I had signed up for an online dating site for laughs, but found a few normal guys were sending me e-mails. One guy seemed normal (isn’t that how these all start), and he was very patient and polite when sending me e-mails.  He hadn’t lived here long, would like to take things slow, and wanted to meet for coffee at the place of my choosing.  After actually agreeing to give him my number, we spoke for two weeks before I felt we should meet in person.

I arrived a bit early, ordered a coffee, and waited.  W arrived, introduced himself, and we started a pretty normal conversation.

Toward the end is when it veered into slightly weird territory.  ”What shoes are you wearing?” W asked.

“Uh, just my normal black heels” I said, holding out my foot for him to see.

“Very pretty.”

I knew what was probably hiding behind that comment, but I wasn’t going to dig any deeper. Things seemed fine, but I wasn’t sure if there were sparks or not. I wasn’t ruling them out, but it wasn’t easy to tell what he was thinking.

I had snagged a spot right outside, so I told him I’d take him to his car a few blocks over.  When we got there, I was suprised that he leaned in for a kiss, since nothing in our conversation had really been flirtatious.  I responded, and we exchanged a bit of affection back and forth.

Then he said, “Why don’t you come over?”

“No, thank you.”

“You can have the bed,” he said.

“What???”  I was really confused because: 1) I didn’t know how a few kisses suddenly gave him an opening to have
me sleep with him, and 2) I could “have the bed”??? huh???

“I don’t want you thinking I”m trying to sleep with you. I don’t want to sleep with anyone for a while. It’s just my thing right now. But I really want you near me. You can stay over this weekend, and you can have the bed.”

“Uh, thanks, but that’s not something I’m even going to consider. You are still a complete stranger”.

He really seemed truly hurt, as though we were close close friends and he was never going to see me again.  Truth was, he probably wasn’t going to see me again.

“If you change your mind, you are welcome, I’ll give you directions…” and he proceeded to give me exact directions to his
home. Then he just sat in my passenger seat.

“Well, thanks for the meet up. Drive safe,” I said.  He didn’t move.

“I really should go. I’m going to meet a friend for dinner…” I said. Not a lie.

He leaned in for obviously another round of kissing, but I leaned back and just smiled at him.  ”Thanks. Drive safe.”

“You have the most amazing lips. I just don’t want to be away from them. I want you near me.  We can just hang out.” His pleading went from semi-lustful, to sentimental and back. And he seemed to actually be real about it. It didn’t seem like an act, but there was no way I was interested either way. He really needed to figure out what he wanted.

He FINALLY got the hint and got out of my car, but then he motioned me to roll the window down.  ”Goodbye, Lovely. It was an amazing experience. I will be seeing you soon.”

“Thanks. Have a good night” I said.

He left me with a “Later, dude.”

More than a week went by before I got a text from him.  ”Yo, hay, wuts up. its *W*. just sayin heeeey.”

Oookay.  I am fond of proper grammar whenever possible, and this also wasn’t at all like any of the messages or letters he’d sent me before.  I responded saying I was fine, and left it at that.

A few nights later, I got a phone call from W. “Hi. Hooowwwww arerrrrrr youuuu?”  He was obviously drunk.

I’m usually the oracle of dating wisdom for all my friends, and I’ve repeatedly said “Do NOT take drunk calls from guys.” Did I listen to my own advice? NO.

“I just wanted to hear your voice. How are youuuu? I really miss you.”

“I’m fine, you’re drunk, and I’m going to go.”

“PLEASE don’t go. I need a friend”

“What do you want?”

“I smell like Lime Coolada”.

“Uh, what?”

He proceeded to ramble on about how lonely he was here, and how he should never have moved here. I just sat there saying things like “uh huh” and “okay” every once in a while. WHY I stayed on the phone, I do NOT know. I could have saved myself the next part.

“What kind of nail polish do you have on?” W asked.

“What?”

“What kind of nail polish do you have on? What color?”

“It’s just pink nail polish.”

“Good. Never wear red. Red means you’re Tim’s girl. NEVER wear red.”

“Oookay then.”

“Tim is the one who stole Maria. I went away for a year, and he stole her.”

Great, a guy who drunk dials me to cry about his ex.

“I mean, I broke up with her, but I really loved her. I was gone, and she met him, and when I came back, they were engaged and living together, and she was wearing RED nail polish on her toes. That means she was his girl now.  I told her I’d take her back, and she still wants to marry him. SERIOUSLY”.

“I’m going to go now.”

