If you’ve ever had a truly horrendous date, an absolutely godawful car-crash that still leaves you wincing and shaking your head at the memory years later - we wanna hear about it! Can you laugh about it now, or was it so soul-searingly awful that you’ve blocked out the memory?
I once had a date with a young lady who told me all about the sexual abuse she’d suffered at the hands of her father and then confessed to having a secret crush on her older brother - all on the first date. I shit you not…
I had a date once with a guy whose main hobby was the weather. He said “I suppose you could call me a weather buff.” He waxed quite enthusiastic about the Weather Channel. After dinner he invited me back to his place to see his baseball cards. I wish that was a bad euphemism for a come-on (“Wanna come up and . . . see my baseball cards?”) but no – over dinner, when he wasn’t talking about the weather, he was talking about his baseball card collection, of which he was very proud. It was one of those endless painful dinners that makes you seriously think about faking a seizure just to end it.
I recently started seeing someone, and we’ve been exchanging “bad date” stories. I’ve been an online dater on and off for many years, and my favorite story is about this one guy: after a few e-mails and one phone call we decided to meet in person, and it wasn’t a great meeting. He couldn’t keep up his end of the conversation, he looked everywhere except at me (zero eye contact), and he looked nothing like his profile photos. But what makes this more than just an everyday unsuccessful meeting is that he gave me a clock.
He’d gone to Target or something, bought a cheap plastic wall clock, and had somehow taken it apart and made it so that the face was a picture of a wolf (I’d mentioned that I love wolves). He said that personalizing clocks like that was a hobby of his. I accepted it gracefully, but I couldn’t believe that he was giving me a clock! The first time we met! And a crappy clock, at that! I took it home and kept it on my kitchen counter for a few days, then threw it away. I wish that I’d thought to bring it to work, though: what a great conversation piece it would have been! My friends and I dubbed him “Clock Boy.”
Yech, I hate that whole “no eye contact” thing too. Mind you, there’s a fine line between good eye contact and mad, “I wanna eat your brains on toast” stares.
My story isn’t so much of a bad “date,” but a bad experience on a date.
Back in 1993, I went to see Jurassic Park with a girl I had been dating for a while. Back then, I was 18 and pretty dim in the world of dating. My girlfriend had very short hair for a girl and usually dressed very tomboyish. Part way through the movie, the power went out and the emergency lights came on. The whole theater sat waiting for a while. After a few minutes, a couple of girls came and sat in the two empty seats beside me. They had to scoot right past me and my girlfriend to get there. The first girl struck up some casual chat and then asked my name. Then she pointed at my girlfriend and asked (you guessed it), “What’s his name?” In hindsight, I handled it extremely well. I said, “What’s her name? Her name is [girlfriend’s name].” The two girls became quiet and eventually shuffled away, probably having a big laugh about it in the bathroom.
I tried to shrug it off, but she just got crabby and quiet the rest of the day no matter what I did. Plus she had stinky breath that day, which for me is a big turn-off.
But the first one to jump to mind was the woman who brought her sister and friends along. I paid for her meal and mine and left as soon as I could. She was very pissed off that I left so early and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t interested in a gang-date.
Unless they completely misunderstand the situation, what makes anyone think it’s ok to bring along more people to a date? Did she perhaps think she needed back-up in case you turned out to be a violent perv or something? That in itself would be a pretty insulting assumption.
A guy I dated a guy briefly in high school borrowed his dad’s cadillac for our first date. He was pulling out onto a rural road with a speed limit of 50 mph (so every one’s going at least sixty) and didn’t see the pickup truck pulling a boat coming. I saw it, but just assumed he did too and he pulled out before I could say anything. The truck hit us right behind the driver’s seat and spun the car around and into a ditch. No one was hurt, but my date’s air bag went off. So, we’re sitting there in the ditch (I’ve got soda all over me that was in the cup holder) and I smell smoke. I turn to my date and he’s throwing a tantrum, screaming and punching the steering wheel, etc. So I’m kind of in shock and bolt from the car, thinking it’s about to explode or something. Once I’m out of the car, I realize it was just smoke from the tires of the truck, so after the guy got over his tantrum he didn’t burn to death. Anyway, we walk up to the little house who’s yard we’re in (to use the phone); and an old lady in a pink bath robe comes out and says, “Princess Di died.” This was the same night as the accident that killed her. It was rather surreal.
