The thing is, very few blokes measure up to Clooney.
A Keoghs partner has been revealing the human side of lawyers by documenting the pitfalls of dating as a middle-aged woman.
By day, Helen Webster is a partner in charge of training fee-earners in Keoghs’ motor fraud team. But after a relationship ended, she decided to work through her split on TikTok, and has now produced over 500 videos covering her experiences in the world of dating.
Webster began by capturing herself at her most vulnerable moment, telling the camera tearfully, “It’s one thing hurting me - but hurt my kids, I’ll hate you forever more” after her boyfriend of four years cut off contact with her family.
After pronouncing a few days later that she was over her split - “I couldn’t really care less anymore, after a week and three days, I’m over it” - Webster predicted she would be done with the app. Instead she began to document the ups and downs of navigating a break-up, and her subsequent experiences on the dating scene.
Ranging from funny to saucy to moving, Webster’s videos employ TikTok’s language of personality quizzes, memes and mimes to track her daunting journey through the - often brutal - hunt for a decent man.
Her #datingdisasters diary features dispiritingly frequent encounters with men who ghost her. “Why are they putting in all that effort if they’re not going to do anything about it?”, asks Webster.
Other men employ ‘breadcrumbing’ tactics by leading her on with small parcels of affection, “just to keep you hanging on”, without ever committing to a relationship.
Webster also reflects candidly on how she may be a victim of her own taste in men. Reviewing a failed date, she explains that she wasn’t taking things further because the man in question was simply too nice: “I just like bad boys too much”.
In one TikTok, the lawyer recalls gently letting down an over-confident 30-year-old who arrived on a fold-up scooter and asked her to stow it in her boot. Another charmer asked to meet her at a service station for their first date.
The Keoghs partner’s reports offer a sobering insight into middle-aged dating - so hopefully her children can forgive her for taking to TikTok to provide it.
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Comments
64
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The Chinese Communist Party is downloading all this stuff. All of those secrets about dating and CCP can profile someone who chases down people making iffy insurance claims. We're doomed.
176
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I think putting lawyers' personal and inoffensive social media posts on ROF is a bit snide. Go after the hypocrite bigwigs or rubbish employers, this is unnecessary
66
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"The Chinese Communist Party is downloading all this stuff."
The poor bastards.
Can you imagine signing up to serve the greater glory of the motherland, and then you get tasked with watching this dross?
You'd be on the phone to the CIA looking to defect before your first week was out.
77
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1. The Defendant neither admits nor denies that the Claimant's partner left her and the Claimant is put to strict proof.
2. The Defendant doesn't know whether there's a difference between 'proof' and 'strict proof', but will continue to plead 'strict proof' because it thinks it sounds well hard.
3. The Defendant contends that the separation was of insufficient force or intensity to produce injury to feelings.
4. If the Claimant is single (which is not admitted), the Defendant alleges that the Claimant has failed to mitigate her singleness.
5. The Claimant's entitlement to interest is resisted on the basis that the Claimant's entire case is that there is no real interest to speak of.
53
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We used to make real things in this country. Now we have this crud.
33
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10:14, if you think tiktok is where you put personal comments I would have a quick google if I were you.
61
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-partner posts her life in hundreds of videos on world's fourth biggest social media platform-
10:14: 'I can't believe it's on rof'
41
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*Lawyer has fun*
Rof commentators: How dare she enjoy herself. In public too!!!
41
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Seriously strong eye makeup skillz in the bottom right photo (the "when your kids..." one).
Respek.
30
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Where are the grumps getting the impression rof disapproves? The story is wholly positive or have I missed something?
Also to the people criticising her: you may not go into detail about your life on social media but it’s the way of the world now. Public diaries for public consumption.
44
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"Helen Webster is a partner in charge of training fee-earners in Keoghs’ motor fraud team"
That's a partnership gig now?
31
23
This is Keoghs, 18.36.
37
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Social media has always had a streak of narcissism to it, but TikTok takes it to a whole new extreme. Why do all of these people assume anyone *cares* about their inchoate quasi-confessional ramblings? Why are they so obsessed with getting the validation of random strangers on the internet? And why are all so deeply unfunny?
39
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Calling them ‘personal posts’ suggests they were private. They were public posts about her personal life. A lawyer publishing hundreds of videos about her lovelife under her own name is an example of a modern phenomenon that’s worth thinking about, imo. Especially as she’s presented it as a kind of influencer series, and got thousands of likes.
Are firms’ social media policies up to date with this? Given the predisposition of young people particularly to post candidly on social media, should they be frowning at this sort of confessional, or is that reflective of an outdated sense of impropriety that’s out of step with the Insta generation?
rof’s tone suggests it’s sweet, but worthy of note on the basis it’s interesting that a partner is becoming a dating influencer.
I think it raises a larger question - we’re at a crossroads where one route demands that a solicitors’ professionalism requires them to keep this stuff out of the limelight, and the other demands that people be permitted to ‘bring their whole self to work’, and reflects how many people now live their personal life in public. Why should lawyers be held to a more restrictive standard? Which way western lawyer?
30
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Anon 26 March @20:42.
Tik-Tok is for narcissists and those without 'substance'. Empty wagons make more noise.
Gobblepig 24 March @ 10:48
Total crud indeed.
UK should be making hypersonic missiles to counter China's (who lead the way in this tech) and developing spyware that 'speaks' Mandarin.
It shouldn't be just Govt employees who should be banned from Tik-Tok, but all professionals and business execs with access to confidential information.
CCP and Winnie Xi Pooh is watching you.
34
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"Hurt my kids and I'll hate you forever" Vs "When your kids beg you to stop doing tik toks"