I posted this earlier in another thread [What’s this? The bear has a date?!?]:
What I’m looking for is stories from the rest of you about dating hell (dating heck for those unaccustomed to such language). Tell me about your experiences with the un-dream date.
~~Baloo
Sounds to me like she has a few crossed wires Baloo. Inattentiveness to your date is rude. Don’t try to hand me a ration of sh!t about her being demure or any crap like that. If she comes out and makes the unsolicited announcement that she has no interest in marriage, she’s no shrinking violet. So what’s with the, “I’d rather be home plucking nosehairs” routine?
One word. Bullsh!t. Steaming, soft, heaping mounds of it. Don’t even get me started on someone wearing sweats to a first date. Where did you meet for dinner, Gold’s Gym?
I’m really sorry to hear about this sort of weirdness Baloo. Chalk it up as one more reason that men’s hair falls out.
…a friend mentions his fiancee has someone “She says you should meet.” Skeptically, I agree. We set a double date to go dancing. I am a terrible dancer. We go to pick up BD (blind date), she has a broken foot. Says she fell down an airplane’s steps last week. Possibly now I won’t be the worst dancer. She suggests we stay at her place. OK. She puts on some music. She says “Meems wrote this.” Meems is her cat…
We discover there are very few consumables. She suggests we go to the store. OK, she and I go. Her car dies in the parking lot. She calls friend and fiancee to come get us while I tinker. Miraculously, I get it started. We get in car, she pulls right into passing car. Friends come while she is exchanging information. We get back to her place. She’s locked out (don’t most people have their house key with their car keys?). Neighbor has tools, breaks in for us…I make my escape.
A few days later, friend comes up to me with that "You're-gonna-beat-me-but-I-deserve-it" look. Says his fiancee just told him my date has been in analysis the last 2 years but was told she was doing much better...
She really must’ve been screwy before…
lurknomore: I misread “Her car dies in the parking lot” as “her CAT dies in the parking lot”
It adds a whole new surrealistic touch.
Oh, man do I hate those Twilight Zone dates. I’ve had several. If you will permit me to relate a couple stories…
This one goes back to senior year in high school (roughly 10 years ago). Best friend hooks me up with his GF’s best friend. We double date (dinner and a movie). All throughout the car ride, dinner and movie, the girl talks about herself. If I try to change the subject, she continues talking about herself. We had several awkward exchanges in my attempts to get her to talk about something other than herself. A couple days afterward, I ask my best friend to give me the scoop from his GF. How did I do? My best friend’s memorable quote, “She thought you were too self-centered.”
Met a girl in college who dropped by one of our fraternity parties. We hook up (kissing, no sex), even though she has a BF back home. I send flowers to her dorm the next day. I call one of her hallmates (a friend) to scope out what her reaction was. The hallmate friend said she was gushing about me all day long and couldn’t wait for me to call. I call her. Instead of a follow-up date, I get an earful: “You chauvinist pig! How could you think that it’s okay to send me flowers?!?! Now everyone thinks we slept together! It’s all your fault!” Needless to say, I never call back. Hallmate friend calls me back a few days later and asks, “How come you haven’t called <girl>? She’s been talking about you for days now. We’re sick of it. Give her a call already.” At this point, I begin to suspect that hallmate friend is on drugs, so I call some other girls on the hall and they tell me the same story. To this day, I haven’t figured out whether it’s a conspiracy or a bad joke (or both).
Prom night, 1987. Date dumps me for a jock who’s taken a liking to her, so I find a girl without a date who’s going anyhow. Hell, we’ll go as acquaintances. We’re doubling with another couple who are attached at the lips. Dinner–the people we’re meeting are late, the restaurant is crowded, and the hostess keeps trying to get us to give up our table. Hell no! We nurse a shrimp cocktail for about an hour, and the others finally show up. My “date,” knowing fully well that I’m not the wealthiest depositor on the bank’s list, orders surf ‘n’ turf, leaving me to get a salad. Dammit! Prom goes by without major incident. After the dance, we’re all driving around in my car and the other guy says to stop at this house here–it’s empty. We pull into the horseshoe driveway and he whips out his bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. Not to be outdone, I pop the trunk and get the Kuntry Kwencher. We’re sitting, drinking our bad wine, listening to Night Ranger, when suddenly there’s a pounding on the window of my VW Dasher. “Get the fuck out of the fucking car and put your fucking hands on top.” (Exact quote–I’ll never forget it.) We do as told. There are 6 BIG guys with guns surrounding the car, two cars blocking the ends of the driveways, and a sudden urge to urinate on my part. Max (the other guy) decides to ask what the fuck they think they’re doing. I decide to dope-slap Max.
