Date Night in London: Great Until it Wasn't

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This is a story from October 2023 during my first year of full-time travel across the world. It is the short version of a section from my first book, The Great Gallivanting: A Journey of Realisation and Discovery Across the World (available here).

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In Belfast, Northern Ireland, Jo and I met an American girl named Annie on a walking tour. She was from North Carolina, previously worked as a vaccine scientist, and was travelling the world for six months. She was a bit shorter than me with long, brown hair, and beautiful eyes. Jo could tell that I was smitten at once. And why shouldn't I have been? She had a lively personality, wonderful smile, and was up for getting drinks with Jo and me later on. Annie and I hit it off straight away; unfortunately, she was heading off to Scotland while Jo and I flew to England.

As fate would have it, Jo and I found ourselves in Scotland on an unplanned, two-day excursion before taking the train to London for our last stop on the European continent before flying to North Africa. Being the Casanova I am, I texted Annie to see if she was still around, but, sadly, she wasn't. She had moved on to the Scottish Highlands far from where Jo and I were staying. A little deflated, I remembered that Annie mentioned that she would be in London at the same time as Jo and me, so I threw caution to the wind and asked if she would like to go on a proper date when we were both in London.

To my honest surprise, she said yes! I was stoked, and Jo could tell. I had had a long streak of bad luck with women through the decade prior, and I was honestly looking for something real with someone. Would I find it on the road? Probably not, but a North Carolina girl wasn't exactly someone I couldn't meet back in the States and continue things with if it went well. Annie's old job was holding her position for her if she decided to come back, and I could easily get a job in the security or government sector if I needed to. Was all of this putting the cart before the horse? Absolutely, but when you're thirty-one going on a date in a foreign country, the long-term prospects tend to be at the forefront of any serious date night possibilities.

The next few days went by as Jo and I explored London, me eagerly awaiting my date with Annie. I had it all planned out. First, we would go to a five-star Spanish restaurant about halfway between us, then we'd take a stroll through a park, and finally, we would settle at this elegant pub that once served as an officer's bar for the British military. It would be an expensive night, but it was worth it to go on my first real date in several years. I was confident that it would go well, and Annie and I would continue talking, maybe go on another date or few, when the night was over.

That would not be the case.

I should have known the night would be trouble when I arrived to her hostel to pick her up. She wasn't there. She was on her way back from touring the Tower of London. On the one hand, I understood. We were both travellers with only so much time in a city. On the other, this date was a week in the making, and I more than hoped she would have taken some level of effort to get ready. I didn't mind jeans and a t-shirt, but at least a fresh shower. Instead, she arrived straight from the metro, and we headed out.

Dinner went well enough. We talked about our travels and our past careers. She seemed interested in my time as a police officer years before, which was a rarity in the world in 2023. Most Americans I met on the road condemned American policing and the officers which provided it outright, but she actually listened without commenting. Annie told me about her time as a scientist and how she came to be in that line of work. She was certainly smarter than me.

Our stroll through the park was uneventful. Our time at the pub was not. As happens, the conversation turned to politics. I try to stay away from politics on dates, because there are very few issues that I believe partners must be in sync on; most issues have little effect on a relationship. When making the point that I don't like to talk politics on dates, because too often those conversations talk past each other, I used the example of the abortion argument. The two sides didn't agree on what they were actually arguing about (one talks about unborn children while the other talks about women’s bodies); therefore, the conversations never went anywhere, making them pointless.

That's when she asked me where I stood on the abortion issue. Apparently, I didn't answer correctly. When I told her my position (which, basically, is pro in specific cases, anti in others, and not sure in the rest), she countered with, "I mean, I'm pretty far left. Like, I'm a lefty." And that was that. The conversation I was trying to avoid, that I had specifically said I wanted to avoid for this exact reason, was upon me. I tried to be gentle and understanding on my part, but I had tripped the breaker that triggers the dogmatic political machine hardwired into young, leftist, Americans (especially, in my experience, young, leftist, American women). Nothing I could say, no amount of acquiescence on the specific cases, could please her if I didn't wholesale endorse abortion on demand. As much as I tried to steer the conversation away, even excusing myself to the toilet at one point, I could do no such thing.

We parted ways at the metro. No kiss, no "I had a great time," no "let's do this again," nothing. When I got back to the hostel, Jo asked how the date went. All I said was, "The tolerant left strikes again." She immediately understood, having run in the same social circles as me in graduate school. It was a fact of modern American politics: the tolerant among us were the most intolerant of us all. I never spoke to Annie again, despite my efforts.

As I said, I don't believe political beliefs, for the most part, should factor into a relationship. Sure, issues like abortion and the transgender ideology need to be in sync, but stances on gun ownership, Palestinian sovereignty, Black Lives Matter, climate change, tax policy, and the military-industrial complex shouldn't dictate the compatibility of two potential life partners. Unfortunately, after Annie, I learned that anyone on the left who makes their political identity part of their personal identity is someone I need to avoid. Not because I disagree with their politics, but because I won't like how they treat me as a result. I've met women who are politically opposite of me that don't wear their political identity on their shirt, and we've had amazing times, conversations, and dates, but those who do are less interested in getting to know me as a person and more interested in evangelising their ideology.

Sadly, someone as high-calibre, intelligent, and beautiful as Annie was one of those people.