Ask For Angela - Keep Safe While You Date*

Whilst love, sex and relationships are spoken about across mainstream media platforms a lot, one topic that isn’t often brought up is safety in these situations. While safety is always paramount in any kind of relationship, it is particularly important at the beginning of a relationship, when you first start dating someone. You are essentially doing what your parents always warned you against doing – meeting up with a stranger (who you may or may not have met online) that you probably don’t know too much about, and this can sometimes be incredibly dangerous.

Of course you should use your common sense and do all the sensible things – tell several friends and family members all about your date. Tell them their name, age, where they work, where they’re from and most importantly of all, where you’re meeting and what time. Make sure you meet your date in a public place with lots of people, and if you can, try and meet your date somewhere that you’re familiar with.

But what if you do all of that? What if you follow all the normal rules but something about your date still isn’t quite right?

That’s where Ask for Angela comes into play. Lincolnshire County Council launched the campaign and it hasn’t taken long for it to spread across the UK (although sometimes with a name change). The idea of the campaign is simple. If your date is making you feel uncomfortable, vulnerable or unsafe in any way, go up to the bar and ask for ‘Angela’. This will alert the member of staff to your situation and they will help you to safely leave the building without causing a scene with your date. The campaign has proven to be very popular, and very successful, and has even had support from the free dating site, We Love Dates, who have created their own mini campaign on their website and Facebook page to support the movement.

While it is predominantly a UK campaign that started in Lincolnshire, it has reached the far corners of the UK and has even achieved recognition in the states, with Hollywood mega star Ashton Kutcher giving the campaign his nod of approval! In addition to this, posters are now popping up in bathrooms at clubs, pubs, bars and restaurants that encourage people to ask for ‘Angela’ if they need help, and also provides relevant contact details for crisis helplines. Now, even dating websites are getting involved, such as the free dating site We Love Dates. They have created a mini campaign on their Facebook page and have worked with a number of people to help raise awareness of Ask for Angela – which is absolutely fabulous, as we all know the risks that come with online dating!

It’s sad that we live in a world where campaigns like this are needed, but it’s so good to see the campaign being rolled out successfully on a national scale, and being acknowledged by dating sites, bars, clubs and so on. We need to protect ourselves and those around us, and if you could lend a helping hand by being ‘Angela’, why wouldn’t you?

Dating should be fun, and you should be able to go on as many dates as you like, whenever you like! But you should always remember to stay safe.

What do you think of the Ask for Angela campaign?

Love from,

Florence Grace

This post was sponsored by We Love Dates but all thoughts and opinions are my own.