One night I met friends to have a nice, quiet cocktail and some good conversation. Instead we had too many cocktails, danced and flirted with all the cute boys we met. I made a game time decision at the end of the night to say goodnight to the ladies and left with the guy I was dancing with all night. Turns out Mr. Wonderful was an unemployed struggling musician who just got fired from his bartending job at a douchey night club. You’d think that would be enough for me to rethink this little venture, but no, I was a real glutton for punishment that night.

We got to his house, which was just a short walk from my favorite coffee shop (which happened to be around the corner from my office). Making small talk I noticed a few pictures of him holding a baby and I remarked on the baby’s cuteness, to which he replies that it is his, and he’s a month old. He then told me that his baby momma lives in Wisconsin, which is too bad because babies are great for picking up chicks. I was rendered speechless and then I noticed he was pulling out the futon in the living room. Taken aback I asked what he was doing. Turns out he sleeps in the living room here because he just moved in with his dad and he doesn’t have a bedroom. WTF? Who brings a girl home to the couch in their dad’s house? The look on my face no doubt betrayed my horror because he said, “No worries, my dad’s cool.” Then he gestured to his gigantic bong that was sitting on the coffee table.

In the morning Mr. Wonderful told me a hilarious story about how he was planning on going over to his ex-girlfriend’s place, but then he met me and I’m “way hotter than her” so he changed his game plan. I’m thinking this whole scenario can’t get any worse. And then it did. I asked for him to give me a lift home, but he said he couldn’t because he and his dad share a minivan and his dad took it to work very early this morning. He’d be home at 11am at which time Mr. Wonderful could drive me home. I didn’t really like this plan. For one thing, Mr. Wonderful’s dad had already seen me asleep on the couch, when he left for work. I didn’t want to have to make awkward and polite chit-chat with the dad when he got home from work. While I rethought my exit strategy, I asked what his dad does to work such odd hours.

Turns out that his dad is my favorite coffee shop guy. Serves me right.

MVWD  happened in my second week of university.  I’d met a girl through our LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) organization who seemed nice enough and was quite pretty.  We were in the same halls of residence and one evening she asked me to come up and watch a film with her. When I got up there she had some music on and asked me what I’d like to listen to. I was neutral and suggested something I figured she’d like based on what was already playing, to which she promptly ignored the idea and put on something else.

Then she asked me which film I would like to watch. Being a bit of a film snob (apart from my love of Mean Girls) I wasn’t impressed with the DVDs she had in her room, but it was fine, and we settled down to watch the least gross-out comedy-type of the bunch: White Chicks. That was when she started talking about “lovely” girl she’d met and slept with the other night, but this other woman had gone onto reject a relationship with her. This went on for a while with me nodding and trying to stay awake until she ended the diatribe with “but I think you’re really pretty.” Bored, looking for some action, and not wanting her to pile issues on me again, I kissed her.

So we were making out for a while and it was fine. She took off her top, but then when I went to actually touch her down there she jumped off me and burst into tears. It was then I found out she was in love with an American girl who she’d never met or heard the voice of on the internet. This is where the “date” should have ended. Unfortunately, I listened to her woes and tried to help her out, gave advice and all that for what felt like five-plus hours. She asked if I would stay over (bear in mind she was still topless here) so we spooned and went to sleep, but not before she made a jibe about how my fingers smelt of cigarettes.

The next morning as we left her block she saw someone she’d befriended and convinced me to kiss her right there. And I did. And then went back to my room feeling pretty used and pretty confused.

I was casually dating a guy, C, who was a huge fitness buff (admirable I suppose, but it was pretty extreme). This was probably our third date. It wasn’t serious, at all – he was kind of a tool, but he was hot and I was lonely. After a sort of awkward dinner, where the main topic of conversation was how awesome his workout that day was, we went back to my house, ending up in the bedroom since I had a roommate. His shirt was off, mine was not. In the middle of a sloppy kiss (with excuses to get him out running rampant through my brain), he jumped up, flipped on the light, ran to the mirror and started flexing.

