MVWD was also my first ever date – I was 15, never been kissed, slightly dorky and, frankly, surprised that someone would ever want to go on a date with me. And he was 18 (dear me!).

To be fair, the date was not only bad because of him, I contributed to it, too. But what a disaster.

He took me to McDonald’s, which, in hindsight, should have been a huge red flag. Instead, I stood awkwardly in line with him, trying to decide what to get. There is really nothing on the menu at McDonald’s that is not going to make me look like a complete tool, though. When it was finally our turn, he told me to order first. What a catch, I thought. He’s a gentleman! (How wrong I was).

Unfortunately, this was in France, and I had never been in a French McDonald’s. I had no clue that in French, they call burgers “sandwiches.” So when the lady behind the counter asked me what sandwich I wanted, I freaked out, and said “what?” She repeated her question, to which I flippantly said “Tuna?”

My date thought this was the funniest thing, and (luckily) he thought I had done this on purpose because I was edgy and different. Asking for a tuna sandwich at McDonald’s. What a crazy gal.

The lady behind the counter became quite cross with me, so I just blurted out “Big Mac” to get out of the situation. I turned to my date, and asked him; “What are you having?”

“Oh, nothing. I am not eating.”

This, of course, made me very uncomfortable. We proceeded to sit at a table where he WATCHED ME EAT. Dainty, little, 15 year-old me trying to eat a burger and fries in front of my date? I did not appreciate. It took even longer in an effort to look half decent; all the while he did not say much, just sat there watching. All my attempts at offering him some of my food were declined.

When I finished, he proclaimed; “Well, that made me hungry!” and went to line up again. He ordered himself a Big Mac as well, came back, unwrapped a straw, jammed it in his burger, and tried to suck the burger through his straw. After failing miserably, he laughed awkwardly, then ate his meal while I had to watch him.

Needless to say, it was the most uncomfortable date I had ever been on (since it was my first) but I haven’t been able to top it since, either.

Later, I found out that he did it this way because his father employed him, and he charged the meals to the company credit card. If he ordered one meal, waited until I ate it, then ordered another, his dad might believe that he was just really hungry, and needed two lunches that day. If he had ordered them at the same time, he would have had to pay for the date…

I met him online.  We talked on the phone for hours, had similar interests and seemed to get along quite nicely.  He lived about an hour away from me in a big city so we finally set up a date to meet for dinner at a restaurant near his apartment and then head downtown for a comedy show.  Usually a two-part first date isn’t my thing, but we got along so well on the phone that I was for it.  He gave me the address to the restaurant so on the night of the date, I plugged it into my GPS and was on my way.

I finally arrived at the restaurant address to find that it was an apartment complex.  When I called him to ask where I was supposed to be, he told me that he had looked up the restaurant online so the address must have been wrong.  He met me in the parking lot that I was sitting in (to my excitement, he was completely gorgeous) and told me there was another restaurant just up the street that we could go to.  The restaurant up the street was actually in a strip mall next to this sketchy biker bar where the men outside were cat-calling any woman that walked by.  The restaurant was scheduled to close in 30 minutes, so I suggested going to another place but my date assured me it was fine and whisked me into the empty restaurant.  Luckily the wait staff was kind enough to keep the buffet up for us to fill our plates and sit down.

During dinner, he somehow managed to get on the topic of how he hated the US government (he was originally from Romania).  He started ranting about how we spend too much money on our defense and somehow knew all this information about a military base close by that had six airplanes just sitting there, and how each propeller on the airplane was $30,000.  It was all a bit odd to me because he didn’t work for the government, so I had no idea how he knew any of this – or why he felt it was a good first-date conversation.  Trying to lure him away from the subject, I started talking about cars (one of our common interests).  It was going fine until…

Him: I love driving fast.  Man, I hate cops.  They’re all jacka**es.  I mean why can they speed on the interstate but I can’t?  It’s so f**king stupid.
Me: .. I mean, if everyone went as fast as they wanted there would probably be more accidents, right?
Him: No, I mean maybe the idiots would get in accidents, but I wouldn’t.  I’m a great driver.  I just think the social contract is stupid.  Just because we live in society doesn’t mean we should have to abide by rules.  It’s so dumb.
Me: I think it’s just how life is.. otherwise there would be chaos…

He started ranting on, and on about the government again, never letting me get two words in edgewise.  It was just a bit infuriating because he continued to bash the USA and try to tell me, an American, how corrupt we all were.  Finally, he demanded the check from the waiter by saying, “Hey, we’re done. Check.”

