You Can’t Trick Someone Into Dating You by Pretending to Interview Them for a Job

By Nicole Dieker July 21, 2016

Nobody likes a bait and switch.

I am on a plane right now, en route to San Diego (I’m reading short fiction at the sixth annual Space Time show on Friday, you should totally come), but I wanted to share one more WHAT IS GOING ON WITH DATING CULTURE story:

was I asked to a fake interview by someone who was lonely or looking for dates? – Ask a Manager

You can already see where this is going, but here’s an excerpt:

I was contacted on LinkedIn by someone at a very prestigious company, saying they were looking for someone with my skill set. I told him (let’s call him Andy) I was interested, and he set up an interview. But when I went in for the meeting, the other person who was supposed to attend never did, and Andy kept me there for over two hours, talking on and on about personal matters. Even then, it was not easy to bring the meeting to a close.

Ask A Manager’s Alison Green agrees with the letter writer: it’s hard to tell whether Andy was trying to trick the LW into dating him or whether he was just “lonely and looking for company,” but it’s pretty clear that he was using his leverage as someone who can make hiring decisions to manipulate the LW into both an in-person interview and a follow-up phone interview, neither of which were actually about a job.

It gets better once you read the comments, because first you learn that another commenter had a similar is-this-interview-a-surprise-date experience, and then you get an update from the LW:

Well guys — this gets weirder! I tried to get a hold of the HR manager Andy mentioned (verbally and in an email) by full name and NO ONE by that name works at the company.

Yeah, lying and subterfuge is no way to start a relationship with someone, whether you’re romance-dating or friend-dating.

Also, if you haven’t yet read Ester’s two-part interview with Alison Green and Ms. Businesslady, here you go:

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