“Would you PLEASE come over here. I won’t do anything to you. I’m not even interested in you anyway, you are way too white and aren’t the least bit Mexican looking. THOSE are the hot girls. And you’re too meaty. I have NO interest in you. We could just make out. But only if you’ll wear high heels. I won’t make out with a girl who isn’t wearing high heels. Might as well make out with a lesbian. It’s gross.”

(Note that he saw multiple pictures of me before meeting me, so he knew I was a size 14 white girl. And yeah…I didn’t “look Mexican.”)

“Gee, thanks. On that note, I’m going to hang up.”

“Whyyyyy?”

“Because you are drunk and rude. Do not call me again”.

“Come over. I smell like Coooooolada!!! Lime Cooooolada!!!! Please please please!!!”

“Goodbye” I hung up.

I never personally spoke to W again, but over the course of the next month, I got numerous texts and calls, all referencing “Lime Coolada,” and all obviously written while drunk.

“Hey, it’s W. I’m sitting at home drinking by myself all weekend. I’m lonely. I could use a friend. I smell delicious…like LIME COOOOLADA!!! HAHAHAHA. Call me back.”

Text: Smell like Lime Coolada right now. Smells so good. If you want to hang, I could use ‘my’ friend  (yeah, it went from “a friend” to “my friend” at some point)

“Heeeeyyy, it’s W. I’m scared you may have lost my number, so I’m just checking. You wanna come see my place yet? I could use my friend today. Call me. I smell like Lime cooooolada. You could smell me, if you want.”

My Very Worst Date was with a guy I met on an online dating site. He seemed normal enough so we met for lunch. That went well, so he asked for a second date for the coming Friday.

He wanted to meet me at my apartment at 6:00 so we could see a movie. I told him I didn’t get home until after 5:30 from work, so to please make it at least 6:30 or 7:00 to give me time to change and get ready. His response? “OK, I will pick you up at 6:00″ to which I explained “but I won’t be ready.” He thought for a minute and then said “Well, I will be waiting outside at 6:00.” I told him, again, that I wouldn’t be ready. He said that the movie he wanted to go see started at 7:00, which was news to me because we had agreed to go to a drive-in the next town over, which starts at 9:00. The 7:00 movie he had planned to take me to was one that I had said looked awful, so I told him again: “I don’t want to see that movie. I won’t be ready at 6:00. I would like to go to the drive-in if that is OK with you,” and finally he agreed to meet me at my apartment at 7:00.

He finally showed up at 8:30 in filthy clothes, smelling like the underside of a truck. It was also slightly odd because I had never told him where I lived or how to get there – he was supposed to call for directions when he was close. I brushed it off and we left. We got to the movie right as it was starting. The sound for the movie plays on a certain radio station, so he started adjusting his radio but then changed his mind. Instead he hooked up his Ipod and said “Let’s play guess the song!” which was basically him playing the first five seconds of a random song and making me guess which one it was. I begged him to turn on the sound, but we ended up missing the first 15 or 20 minutes of the movie so he could play his silly game. He also grabbed my breast three or four times after I repeatedly asked him to stop, and tried to give me a back rub. I ended up “going to the bathroom” and trying to get a friend to come get me….with no luck.

I threatened to slap him when I got back after he tried to grab me AGAIN, and we sat in silence for the entire ride home. About a block from my apartment he took a wrong turn. He ended up taking me to Sonic and tried to feed me cake while I begged him to take me home. He finally dropped me off. I told him it wasn’t going to work out, and he proceeded to spend the next three or four weeks randomly texting me about how much he missed me and how he was sitting outside next to my truck.

Strangely, MVWD started off very nicely. I’d been chatting to a guy online for a few months. Looks-wise he wasn’t my type so I’d always refused his advances. However, he was persistent, not pushy though, and I thought perhaps I’d give him the benefit of the doubt as there’d always been plenty of friendly banter between us and maybe my usual type was where I’d gone wrong.

We went to a pub for dinner and he paid for all our drinks and food–a pleasant change for me as previous dates always went halves. The conversation flowed really well and I found myself quite attracted to his cheeky-chappy and confident personality. I was completely surprised by our chemistry, but pleasantly so and wondered if I’d been wrong all this time to reject him.

On his first trip to the toilet, he sent me a text from the bathroom saying how much he was having fun and didn’t want to go. I thought this was weird–I’m right here, you don’t need to text me! But I decided to ignore it and continue as normal when he came back.