I hoped his anti-American rant was just his nerves, so I thought going to the comedy show would maybe get him to relax a bit and bring back that connection we had on the phone.  He wanted to ride together to the show so he asked me if he could drive us in my car (a new BMW that I hadn’t ever let anyone else drive).  When I told him that I would drive us if we were taking my car, he huffed, “Fine, whatever” and got in.  On the way to the show, he insulted my driving saying I was going too slow and if he had been driving, he would’ve been going at least 80 miles-per-hour in the 55 miles-per-hour zone.

We got to the show and sat down at the table.  The show had a two drink per person minimum so he asked me what kind of beer I wanted and then ordered four of them to cover the drink minimum.  He downed two of them in the opening act as I sipped on my one. Then he asked me “Are you going to drink that?” about the third beer.  I told him he could have it, but he wanted to share it so he poured a little into my bottle.  The comedian was great, but ironically he told a joke about people hating the “social contract” and how they were all idiots.

Comedian:  Have you guys ever met someone against the “social contract”?  Can you imagine what it would be like at Starbucks if there was no social contract?   It’d be f**king chaos in there!  People would be jumping on the counters screaming “Give me my latte!!!”  Those people should go live on their own island and see how having no social contract goes..

After the show, the first thing my date said to me was, “What was that guy’s problem with Starbucks?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was people like him that he had the problem with.  I took him back to his car and didn’t see him again.

My Very Worst Date was a string of two dates. Safe to say, I don’t learn my lesson easily.

The guy was someone I met online. He was very persistent in his attempt to get me to go on a date with him, despite my better judgement. Nothing about him matched any of the things that I was looking for in a partner and had written about openly on my profile. He had toured with the Grateful Dead for a few years and somehow thought the fact that I had dreads made us the ultimate match. Anyways, back to business.

Our first date was to a Grateful Dead hole in the wall bar about two hours north of where we lived. I’m not much of a drinker and was totally out of my element. I quickly learned that he was quite the drinker and felt right at home, even asking a random lady if we could “crash” at her place that night. Instead, he decided it was good judgment to take his open container with him in the truck and drive back home. Not the worst date ever, but I should have learned my lesson.

The second date was to a restaurant downtown that happened to be my favorite place to eat. We were sitting there and he was smirking at me. He then commented that I wasn’t anything special and that he wasn’t sure why he was there with me. I got up to use the restroom and compose myself and when I came back, he was gone. As in, I had no ride home, was five miles from my house, in new sandals that had worn a blister on my foot, and with a cell phone that was almost dead.

I called a friend and got a ride home only to receive a text from my date about half an hour later asking if he could give me a ride home. He proceeded to harass me for the next few weeks, even bringing over a bicycle one night that he had found at a garage sale.

He sent me a message on Facebook over a year and a half later, telling me that he had “finished himself off” to the image of me four times in one day. Safe to say, I blocked him.

My Very Worst Date didn’t actually seem absolutely bad until after the fact – but it certainly didn’t go that well.  I met a guy at a bar in college and we really hit it off.  I gave him my number and he called me later that week asking me to dinner.

He informed me that though his real name was Justin, he actually preferred to be called “Lucky” since he was redheaded and Irish.  Also this was his “club” name that everyone else knew him by.    I thought it was a little silly for someone who was 24 years old but I shrugged it off.  He then proceeded to tell me about how much he loved techno and how the only thing he looked forward to all year was going to Burning Man.  He wasn’t in school and was working in catering.  He quickly rebounded this by stating that he had been doing bigger and better things elsewhere, but had returned to the small town because his mother was suffering from breast cancer.  He said he had to spend a lot of his time taking her to doctor’s appointments and helping her out around the house.  I thought it was admirable he had made such sacrifices for his family.

