This is inspired by another thread where kidneyfailure told this story:
I love this story of a bad date that turned good. Or maybe it stayed bad. But it’s the kind of story you and your friends are still laughing about, or the kind of story that you periodically regale people with at parties.
Give 'em up!
Ah, fortunately I’ve not had too many truly bad first dates. I did have one really, really bad one courtesy of Yahoo Personals.
I had initiated a conversation with a woman whose profile and picture I liked on Yahoo Personals. We exchanged a few emails and IM’s which lead to a few phone calls. Following the best advice I’ve ever received about online dating, I moved for an in-person meeting quickly before investing too much “virtual” time getting to know each other. A first date was set up and before the date she sent me a photo, taken the previous weekend, which she stated showed a newer hairstyle and she wanted to make sure I knew what she currently looked like. I responded in kind with a photo less than a week old (from a friend’s wedding) and everything seemed hunky-dory.
Fast forward two nights to me sitting in a local bar/restaurant waiting for my date to arrive. I had arrived early and taken a seat near the door where I could see people arrive. As time passed, I sipped a beer to quell my nerves and watched with anticipation as people arrived only to discover they were not my date. 15 minutes after our agreed meeting time, the door opened and in walked a woman who, from the immediate eye contact she made with me and the smile, was my date.
To say she looked like her photo would be like saying Tiger Woods has a “small” infidelity problem. The woman who walked to my table had all the physical attractiveness of a meth addict without the resulting weight loss. She was easily 50-70lbs heavier, 20 years older, and the only passing resemblence to her photo was a.) she was female (I think) and b.) nothing else actually. My first thought was “Oh fuck!” and my second was “Broom Hilda?!?”.
She started by explaining how her sister was worried about her going on a blind date so she dropped her off at our date. The unspoken implication in her eyes was that she was so sure this was going to go great that I’d be taking her home tonight. Not being a terribly rude person, I decided to make the best of it. Have a drink, some conversation and bit to eat, and then politely let her know I would not be interested in pursuing this further. With that attitude, I settled in and tried to make conversation. I smiled through her tasteless jokes. I was polite as the waitress gave me the most sympathetic looks everytime she came to our table to check on us.
I suspect that about the time she went into detail telling the story of how her step-father murdered her mother and his three children that I lost all interest in no longer appearing rude and gave into the pressing desire to end this date immediately. I let her know I was really not feeling terribly well and if she did not mind I would pick up the check and ending the night a bit earlier than planned. I also let her know she should probably call her sister now for a ride home while I stepped away to the restroom. When I returned I signed off on the bill and asked if she reached her sister for the ride. She said she indeed had and she was on the way. I let her know I’d be happy to wait until she arrived to make sure she got her ride safely. With eyes that said “Yes, stay with me longer” she politely said it was not necessary for me to stick around since I was not feeling well.
I thanked her for that and ran for the door.
MeanJoe
I told this story in another thread, but I can repeat here:
Now that you started it, where’s your story, melodyharmonius?
Worst first date of all time, I got it.
I’m sitting in a nice restaurant with a very charming man and we’re getting on very well and it’s all perfectly splendid.
And he leans over and says “I really like you and I think I can trust you. Can I share a secret with you?”
This is never a good sign but I did not yet know that little fact so I said:
“Sure.”
“I want you to know that I am . . . Jesus Christ.”
He was sincere.
He was also right out of his mind, of course.
He told me of His plans to once again save mankind as we somehow got through the rest of the dinner.
He had hoped I could join him as one of His disciples . . . like Mary Magdalene, he pointed out . . . he offered to bless me personally but I had been blessed sufficiently just by having dinner with him – it was not bread and fish, btw – but I told him obviously I was not worthy to touch the hem of His garment and so I had to leave.
He was diagnosed as schizophrenic a few days later. Either he was crazy or we are – I’m still not sure which.
D’oh! I forgot to add my own:
I had had the Valentine’s Day from hell. I had recently broken off a phone-fling with a guy from work. I went to go see my dad in the hospital (I hate hospitals) and his girlfriend. It was the first time I had seen her (we had been friends) since my parents had split up. As I left the hospital to drive to work, I got a flat tire and had to wait in the slushy, rainy cold for AAA to arrive and help me change it. I kept the car running so I wouldn’t freeze, only to run out of gas. I was late to work that day.