Long story shorter than it could be, they owned the empty house, though we were vandalizing it, and invited us over for some good pot, some Jack Daniels, and to play a little pool. We very respectfully declined.
Got the bitch home, she got out of the car, said, “See ya.” No thanks for the date, no thanks for breaking the bank on the dinner I only half-ate, no nuthin.
The only good thing that night was that while I was waiting for her to come down, her father pulled out his grandad’s 1938 Martin HD-28 and let me pick on it a bit.
Here are two stories I had posted in another thread. I’m reprinting them for your enjoyment. It’s about 2 dates in a row I had a little while ago.
The first one was 22 year old Jennifer. She began the night in a sweatshirt and jeans, knowing we were going to a nice restaraunt(with dress code). We went to Bennigan’s instead. She got in my car and immediately accused me of being a sexist pig because I listen to the Ticket, which is the local sports radio station. I flipped it to some crap music she wanted to listen to. I have no idea what that shit was, but I was trying to keep the peace. On the way there, she started bringing up some of these advocacy groups she’s involved in and told me to remind her to get me a “Vote for Gore” bumper sticker when I dropped her off after the date. I informed her I was a Republican and that led to complete silence all the way to the restaraunt. I was wondering if she was ever going to speak to me again. We get there and I ordered a beer. She gives me the ‘you can never go out and not have a beer alcoholic’ talk. She doesn’t even know me! So I get a Dr. Pepper instead. The waitress comes back with our drinks. She orders a salad and I order a burger. This look of rage came over her. I was just waiting for her head to spin around and projectile vomit to fly all over myself and the couple behind us. The waitress looked at her, looked at me with fear in her eyes, saw the fear in my eyes, and quickly left. That’s when I got the ‘I’m in PETA any meat animal by-product is bad’ speech. I called the waitress over and asked if she’d placed our orders. She informed me that she had gotten the clue that we might not be sticking around and had hung on to the order, just in case. I thanked her and took Jennifer home. One down.
Next came 25 year old Amanda. Not only could she not carry on an intelligent conversation, she couldn’t even maintain a single train of thought for more than what seemed like a few seconds.
“Hi. My names Amanda. It’s nice to meet I was at the Gap the other day and saw the most awesome oh my God look at what she’s wearing. Can you believe she would wear that in public. That’s just there’s this guy I ran into and he said…”
You get the idea. At least she wasn’t a total bitch, but I could feel her just sucking the intelligence from my brain. Which would have been ok if she had been able to retain the information she was taking from me. We eventually would have leveled out with IQ’s aproximately the equivalent of an amoeba’s. That’s combined IQ’s, I might add. You think I’m kidding, but no shit, it was like talking to a rock. I had to reach up every once in a while and wipe the drool off my chin. That little bit of excersise, I’m sure, is the only thing that kept me from going catatonic. I tried starting up a couple of my own conversations during the night, but after seeing the look of confusion on her face the first few tries, I gave up and let her have the floor for the rest fo the night. How the hell this woman got into college, I will never know. I mean, I can’t even imagine her even having an SAT score, much less a good one. I had this image of her looking at the SAT booklet and the whole thing just bursting into flames in an last fleeting attempt to save humanity and the national collegiate system. But I digress. We finished off the night at Sundance Square in Ft. Worth and I took her home. I didn’t say I’d call her back, nor did she. And we haven’t.
Feel better?
Baloo, I read this thread’s OP, and went to the OP in the link you supplied. If you put a gun to my head, I’d say your date’s got divorcedwomanitis. (Snap judgement, and I admit it. And I won’t try to defend it against an onslaught of “What did you mean with that divorced women crack…” remarks, so don’t try to drag me to the Pit, okay?)