After dinner he suggested going to my place since he lived with his mom and didn’t have a car.  I reluctantly agreed and we popped in a movie.  He didn’t waste any time with his advances as he was obviously not interested in the movie.  He kissed me and did the much dreaded tongue to the back of my throat.  After that I knew for certain I did not have an interest in this guy.

As it got later and the movie ended, Lucky asked if he could spend the night.  I gave him the sideways glance and he told me he really didn’t want to try anything and that he had work early in the morning.  For whatever reason I agreed and we both awkwardly slept in the same bed.   Of course, he tried something from time to time, but strangely enough, this little orphan kitten I had taken in a few days prior kept him from making his move.  Every time he tried something the kitten would playfully jump on his head and simply not leave him alone.

The next morning I woke up to him calling his work to say that he wouldn’t be coming in because he felt unwell.  He then gave me the eye and I told him I thought it was time for him to leave.  He did so a little bitterly and neither one of us called the other again.

A few weeks later my friend met his younger brother at a bar and, having heard my stories, asked how his mother was doing.  He looked at her baffled, saying that she was fine and wondered why she had asked.  She told him she had heard she’d been diagnosed with cancer – and to our horror, he revealed their mother never had cancer.  Lucky had moved back home because he ran out of money and needed a place to stay.

My Very Worst Date took place when I was a junior in college, home in Philadelphia on winter break. I was on the rowing team at a private school and took only four classes a semester, but took winter and summer courses at my local college to transfer over. This particular winter break I took a course at the local campus for a state college. Each class was five hours long with a half hour break in the middle. During the break in my first class, while getting coffee, I met a foreign student from Belarus who was taking another class. He was well-dressed, tall and dark, with a Belarusian accent, and even though I wasn’t interested in dating at the time he was nice to talk to during breaks. We met up every day during our breaks and got coffee together.

On the seventh day of classes during break, he asked me out on a date. I explained that I wasn’t necessarily looking to date anyone, especially since I would be returning to my college in a month. He looked dejected, and told me that he was lonely living in the United States and didn’t have any friends here. Feeling bad, I agreed to go to dinner and a movie in the city with him. He didn’t have a car, so he asked that I pick him up the next evening at his apartment and gave me the address.

His apartment ended up being in a bad area of North Philadelphia, and knowing the area I felt incredibly unsafe waiting the forty minutes it took him to get ready. Even though this wasn’t a date, I had dressed nicely with dark jeans and a fitted top. He, on the other hand, over-dressed with a suit and tie; clearly there was a breach in customs as to what one should wear to dinner and the movies.

When he got into my car, a five-year-old Jeep, he immediately started running his hands over the console and seats, telling me that I must be rich to have afforded the car. While I drove towards a theater in the city, he continued to talk about money and how Americans don’t spend their money wisely. He pointed out my jewelry, my shoes, and my purse explaining that I wasted money that should have gone towards my family. I was never really one for material things, so I again brushed this off as cultural differences.

When we got to the movie theater parking lot, he told me that he didn’t want to see a movie or have dinner and instead wanted me to give him a driving tour of Philadelphia. I took him along Boathouse Row (one of my favorite places) and stopped to show him some of the statues along the Schuylkill River. When I turned off my car, he quickly leaned in and tried to kiss me. I stopped him, and he blatantly joked that he thought we were stopping to make out “like in the movies”. I’m not sure at this point why I continued to think that he simply didn’t know American customs, but I knew that I needed to cut the night short.

I drove him through downtown Philadelphia and down to South Street, where he asked to stop for coffee. While walking along South Street with our coffee he suddenly said that he was surprised that I had said no to dating him because in Belarus he had dated women much hotter than I was. I almost spit out my coffee as he continued to talk about how hot the women in Belarus were (“they are all models”) and how plain American women were in comparison. “You may be beautiful by American standards,” he said, “but you would not be able to find a husband in Belarus.” Clearly, I was ready to go home now.

