Woman Abruptly Leaves A First Date After He Asks Her To Pray Over Their Food In The Restaurant
Asking someone to join your religion on a first date? Whatever happened to "so what do you do?"
Anatoliy Karlyuk | Shutterstock First dates are awkward on some level, if not multiple ones. Getting to know a new person can be fraught under even the most normal circumstances, let alone the seemingly high-stakes of a first date, where every weird turn of phrase or bit of food on your face can turn off your potential suitor in an instant.
But there are the normal foibles of life, making a date go sideways, and then there are unforced errors, behaviors that are downright weird given the circumstances. And in that category, you can hardly do worse than foisting your religion on someone you're meeting for the first time.
A woman ditched a first date after he made her pray over their food.
Their dating disaster story started like any other: The 21-year-old woman wrote in her Reddit post that she met her would-be suitor on the dating app Hinge, and they quickly developed a rapport that felt like it could hold some promise. "He seemed chill over text, kinda shy but funny, so I figured why not?" she wrote.
They decided to meet up at a diner near their college campus for a casual night out. "We sit down, order food, and right after the waitress walks away he goes, 'can we pray together first?'" she wrote. Uh, record scratch! "I thought he was kidding but nope."
He grabbed her hands and started praying out loud in the middle of the restaurant.
Before she even had a chance to answer his question, her date was forging ahead. "He grabs my hands across the table and starts praying. Out loud." No bowing of heads and silently thanking Whoever for the food or whatever. "Full-on prayer in the middle of the diner."
Gustavo Fring | Pexels | Canva Pro
Everyone else in the restaurant immediately started staring at them, and the woman felt totally out of sorts. "I just sat there awkwardly because I didn't know what to do," she wrote, adding that since she's not at all religious, she was "super uncomfortable" and found his behavior inappropriate for a first date.
But it didn't stop there. "After that he kept talking about church and asking if I'd be 'open to a faith journey' if we dated," she wrote. Oh boy. And that's the moment when she decided the date was over. "I cut it short and told him I had to go."
Using a date as a religious recruitment opportunity is not just awkward, it's dishonest.
Regardless of how clear a message is sent by someone abruptly up and leaving a date, this guy didn't get it. "Later he texted me like everything was fine," she wrote. And while she feels she did the right thing, some have told her she was rude and she should have just stuck it out.
That's frankly ridiculous. Nobody owes it to anyone to comply with their religious beliefs, period, let alone on a date, unless the date in question is taking place in their church. And it's weird and inappropriate to just spring this kind of religious zeal on someone out of nowhere.
As one person on Reddit put it, "sounds like he was on a recruitment drive." Exactly, and it gives off the same feeling as when that long-lost girl from high school tries to rekindle your friendship on Instagram, only to then start recruiting you for the multi-level marketing "business opportunity" she's now involved in. It's gross.
More importantly, if faith is this important to you, talk about it up front on the app, before you actually meet up. Otherwise, you're performing a bait-and-switch that makes it obvious that your focus is on converting people to your religion, not finding love. Respect people enough not to waste their time.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