I saw the guy a few more times, but he tended to get angry over weird things (not at me, but I don’t really care for a temper in guys), so I broke it off.
I suppose it was possible to misunderstand. I asked if she wanted to go to dinner. I thought everyone would know that this invitation is for a date, but who can say what goes on inside someone else’s head. In any case, she asked me why I left so early and I said that I wasn’t interested in a gang-date, and she got very offended and said: Well why didn’t you tell me sooner?
… because it isn’t something I’m used to having to state when I ask someone out.
Met via personals, for lunch at a really nice open air place overlooking the city marina. She was obviously into me, then I let slip that I had a son. She was stunned, said I was deceitful to have “led her on” and stalked out, leaving me a big bill. [I hadn’t led her on, we hadn’t said two sentences before the date, just said lunch was a fine way to meet new people and let it go at that.]
Second date with a guy. He picked me up an hour late. I thought we were going out to eat, “out to eat” turned out to be picking up a pizza and going to his buddy’s house in a neighboring town. I spent three hours watching them play a stupid WWF game on the PlayStation. Finally, he takes me home. It’s around April, on a rural road. Rabbits are everywhere. He decided to see how many he could hit. Good times. :rolleyes: Later I found out through a mutual acquaintance that he had been arrested before for hitting his mother.
I spent the next two months ducking calls and visits from him to my college. Then I met my husband, and in our first round of dating he made the creep leave me alone. I think I dodged a bullet with that guy.
Certain trinkets would not be odd–they would have to be funny and small, though, and reference something funny said in an earlier conversation. That particular trinket is bizarre. I can just picture this guy cutting out a picture of a wolf from a National Geographic and gluing it to the original cheap clock face. Also, what is one to do with such a thing during a date? It’s too big (presumably) to fit in your purse, so, what? you’re carrying a clock around all night? Very odd. Poor guy.
I was in one of those situations where my friend and I were visiting her aunt. Aunt’s friends had two boys our age so viola! Instant date set up. It was supposed to be just a fun, hang out type of date. We went to see Dead Poet’s Society. I had not been warned that the brother I was with had just lost his best friend to suicide. He brushed it off and we went back to their parents’ house to hang with them and the Aunt. We went walking and I ended up with him alone in an abandoned house (through a series of “oh, look over here” - I’m not a total idiot). I ended up sitting in a chair in the middle of an otherwise empty room while he paced himself into a circle around me talking about how this is the house where his friend shot himself.
This guy’s brother and my friend (the other half of the blind date) came in shortly and moved the “party” back to their house and we went home.
Good times.
My best friend really liked a guy, but didn’t want to go out with him by herself. She kept begging me to go on a double date with them, and his friend. I finally gave in. We were supposed to go first to a ballgame, then see how things were progressing.
The guys showed up half drunk, and drove instead to a parking place not far from town. It wasn’t long before things started to get out of hand. They finally had to answer the call of nature, and while they were watering the bushes, I locked the doors. Got into the driver’s seat, started the car, and stole it, driving back to town. Left it parked at the pool hall, and we walked home.
She was equal parts scared and mad, wouldn’t shut up, all the way to her parents house. It took several days for me to be civil to her again. One of the guys called me the next day, and I screamed at him long enough for my Mom to hear the worst, then I had to explain to her.
She was funny, offbeat, intelligent, and attractive. We hit it off and ended up back at her apartment. Her top was off and I was working my way south when she told me she had herpes.
Can you laugh about it now, or was it so soul-searingly awful that you’ve blocked out the memory?
I took it home and kept it on my kitchen counter for a few days, then threw it away. I wish that I’d thought to bring it to work, though: what a great conversation piece it would have been! My friends and I dubbed him “Clock Boy.” 