It’s the stuff of dating nightmares: you’re halfway through a date that’s going really well and nature calls, in an epic way. For one woman, taking a shit on her Tinder date ended up in a fire crew rescuing her from in-between two windows after she got stuck trying to retrieve the poo she’d lobbed out the window after not being able to flush it down the loo.
The reaction to #poodate has been a mix of sympathy (the GoFundMe page to cover the cost of the broken window has smashed its goal), and incredulity. Many people, including staff at The Debrief HQ and people on Twitter, smell a poo-shaped rat.
Lots of us have heard this story, in some guise, before. This is the third Tinder-date-gone-wrong story involving faeces I myself have been told just in the last month. Snopes, the online fact-checking site, has a shedload of examples of similar stories, all busted as pure folklore.
While we can assume the #poodate story is actually true – the BBC has gone to great lengths to thoroughly report it – the fact remains that all the best dating urban legends do involve poo. But why?
Maybe it’s because when it comes to women, particularly in a romantic context, talking about taking a shit is still taboo. We can date men from the internet and sleep with them without being slut-shamed. We can talk about periods. A lot. But the final feminist rubicon we can’t seem to traverse apparently is poo. It’s still a no-go to admit to something we do every day: passing waste. Something literally every single human on this earth does.
And so the ultimate dating horror story defacto involves a number two. In the same way the scariest campfire spook stories involve an unearthly creature coming to get you in your sleep, in the dating world, there’s nothing more horrific than poo.
But maybe #poodate has taught us that it is ok to talk about it. You do have to applaud this guy Liam. He handled the situation pretty well, all things considered. The pair even went on a second date and he had nothing but praise for his companion.
So next time you’re on a date, relax, take a load off. Just maybe ask if the guy has a plunger you can borrow.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.