This post was originally published on Audible.com.
Ah, courtship. Equal parts excitement and angst, dating can quickly turn toxic with the dreaded appearance of red flags, from familiar misbehaviors like rudeness and cheating to contemporary buzzwords like gaslighting, ghosting (ceasing all communications without giving a reason), love bombing (showering a partner with too much affection early on), and benching (keeping potential partners on the back burner while focusing on higher priority relationships in the meantime). These true stories of dating nightmares present worst-case scenarios—but also valuable lessons from the front lines of modern dating.
Anna Akbari took us on a JOURNEY with her stranger-than-fiction memoir about how a stranger can be ... fiction. A feisty young sociologist in the early days of online dating, Akbari began chatting with a witty New Yorker named Ethan. Ethan’s lofty job meant lots of travel, long hours, and an Irish phone that made email and text his sole methods of communication. Anna fell hard for his clever, sexy messages—irresistibly voiced by Justin Price, the perfect complement to Akbari’s own narration. But as their intimacy deepened, Ethan’s excuses to avoid meeting raised major red flags. The catfishing memoir to end all catfishing memoirs, There Is No Ethan will have you listening compulsively—just don’t google the case until you finish, for maximum effect.
It’s 1995, and Bob Bierenbaum seems like quite the catch—he's a plastic surgeon who flies planes and speaks multiple languages. Plus, he's Jewish, which is a bonus for Carole Fisher, a divorcée looking for love in Las Vegas. But there's something off about Bob. He has a temper and avoids talking about his ex-wife, though it turns out there's a good reason—she's missing and presumed dead. After they break up, Carole ends up connecting with some of Bob's other exes, and together, they dig into find the truth about Gail Katz’s mysterious death.
Hosted by author and dating expert Gabi Conti, this Audible Original podcast offers a down-to-earth take on dating strangers and red flags to take seriously when getting to know a potential romantic partner. In each episode, Conti features a guest with a real-life dating disaster story and then analyzes what went wrong, with attention to the clear warning signs of danger that were either misread or dismissed. Is that sweet, goofy guy just socially awkward or a sociopath? Is that striking woman a narcissist or simply confident? Could you be a victim of catfishing, "dogfishing," or something far worse? This is a great podcast if you want to learn from other people's dating horror stories and feel comforted and empowered embarking on your own first dates.
This stunning memoir about love, identity, and domestic abuse is an absolute must-listen. Experimental in structure, Carmen Marie Machado’s short chapters and various literary devices tell the story of her two years in graduate school, when she fell for a beguiling woman who turned abusive. She reveals the emotional abuse and manipulation she endured while also analyzing why instances of domestic abuse between queer couples are rarely revealed or explored in literature. Machado narrates this mesmerizing work, which is an important addition to the canon of queer memoirs.
It's a built-in hazard of online dating: You think you've made a real connection with someone, but you haven’t yet met in real life. Could this be the relationship of your dreams, or are you being catfished? We're not talking about literal fish in the sea but a more insidious creature—a “catfish” is someone who creates a false online identity to pursue romantic relationships. This podcast extension of the hit MTV series brings host Nev Schulman to help people track down their online love interests and uncover whether that person is a real catch … or a catfish.
Debra Newell is a successful interior designer. She meets John Meehan, a handsome man who seems to check all the boxes—attentive, available, just back from a year in Iraq with Doctors Without Borders. But her family doesn’t like John, and they get entangled in an increasingly complex web of love, deception, forgiveness, denial, and ultimately, survival. Dirty John is reported and hosted by Christopher Goffard from the L.A. Times.