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 revelers 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 “fuck off.” He looked up, stared me dead in the eye, and slurred: “I don’t give a shit what you think, you stupid bitch.”
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 one friend up with another 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.”