We got to my car and I started the drive back to his apartment. Seeing a billboard for a housing development, he asked me about my parents’ house and how big it was.  He clucked his tongue when I told him, again saying that Americans were wasteful and that people in Belarus only need small apartments. Then came the biggest shock of the night: he asked me if I would be interested in getting married so that he could stay in the United States after he finished with school. I sped the entire way back to his place.

When I finally got to his apartment and stopped my car, he leaned over again to try to kiss me. I pushed him away, and he got out of my car, started walking away, then turned and tapped on my car window. I opened it, and he said, “I don’t really have a lot of furniture, but I do have an air mattress that we can sleep on if you want to come have sex.” Needless to say, I didn’t take him up on the offer and spent the rest of the winter break avoiding him. He continued to call my phone even after I returned to college until my friend answered and told him that I had died. Without missing a beat, he asked her out.

After a rather long stint of being single and sexless in my early-mid 20’s, I decided to go on a string of dates via Myspace profiling (this was before Myspace became the afterthought you ignored for months before you realized the end of that era). One particular gentleman seemed to fit the “type” I was currently on the market for: mature, employed, good looking, good build, etc.

Somehow, the first date, with a lot of wine, seemed to go well and ended up in the bedroom (not something I am particularly proud of). In the heat of the moment, he said “can you feel me against your leg?” to which I inwardly thought, “no, strange, what am supposed to feel beyond your 200lb physique?” It turned out that he had a little tiny member, and that my inexperience didn’t know how to stop where this was leading. After committing, “the act” that I truly never felt, as he was inexplicably small, I was happy to end the date.

Whatever drove me to allow him to come over a few days later for a second date I can never explain, but how I got out of it goes down in history, thanks to my fabulous female neighbor/lifelong friend.

After he showed up I knocked on her door (our front doors were facing each other) and explained I needed her help out of this date. She proceeded to rush to the bathroom, smear her mascara all over her face, and grab a bottle of tequila and her pot pipe. In the meantime, I told Small Member that my neighbor was having major man issues, and she needed to talk to someone immediately. The three of us sat together on the bench on the front porch, my neighbor in the middle, as she explained, drank, and smoked her way through the most incredible tale of lies. Keeping in mind that I had to appear affected by what she was saying, I played the role of concerned friend, dying of laughter on the inside, and explained to Small Member it just wasn’t a good night for us to continue out date.

The next day I emailed him to explain I wouldn’t be interested in another date, but thanked him for being so nice to my friend in her time of need. He replied in kind, with the added response, “ya, I think you and I would have sat at different lunch tables in school.” I give him credit for taking it like a man, small member and all.

This wasn’t really a date, but that didn’t matter to this guy. I live in Oslo, Norway, and I had a girl visiting from Germany. I was showing her around the city, and on the weekend we ended up going to a concert. At the concert we had fun and danced with a couple of guys, and I saw my friend really hit it off with her guy. I was stuck with a very intense character, whom I’ll refer to as Mr. C from now on.

Mr. C is the pushiest guy I ever met. He insisted on bringing us all home to his place for an afterparty. My friend from Germany had heard about how norwegians typically have after-parties when the bars close; she wanted to experience one, and told me so. I didn’t have the heart to say no, since she really seemed to like her cute guy. I agreed, and so we went to Mr. Cs place.

When we got to his place, Mr. C started bombarding me with questions of what I thought of him, and what I thought of his place; he started showing me a bunch of YouTube clips of different singers, demanding to know what I thought of them through every bit of the conversation. I was getting really fed up with this guy, but I could see my friend and her guy enjoying themselves talking to each other. I didn’t want to ruin that for her, so I kept on trying to deal with the intensity of Mr. C.

After just a few minutes there Mr. C insisted on me friending him on Facebook, sent me a request right then and there, and pushed his laptop in my face nagging me to log on my Facebook and accept his request. I thought, oh well, I’ll just delete him tomorrow. Immediately after I logged out of my account, Mr. C looked up my phone number online and called my cell as I sat there, demanding that I add his number on my phone.

After this he dragged me into the kitchen and started kissing me – or, more accurately, started invading my face with his tounge. My first inclination was to stop the whole ordeal and push him away, but as he was such a hopelessly aggressive kisser that I felt sorry for him and decided to give him some pointers. This evolved into ten minutes of kissing lessons, which resulted in nothing more than me getting poked and stabbed in the mouth by his invasive tounge with no improvement. So I told him I’d had enough of it.