She’s probably trying to sort out her life. She may be bitter. She may be disillusioned. Who knows? Maybe HER friends have been bugging her for months to “get back on the horse” and go on a date, so when your offer showed up she dragged herself out to shut them up. Who knows?
Anyway, I’ve got a story that is a much milder combination of yours and THespos. Got fixed up w/ a girl through a mutual friend. My friend warned me that this girl is very sexy and dresses to kill when she wants to.
We went on a few dates where we seemed to click okay. Now granted none of these dates was terribly romantic – a burger here, coffee there, a lecture somewhere else. But, every time, she shows up in these oh, did you say dinner? I thought you meant clean the garage outfits: frumpy sweatshirt, baggy old jeans, sweatsocks and clogs. WTF?
Taking this as a hint/sign of “don’t get the wrong idea,” I took things very, very slowly and did not make any moves on her. So, next time she sees our mutual friend, she says all sarcastic and spitefully “Well I guess your friend is only interested in me in a non-romantic way…”
WTdoubleF???
Now even my friend thinks she’s nuts.
A friend set me up with The Man Who Would Not Break Eye Contact, Not Even For A Second. We met up one night for drinks - to theoretically turn into dinner if drinks went well. This guy’s stare was so intense that I couldn’t deal with it - I’m not a shrinking violet, but I found myself staring at the table or at my drink to avoid his bug-eyed, unblinking gaze. It’s like there was this little voice in his head saying “Maintain eye contact, don’t stare at her tits, maintain eye contact, don’t stare at her tits, maintain eye contact, don’t stare at her tits…” It became impossible to carry on a conversation. We did not go to dinner.
A little over a year ago I had a first date with a guy in Baltimore. We’d met by chance when he was down in D.C. and had a great time, and I took the train up for the day to hang out with him in the city. He picked me up at the train station, and in his car was a drugstore bag through which I could clearly see a 12-pack of Trojans. Can we say presumptuous (and ambitious)? I ended up having a lot of fun during the date- he took me to see a great play, to see the bar where Homicide was filmed, to dinner, etc., but the condoms sort of weirded me out - the knowledge of them hung between us the whole day and made things really awkward.
Especially since he turned out to be terrible in bed.
I’ve also had a date apiece with the Guy Who Has Recently Been Dumped And Cannot Stop Talking About His Past Relationship, the Guy Who Mentions His King-Sized Bed and His Annual Income Within Five Minutes of Meeting Me, and the Guy Who Must Argue With Everything I Say.
Oh, and how could I forget The Guy Who Is So Meek and Asexual That I Can’t Tell Whether It’s Actually A Date. As in - make a freakin’ move, already!
About all I have to contribute here is a more generic form of “The Date From Hell”.
Guys, have you ever finally gotten up the nerve to ask a woman out and get the big yes? Well, what do you do? You take her to a pretty nice place, enjoy a fine meal and somewhere just after the main course hits the table she starts talking about how “we” did this or that. Now, you know that you’ve never been anywhere or done anything with her before. So you just listen on in amazement until she finally manages to start gushing about her boyfriend.
I swear that someday, I will finally get up the nerve to quietly slip away to the bathroom and stick her with the check. Some insane sense of chivalry has prevented me from doing so thus far. Someday though…
This took place in San Diego, circa 1974.
Tho most people refuse to believe it, I was extremely shy and naive, even after my first 2 years in the navy. So when a new acquaintance invited me out one night, I was flattered and gladly accepted. We had dinner, and I thought maybe I was doing OK because he asked if I wanted to go to a club he liked. Why not? I didn’t really know the city, so if he told me the name of the place, it didn’t register.
The club was mostly dark with a bunch of high-backed booths. The music was recorded - current rock, if I recall. There was a girl dancing on the stage. Song finished, lights went down, lights came up, girl was wearing less clothing. Another song came on and she was dancing again. Song finished, light went down, lights came up - she was naked. I remember quite vividly that the song she writhed to was “Witchy Woman”. I was embarrassed beyond words and afraid to say anything to the guy. Although we weren’t there all that long, it seemed an eternity to me.
