‘Red flag’ dating act proves Aussie men need a reality check
A Melbourne woman's dating horror story has gone viral after her date secretly arranged for her to meet his entire family on their third outing together.
Alessandra Maiolo thought she was gearing up for a typical third date, but ended up meeting the man’s entire family for dinner and a musical instead.
The Melbourne makeup artist, who goes by @makeupbyalessandra online, said the “cogs were turning in her head” when she arrived at a restaurant, only to be greeted by the man’s mum and relatives.
“I was honestly just trying to piece it all together,” the 29-year-old told news.com.au.
“I’m Italian, we don’t just bring someone to dinner unless it’s serious, and he hadn’t even told me we were meeting them.”
The ‘awkward’ third date
It all started when the man insisted a few days earlier that Alessandra cancel her plans with her friends on Thursday because he had a spare ticket to Michael Jackson the Musical.
“He was really coy about it all, I was like, did you buy these tickets for Thursday? Why is Thursday the only option?”
Yet despite her queries, he seemed to expect her to cancel on her friends.
When Alessandra finally met him on Thursday night (she admitted that modern dating sometimes requires some flexibility and shuffling of plans), he told her there’d be a dinner beforehand with “a few other people” joining.
At the restaurant, she exchanged nervous double kisses with an older woman seated at the table who then referred to her date as “darling” and asked him how his day was.
Quickly, she pieced it all together: this was his mum, and she was at a family gathering.
During the dinner, one of the girlfriends asked how long they’d been dating. When she said it was only their third date, the family laughed in disbelief, and were shocked that she hadn’t known she was meeting all of them.
“I tried to play it cool, thinking he might have a good explanation – but I felt so uncomfortable,” she said.
She then pulled her date aside and confronted him about the awkward situation.
“I asked, ‘Do you usually bring girls to meet the family on the third date?’ and he said, ‘Sometimes on the first date’, which I found out later was actually true.
“He also said that he thought that if he had told me beforehand, I wouldn’t have come.”
She ended up having a nice night, but the following day, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole thing felt a little off.
“I was expecting him to message me the next day, but I didn’t hear from him until around 8pm, which kind of threw me,” she said.
“It’s like, you’ve just introduced me to your whole family, and now you’ve barely spoken to me, or acknowledged that that was a little uncomfortable for me”.
When they chatted about it, he didn’t understand why she was confused and told her he “didn’t think it was a big deal” but also “likes to see people squirm”.
This was the nail in the coffin for her, and she ultimately decided that they weren’t on the same page. “We couldn’t understand each other. I had to explain why it was a big deal and that he put me in that situation without warning.”
After sharing this wild dating story on TikTok with her nearly 80,000 followers, it racked up almost a million views – with many agreeing the man was a “walking red flag”.
“He was testing your limits to see what he could get away with,” one person suggested.
“They want to parade you around as a trophy when they haven’t done the courting or earned it yet,” another replied.
To add another layer to the story, the man’s mum had told her during their dinner that she’d seen her on TikTok talking about other dating stories.
“She was like, you’re going to make a video about tonight, aren’t you?!” she laughed.
The ‘reply guy’
Alessandra’s other viral story is about another kind of dating frustration – a guy who was all-in over messaging but never showed any real commitment to meeting.
While travelling in Italy, she connected with a man who constantly messaged her for over a month, responding to every story, replying to her photos, and actively chatting about his day.
It seemed promising.
“He told me he couldn’t wait for me to be back so he could take me out,” she said.
But the moment she got back to Melbourne, he suddenly stopped messaging, and when she reached out, he kept postponing making plans.
“He’d say yes, but cancel at the last minute,” she recalled.
Eventually, they locked in plans for drinks, but on the day they were meant to meet, he ignored her messages all afternoon.
He ended up messaging her something about the bad weather and then said he’d been “feeling off” all week.
This kind of behaviour is a textbook example of “the reply guy” phenomenon, recently described by The Guardian.
It’s men who will maintain low-effort conversations – often with multiple women – but then will go silent when a woman shows any genuine interest.
Alessandra says she “doesn’t know” why they do it, but thinks they “might be lonely and get a kick out of messaging girls and knowing they’ve still ‘got it’”.
“I said to him something like, ‘Are you just looking for a pen pal? Do you just want to message girls with fire emojis?’”
Dating Aussie men
Having lived part-time in Italy and travelled a lot, Alessandra says she’s noticed a huge difference in dating culture overseas.
Italian men, for all their flaws, tend to be more romantic in their approach.
“Over there, they’ll make grand gestures, ask questions, and show interest and effort. They’ll start a conversation and actually want to know about you,” she says.
In contrast, Aussie men often struggle to strike up a basic conversation.
“You could be standing right next to someone with open body language and not get a single word,” she said.
Alessandra says that a waiter in Melbourne casually chatted with her recently, and she found the act so refreshing that she immediately noticed it wasn’t typical local behaviour. “He was Italian – and it’s just normal for them to talk and be friendly,” she said.
It’s an essential trait she looks for in a partner.
“They need to take initiative, make an effort and have good energy,” she said. “Also be ambitious and be family orientated”.
Maybe just not as family orientated as that first guy!
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Originally published as ‘Red flag’ dating act proves Aussie men need a reality check
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