He said, “I look really hot when I have a boner, so I didn’t want to pass this opportunity up.” Yeah. So needless to say that was the end of that. So glad I never sealed the deal with him, I can’t imagine what else would have happened.

I had gone to a bar in the city with two girlfriends to attend a male friend’s birthday party. I had left the girls at a table to go and say hello to the birthday boy and when I returned there was a tall, good looking guy speaking with them. The girls had bought some drinks while I was away and to be cheeky I picked up one of the drinks. The guy, Peter, told me that I had, in fact, picked up his drink. To be even cheekier I looked him in the eye, took a sip and set the drink back on the table.

Peter asked me where I had gone to high school and we worked out that he had gone to my school in the grade above mine and was at the bar with friends who were attending the same birthday celebration. He asked me if I would like to dance and when I hesitated he said, “Well, you do owe me for the drink.” I laughed and we headed to the dance floor. Not even two minutes after we had started dancing Peter started kissing me. It seemed incredibly fast but I decided at that point to go with it.

I noticed that whenever he stopped kissing me he wasn’t making any eye contact with me at all–just staring straight down my top. He was also moving my necklaces off to the side so he could see my cleavage more clearly as we danced. He was hugging me tightly against him and I realised that what he was really doing was pressing my breasts against his chest. After we left the dance floor, he asked me if I wanted to come back to his apartment in the city. I told him no but agreed to give him my phone number.

The next day, I told another mutual male friend about what had happened and he confided to me that Peter didn’t actually live in the city. He and a couple of friends would just rent an apartment in the city on the weekends to take girls back to. Peter persistently messaged me inviting me to visit him at his home or to meet him late at night for drinks. All of these invitations I declined.

A few years ago, before I met the man who is now my husband, I was 21 and looking for a good time, and I got into the whole online dating scene. However, I wasn’t looking for marriage, or even a commitment of any kind. I just wanted one thing. I’ll let you guess what that is.

Anyway, so on an adult website, I ended up meeting this guy. We exchanged a few emails through the site, and after a few days, swapped IM information. We IM-ed for a couple weeks, and finally exchanged numbers. He sent me his picture. He was cute. I sent him mine. He liked what he saw. Finally, we decided to meet, but rather than do a real “date”, we decided to just cut to the chase. Why not? He was after the same thing I was. Or so I thought.

We agreed to meet and he was even hotter in person than he was in his picture. He was a sergeant in the Army, and had a great body. He was a few years older than me (in his mid to late 20s), but that was no big deal. At least he didn’t lie about it. We went to his apartment. It was clean, nothing out of the ordinary and in not a bad apartment complex. Nice furniture, but not too nice. Nothing fancy. We had sex, talk for awhile and then he took me home. He was nice, articulate, intelligent without being condescending or pretentious, we had good chemistry, but again, I wasn’t looking for a commitment. I figured I may or may not hear from him, but I didn’t really care.

Couple days later, I signed in to check my email, and see if anyone was on Messenger. I saw he was online. I knew he knew I was online, but I didn’t message him. I’m not a pushy girl. I figured if the guy wanted to talk to me, he will. If he didn’t, fine and I walk away. No chasing after him. No need to worry in this case. A few minutes later, I got an IM from him.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey,” I responded.

“I had a good time the other night.”

“Thanks,” I answered. “So did I.”

“You’re very cute.”

“You’re not so bad yourself. ”

“I have a proposition for you.” He said.

Uh-oh. I started thinking: please don’t ruin this, please don’t ruin this, please.

“K” I replied.

“You want to get married?”

Crap.

“We just met. Why would you ask me that?” I responded after recovering slightly from my initial shock.

“If we got married, I would get extra money for marrying you, we could get a nice place, and you could have whatever you want. We wouldn’t even have to be committed to each other. You could still have sex with whoever you wanted, and so would I. I’d give you your freedom, you’d have financial security for the rest of your life, medical coverage, and I’d take you with me wherever I got stationed. You wouldn’t even have to work. What do you say?”

