The set-up started like all the others – with the best of intentions. I was told this guy, let’s call him Bobby, was a kind, clever, social butterfly who would be perfect for me. The whole thing had been arranged by a friend who was about to get married; she planned to introduce me to Bobby at the wedding. In a classic set-up strategy, we’d be seated next to each other at dinner.
The conversation flowed easily enough to begin with. We knew a lot of the same people and had grown up in similar parts of London. He was attractive, charming, and friendly. A catch… until he got drunk. So drunk, in fact, that he kept trying to start fights with fellow revellers on the dance floor. I’m not sure how it happened (had he been secretly downing vodka shots in the bathroom?), but soon, friends were holding him upright to stop him from slumping onto a table outside and hurling insults at everyone around him whenever he resurfaced.
For a while, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt – some people are bad drunks – and even tried reasoning with him when he told the bride’s sister to “f
k off”. He looked up, stared me dead in the eye, and slurred: “I don’t give a s
t what you think, you stupid b***h.”Set-ups don’t always go well, obviously. Not everyone you like is going to get along, least of all in a romantic sense. But when setting single friends up with other single friends goes so drastically wrong, it can be a little awkward, to say the least. Because unlike with dating app dates, where the consequences are almost pitifully low, for set-ups, the stakes are always rather high, as is the pressure. There’s an expectation to show up as your best self and make a good impression – plus, regardless of what goes down, you’ll probably see them again. In short, you really don’t want to mess it up. And yet, it happens all the time.
“I had one guy fall asleep on our date,” says Annabelle, 32, who is frequently being set up by friends, and has even been set up twice by her mother. “Another wondered aloud what I would look like if I was unwell. One gentleman told me I should be grateful to be with him because he usually only dated ‘10/10 chickens’. And the women I’ve been set up with have spent entire dates questioning my queerness.”
If you simply don’t like someone your friend (or mother) has set you up with, it’s one thing. A polite no-thank-you is usually enough to get you by. But if they start verbally abusing you and several others as part of a drunken diatribe, it’s another. There’s the part of you that’s embarrassed on their behalf, as I was. Then there’s the part that’s insulted: why would anyone ever think I’d be compatible with this complete baboon? I did ask my friend this, by the way, and she confessed to not having seen Bobby in years. A note to all setter-uppers: make sure your research is up to date.
The thing is, if you ask your single friends how they’d ideally like to meet someone, most would say in real life as opposed to online. All of us are so beyond exhausted by the vagaries of dating apps that it’s become hackneyed to even waste breath deriding them, so I won’t do that here. What I will say is that, personally, I’d much rather be set up by a friend than go on yet another disappointing date with a man from Hinge who, at best, could be a bit boring and at worst, could be a bit of a sociopath. I’m being facetious but my point is that things are so dire on the dating app scene that a friend of a friend I haven’t even seen a photograph of is a far more appealing option than a total stranger I have zero ties to. And yes, I still think that even after that disastrous wedding set-up.
“I would absolutely prefer to be set up over dipping my toe back into online dating,” agrees Annabelle. “Being expected to judge compatibility online via the means of a few photos and prompts is bizarre. In my experience, there is no substitute for meeting real people in real life and taking the time to really know them.”
Being set up by your friends also offers the added bonus of exposing you to people you might not necessarily swipe right on. “I love a set-up as dating apps can get boring,” says Jess, 31. “I think it’s also nice as mates know you better than you know yourself sometimes.” It helps, of course, to know when you’re actually being set up. “I was asked by a friend to meet one of their friends who had moved up from London to Manchester,” adds Jess. “We went for drinks, and it was really awkward. Then I found out it was secretly a set-up; I definitely didn’t fancy him, so it was a weird one.”
Despite all this, set-ups can work. I have three friends who are in serious relationships with people they were set up with. “I’m such a firm believer that your partner arrives in your life when you’re least expecting it,” says Nadine, 37, who had just broken up with someone when she attended a friend’s birthday lunch on her own. “He sat me next to his sister whom I’d met once or twice before. She decided after hours of us chatting that she wanted to introduce me to her single friend, Angus.” They exchanged photos and phone numbers. “He got in touch the day after and we arranged to meet.” They immediately hit it off and have now been married for six years.
Sometimes the set-up can come from a very unexpected person, too. Take Stacey, 44, who wandered into a surf shop in Gower, South Wales, 15 years ago, with love being the very last thing on her mind. “I was talking to the owner and he was trying to sell me a very expensive board,” she recalls. “I was 29 and had told him I’d just got back from travelling in Bali so I couldn’t even afford a sofa. He told me his son had recently returned from travelling and offered to introduce us. I thought he seemed like a nice guy so his son must be nice, too.” He was; the following week, Stacey and the surf shop owner’s son met for a drink in Cardiff. Today, they’re married with two children. “I’m a great believer in seizing opportunities that are thrown at you.”
It’s an optimistic reminder, one I’ll cling to the next time someone I’m set up with winds up being a dud. In the meantime, if you know anyone…