I worked in a call center in a small division that worked directly with the stores. My co-workers had begun calling me “976-Melody” because the stores often asked for me and they assumed it must be because I’m more of a flirt. The truth is, I was friendly and helpful – they other girls acted rude and annoyed – but I digress. I normally liked my job. So I’m working my phones, ignoring the rude girls, when suddenly the ex-phone fling guy calls in. I try to be professional, but he starts getting nasty and I’m surrounded by co-workers who are looking for reasons to give me crap. So I quietly tell him to go to h*ll in very unladylike terms and then end the call. My supervisor then comes over with a weird look on her face. Seems that she chose that day to do my quarterly review, and had been listening in on the entire call!
I burst in to tears in her office, stressing strongly that I don’t normally talk like that and she agrees to re-do quarterly review another day as long as there’s no repeat. As I leave her office, one of the male supervisors (Joe) comes up and says, “Hey, hey, hey! It’s 976-Melody!”
Horrified, I run to the bathroom; convinced my repair work had just been ruined. Joe finds out the scoop, convinces my boss that I am NOT a pseudo-sex worker, and decides his way of making it up to me is to set me up with his friend.
A blind date? At this point, I figure my week is already gone to heck, so I agree and Joe tells me he’ll have the guy call me. I totally forget about it.
Several days later, my private line at work rings and some guy goes, “Melody? Umm, my friend Joe says I’m supposed to call you for some reason?”
His total cluelessness hit me on a good day, so we chat for a while until he finally asks me out on a date. We agree to meet on a Sunday. He invites me for a meal at his place because he’s broke and can’t afford to take me out. I suggest we meet for lunch. (I conveniently was playing piano for a church back then – so I knew if the date was a bomb, I could excuse myself and say I had to get back for evening services early).
He then lets slip that it’s his birthday on Sunday. Hu-wha? My first date with a guy is on his birthday? Oh bloody hell. I can’t show up without a card, but what kind of a card do you bring to a guy on a first date? So I searched through my pile of cards for the most generic one I can find. (Front) “Happy Birthday” (inside) “To You!” and sign it “Thanks for sharing this special day with me. - - Melody.”
Do I bring a present? Don’t want to go overboard, don’t want to be a jerk and bring nothing. I would have brought a bottle of wine to go with the meal, but I didn’t drink at the time. I thought about flowers, but the guy worked for a frakkin’ floral wholesale distributor. I know! I’ll bring cake! But not a birthday cake – too much effort. So I’ll make my famous coffee cake – simple, a cake, but not a birthday cake so it doesn’t look like I’m too overeager or whatever.
So we agree to meet around 1PM at his place and he gives me directions. I go play the piano for the morning services, change in the vestry, and scoot on down the road and arrive far too early. So I go sit in a parking lot and wait for it to be 1 PM so I can drive to his place and be their a little after 1 PM, as promised.
I get to the address, and the parking lot for the small apartment complex is dirt (now mud from the rain). Someone had gone to a tremendous amount of trouble to put some flattened cardboard boxes down so they wouldn’t have to walk in the mud. I knew better than to take that parking place – so I park several over and get muddy shoes for my troubles.
Deep breath, last minute hair check in the rearview mirror, and I grab the cake and card and approach the door. I stand up straight and knock on the door.
No answer.
I wait several minutes and knock on the door again.
No answer.
So now I’m thinking, “Great! Stood up at the guy’s house!! How bad can it be!” and thinking about cursing out Joe when I see him on Monday when slowly, the door starts to open.
Through the screen door I see my date. . . . in his bathrobe. And all that comes ringing in my ears is “976-Melody!” Oh my og, this guy thinks I am his birthday present.
But before I throw the cake in his face, he sheepishly opens the screen door and I realize he has little dabs of shaving cream on his face. Seems his version of 1PM is more like 1:30, not 1:07. He had been running late geting ready because he’d been putting out a big pile of flattened cardboard boxes for me so I wouldn’t have to walk in the mud . . .
The date ended up fine, the marriage that was the end result was a mistake. But the story still makes me laugh and laugh.
At least Mrs. kidneyfailure got to taste the food.
I procure invitation to dinner, arrive as scheduled, sit having drink, hear explosion in kitchen, investigate, discover remnants of casserole decorating walls, also find one very surprised cat bearing unmistakeable traces of carrots, onions, and gravy.
The relationship survived, as did the cat, but I do all the cooking in our house.
