Meet the woman who’s dating her way into meals at top Toronto restaurants

Plenty of people go on blind dates. But it takes a unique personality to go on blind dates just to gorge on restaurant food. Meet Erin, a 24-year-old struggling actress in Toronto with a 48-restaurant-long hit list, a meagre bank account and a mission to use and abuse Toronto dudes. On her blog, A Penniless Girl, Bad Dates and Plenty of Oysters, she chronicles her not-so-secret life as a food-obsessed serial dater. And there isn’t too much she won’t do for a free gourmet meal. Masquerade as a practicing Jew in order to date guys on J-Date? Sure. (“I’d say my Hebrew is on the rougher side”). Target recent immigrants to avoid risking detection? Absolutely. Serial dating, of course, comes with its downsides, like struggling to keep track of all her squires (or, as she puts it, “Trying to figure out who the fuck is who”) and being outed on Reddit, where two different threads have already netted 650 comments, ranging from the mildly interested (“Meh. I’d spend $20 on her”) to the extremely angry (“I started reading her blog and wanted to punch her through my screen”). Her response to the backlash? “Haters gon’ hate.”