Welcome to the Once Upon a Trip podcast, where we dive deep into sharing everything
crazy travel stories, dating adventures, culture fusions, and plenty of takeaways to entertain
and feed your inner curiosity and travel bug.
I'm your host, Mary Grace Crawford, travel enthusiast, content creator, ex-Digital Nomad,
avid storyteller, and lover of all things Europe, based now in Atlanta, Georgia.
Good morning, afternoon, or evening, depending on when you're listening to this.
This episode today was inspired by a podcast episode that I actually listened to last week
by a girl named Erica Rankin, who has a podcast here on Spotify called You're Not a Bad Person,
which you should check out for mindset, self-help, and more if you're interested in that.
She talked about some of her recent dates that she went on since she's in the dating
scene and had some pretty hilarious stories.
So I thought I'd take my own spin on some of my own dating fails and journey since I
haven't really spoken about that so much for a while up to this point on the podcast.
This episode would be way too long if I talked about every single person I ever dated and
crushed on throughout my 20s.
So for this week, I'm going to keep it more recent and tell you about some of the dating
fails and lessons that I had with four different American guys when I came back from living
in Europe, plus the one European jackpot that you all know is the current and hopefully
last one, Marco.
All four of these American guys I'm going to be talking about, plus Marco, were all
guys I met on a popular dating app used here in the US called Hinge.
When I lived in Europe and abroad, before coming back to the US in late 2021, I never
used any dating app ever.
I used to be one of those people who was so narrow-minded and so old school about this,
thinking I'd only ever use a dating app if I was super desperate in my life and if I
was like 40 and not married.
I had always imagined meeting some European somewhere on my travels in Europe or potentially
on a travel meetup website.
Well, little did I know that a dating app was going to be my gateway to meeting some
of the most interesting guys I had ever had the chance to meet and date.
Funnily enough, it was my Aunt Cherise, who is now in her late 50s and who I admire and
look up to very much, who sat down over coffee and pastries with me on one cold day in January
2022 and convinced me to try using a dating app for the first time.
So Aunt Cherise, if by chance you happen to be listening to this, I really thank you to
this day for getting me out of my errant ways because it's made all the difference in my
life.
Now we're going to be jumping into the fun stuff and going person by person, all with
a nickname relevant to how I view them when dating.
I'm sure that a number of you will be able to relate to at least one or I don't know,
maybe even all of these guys to some degree in your own dating life.
I hope that you enjoy and take some entertaining lessons away from this yourself.
Guy number one is someone I'm going to be referring to as Mr. Bright and Handsome.
This was the very first American guy I dated when I learned that I wouldn't be returning
to Turkey and that I'd have to be settling back here in the U.S.
To this day, and all hats still go to Marco and he knows it and I have told him this,
Mr. Bright and Handsome, as his nickname indicates, is by far the most physically attractive guy
I ever dated or thought was real.
He was literally a dream who walked out of heaven in my eyes, but if he were to ever
hear this by any chance, he would probably disagree and freak out, which you'll see
why as we get deeper into this.
If you know me already, you'll know that my taste in guys is no secret, but if you're
new here and you don't know, I have always been attracted mainly to guys with light features.
The blue light colored eyes, white skin, being tall, being skinny, having light hair, being
more introverted and nerdy, but also having a fun side and being adventurous to some degree.
Mr. Bright and Handsome was all of these things.
He was 6'4", so if you're European and you're listening to this, he was 193 centimeters
tall, had a hint of muscle, dressed nicely, had deep, thick eyebrows, baby blues with
long eyelashes, and on top of that, was extremely educated, eloquent, and at the time was doing
his PhD in math.
He loved traveling, was very international, had a special love for the Spanish language
and Latin America, loved big city life, loved cocktails, scented candles, and was extremely
open-minded.
However, it was because of a combination of his physical attractiveness, what he was on
paper, and me being in a really low and bad emotional place in my life that I got too
carried away and I really freaked him out a few times.
There was this one day when I was over all day long at his apartment in the middle of
Piedmont Park in Atlanta.
We had talked about a lot of things over the span of six hours.
Yeah, that's no exaggeration.
It was six hours.
It was the third time we had ever seen each other.
