In 2015, a UK-based woman named Michelle met a single dad on Tinder. After a nice conversation online, they set up a time to meet for their very first date.
After a couple of drinks at a local pub, Michelle and her Tinder date moved things to a restaurant, where he bought her a nice dinner. Afterward, they took a stroll outside, arm in arm, and then he walked her to the train station to say good night.
They even shared a sweet kiss.
Michelle went home, excited about her date. She could tell it was successful and that the two had pretty good chemistry.
But the next day, Michelle was stunned when her date from the previous night sent her a text message. She wasn't stunned by the fact that he texted her, I should say, but by what he said.
"Thanks for a wonderful evening last night," his text began. "I really enjoyed your company and actually adore you. You're cheeky and funny and just the sort of girl I would love to go out with if only my body and mind would let me. But I fear it won't."
The rest of the text is so disgraceful that Michelle decided to share it with the world in the form of an open letter — along with her amazing rebuttal. Her blog post went viral, and people everywhere applauded Michelle for her inspiring words to women everywhere.
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Check out Michelle's empowering story below, and make sure to SHARE this Tinder nightmare with friends and family who date online!
"Tinder Date," Michelle entitled her blog entry. Then, she wrote:
On Monday I went on a first date with a man I met on Tinder. We met in a pub. After a couple of drinks, we moved on to a restaurant. He bought me dinner. We strolled arm in arm on the South Bank. He walked me to the train station, where we kissed. It wasn’t earth-shattering, but all in all, it was a fairly standard pleasant evening.
After what Michelle believed to be a wonderful night, she received a series of shocking text messages from her date.
The next day, I received the following message from him (be warned, it gets pretty nasty).
'Hey Michelle, sorry been super busy at work today, hun.
Thanks for a wonderful evening last night. I really enjoyed your company and actually adore you. You're cheeky and funny and just the sort of girl I would love to go out with if only my body and mind would let me. But I fear it won't.
‘I’m not going to bull***t you… I f***ing adore you Michelle and I think you’re the prettiest looking girl I’ve ever met. But my mind gets turned on by someone slimmer.
Shallow? It's not meant to be. It's the same reaction you get when you read a great author or see an amazing image, or listen to a piece of music you love. It has that instant reaction in you that makes you crave more.
‘So whilst I am hugely turned on by your mind, your face, your personality (and God… I really, really am), I can’t say the same about your figure. So I can sit there and flirt and have the most incredibly fun evening, but I have this awful feeling that when we got undressed my body would let me down. I don’t want that to happen baby.’
But he wasn't done there. Her Tinder date continued:
‘There are certain triggers that fire my imagination into life and your wit and intelligence are the beginning of that process which would inevitably end up in the bedroom. With just one result….
I'm so disappointed in myself, Michelle, because I've genuinely not felt this way about anyone in ages, but I'm trying to be honest with you without sounding like a total knobhead.
We could be amazing friends, we could flirt and joke and adore each other and… f*** me… I would marry you like a shot if you were a slip of a girl because — what you have in that mind of yours is utterly unique — and I really, really love it.
‘I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m trying to avoid bigger pain in the future by telling you now so we don’t have to go through that embarrassment. I’m a man… with all the red hot lusts of a man and all the failings of a man and I’m sure of my own body and its needs.
Please try and forgive me. I adore you xx'
When Michelle received this message from her Tinder date, she was "in a flood of tears." However, she mustered up the courage to respond to her date and put him in his place.
Here's how her response went down:
Dear Man I Met On Tinder.
I was on another date when I received your message. He returned from the loo to find me in a flood of tears. He was lovely, but baffled, and hasn't been in touch since, funnily enough.
You don't have to fancy me. We all have a good friend who we look at ruefully and think, “You're lovely, but you just don't tickle my pickle.” We wish we were attracted to them, but our bodies and our brains don't work like that. And that's fine.
What isn't fine is the fact that, after a few hours in my company, you took the time to write this utterly uncalled-for message. It's nothing short of sadistic. Your tone is saccharine and condescending, but the forensic detail in which you express your disgust at my body is truly grotesque. The only possible objective for writing it is to wound me.
And I'm ashamed to say, for a few moments, it worked. You stirred a dormant fear that every woman who was ever a teenage girl has — that it doesn't matter how funny you are, how clever, how kind, how passionate, how loyal, how determined or adventurous or vibrant — if you're a stone overweight, no one will ever find you desirable.
I like the way I look. I don’t look like Charlize Theron, and that’s fine — I look like me, and I like myself (I’m sure I’d like Charlize Theron, too, if I ever met her. I hear good things.)
You may think all my profile pictures are "FGAS"s (That's Fat Girl Angle Shots — pictures from angles that slim and flatter the girl. Because men only ever use candid, brutally-lit, unfiltered pics.) But I think they're a fair representation. And I'm pretty upfront about who I am: I describe myself as a woman who loves pizza, and include links to my Instagram page, where I have the #everybodysready bikini shots I took on my thirtieth birthday.
I like to think I come across as a confident, happy woman. But could this be the very reason you have targeted me? Did you see me and think “She has far too high an opinion of herself, she needs bringing down a peg or two?” I have to ask — we all know the internet is a dangerous place to be a woman with opinions (I discovered this firsthand when I ventured a response to those obnoxious bloody adverts).
I showed your message to friends who expressed shock, horror, embarrassment on your behalf, and a desire to cause you actual physical harm. One male friend told me I have a lovely bottom “if unmarriageable.” I laughed with them. Then I cried in my Slimming World group. That’s right! Slimming World! You see, I already KNOW that I’m overweight. I can tell you exactly how overweight I am — 20 pounds. I’ve already lost 15, and I’ve a stone and a half to go. I’m happy with that. I will get rid of it, safely and healthily. Does that mean that I can’t love and enjoy my body now? F*** no.
I’ll never see or hear from you again. (You may feel the need to respond to this blog. Please don’t. There’s nothing you can say that will make me think that you’re not a disgrace to your gender.)
What truly concerns me, the real reason I'm responding so publicly, is the fact that you have a 13-year-old daughter. A talented illustrator, who collects Manga comics and wants to visit Japan as soon as possible.
I want you to encourage your daughter to love, enjoy, and care for her body. It belongs to her and only her. Praise her intellect, and her creativity. Push her to push herself and to be fearless. Give her the tools to develop a bomb-proof sense of self-esteem so that if (I'll be kind, I'll say “if”) the time comes that a small, unhappy man attempts to corrode it, she can respond as I do now.
Simon.
Kiss.
My.
Exquisitely.
Unmarriagable.
Arse.P.S. “Slip of a girl”? CHRIST ALIVE, that's creepy.
P.P.S. You're not 5'11
What do you think of Michelle's public response? Please SHARE her words about confidence and self-acceptance with your friends on Facebook!