Um. Seriously? A loveless marriage? Definitely not anything that sounds even remotely appealing to me. “I’ll think about it,” I finally answered.

I never talked to him again. He tried IM-ing me a couple times after that, but I put him on ignore. That was just too creepy for me.

A few years ago I was working as a cashier at a convenient store and had just gotten dumped by my boyfriend of two years. I was looking for someone to just have a good time with, nothing more, so when a very cute substitute bread man walked through the doors, I was very interested. Since he was just a sub, I could have a little fun and not see him again if I chose. We got to talking and flirting and after a few days we set up a date. We agreed to meet at a restaurant, since we lived very far apart. I got there about ten minutes early and sat in the parking lot waiting for him to show. I waited…and waited….and waited. Finally, after an hour of waiting, he showed up. I should have took this as a sign, but being desperate to get my ex out of my head, I continued with the ‘date.’ He apologized for being late, but never really gave a reason.

We ate dinner late with steady conversation. It was going so well that I maybe he could possibly be more than a rebound one night stand. When we finished, he started talking about going back to my place. He said we would go to his, but he felt uncomfortable having me drive all that way back to my house from his. Kinda sweet? We got back to my place and had a very good time. When he was getting ready to leave he looked me straight in the eye and told me that he is married. He wasn’t wearing a ring because he takes it off when he works so he ‘won’t break it.’ At this point I was freaking out. I didn’t want anything to do with a married guy. I told him to get out and that I never wanted to see him again. Not that easy.

After this I asked to be put on night shifts until the regular bread guy came back. A few weeks later, Mr. Married shows up with his wife. Apparently he told her that he cheated on her with me and she wanted to meet me. And by meet I mean kick my ass. I didn’t want to fight over a liar who I now despised. Plus, his angry wife was three times bigger than me. So I called the cops, but before luckily the happy couple left and I never heard from either one of them again.

I met him in a Rock/Metal Club in North West England. He was exactly my type – shaven head, tall, well-built. He kept glancing over at me whilst he played pool. He finally came over and we got chatting. I was impressed because he was funny, generous and good company. After many beers, we started kissing. He pushed me into an alcove and got pretty hot and heavy a bit too quickly. I untangled myself and went to the ladies.

When I returned he leaned over and sniffed at my face. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, “I though I could smell cock. Do I smell cock on your breath? What have you been doing?” Now, obviously at this stage I should have walked off – clearly the bloke was a freak. But no, my 21 year old self was a complete dick and ignored the comment.

Later on that evening, we were walking through a particularly nice part of town. My date looked around wistfully as we walked. Was he admiring the architecture? Enjoying the balmy evening air? Nope. He said, “I have had so many blow-jobs from prostitutes round here.”

Yep – cue to leave.

On a nice summer weekend I went to a local pub with three friends to have a few drinks. As the night went on, we slid closer and closer to the dance floor where we ended up being surrounded by four beautiful women. To us, they were “unreal” as we had drinks and were as confident as men could get, thinking we could take on the world. I was dancing with one, who smelt of Satsuma (that orange smelling perfume) so, naturally I commented on it. That comment was enough to exchange numbers. I said I would call her in a few days to arrange dinner. I called two days later and she readily accepted. Things were going smoothly at dinner with pretty liberal conversation about a variety of topics from family to religion to habits and hobbies. Our date lasted more than five hours and to the delight of the waitress serving us, we left.

She said she wanted to stay the night. Naturally, I asked if she was sure, as I was unsure whether or not I wanted to see her again. But needless to say, the sex was incredible. At any rate, waking up in the morning beside this beautiful bombshell after what I had thought was a mind blowing night, she turned to me in the middle of my foyer and started to lose her bloody mind. She started stomping on the floor screaming at the top of her lungs, “I like you, I like you, I like you and I want to see you again!!!!” I just stood there, befuddled, gazing at a once beautiful body with flowing hair who now looked like a psychotic killer. So I said, mainly out of fear, that I would see her again. Instead of waiting to hear from me, she began to call me, showed up at my house, called me while she is drunk driving and went as far as calling me whilst on another date with another poor soul likely to get duped into the same thing I did. Needless to say, my number was changed and after running into her months down the road I decided to move.

