NEVER date a guy who studied philosophy.

Last night I went on a Tinder date for the first time since I ended a LTR that had become abusive.

Tinder guy seemed intelligent, attractive, employed... all the usual things I look for in a partner.

We met at the bar and ordered drinks. As the conversation developed, I could sense he had a really strange attitude. It was a combination of an unearned sense of superiority, unnecessary oppositional behavior, and inexplicable misdirected hostility, all poorly concealed under a thin veil of self-serving liberalism.

My spidey senses were tingling so I asked, "hey just curious, what was your major in university?" But I already knew the answer.

"Philosophy" he said, proudly.

"Oh, cool..." I said, rolling my eyes, flooded with memories of past Tinder escapades from my late teens and early 20s.

In my experience, men who study philosophy are just... the worst people. Women who study philosophy are fine, because they just want to read and learn and have cool discussions. Whereas men who have studied philosophy seek to dominate.

They are so convinced of their own genius that they constantly interrupt or talk over me. They will go on and on mansplaining a basic concept I'm already familiar with. They're boring. They don't actually listen to what I have to say and instead wait for me to stop talking (or they don't bother and just interrupt) so they they can parrot some canned talking point they saw on Reddit.

If I expess any kind of opinion, they immediately play "devil's advocate" and argue against literally any position I take, not because they actually believe it, but because they just love the sound of their own voice. To them, every conversation has "winners" and "losers", and no matter how objectively, factually, demonstrably wrong they are, they will still argue until they are blue in the face. If they sense they are "losing" a "debate" (aka a normal conversation) they often resort to cheap derailing tactics, logical fallacies, and "whataboutism"

Now, I graduated with honors from a prestigious university. I'm no dummy. I've done my fair share of reading. I can discuss Hegel, Heidegger, and Sartre just as good if not better than most male self-described philosophers.

Frankly, I've never met a male philosophy student who wasn't a contrarian, arrogant, narcissist, and misogynist. (Fun fact: many of the gReAt philosophers thought women were like children at best, and evil and sinister at worst). It's almost like the only reason these dudes studied philosophy was to learn the vocabulary and argumentation needed to justify and reinforce their distorted attitudes about themselves, the world, and women.

Unfortunately, because I chose to study liberal arts, I've been surrounded by such men in school, work, and friend circles. I've even been on dates with some of them. Fortunately, my education has equipped me with the vocabulary, argumentation, critical thinking skills, and mental fortitude needed to defeat and avoid them.

Last night I finished my one drink as quickly as possible and slammed it on the table. Without even waiting for him to finish whatever dull talking point he was trying to make, I stood up abruptly, said "thanks for the drink" and left.

He texted me later asking what happened. When I didn't reply within minutes, he texted me again insulting me and saying I STOLE from him because I didn't pay for my drink. So, I blocked him.

In conclusion: never date a guy who studied philosophy. Huge red flag. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Edit: I would also like to add libertarians to the "do not date" list. They are basically sociopaths dressing up their distorted morals as a political philosophy.