I was rewarded for my stupidity of accepting his kissing when Mr. C started pressing on the subject of me going on a date with him. I vaguely said something like “maybe, we’ll see,” and so he started complaining that I wouldn’t return his calls ever, that this is always the ways things happen, and that he wanted me to guarantee that I wouldn’t just disappear.

Now, I just wanted to get the hell out of there, so I told him, sure, I’d return his call, not to worry. But this was not good enough. He told me that that was exactly what all the other girls said, and none of them returned his calls (can’t imagine why). This went on for a little while until I couldn’t take it any more and decided it was time for my friend and me to leave.

The next day I got, unsurpsisingly, a bunch of messages from Mr. C on my Facebook, as well as an apologetic text on my phone. He apologized for being too intense, and added that he would take me up on my advice on his interior decorating (I’m thinking, what advice?).  I answered the text saying that it was no matter and thanking him for the hospitality, but that I wouldn’t go on a date with him or meet with him.

After this followed over six months of messages, pokes and texts. At first I deleted him on Facebook, but had to block him after a while as he kept sending me messages anyway. I still get texts on my phone.

MVWD happened without me knowing it was a date. I came to college a young, naive girl with far too much faith in people and a girlfriend. She was still in high school though, so I rarely got to see her.

Enter T, an awkward, greasy-haired guy from one of my classes. He seemed nice, if clingy, and we hung out sometimes after class.

One day, he informed me that he’d managed to find the campus bonsai garden, and asked if I wanted to see it. I did, so we walked over together while he lectured me on his newfound interest in tarot and palm reading. He apparently thought I, as a gypsy, should know everything about palm reading, and when I didn’t, he asked if he could read my palm. I offered him my hand and he immediately grabbed it, intertwined his fingers with mine and said, “Hah, I tricked you.”

I informed him that I had a girlfriend. T immediately dropped my hand and when I tried telling him it wasn’t anything personal, he snapped at me that I should have told him I was “a f***ing dyke” before he let himself fall for me.

I left.  I don’t like being called a gypsy or a dyke, especially since I’m bisexual. When he showed up at my dorm, I didn’t want to be yelled at, so I pretended I wasn’t home.

I later found a paperback copy of “The Outsiders” that T had, for some reason, taped to the door. Inside, written in the margins was bad poetry about how miserable T was, racist and homophobic slurs, and on the last page, a creepy spiral of words detailing that he “wanted to cut out [my] heart and play in [my] blood.”

Obviously, we aren’t still friends.

My Very Worst Date happened my sophomore year of high school. I had pushed the memory so far into the back of my mind that I forgot about it all these years until reading enough stories on this site for the pain and humiliation to all come flooding back.

I was in a long term relationship with my boyfriend-at-the-time M, who I had known for about 3 years (and dated 2 years), and he was riding buses all the way from California to come see me in Texas. It seemed almost perfect and unreal, as I thought we’d never see each other again. He was coming down for a few days on his two week Christmas break, and was going to stay at my house. Now, if you’re wondering how my mother felt about a 17-going-on-18 year old boy staying with her barely-turned 15 year old daughter, well she was DELIGHTED. My mom, being a heavy drinker and party go-er at the time, seemed more excited than I was, and was willing to take us out to a fancy dinner, and pay for our food (because he spent all his money on his bus tickets). I thought this was some kind of Christmas miracle. I wasn’t more wrong about something in my entire life.

The first night he came over my mom delayed our plans to day 2 because she was at some club somewhere too smashed to drive us anywhere, and wasn’t coming home. We were a bit nervous, seeing as he only had 3 days including the day he came and the day he would leave which was to be in the mid afternoon. So we stayed home, messed around, and had fun, and couldn’t wait for the next day.