He drove me back to the barracks, and we sat in the car talking a bit, all the while I was trying to figure out how to get away politely (like this guy deserved the courtesy.) Next thing I know, he’s unzipped and begging: “Touch it - just touch it” - I think I went into deer-in-the-headlights mode and he proceeded to take matters into his own hands. ick ick ick I couldn’t look and I still couldn’t make myself leave the car. I was SUCH a wuss!
He finished, I finally left, and I never saw him again. ick ick ick - it still grosses me out to think of it…
P.S. Wearing sweats in public, unless you are on your way to or back from the gym, in the process of exercising, or grocery shopping at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning while really hung over, is a Sign That You Have Given Up on Life. Wearing them on a date is a sign that you have no respect for yourself or the other person.
I was in college, visiting my sister and brother in law. They had tickets for some fund-raising thing and decided it would be fun for me to tag along. I wasn’t all that interested but okay. They decided I’d have a lot more fun with a date, and called up one of their former babysitters who was back home after her first year in college.
To say we didn’t hit it off was an understatement. We sat next to each other giving each other the eye all night. When we took her home, she thanked my sister and brother in law for the evening, jumped out of the car and virtually ran into the house.
My sister found out a few days later that the reason she was home from school in the first place was that she had gotten pregnant and had an abortion while she was away at school, and was taking the summer off to try and get her life back in shape. She went with us as (she thought) a favor to my sister and certainly didn’t see a date as part of the package.
Magdalene,
Do you really think sweats are so bad to wear in public? Now, I don't mean to wear them on a DATE unless it is to play tennis or the like, but if you go to rent a video wearing sweats on a Tuesday it means you've given up on life?My friend Freaky Fred set me up with his best friend, who happens to be a massage therapist. We decide that the three of us are going to go get brunch and see the re-release of Return of the Jedi at the Uptown. Very casual, not datelike, just seeing if we all hit it off. Brunch is fun - Massage Therapist and I don’t have much in common, he’s REALLY quiet, but that’s how it goes, right?
We all get sort of shitty drinking margaritas, and at some point I managed to accidentally knock over my water glass all over his pants (for which I was very sorry and embarrassed, but everyone was drunk so he laughed and took it really, really well).
We get to the theater, pick our seats, and then Fred disappears to get popcorn and never comes back. Obvious ploy so that massage therapist and I can get to know each other without him around, no big deal, right? Except a few minutes into the movie, massage therapist starts massaging the back of my neck with both his hands. HOLY WEIRDNESS! Not that I don’t love a good backrub, and not that a backrub hasn’t served as foreplay before, but not during a matinee of Star Wars (surrounded by kids) and not from a virtual stranger - by this point we’ve spoken only a few words - “I’m sorry I spilled water all over your crotch” - “No problem, it’s okay” “So how did you first meet Fred?” “College.” Anyway, the massage really creeped me out (not least because it felt really, really, really good), so I reached up and sort of moved his hands off my shoulders, which he took as an invitation to massage my hands and forearms. I tried grabbing his hands and holding them still, away from me, and fortunately he got the hint. If I hadn’t, I would have spent the whole movie covered in creepy kneading hands.
lurkernomore - I can think of lots of instances where sweats are marginally acceptable - running quick errands, running out to get a video, or a sandwich, or groceries, whatever. College students wearing them to an early morning class - fine. But I think if you find yourself wearing them out of the house all the time, yeah, it’s a sign of hopelessness, or at the very least, seasonal depression. 
lurkernomore - I can think of lots of instances where sweats are marginally acceptable - running quick errands, running out to get a video, or a sandwich, or groceries, whatever. College students wearing them to an early morning class - fine. But I think if you find yourself wearing them out of the house all the time, yeah, it’s a sign of hopelessness, or at the very least, seasonal depression.
As long as we’re engaging in broad generalization here, I’ve dated…
For the record, I am still seeking the Queen of the Cool Girls in the New York City area and will probably continue to do so in the foreseeable future.
Magdalene,
OK. I was thinking you said NEVER wear them, you thought I was saying ALWAYS. I’m just saying sometimes. I do usually wear jeans, as I am an informal guy (unless the situation says otherwise)
Sweatpants AND stuffed animals? (shudder) How many dates did you suffer through?