Picture this: It’s the summer of 1979, and you’ve just graduated from university. You’re 26, the Race Relations Officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties, dating a rising leftist political activist and councillor for Haringey ward. His politics and dedication to creating a better world excite and motivate you. While you’re passionate about changing the world, you also want to be taken out for dinner. He suggests a surprise date when you mention this to him but keeps the details secret. Filled with excitement, you dress up and get into the car. Expecting to arrive at a fancy restaurant or bar, you’re shocked when he takes you to Karl Marx’s tomb. At that moment, you knew the relationship was doomed.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Diane Abbott shared this amusing and touching story about the time she dated former Labour leader and MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn. While politicians are neither our friends nor figures we should “stan”, Abbott and Corbyn hold a special place in the hearts of leftists, young and old, for their unwavering fight for the people and against the establishment. The fact that they dated and the details about their break-up has taken X by storm. While some joke they “need this so badly” in reference to Corbyn’s steadfast dedication to socialism, others highlight how left-wing men can be “relentlessly dull dates”.

Since the mainstream rise of feminism in the mid-2010s, Trump’s presidency in 2016 and the #MeToo Movement in 2017, stories about leftist men using liberal rhetoric while treating women poorly have become widespread. This phenomenon has inspired popular accounts like @beam_me_up_softboi and characters like Max in Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s Do Revenge (2022). Leftist women and those who date men are all too familiar with the “progressive” man whose politics don’t align with his treatment of others.

Below, five leftists share their experiences dating “progressive men,” offering stories that range from heartwarming romance to chilling horror – and even marriage.

Alice*, 25

“I dated a guy for two and a half years while we were both studying sociology and politics at Oxford, from the ages of 18 to 21. He was a self-proclaimed Marxist, very left-wing, and deeply into Marxist theory. Initially, I was impressed by his intellectualism, as I hadn’t met anyone like him before. However, over time, I realised that his politics didn’t align with how he treated me.

“One of the first red flags was his lack of interest in my heritage. I’m half-Nigerian, and although we studied social theory and critical race theory, which he was very vocal about, he showed no personal interest in my background. For instance, when I met his family, he mentioned that I’d have a lot to talk about with his stepmother, who is Ghanaian, because, in his words, “You’re both Ghanaian.” At that point, we had been dating for a year, and he didn’t even know I wasn’t Ghanaian. I should have broken up with him then, but I didn’t.

“During university, I was the women’s officer at my college and very involved in student politics. I organised events like a Black History Month formal and advocated for gender-neutral toilets. In our final year, in 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s murder, we were applying for jobs. He asked me to proofread his CV, and to my shock, I saw he had listed my achievements as his own. He claimed to have organised the Black History Month formal and implemented gender-neutral toilets – things I had done. He didn’t even think twice about taking credit for my work.”

Also, he was white, but his grandmother was Jewish, and he would tick ‘BAME’ on applications.

Dee*, 36

“I married a left-wing man I met on left-wing X. We’re both organisers, and he’s a Marxist academic. We had followed each other for a while, occasionally replying to tweets, until one day, I saw a photo he posted and thought, “Wait, is my mutual attractive?” I couldn’t resist sending a cheeky reply. A few days later, I added him to my private Twitter and posted a risqué selfie – since I’m anonymous on Twitter – so he’d know what I looked like. He took the bait and replied with a witty response, echoing the cheeky message I had sent him.

“Our paths might have crossed eventually – we’ve organised in the same spaces and shared mutual friends – but I’m glad it happened this way. I’m a sex worker and a sex worker rights organiser, so it was reassuring that, even before our first date, he knew what I did and fully supported decriminalisation.

“I also went through years of his tweets, searching for any red flags. Left-wing men can be strange about sex work and women in general, so it was helpful to vet him through his decade-long archive.

“He often jokes that he’s glad I messaged first because he didn’t want to be that left-wing guy sliding into women’s DMs. We ended up getting married six months after we started dating – because we’re insane – but we’ve both been in long-term relationships before and knew exactly what we wanted.”

Georgia*, 30 

“I was dating a leftist guy who hadn’t told me he was polyamorous, even though I’d made it clear I wanted a monogamous relationship. While we were looking at his phone during one of our first sleepovers, he received a flirty DM full of kisses from someone else. We both froze and spent the rest of the night lying next to each other in complete silence, without touching.”

Bonnie*, 25

“I dated a guy who was very publicly a communist, with a flag above his bed and everything. We spent the summer attending protests, making banners and discussing politics. However, in our relationship, his views seemed to disappear. I was still expected to pay for most of our meals, and when it came to sex, it was always about his needs. I struggled to enjoy it, which hurt my self-confidence and made me insecure.

“One of the worst moments was at the pub when I told him I hadn’t read Marxist texts outside my studies and didn’t want to read The Communist Manifesto. He scoffed at me, and when I said I’d been radicalised by my identity as a queer person of colour, he couldn’t understand. I explained that I found more comfort and confidence in writers like James Baldwin and bell hooks and didn’t think academic theory would radicalise me any further. He laughed at me, making me feel stupid.

“It was hard to forgive him after that, especially when I realised he hadn’t even been interested in politics until university – something I’m sure many middle-class straight white men can relate to. But the fact that he belittled someone who had been an organiser and active leftist since their teens said much more than his hammer and sickle pin ever could.

“Also, he was white, but his grandmother was Jewish, and he would tick ‘BAME’ on applications.”

In our final year, in 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s murder, we were applying for jobs. He asked me to proofread his CV, and to my shock, I saw he had listed my achievements as his own. He claimed to have organised the Black History Month formal and implemented gender-neutral toilets—things I had done.

Stacey*, 26

“My ex ended up in a leftist cult. We met through our shared anarchist and activist circles, which I was part of at university – he was a pansexual, vegan folk musician and a committed leftist. We lived together for a while, and it felt like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – he was kind to my face but awful behind my back. He struggled with his drinking, and my housemates didn’t like him, so he moved out.

“He eventually moved in with an American woman in her 30s who he met through student activism. He presented himself as a benevolent activist, writing, ‘I like kittens, long walks on the beach, and seizing the means of production’ in his Tinder bio. Then, things took a darker turn. He had a severe episode, claiming to be God and saying he had solved time. I called an ambulance, which resulted in a crisis team stepping in, but his housemate was furious that I hadn’t consulted her first.

“During this episode, the housemate told the crisis team I’d been violent towards him because I had called for help and asked campus security to confirm his location. He believed I was trying to have him sectioned, and his old friends began distancing themselves as he became more volatile. I eventually became physically afraid of him and left, as I could no longer tell what was genuinely him, what was due to his illness, and what was the external influence of this cult-like group. His housemate controlled his phone and wouldn’t let him leave the house, and I even saw her annotations on one of his PhD applications.

“The group framed everything in terms of leftist justice and accountability, painting me as the villain for involving the state to help him. The hardest part was watching these leftist activists rally around him even though he had harmed his previous partners, me, and was harming himself. They rationalise his actions because of his mental illness, ignoring the damage he caused. It was shocking to see how many people were complicit, people who could have taken tangible steps to remove themselves, and him, from that environment and correct the misinformation being spread about me.”

*Names have been changed