The next night my mom called and told us to dress nicely as we were about to leave to dinner. I wore a tight, thinly-clothed dress shirt, with some skinny jeans (I didn’t have anything nicer), while he wore a Devil Wears Prada shirt with some baggy jeans (he didn’t bring anything nicer), but I really didn’t care how he dressed, and thought nothing of it. About 4 hours late, my mom arrived, and we were soon driven out of the city, and into the middle of nowhere at about 9 o’clock at night. We had been driving for about 45 minutes and already I was sweating in anticipation for what mysterious, horrible night could come of this. I was not prepared for what was to be my very worst date with my very best boyfriend.

We finally arrived at what looked to be an abandoned shack in the middle of an abandoned parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Loud music was playing from inside and there were drunk people waddling in and out of the bar. Before I could even ask or beg my mom to drive us back, she turned to us and smiled “Here we are! I know all of the bartenders here, and since no cops know about this place, you two can get wasted all you like! Just remember, if you want to get busy though, you’ll have to come ask me for my car keys ‘cause I don’t want no one watchin’ ya’ll inside.” I was amazed, and astounded by those words alone. She then proceeded to warn us about talking to the people inside because most of them were ex convicts, registered sex offenders, junkies, or drug dealers. M and I were drug and alcohol free, abstinent teens trapped in the middle of nowhere with a bar full of psychos- and my mom. Could it have possibly gotten any worse?

It was about 10 o’clock at night, and the weather outside was in the low twenties. We didn’t have our jackets, and we were too afraid to go inside the bar. The only light outside was a light hanging above the door that only lighted a small circle on the pavement where we sat, being startled by anyone coming in or out. I was crying and I’m pretty sure he was too, but it was hard to tell seeing as our tears froze to our cheeks. We decided freezing to death huddled under a light bulb wasn’t how we wanted it to end, so around 12 in morning we decided to take our equally dangerous chances inside.

The temperature change was enough to instantly kill someone or put them in shock. From below twenty and rapidly decreasing weather outside, we walked into an oven fueled by cigarette smoke alone. It was probably about 85-90 degrees in that shithole of a bar. To make matters worse, we found out why the music was so, so awful. It was karaoke night! We made our way to a secluded corner, and sat on some old, rickety bar stools. We tried to talk, but we couldn’t even understand what we were saying much less see each other through all the smoke. Never having smoked before, we were both coughing our lungs out, all while trying to push off drunk people who thought we were so “hip” and “young looking”.

After being hit on, and almost dragged into a few drunken fights, my mom swayed over, and can you believe it, her already slutty tank top’s straps had been cut off and her shirt was pulled over her stomach only covering her boobs which didn’t hide much because her bra was missing (did I mention my mom is like over 300 pounds?). She told us how happy she was we came inside to hear her sing next (my heart plummeted even lower) and she ran onto the stage and sang. When I say she sang I really mean she screamed, literally screamed, the lyrics to Santeria by Sublime. I give her credit for remembering the lyrics, but even M cracked a smile at her dreaded performance. We decided to take our chances outside. Again. Because she was that bad, and I was about to strangle myself just to get out of this nightmare quicker.

It was about 2 am, and I prayed that if God had mercy on our souls, he would send someone down to rescue us. M knew I was humiliated, and tried to cheer me up by showing me some of the cool, underground music he listened to in CA. After a few songs, my body had become completely numb, and the cold was no longer a problem to the both of us. Just as I began to drift off leaning on his shoulder we were both shoved face first into the pavement- breaking his brand new video ipod and headphones completely. What happened? Two drunk bitches who had both been proposed too (I wonder who the lucky guys were) had been too drunk to walk and had fallen over us. An apology? Even a “F*** you” would have been great. No.. for the next hour and a half, these two women went on and told us their fabulous stories of their fiancées and how they cheat on them every so often and how one of them had just had sex with some junkie in the bathroom. When their rides FINALLY came, one of them wanted to show M their ring one last time – and punched him right in the nose by accident. They were helped by some guys who laughed at us and mocked us. I held M’s shattered-screened ipod, and he wiped his bloody nose on his shirt (which I later found out was also new). We went back inside.