Dating fail number one starts here.
As we were talking, I was explaining or trying to explain to him my upbringing and societal
views imposed directly and indirectly on me as a kid, but it came out totally wrong and
not the way I wanted it to sound.
I don't remember now exactly word for word what I said, but it went something along the
lines of, you know, I grew up with everyone I knew around me being
white.
Everyone in town was super white.
Everyone on TV was white.
And in school, we were indirectly taught the Hitler perspective of white supremacy.
And understandably, he just stared at me and blatantly said, that is so racist.
And when he replied like that, I immediately knew that I had said something wrong, that
I didn't say what I was wanting to say.
I really wasn't trying to be racist, but it totally sounded like that once I used the
word Hitler in whatever it was I really said.
My bad.
Dating fail number two with Mr. Bright and Handsome was when I came on really too strong,
too fast, at least for him.
That same third day together, I told him that I felt like I had never met another guy like
him before in the US.
And he also just blatantly stared at me and said, okay, Mary Grace, I am nothing special.
There are tons of fish in the sea.
We have seen each other only two other times.
And it really concerns me that you're already saying these sorts of things so fast.
I would say this to someone who I loved for a long time or who I was about to get married
to, but not after two dates.
You know, I don't mean to compare, but the last girl I dated before you was an engineer.
She lived close to me.
We liked going out to the same places, same restaurants.
I know you're figuring out your life and all, but I'm just saying.
To this day, I still think about what he said and I'm still like, ouch.
In the end, Mr. Bright and Handsome went on a couple of other future dates with me and
finally called things off face to face because he didn't feel that there was a deeper connection
or future.
And he was right.
But his good looks made me sugarcoat that reality.
And I had wanted to drag our time together and preserve the opportunity of being with
this perfect human being in my eyes for as long as I could.
I constantly put him on a pedestal, put in all the work that I could, went through the
trouble of one time going to five different liquor stores to find him a certain tequila
that he had said that he wanted and didn't have.
And when I gave it to him as a present, he barely even looked at what I got and he just
said, oh, thanks.
I was constantly the one reaching out and texting him asking if we could hang out.
It was all a one-sided operation and I wasn't being chased almost at all.
He was interested in me, as he said, but he wasn't that interested.
All of these were signs that Mr. Bright and Handsome, as bright and handsome as he was
in my eyes, was not the Mr. Right for me.
Guy number two is someone we're going to call Mr. Southern Christian Poi, originally
from Alabama.
Honestly, this guy had the most similar, most wholesome values and was by far the most polite
gentleman I ever dated.
He would open the car door for me whenever I got inside.
He always insisted that we go into a restaurant and he would fully expect to pay every single
time.
He was a more traditional kind of guy.
I am calling him Southern Christian Poi, but he never actually imposed a diehard Christian
attitude in day-to-day life and conversation with me.
That was until about five dates in, but we'll get to that in a minute.
Mr. Southern Christian Poi was the type of guy who was excellent and perfect to take
home to your parents and family, was trustworthy, hardworking, not flashy, not selfish, and
reliable.
We would send voice messages back and forth to each other every day.
He rambled on and on just as much as I rambled on and on.
He once sent me a 50-minute voice message in the middle of the night since he worked
in sports PR and worked really late sometimes.
I never ended up actually opening and listening to that.
It was apparently about a psychotic ex-girlfriend that he had at some point.
Maybe I should go back and actually listen to that since I think I still have it somewhere.
Mr. Southern Christian Poi didn't end up meeting my parents, but he did meet my grandma
at some point, and he also did meet my aunt and uncle by marriage on this one sunny summer
afternoon in Atlanta when he picked me up from their house since I was visiting, and
we met in person there for the very first time.
We were all getting a little bit day, not drunk, but day tipsy on white wine, and he
got a kick out of the whole big welcome, nice to meet you.
He absolutely loved sports.
He lived for sports.
Our dates consisted of going to some sort of sporting event like a Braves baseball games,
Atlanta United soccer games, a Falcons game, and a super random spontaneous Wiz Khalifa
concert.
He loved going out and having a really good time, and I also loved that too.
So we have this very polite southern sweetheart of a guy who loves sports, cares about family,
takes care of the girl he's with, has good traditional values, is fun to be around, sends
voice messages as much as I do.