LOL! poor kitty :eek:
After some intense flirtation, I ended up taking out my coworker on Valentine’s Day for our first official date. Nice dinner, at a restaurant where a friend of mine worked, so we got all sorts of special attention from the staff, and then home to her place…
…where we walk in the door and find that her son, age 12, had decided to use Mom’s absence on the date as a chance to try a drink from apparently every single bottle of liquor she had. And then, realizing he was waster, decided to make himself a pot of coffee because, of course, coffee sobers you up. So there’s a pile of vomit on the floor leading to the kitchen, vomit in the kitchen sink, wet coffee grounds everywhere, and a nearly-unconscious 12 year old trying sluggishly to clean things up.
Nice end to the date.
Not her fault, of course. And I did get some major points in my rolling up my sleeves and cleaning the kitchen while she dealt with her child. We ended up dating for several years.
I remember this story! And I still admire you for it!
Do bad dates really count as bad if you end up dating for a long time or even getting married? I think that a genuinely bad date must end with a restraining order of some kind.
Maybe I’m just old-fashioned.
A friend and I went out with these two brothers. I picked the one that I thought was really cute: black hair, blue eyes and kinda broody. Well, we hung out a bit and this was some time after Batman had come out and they guy, Vince, pulled me up and was kind of dancing with me and asked me, seriously, “have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?” so after much internal groaning and eye rolling we decided to get going to the movies. We went to see Dead Poet’s Society. Vince was acting a bit weird when we got back but we walked around the neighborhood and he ended up leading me into a house that was unoccupied but he knew the old owners. Somehow he very smoothly managed to pull a metal folding chair into the middle of the room and I was sitting on it as he walked around me in circles and began telling me all about how this was his best friend’s old house and the friend had shot himself in that very room.
About that time the brother and my friend came up and got me and the brother made a comment about how Vince had been a little off since his friend committed suicide.
My creepy-meter got fine tuned and I never saw him again.
I had a bad first date just the other night. No weird drama, just sad. So no amusing story there.
I did have a bad first date and a horrific second date a couple of years ago, though.
I met Aly through an online ad. She seemed OK in text, and our phone conversations were decent. We decided to meet one afternoon at a restaurant. She didn’t smile the entire time. She hated the food. (This place has some of the best food I’ve ever had.) She had a gloomy outlook on everything. Trying to inject a little life into the date, I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk. It did little to improve her mood. When we finally got to her car, I lied my ass off and told her I had a nice time. She didn’t move towards her car, she just stood there looking like she was waiting for something. I gave her a token kiss on the cheek, and lo and behold… she smiled!
I have no idea why, but a few days later I asked her if she wanted to meet me for brunch the next weekend. She agreed, and we settled on a date about a month later. (She had a busy schedule.)
Then I met Kris. Same restaurant, same walk, but definitely not the same woman. Kris was awesome! A week later we had a wonderful 2nd date. A week after that we had a 3rd date. She packed up a picnic lunch and we went out of town to a small resort community for a picnic on the beach. It became pretty obvious that we were going to spend the entire day together. When things started getting sexual, she asked me if I would spend the night at her place.
“Uh, well, you see… I kind of have a date tomorrow morning.”
She didn’t like that. But since I didn’t have Aly’s phone number or e-mail address on me, there was no way to get in contact with her to cancel. And I really wanted to cancel. Kris and I agreed that it would be unethical to stand her up, so I ended up not staying with Kris that night.
The next day I arrived at the restaurant to meet Aly. It was really crowded inside, so I had to wait outside in the rain. Aly didn’t show up for the first 20 minutes. I figured I’d give her 5 more, then go home. At 4:59:59, she showed up. She had her usual cheerful scowl on her face. It took every bit of willpower I had not to run away. I would have given all the money I had to be anywhere else on the planet.
I don’t know how long brunch lasted, but it felt like hours. We hardly spoke. When we did it was on the most banal, meaningless, boring topics imaginable. It was excruciating. I’d rather be waterboarded. When we left, I think she wanted to hang out more, but I made some excuse that there was something I needed to do. (Not a lie. I really needed to get the hell away from there.) I asked her which way she was headed, then told her that I was headed in the opposite direction. Once again, she waited for a kiss. I obliged, then – I’m not sure, but I think I actually RAN away.
The second I got home, I called Kris and said “Oh, honey, it was awful! Please talk to me and remind me what a wonderful woman sounds like!”
It was an interesting study in opposites.
I may have shared this before. Met a beautiful well-dressed young woman on a train ride into NYC. SHe had a book I was interested in that wasn’t your typical pulp fiction book. Chatted and made a date.
I come to pick her up. She comes out looking like the biggest slob on earth. I especially disliked the (dirty) bare feet and swimming sandals (the rubber ones with the strap between the big toe and its neighbor. I wasn’t looking for a prom dress but hell, at least I wore slacks and a collared shirt and dress shoes. First and last date.
