Ever been on a disastrous date?
Well, you are not alone. It’s Valentine’s Day and if you’re sick of the overwhelming presence of hearts, roses, and the pressure to have a special date planned, what could be better entertaining yourself with other people’s dating horror stories? The perfect alternative to romance is reading about romance gone hilariously wrong, and the stories I’ve compiled below (from a collection of interviews of various subjects) will not disappoint. To the best of my knowledge, they are all fundamentally true, with some details changed in order to protect identities, but the most disastrous elements of these dates have been left intact.
“We went to Thai Place and when the check came, he made the waiter go back and do separate checks…on February 13th.”
“This guy asked me out to dinner, and he asked what kind of food I like, so I told him sushi. He was really excited, because as it turns out, he’s a vegan. So we go out to this dinner and he ordered all veggie sushi and I ordered all meat. The entire time I was eating, he kept talking about animal torture and how innocent creature suffered to be my meal. I ended up texting a friend to call and pretend it was an emergency to get me out of it…and my date still tried to kiss me before I left.”
“After a rather boring dinner, he wanted to go walk around the monuments. It was cold but I couldn’t say I was chilly because I didn’t want him to offer me his jacket, so the walk was already unenjoyable. As we were walking he felt his jacket and said he thought he had some hand warmers. So he opened a pocket and pulled out not hand warmers, but a bunch of condoms. It was almost smooth until it wasn’t.”
“My senior year of high school I was really into this one guy. He was tall, incredibly attractive, and I couldn’t help but flirt with him every time I saw him. He eventually asked me out, but my parents had this rule about meeting guys before I was allowed to see them. Naturally, he came over to meet my mom, which turned out to be fine, so the two of us walked out to his car. He opened the door for me and went around to the other side. As we were driving off, he turned to me and said, ‘Just so you know, I don’t open doors for girls. I only did it because your mom was watching.’ After that comment, we drove to his apartment, watched a movie, kissed, and then he drove me back. I thought we would go and get food or do something more date-like, but we didn’t. Never went out with him again, but he did date my best friend a few months later.”
“I went to the movies with a boy I had a crush on and all of his friends showed up to the same theater and sat right behind us. Then I got a nosebleed in the middle of the show. Afterward, we stood around outside for awhile and realized we had nothing to talk about. We decided it wasn’t going to work out.”
“The date itself was great. I had just started dating a lovely gentleman and we were on our first date. We had worked at a camp all summer and really hit it off. We were looking for a place to make out, so of course he took me to a deserted parking lot. Fine, right? No cars, no prying eyes. But this parking lot was unfortunately very well-lit and we saw a cop car drive through. He tapped on our window and probably got a fantastic view of me and this boy glued to each other in the back seat of the car. ‘What are you guys doing in there?’ asked the cop.
‘Nothing. Talking,’ my date replied. What a sweet talker, this boy. The cop told us to clear out. How romantic: our date ruined by the likes of Paul Blart.”
“I went on a dinner date with this guy and he really wanted to go for Chinese food. All through the date, he kept telling me how much he liked me and how great our ‘connection’ was. He told me that he had lived and worked in Asian countries, and was getting his graduate degree in a specialized field of Asian studies. Then, he flat-out stated that he has an Asian fetish. Well, I’m not Asian, so that was sufficiently awkward. I made up an excuse so I could escape.”
“My senior year, I was going to a dance with this guy that I had just started dating. At his school, you had to pass a table with security guards to get in. The town was small, so the police station would send a couple of officers to check to make sure that people had not been drinking beforehand. We were kissing as we walked up to the table and when I opened my eyes, I saw my uncle holding out the breathalyzer. He yelled and asked what I was doing, and I lied. The guy I was with thought I was embarrassed by him and ‘shook it off.’ I stopped to say hi to a friend later in the night and turned around to find him making out with his ex-girlfriend!”
Happy Valentine’s Day! Hopefully your date (or evening at home with a bottle of wine and the new season of House of Cards) is better than these.