So what could have gone wrong here?
I am now taking us on a U-turn, and I'm going to explain why we didn't work out.
We went out about six times together over the course of about a month and a half.
After about the fourth time, I started asking myself if I really could see myself long term
with Mr. Christian Southern Boy based on our interactions and based on what he said he
envisioned in his future.
He told me at some point, you know, I see myself living out in the suburbs somewhere
close to a football stadium and getting back into going to church every single Sunday.
I on the other hand did not see myself doing that at all.
But I think it was icing on the cake.
And what really was, I think, the top ultimate deal breaker was when he told me, I know it
sounds hypocritical, but whoever I'm with, I want to go back and gradually revert to
the no sex before marriage approach to our relationship.
I want us to be more clean before getting married.
And of course I was listening to this and I was like, this is so hypocritical.
Like what is this?
This is bullshit, but okay, I respect your opinion.
On top of that, Mr. Christian Southern Boy was the only guy I ever dated who I actually
made and kept a list of things about on my phone.
A list of things that either bothered me or that I didn't like.
I think that list had literally about 25 different items ranging from not clipping his fingernails
regularly, which that really, really irked me.
Worrying constantly about money and being cheap.
Ordering water everywhere and almost never having a drink with me.
Not saying any cuss or bad words since his family conditioned him not to use bad language,
even when driving and getting angry.
Had reciprocity, not showing passion.
He was too casual for my, I guess, ideal clothing style.
Didn't own a passport ever and didn't show an interest in traveling abroad ever.
I think I just started finding reasons to add to that list.
For example, I don't like how he wears a hat.
Like I was just going on a whole tangent, but very clearly that alone was a sign that
this probably wouldn't have worked anyway.
Even if he was the wholesome type of guy who my family would have really liked.
We ended things very cordially and I still to this day believe and hope that he finds
a girl who is better aligned with his values and priorities than I was.
That goes without saying that just because you aren't romantically compatible with someone
doesn't mean they're not wonderful people because many, at least for me, are and were.
Guy number three and four are both similar in a lot of ways when it comes to superficiality
and being selfish, but I'll start with someone I'll refer to as Mr. Superficial.
There actually isn't too much to say about Mr. Superficial, but he was in his early thirties
and made a career for himself in real estate development and had his own business on the
side.
I also honestly felt insecure about telling him about my own career and job because I
wasn't and still am not a big shot like this guy was coming off as.
He was the son of a dermatologist and his mom, I believe, was a lawyer and he was raised
Jewish.
I felt like it was a shame for me to turn up to his parents with someone less esteemed
than they all were, but that's a whole other conversation for another day.
Anyway, there was this one date with Mr. Superficial when I was over at his condo in Atlanta.
We were sitting around and talking about some of our past dates and dating history.
He told me that there was this one girl not too long before me who he had dated for two
months and he broke things off with her because as he said, I don't know, I got tired of her
body after some time, so I just broke up with her.
And if you follow me on Instagram, you may have heard this story, but yeah, here we are
again.
That alone raised a lot of red flags and made me feel so uncomfortable and even more insecure
about my own body than I already was feeling at the time.
I even thought for a second that he was maybe kidding, but no, he was really serious.
On top of not being as work flexible as he was and me being insecure about my career
and job situation, he had wanted us to go and work out together at his gym on one work
day, but I didn't feel comfortable enough with him to say that I was flexible, but I
wasn't that flexible because of work.
He also didn't ask too much about me and after a while, he didn't seem really interested
or to respond to my suggestions to seeing me again.
So this is bad to say, but we more or less ghosted each other, but still have each other
on Instagram.
Like what a modern world we live in to say the least, nothing hostile, but I wouldn't
have felt like I could be myself or like I could relax around this guy if he really did
want someone with a great body all the time and wanted someone super high up the corporate
ladder on top of that.
Guy number four who we're calling Mr. Oblivious and Selfish is someone I started dating immediately
after things flared out with Mr. Superficial.
He was also in his early thirties and was established in his career as a financial analyst
and had actually moved from his native Chicago to Atlanta for that very job opportunity and
promotion.
