which will make things hard for you no matter how brilliant he is. But if he’s calm and sticks to facts, you might be okay. Another test: was he focused on his own experience (‘It’s been hard to start dating again’), or was the purpose of the chat to demean her? You mentioned use of the word ‘emotional’, which chills me slightly. There’s a long history of women being deemed crazy or hysterical as a way to dismiss their valid responses to injustice; both in literature and in real life. The terrifying 19^th century short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is about a a woman whose physician husband decides she is suffering from ‘slight hysterical tendency’, and uses this as reason to confine her to a room whose yellow walls do truly drive her mad. From the off, the story subtly suggests that it is the husband’s belittling treatment - ‘John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage’ - that has triggered her nervous (‘emotional’?) breakdown in the first place. You certainly don’t want to end up in that relationship.