We sat in misery in the corner again. No one even asked him why he had blood all over his face and shirt, or why I was sitting their shaking like a mad person. Finally, after sitting around for 2 hours (yes, it was past 5 IN THE FREAKING MORNING) I found my mom, and this is where my real story starts. She could barely stand and had been using the crowd of people as means of standing up. She FELL onto my boyfriend’s lap. She was able to drag herself up, and I cannot describe to you the horror on his face nor mine when she started KISSING HIS NECK. He shoved her away, but (did I mention she was like over 300 pounds?) she was too big for him and just kept pushing on. As soon as I grabbed her she stood up and lifted her shirt exposing her boobs. She leaned on him again and asked him if he’d like to take a visit to the restroom with her. I screamed at the top of my lungs, which startled her and caused her to fall backwards. Me and M got the hell out of there!!

Back outside I was raving and ranting about how pissed I was, and how she was my own mother and hit on my boyfriend and what-not. M actually thought it was kind of funny, and still tried to cheer me up. We did manage to have a little bit of fun by kicking an empty Gatorade bottle back and forth until I accidentally kicked it on top of the roof.

Finally, at about 6:30 am my mom was all partied out. As we swerved back home she gloated the whole way how happy she was I was being fucked (yes she really did say that) by such a nice, cute guy. When we got back she told us how she almost scored with a hot guy until some bitch came and screamed at her and ruined it. I’m pretty sure she was unknowingly talking about us.

The next day, she had no memory of what happened and didn’t believe a word we told her, and laughed it off as some prank. Me and M dated for a whole year after that until long distance became too stressful, and we separated. We’ve joked around about it since then (up until I forgot about it) and now he’s back in Texas and we are the best of friends. Oh, and he’s  gay now.

MVWD was dreadful, mostly because it wasn’t even meant as a date.  I was enjoying being single after leaving a really damaging and abusive relationship a month earlier, and had made some new friends while enjoying my newfound freedom. Two guys I met, E and G, lived together with some mutual friends. G and I really hit it off, exchanged numbers and chatted, but he was going home for the winter holidays soon.  E took this chance to regale me with tales of his depressed mother, terrible self-esteem issues, fabulous World of Warcraft victories and totally unrelated (to him) string of academic failures at university.  As this was just before Christmas (and I was clearly the most naive lass in the room), I figured he needed a mate to talk to and invited him and two other people over for a film and dinner.

It turned out to be just the two of us as the others bailed, but I didn’t think anything of it.  E turned up on time with a clinking carrier bag, which seemed odd as the plan was clearly for one film and dinner, and he’d brought enough alcohol for a full-on rave.  Things took a decided downturn when he pulled out a huge bottle of Baileys and a Minnie Mouse doll, which he called Dot and played with (or caressed) all evening.  He’s 23 at this point.  Then, one film turned into all the Disney films in the flat in a row, complete with him singing along to all the music.  My other flatmates were out for the evening, so I couldn’t even conscript them into rescuing me.

After a couple of hours, he’d drunk enough to floor most people and clearly thought he’d scored – based on what I’ve no idea.  He started listing the cheesiest lines of the movies in between howling tunelessly along with The Little Mermaid – complete with the yawn and stretch to put his arm round me.  It felt like he’d learned everything about dating from 1980s teen movies.  I curled up in the corner of the sofa with my arms round my knees, hardly sending out inviting vibes while he trotted out cliche after cliche. We carried on with this ridiculous scenario until about midnight.  Finally, one flatmate returned and I seized the opportunity to turn E out, claiming tiredness and a busy day the next day.

Trying to avoid any sort of awkward goodbye hugging, I showed him out and returned to my room, only to find he’d followed me back without saying a word and was now standing  behind me breathing halitosis on my neck at the (closed) door to my room, waiting expectantly for me to usher him graciously in.

Luckily, before I could freak out properly, my flatmate appeared and kicked E out, having watched him follow me back down the corridor, and we had a good laugh over it.  E’s apparently been doing the same pity-’date’ routine for years, and recently had his crowning moment when he traveled to Sweden to meet a girl he’d befriended on WoW, only to be sent home again within 3 days because she couldn’t take the narcissistic droning and personal space invasions any more.  G and I were engaged three months later, and we’re getting married next year, so this should remain MVWD ever.