A woman who’s been on over 1,000 dates has lifted the lid on some of her worse experiences which has lead to her running her dating life like a recruitment process.
Writer and actor Suzan Mutesi regularly travels between London and Sydney for work, and she says that lifestyle has introduced her to an enormous number of potential partners.
After two long-term relationships in her twenties, Suzan decided to switch tactics in her thirties, explaining that she’d start lining up dates for nights when she “did ‘not feel like cooking’”.
But despite the volume of dates, she’s also encountered plenty of chaos — from one man accidentally setting his kitchen on fire to another who arrived with an extra person and assumed a threesome was on the table.
One of the strangest situations, she said, started with a match she made on LinkedIn, where the man appeared polished and professional.
After a few days, they took the conversation to WhatsApp and soon began speaking over video calls.
When they finally met in person, Suzan said she was stunned when a man showed up in shorts and flip-flops looking like a “surfer dude”.
During the date, the man revealed he lived in a van with no shower or toilet, and that he went to the ocean daily to wash.
“He tried to kiss me and I just said ‘Oh look at the stars’ to distract him – I just couldn’t believe it,” Suzan told PA Real Life.
She also claimed that the next day he messaged her to say he’d found nits and suggested she see a doctor — though after using plenty of shampoo, she said she was fine.
In another uncomfortable incident, Suzan said she went on a date with someone she initially got along with — until he drank what she described as an excessive amount of alcohol, then pulled out his phone and showed her an AI-created image of her in lingerie.
“He said he wanted to envision me in lingerie, so I got up and thanked him for his time – I was just in shock,” she added.
“He reached out the next day and said sorry if he made me uncomfortable, and I said if he contacted me again I’d go to the police, so I blocked him.
“It was so creepy – it was the one time I didn’t screen someone.”
Even with the run of bad experiences, Suzan says she’s still a romantic at heart — so much so that she bought and sent flowers to herself for Valentines Day.