I was date raped by my Tinder date & afterwards he pretended we had a one-night stand
A WOMAN was raped by her Tinder date who then pretended they had had a one-night stand, she has bravely revealed.
Zoe Rosi said she woke up with a "horrible dark feeling inside" the next morning when she realised both she and her alleged attacker were naked.
She only had two glasses of wine the previous night at the pub before blacking out because her date spiked her drink when she went to the loo.
He took her outside for air in Woolwich, South East London, when her vision got blurry and then put her in a taxi.
He gave the driver cash, acted like he was looking after her because she was drunk and the last thing she remembers was being in her bedroom.
Courageously waiving her anonymity to share her ordeal, novelist Zoe said: "I woke up the next morning, and he was just like lying next to me.
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He was acting like we just had a one night stand, he was just a bit sheepish and got up and left quickly
Zoe Rosi
"I knew we'd had sex, we were both naked. I just remember thinking what the hell happened?
"I felt this horrible dark feeling inside, like something was really wrong.
"But I didn't really know if it was wrong, I was thinking maybe I just got too drunk, and maybe it's my fault.
";I knew I was too drunk to have consented to that, or too out of it to have consented.
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"And so that's why I was feeling quite guilty and bad about it. I knew something was wrong, seriously wrong, but I didn't want to admit it.
"I didn't want to think I got raped, because that is really traumatic.
"He was acting like we just had a one night stand, he was just a bit sheepish and got up and left quickly."
DATE RAPE HELL
Zoe said the man seemed "humble and normal" when they matched on Tinder, but had some gym selfies that made him seem "a bit vain".
He had told her over text that he read books and they eventually met up.
But she began feeling "really, really drunk and out of it" on her second glass of wine, which was unusual for her.
She added: "I texted an older male friend from work about what happened, who's from a different generation, and he replied saying you haven't done anything thousands of other women do on a Saturday night.
"So I thought to myself, 'maybe it's normal' but looking back that was such a misogynistic thing to say.
"I thought I could put it out of my mind, but it wasn't that easy - afterwards I began feeling really violated, and really low, and my self esteem went down a lot because I thought I'm just a worthless person who no one respects and men can just use.
"I thought, to men I am just a piece of meat.
"The guy texted me a few times afterwards, not asking to meet up but acting everything was normal, so I replied like that.
"After around a few months I started to realise that really wasn't right, but by that point I had no DNA because I'd washed it all off, and only some texts that looked like a one night stand.
"I spoke about it briefly with the police who said they could take a witness statement but they couldn't do anything because the Crown Prosecution Service wouldn't do anything."
"When I went back on the Tinder app a couple of times after it happened I felt like lamb to the slaughter, it was like self-harm.
"There's a lot of dodgy guys on there, they'll just act like they're on Uber Eats and they're ordering a pizza and ask you to come over to their place for a hook-up - you don't even know me, why would I do that?"
"It made me lose faith in men for a long time, I would be very careful, I think people should be friends before they become anything else because people can be a persona to get what they want.
"I now think it's a good thing to have a daytime date, without alcohol, just a coffee and a walk, and if a guy is decent and actually wants to get to know you he would be totally fine with that.
"If you're talking to a predator, they probably won't have the patience for that."
Zoe has since written the novel Pretty Evil, for which TV rights are being optioned, as a therapeutic outlet following the rape in 2018.
Zoe said she felt fortunate she could use writing as an outlet to process what was done to her.
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"I think I'm very lucky because I write and I'm creative, when something difficult happens to me I use it as material, and I really feel for people who don't have that outlet.
"It's very easy to internalise a lot of pain and shame about rape and sexual assault, for a while I didn't feel like myself at all."
