My Date With The "Influencer"

This particular story is one of my favourites to recap because it gets so many laughs – both at me, and with me. It’s about the very first person I dated post my divorce, and the gigantic bucket of red flags they turned out to be. 

Let me start by setting the scene. It had been 2 weeks since my divorce decree was awarded, wrapping up a little over a year of the actual separation and associated proceedings. I had moved back to Bombay about 6 months prior, and felt like it was time to actively explore dating again.

As a woman in her 30s, this was admittedly daunting enough. As a fresh divorcee, even more so. 

But powered by supportive besties and some blind hope, I set off to create my dating profiles. I started with Bumble and Hinge, for reasons outlined in an earlier post. Wrote out fun responses to each prompt, uploaded some of my cutest pictures, and got to swiping.

Impatient as I was in the beginning, I started off mostly active on Bumble. The interface, with its quick swiping and photo-dominant profiles, did exactly what it was designed to. And when you’re new to the dating app world, it can feel almost exciting to view so many profiles and swipe left and right through them all. Of the maybe 40 profiles I had initially viewed, I probably swiped right on 4 or 5 that seemed like they were “my type”.

The next day, my app buzzed (pun unintended) letting me know I had a match. How exciting!

When I checked to see who it was, I immediately recognised the profile. After all, it was difficult not to. The guy was a fairly popular YouTuber and overall content creator, someone whose face most of us would recognise. He was a fair deal younger than I was (I have a type, don’t judge!), and I admittedly was not expecting him to be interested. But well, here we were. 

After a bit of texting back and forth, we met up for coffee at a cosy little cafe. The first date actually went really well – or so I thought, anyway. We chatted for a while at the cafe, and then he suggested we move to Soho House. I, of course, took that as a good sign. After all, wanting to extend the date and move to a second non-home location was a good thing, right?

Wrong!

It soon became pretty clear that the reason he picked Soho House was solely so he could show off how well-known he was there – with various members of the staff and other club members repeatedly coming over to greet him or take selfies with him.

A pointless exercise, in my view. After all, I already knew who he was and how so-called famous. But I chalked it up to him trying to make a good impression, and brushed it off. (I know, I know – bear with me for the rest of the story!)

Anyhoo, the evening progressed and we spoke about a variety of subjects ranging from content creation to the occult. We spoke in particular about my lightwork practice, and how I often channelled energy for my healing and tarot readings. He spoke of how he practised Reiki himself, and how things like tarot and crystal healing felt like they stemmed from the same core beliefs. I mention this in particular because it’s relevant to what happened later. 

Overall, I had a good time, and we agreed to meet again. We even texted pretty regularly leading up to said second date, so I was obviously excited. Did I get so lucky that the very first guy I matched with was actually a good one?!

Dearest Gentle Reader, one cannot begin to fathom how far into the depths of wrong my delulu had ventured. 

Our second date began with him braving over 90 minutes in traffic from Dadar to Bandra to meet me. (In my head, this was oh-so-romantic because who on Earth would willingly do that, right?) It was a full moon night, so I suggested we go for a walk along Carter Road.

Carter Road 🩷

As we did, he brought the conversation back to the subject of my lightwork practice – specifically whether I could sense changes in energy in people or places. I answered in the affirmative, because I’ve always been a bit of an empath. He then proceeds to tell me how Carter Road has always creeped him out because apparently, it used to be the site of a lot of murders a few decades ago. Now, I personally don’t know if there’s any truth to those stories. I've always liked the area because it felt peaceful to me – quite unlike a space that might have witnessed anything gruesome. 

And then the conversation got weirder. He asked me if I could sense any dark entities around us in that moment, because he “felt uncomfortable”. Now as an empath, I’m never dismissive of someone if they feel the vibes are strange. But I was honest and told him that I didn’t sense anything wrong at that point, while offering to go elsewhere if he was uncomfortable. He shrugged off the offer, partly because there weren't any other spaces open at that hour.

We continued walking along the promenade, and a few folks came up now and then to take pictures with him. I stepped aside when this happened, because well, I didn't want to be in any pictures taken by people I didn't know. Also, the last thing I'd want is for someone to put those pictures up and turn it into any sort of rumour around him. This was, after all, only our second date. And I was admittedly still very cautious about dating in general.

Once the fans had taken their pictures, he apologised for the interruption and we continued walking. We then found a spot where we could sit and talk for a bit as we stared out at the water.

Then, because it was December and I was getting a tad chilly (I'm South Indian, I feel cold easily, okay!), I rubbed my hands together.

And dear reader, that one action changed everything.

In that instance, our man was convinced I was engaging in something occult because apparently “rubbing hands together is what witches do”. He immediately got a tad uncomfortable and began sputtering. He then mentioned he was travelling the next day and needed to go home to pack. So we shortly parted ways and headed to our respective homes.

That was the last I saw of him. He proceeded to ghost me (oh, the irony!), and well, there ended all my delusions of my first tryst with online dating actually going well. I figured that was the end of that.

How wrong I was! 

Fast-forward about 2 years, and my best friend sends me the link to a YouTube video by this guy, coupled with the message “Girl, is he talking about you?!” The title of the video spoke of how said influencer “encountered a ghost while on a date”. And indeed, in the video, he referenced the events of that weird-AF second date, whilst HEAVILY embellishing the facts and making it sound as though I had emerged from the darkness determined to steal his soul (oh, and his fame! 🙄).

Had he posted that earlier, I admit I might have been mortified and even offended. But my honest response was just to guffaw. He even started his narration with something along the lines of feeling uncomfortable with me but “doing it for the content” --- which frankly, says more about him than I ever could. 🤷🏻‍♀️

At the end of it all, it’s now just a funny story I share with my friends – I even send them the link myself! After all, it isn’t me who should be embarrassed by any part of that video.

So dearest gentle reader, while I shan’t be naming this man (I won’t be naming any of the men I reference in this series), allow me to leave you with three key learnings I took away from this entire experience:

1. Don’t be in a rush to date when you’ve just gotten out of a serious relationship. In particular, if you can still smell the Xerox ink on your divorce decree, it’s likely too soon!

2. Don’t take this whole dating thing too seriously. Sometimes all you’ll gain are some stories to share with your besties --- and that’s pretty great.

3. And lastly, just because someone nods A LOT doesn't mean they actually know what they're talking about 😉

Until next time, my loves. 🫶🏼