Mr. Oblivious and Selfish had actually swiped right on me on Hinge about five times before
I actually decided to give him a shot.
I did find him and his profile attractive, but the reason I didn't respond to his previous
swipes was because there was no written message or extra thought that I could see that was
put into it and I had always wanted to look for guys on dating apps who looked like they
were genuinely interested and showed it by adding a message to their swipe.
Mr. Oblivious and Selfish never left any sort of message even with the fifth time he swiped,
but because he was so persistent and because I had thought to myself, okay, he is being
persistent maybe I'll just be surprised and I just need to give him a try and I decided
to do just that.
Mr. Oblivious and Selfish gets his name because in his defense, I do believe that he was nervous
on the two occasions we did meet up and was oblivious to the fact that he had horrible
eye contact, never looked at me and was both oblivious and selfish when he barely asked
me anything about myself at all.
It was mainly me asking him so many questions and he was an open book talking especially
about his job and what he was doing and himself.
I would ask him, so I know you moved down to Atlanta from Chicago for work.
How do you feel about being here in Atlanta?
And he'd say something like, oh yeah, I like the weather down here.
It's really nice.
Okay.
So what about your hobbies?
What do you like to do outside of work?
Oh, I like to play golf sometimes.
I like to run.
I like to try new breweries and restaurants and more crickets.
And I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, when the hell are you going to ask me something
about anything about me?
Are you even curious?
The only thing he did ask me on the first date was why I lived in Turkey and why I moved
back, which I'll get to that in a future episode.
But that's about as far as his curiosity went.
He didn't ask me about my interests, my goals in life, my travels.
He didn't ask anything else.
He said at the end of our first date, let me know if you want to see me again.
And I'm just thinking, yeah, I do want to see you again, but do you want to see me again?
And I think at the time I did like him enough to see him again.
And I did ask him that same thing.
Do you want to see me again?
And he did say yes.
The second time we met, we walked around the Atlanta Beltline on this beautiful Sunday
early afternoon drinking beer and strolling around the path and he would just blab away
about his job, what all he was doing, what all he liked about his clients.
I'm all about learning about someone and being the overly curious person that I am.
But I also expect some decent amount of curiosity in return from the person I'm with.
And I was not getting that from Mr. Oblivious and Selfish in person or over text.
There was this one brewery called Brew Dog that we went to along the Beltline and we
were again sitting at the bar drinking beers and talking, him more about himself.
Of course, I was going to be nice as a good gesture to him at the time and pay for his
drinks since he had paid for dinner the previous date we were together and I didn't want to
come off as this girl who didn't reciprocate and appreciate someone for paying for me.
The second I got out my credit card and was about to pay the bartender for both my drinks
and his, he was so oblivious again and didn't look at me and said to the bartender, oh no,
I've got my own.
Oh my gosh, dude, I was just about to do you something nice and you didn't even bother
to look and check.
My God.
After that Sunday afternoon, I continued to text and talk to Mr. Oblivious and Selfish
and I thought that maybe he just didn't realize or doesn't know that he is being selfish
and oblivious to not showing more interest.
I really didn't think he was interested, so I kind of pulled back and didn't talk to him
as much.
I was going on this long weekend trip to Toronto, Canada to visit my friend who lives there
and I had told him about that trip and he texted me on the day I was leaving and told
me have a good trip and have fun in Canada.
So he wasn't completely clueless and he did write proper full paragraph texts, which I
like and not just one worders, but I didn't understand why I didn't feel he was putting
in the same effort because he really wasn't.
It was then that I told him, thanks so much.
You know, I didn't think you would have cared or would remember that because I have felt
recently you have not been as interested in me and have not texted me and asked me about
me and he responded with something like, I'm just really introverted and nervous and I
am interested, but at that point I had dated some other guys before him who were even more
introverted than he was, who had put in more effort and who were definitely more curious
and showing it than he was.
So after that, I basically let Mr. Oblivious and Selfish slide away and we more or less
also ghosted each other.
But what I should have done was have more courtesy to at least send him a text and tell
him what he should do differently with other girls in the future and about his oblivion
and more selfless approach to talking only about himself.
