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 19th 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.
And, as you might have guessed, I’d say there’s a case to be made that he shouldn’t be speaking to you negatively about his ex (yet) at all. Your situation also makes me think of the moment in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth Bennett meets the charming, handsome Mr Wickham. Wickham quickly confides in her that their mutual acquaintance, Mr Darcy, has treated him badly. He relates a private part of the two men’s history: apparently, Darcy’s father left Wickham money in his will, which Darcy did not bestow out of jealousy. The sharing of this scandalous secret instantly makes Elizabeth feel close to her budding love interest: ‘She could think of nothing but Mr. Wickham, and of what he had told her, all the way home.’ But Wickham turns out to have been lying – and Mr Darcy, always reluctant to speak about his personal affairs, is the hero of the tale.
I think Austen is offering us the 19th century version of a red flag here. Anyone who lets you into a circle of trust that should be reserved for their close friends within an hour of meeting you will probably also gossip about you to strangers one day. I don’t mean someone who quickly shares their own personal stories; that’s fair game. I share my greatest fears and most humiliating anecdotes with anyone who’ll listen (it might not be healthy, but it’s my choice). However, gossip about someone else? This type of talk can manufacture a false sense of intimacy; an instant frisson of closeness, as it does in Pride and Prejudice. But it does not make me feel like my own secrets will be in safe hands.
Criticising an ex isn’t exactly gossip, of course, and there’s a time and a place for processing past relationships. I just think your date hasn’t figured out which people in his life deserve which pieces of information. However: you say he was otherwise ‘perfect’. A really fantastic date is hard to come by. So if perfect means he listened to you, respected women (in as far as you could judge this), and seemed self-aware and self-reflective, then the ex chat could be a blip, or something he could learn from, if you discussed it together. If you really want to go on another date with him, I don’t think it is bad enough to be a ‘deal-breaker’. But maybe wait a little longer before you decide to trust him with all your secrets. You don’t want them to become fodder for his next date.
Do you have a problem? Tell me what’s on your mind - your submission is anonymous, even to me.
Love this idea, Emma, and strikes me as very sound advice too! Makes you wonder if these great writers always followed the wisdom they show in their novels... Clare Carlisle's George Eliot's Double Life is excellent on the connection between her marriage plots and her own experiences.
This column is a fantastic idea and I am here for it!