A Girl’s Dating Haunted House

Walk with me for a second. It’s the night of Halloween, and you’ve just left the costume party with your girlfriends. Or, maybe you’re both on the way to pick up some takeout and snacks for your planned movie night. You’re walking down a crowded sidewalk filled with other people partaking in Halloween night festivities, when suddenly you have to turn down a dark corner to get to the next street. The corner looks a little suspicious; broken glass bottles scattered on the floor, a street lamp flickering, and mysterious puddles that you try to avoid. As you walk through with caution trying to make it to your destination, you feel a presence behind you. You and your friend both slowly turn around to discover your worst nightmare: two grown men sitting at a table with microphones recording a podcast about their opinions on dating topics.

You both shriek in fear and disbelief. How could this be? You approach the table simply to hear the conversation, and the men seem to not even notice you. As you get closer, you hear: 

“Yeah, man, like, what do these women even bring to the table? I need a girl who has traditional values and will listen to what I say. And, I’m not paying for everything either. A real woman goes 50/50.”

Wow. It’s scarier than you thought. You both start to break out in a cold sweat, and decide you have to leave the alley as quickly as possible. As you start to backpedal and try to run in the other direction, you bump into what feels like another person. You both look at each other, scared to face what looms behind you, and decide to bite the bullet. You slowly turn and see two men, shorter than you, staring back at you, licking their lips and rubbing their hands together.

“Ayo, shorty, lemme get your Instagram,” one of them says, staring into your soul. You’re shaking in your Uggs at this point, struggling to form a response.

“Uh…no. No, I’m not interested,” you muster up the courage to say. 

“Forget you. You’re a 5 anyway,” he says. They both turn around and retreat back into the corner they crawled out of.

At this point, you didn’t know it was possible to see so many red flags in one alleyway. All you want to do is get back to your apartment and enjoy the rest of your Halloween night. As you grab your friend’s hand and try to scurry out of the alley, you start to feel faint. You’re not sure what’s causing it, and turn to your friend to see if she also feels the same way. Suddenly, you’re weak in the knees and trying to stay upright. Before you know it, your vision becomes blurry and you’re knocked out cold in the middle of the alley. All you feel is your friend trying to push and nudge  you awake, while you’re going in and out of a dream space.

While you’re unconscious, you see a brief flash of light, and then what looks like a movie scene. You see yourself, one year into the future. You’re in what looks like a man’s bedroom (you can tell from the Target plaid sheets and comforter set that he clearly picked out the summer before his freshman year of college and still owns). He’s playing a video game, and loudly screaming into the headset to his friends on the other line. You tap him on his shoulder a few times to tell him that the food he requested you order is here, and he ignores you every time. When you finally get his attention, he looks annoyed at your presence and begrudgingly takes off his headset. Before the dream can go any further, you shoot up from the ground and start breathing heavily. You were scared right out of the trance. 

It was at that moment you realized you and your friend were in your very own haunted house, and had to escape by any means necessary. You grab her hand and book it out of the alley, running so fast that you can barely catch your breath. You don’t even look behind you as you make a mad dash for your life. When you finally turn the corner and make it out, you both are panting and gasping for air as you try to process the last 15 minutes.

Your friend turns to you with an inquisitive look on her face and asks:

“Was that, like, all our worst dating nightmares come true?”

To which you reply:

“I think so. They’re even scarier when they come to life.”

Indeed, they are. Stay safe in the Halloween season, ladies. Sometimes the most terrifying scares are the bright red flags right in front of you.