My Very Worst Date was a few years back with an older guy I met through some mutual friends. We’d been hanging out and chatting for several weeks and all seemed well. He was funny, polite, had a great job, owned his own house and even had a boxer, my favorite kind of dog.

I was out with friends one night and M. and I had been texting throughout the evening. He invited me over and things started to get hot and heavy. This was our first time in this predicament. Turns out he was, ahem, much bigger than I’d expected and I was very taken aback. I kindly let him know that nothing would or could happen and he seemed OK (I’m sure that couldn’t have been the first time).

His bedroom was the master and he went up to use the attached bathroom, leaving the door open. I wasn’t facing the bathroom but I started to hear noises that certainly weren’t #1.

“Are you pooping?!” I shrieked.

He just started laughing.

I immediately threw all my clothes on and high-tailed it out of there, never contacting him again. I told all my friends of my traumatizing experience and to this day whenever his name comes up, someone always asks “Is that the guy that pooped in front of you?”

K was a vendor who spent a lot of time at my workplace. She was very attractive and flirty and we both had a similar sense of humor, so we’d often talk at work. I did get a vibe that she was interested, but I could tell that it wouldn’t work out (for example, I think socialism is great and she thought George W. was a great President), so I never really pursued it despite the encouragement of co-workers of both genders. Undeterred, she ended up asking me out. As I said, she was very attractive, so penis overruled brain and I said yes. My first tip that this would either be the best date ever or the worst date ever was that, in between the time she asked me out and our actual date, she managed to mention that she refused to use condoms during sex. She told me this at work, while spraying one of those air-dusters you use to clean computers between her breasts “because it’s so hot in here.”

I picked her up at her apartment (this was not unusual, I’d been there before for a party), but she came flying out to meet me and quickly slammed the door behind her. Okay, I thought, I guess she’s hungry; let’s head to dinner. After another awkward “this will never work out” moment was when she said grace before the meal and I took the time to contemplate my life-long atheism. Then she told me about the time that she was in prison, because of a fight she got into over her then-girlfriend. Yeah, mixed messages.

Did I mention she was attractive? And that I was kind of lonely? You need to know those things to understand why the date proceeded. Because next we went to a movie. Without going into detail, it’s been the only time I’ve had the phrase “GET A ROOM!” shouted in me. In the car after the movie, she pretty much pounced on me and said we should go back to my place. Since I lived  over an hour away, and we were about five minutes from her place, I suggested hers instead. This dampened her enthusiasm, but she reluctantly agreed. I soon learned why. Her apartment was quite literally trashed. As in, a thick layer of garbage all over the floor. This, she confessed, was the work of a recent ex. Did I mention the part about me being lonely? Because that’s a big part of the reason I didn’t run. After a beautiful moment of intimacy (not really, but why not), I found myself lying next to her as she was sobbing uncontrollably. We parted shortly thereafter,and I confess I mumbled something about “seeing you again real soon.”

This lovely evening was on a Friday night and the following (early) Sunday morning, I was awakened by a call on my cell phone from K. I knew it was her, because I’d assigned her a distinctive ringtone, but didn’t answer because, I was still pretty much asleep and would’ve been incoherent. I heard the phone beep to indicate I had voicemail. Then it rang again; then a second voicemail. I reached for the phone and checked the messages. The messages were not, in fact, from K, but from her ex, using her phone. The first message was a threat to “kick the shit” out of me and so forth, abruptly interrupted by the sounds of a scuffle in which K’s voice could be heard. The second message was an invitation from her ex to call him and “be a man about this.” Whatever that meant.