That leads us now to our final and last person, a guy you all know and have heard on the podcast
who we're going to call Mr. One European in a haystack, or actually, no, not really.
We're just going to call him Marco, the only guy in this episode who is going by his real
name.
By now, if you've listened this far into the podcast in general, and if you've listened
to other episodes, you'll already be very familiar with Marco, aka Mr. One European
in a haystack.
When I told Marco that this was going to be his nickname for this episode, he replied
with, Oh God, but I told him you should be happy that you have a positive nickname with
good connotations and not bad ones like the previous four you've just listened to here.
I met Marco back in March 2023, just a few short weeks after I had more or less written
off Mr. Oblivious and Selfish and was in a major dating slump.
I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning.
I didn't feel happy even about the little things in my life.
I felt like I had reached a dead end that I didn't understand why every guy I was meeting
wasn't working out, not showing interest, not wanting to have what I wanted.
I remember at the beginning of March, feeling so hopeless and even saying a little prayer
to God while driving home one day from work, which if you know me, you know I'm not a very
religious person, but I do have my little rare moments like this where I said to God,
God, I don't know what plan you have for me or when my time will come to meet my person,
but I really can't wait until the day you do introduce me to my person because this
all really, really sucks.
I'm not sure if the timing of that little prayer was a coincidence to meeting Marco
just a few short weeks later, but I like to look back on that and see it as a sign that
it was not a coincidence.
Marco sent me a rose on Hinge, which if you're familiar with Hinge, you know that this is
like a super like, and he did leave me a written thoughtful message with his swipe just as
I had wanted a guy to do.
I had had a written prompt on my profile with two truths and one lie, and I said something
about not having been to a hair salon in at the time over 15 years, which that actually
is true.
And Marco replied to the prompt and said, that's tougher than one might think.
All I can say is your hair looks great.
And little did either of us know that that was just the beginning of a whole lot of talking,
a lot of chemistry building, and nearly two years later of now being and living together.
What prompted me to respond to Marco's swipe even more was looking at his profile and seeing
that he was from Europe somewhere since he wrote that, and a connection to Europe was
immediately established.
Marco put in the same amount of effort that I did when it came to asking questions, being
curious, being interested, being involved, and wanted the same things that I did mostly.
We would text every single day and eventually video called almost every day the first week
we started talking and getting to know each other before we actually did meet in person.
And even on our first date, we ended up talking for almost four hours, and it probably would
have been even longer than that had we not been kicked out of the restaurant we were
at since it was nighttime and the restaurant was closing.
There's a whole lot more I can say about the journey alone with Marco, but what I can say
is that he isn't superficial.
He isn't oblivious.
He isn't selfish.
He isn't a diehard Christian guy who wants to center life only around church and is okay
with not having a passport.
That is not okay.
And he isn't so bright and handsome that he isn't reachable or connectable.
Marco is the perfect balance of everything that a super emotional, sensitive, travel
enthusiast and vulnerable girl like me needs in terms of thriving and being stable.
Like I said at the beginning of this episode, I had stated that I had always imagined meeting
and being with a European and meeting organically on my travel somewhere or on a travel meetup
website.
But the way that I found and have kept Marco is more special of a gift than I ever could
have imagined or predicted back then.
It's important to kiss many frogs and utilize the lessons that come from saying goodbye
to them in order to find your prince or princess.
Meeting when coming back from Europe and Turkey was such a valuable, albeit at times emotionally
painful and draining process.
And I wouldn't take any of my weird dating fails or experiences or any of these four
American guys and their quirks for nothing.
So if you're listening to this and you are single and wanting to find your person, the
moral of this story is not to give up.
Keep putting yourself in situations where you can meet people.
And with every single person you meet, you do come one person and opportunity closer
to meeting the one for you.
Good things always tend to come when you're thinking and expecting them the least.
That's no secret, but I think it's relevant to mention that.
And it's with these lessons that I leave and wrap up today's episode on my post Europe
dating journey here in America.
I hope that you enjoyed and could relate to at least one of these types of guys in your
own dating journey and that you remember to embrace the dating process, celebrate the
wins, laugh at the fails, learn from the fails and keep on walking.
I look forward to tuning in with you again next Tuesday for another fun, adventurous
trip of an episode.