I went on a date recently that really made me sad. It also made me angry, annoyed and frustrated. But I guess the core feeling was one of sadness.

We messaged for several weeks. He seemed nice enough. Conversation was easy and flowing if not hugely exciting. He sent over several pictures of him that looked like he was standing in pools of light. We agreed to go for a walk in a country park halfway between both of us and if it started to rain then we’d grab a drink in a local pub or the cafe at the country park.

When I got there there was a bit of back and forth over text about where we both were, where we were going to meet. And as soon as I saw him I knew immediately what had happened.

He’d misled me about his ethnicity. The pool of light pictures were saturated so heavily as to make him appear white passing instead of his actual ethnicity, which though I didn’t ask, is of an Indian background. His name was also anglicised to appear more English, I’d imagine.

His appearance as well was definitely misleading, he walked with the gait of an older person and he …just looked older than the 44 he’d told me he was. I only briefly sat down with him and one of the first things I brought up was the age of his children. He’d only mentioned them in his messages beforehand and I didn’t mind the brevity of that, but I was curious as to how he’d react to a direct question face to face. He paused very considerably before (I believe) telling the truth about their ages. He’d said in messages that he ‘was very young when he had them, younger than is now typical’ – and I now knew why this bizarre reasoning for why his children are older than is typical of a man whose age he lied about.

In some ways I get it. Indian men are discriminated against on dating apps and websites. Older men are perhaps not getting the number of swipes they’d like. Personally, I’m open to all ethnicities and my age range goes up to mid-50s on dating apps.

But what I cannot tolerate, and what I did not tolerate in this date, is any sort of deceptive behaviour. I’m not going to be the person who is all, oh so you lied about your age and ethnicity to show that you’re still desirable and interesting and attractive despite those things, cool. No. You lied to me to get me here but that isn’t to say I will stay.

And I didn’t.