I’m not going to share the story–it wouldn’t make good copy, and I’m sober. Let’s just say that a ten-year period followed during which I absolutely refused to go to one of Omaha’s more militaristic suburbs.
I’m sorry, the Thread police now requires that you explain yourself and let us be the judges.
I have to tell you about the first date that was so bad it made me stop going to Wal-Mart. It was really, horribly bad.
It was a Tuesday night and I was at Wal-Mart shopping for shampoo and conditioner. On my way to that aisle I get stopped by this incredibly gorgeous man who tells me that I am possibly the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and can he please take me out on Saturday? I said yes and dug around in my purse and wrote my phone number on the back of a ticket stub for him and we arranged to get together about halfway between our places.
Saturday came and I got dressed up and went to meet him at the restaurant he had suggested. When I arrived he was already there and asked if I would like to see a movie first. I thought that sounded great and told him so and he pointed me in the direction of the theater and said we would walk. To the dollar theater. It seemed an odd choice for a first date but hey, it was an impromptu movie, so we walked over and got in line at the ticket booth. He walked up to the window and ordered 1 ticket and then stepped aside for me to buy my own. I was a bit dissapointed that he had asked me out and then made me buy my own movie ticket but it was only a dollar so I just smiled and paid for myself. I believe we saw Christmas with the Kranks or some stupid holiday nonsense that was painful to sit through. Afterwards we walk back to the restaurant, sat down and ordered. By which I mean I ordered because he didn’t want to eat anything there. He was a vegetarian and didn’t like to eat out for fear of cross contamination. He was insistent that we stay so I could eat though.
That was the quietest meal I’ve ever eaten. He didn’t say a word for about 15 minutes despite my attempts at conversation. When he finally did say something it was to ask me about my religion because his father is a minister and it is important that any woman he brings home be christian. After another painful 20 minutes we finally get the check (which I paid) and we go our separate ways. I never called him again and he never called me so it seemed like he wasn’t very impressed by the whole evening either…until about a month later when I was back at Wal-Mart.
I ran into him again. He saw me and ran after me so he could say hello. He had obviously been working out and developed a decent amount of muscle and after a bland plesantry he flexed and said, “What do you think of my biceps?” I told him it was obvious he was putting in a lot of time at the gym and he replied, “Yeah, I wanted to get buff so you would think I look good!”
Okay. Whatever. I make up some excuse to end the conversation and continue on my way when he stops me and says, “Wait, don’t go! I’ve been spending a lot of time here hoping to run into you again!” :eek: How much is a lot of time, you ask? He went on to clarify, “Yeah, I hang out here a few nights a week watching for you.” :eek::eek:
Yeah, I never went back to that Wal-Mart again. That serves me right for thinking I could meet a man at Wal-Mart.
Long story short.
In college, a girl REALLY like me. She made all the moves. She even told me that she thought I was quite the player. Which is about as wrong as you could be, but it just shows how sweet she was on me.
Anyhow, we (she) arrange a first date. And its a two person only party at her apartment. Does that tell you anything ?
On the long drive there, I get held up a bit by traffic. Enough that I realize I might be a bit late (but I am not late yet). So, search for a payphone to make a call let her know I am on the way and might be a few minutes late.
Well, there was some damn song on the car radio where the singer kept repeating some girls name in the song, which escapes me at the moment. The first words outa my mouth on the pay phone were “Hey, Wrong Name…blah blah blah”.
That pretty much killed it.
Perhaps he didn’t call you because he doesn’t have a phone? Either way - that creeps me right the frak out!
I used to play The Sims Online - which was mostly just a 3D chat room, imho. This guy asked me “on a date” one time - to bring my avatar to his “house.” I had never been on an in-game “date” so I thought - wth - I’ll try it.
We get there, and I try to chat with him. Asking him about his RL, etc. He said he preferred not to talk about RL in game. Okay, so it was a long period of silence. Then I asked what he wanted to talk about - and he said he just wanted to enjoy the time together.
Ok - dude? My character was sitting at a piano playing, his character was just sitting in a chair.
WTH?
yeah - that creeped me right out to the point i had to take a RL shower - and it wasn’t even a real date!
But that is nothing in comparison to the Walmart date!
pbbth, that sounds incredibly like a story that my friend Liz tells. Except in her version, the guy offered to pay for half of the meal that he never ate. And he bought her movie ticket for her, then asked her for seven bucks.
This thread is better than Christmas! I wish I had my own story to contribute… I’ll have to think of some good second-hand ones.