I walked him to the station so he could catch his train home after and he very politely told me he’d had a lovely time and would like to see me again. No sooner had I walked 30 seconds away from the station, I was bombarded by texts off him saying how much he didn’t want to go and could he please stay at mine. I replied that no, we only just met and we should can meet up again another time. He sent me another six texts begging me. Some of them just saying ‘pleeeasse’ and ‘hurrrry upp my trains guna be here soon!’ All sent one after the other.

I continued to say no, he continued to beg, right up until 10 minutes later when I got angry and told him he was being very unfair on me, I’d said no several times and this wasn’t appropriate. His response? He didn’t really want to stay over. He was just testing me to see how easy I was, and now that I’d passed the test he liked me even more. Unsurprisingly, it made me like him a whole lot less.

MVWD happened in July 2010, and was a second date. On a lark, I went speed-dating, and met someone (now called S.) with whom I seemed to hit it off. He lived in my hometown, with a roommate (“this lady and her kids, it’s actually a good situation”). Our first date was fantastic (great dinner, great conversation, no drunken gropiness or general weirdness) so a second date was a given. We decided to meet at a mall in town, on a very rainy day. Although this sounds incredibly lame, I should mention that I live in a Canadian city with the largest mall in Canada (indeed in North America), so it was a good choice given there is so much to do.

The original plan was to grab some dinner and play some mini-golf or go bowling. When we met up near the restaurant, S. greeted me with a hug, which was nice (no creepy “I’m going in for the hug and OOOPS accidentally grabbed your butt” action going on), and we had a nice dinner. Afterwards we began the trek to the mini-golf course. When we arrived, the girl at the counter told us that they were closing in 10 minutes so they weren’t taking any new customers. Okay, fine, it’s a huge place, we can find something to do. We did a little window shopping and talked, and at some point he took my hand, very casually. I was fine with this too (actually a little giddy, since S. was very good-looking) and we strolled the mall hand-in-hand discussing the next plan. Finally we decided to go see if anything good was playing at the movie theatre.

When we got there, it became clear a movie was out: either only lame summer movies were playing, or the good ones had already started and the next showing wasn’t until 11pm. So now what? Well, the movie theatre has this large, animatronic dragon hanging from the lobby ceiling. It moves around and blinks its eyes, and every 10 minutes or so it opens its mouth and shoots fire. It’s actually very well set-up and cool to watch, so S. suggested we go upstairs where we could see the dragon closely. (From here, you can get close enough to feel the heat from the fire-breathing.) Okay, sure, I hadn’t really checked out the dragon before and it seemed pretty cool so let’s go upstairs.

We were standing at the top of the stairs, quite close together, when he put his arm around my shoulders, which again, I was fine with. (I hadn’t had a date in a while, so maybe I was starved for the touch of another person?) He then dropped his arm off my shoulder, reached down and full-on grabbed my breast. This wasn’t any “accidental boob-graze”, it was full-on cupping. In a theatre lobby full of people. Every good thing I’ve been thinking and feeling about S. just leaves my head, and I get the creeps big-time.

So I carefully step to the side, away from him, and take his hand again (I figured if I was holding it, I’d know where it was). We do some more window-shopping while I try to think of a way to extricate myself from this. As soon as my watch clicked to 9:30, I turned to him and mumbled something about having to be up early the next morning, and I live a good 35 minutes from the mall, so I’d better get going. He seemed fine with this, walked me to my car, gave me an appropriate good-bye hug and I left. He texted me several times to set up another date but I kept brushing him off and he eventually got the hint. He tried contacting me on this online dating site I occasionally frequent but I ignored him.

The kicker? A few months later I was scrolling down Facebook, and saw a comment from someone with the same name (it was quite unusual) on a post from my friend. I clicked on the comment and sure enough, it’s the same guy. And right smack on his wall, what do I see? A post dated sometime in JUNE 2010 reading “happy birthday to my beautiful husband! I love you soooo much xoxox.” Given that our dates were in July, this definitely caught me eye. So I sent a private message to my friend X. (reproduced here verbatim):

Me: Hey X, I know this is maybe a weird question but I was wondering about your friend S. Is he married? (I’m not asking for the reason you might think.)

X: Yes he is. They have a very interesting relationship

Me: I can imagine… since I met him speed dating, and he copped a feel when we were on a date, and now he keeps visiting my profile on the dating site I’m on… “Interesting” is probably a good word.

X: Wow!

So I probably dodged a bullet there. I’m thinking the “lady and her kids” who are his roommates are probably his wife and kids.

I created an online dating profile and he was one of the first decent-seeming guys to contact me. We chatted for a while and made plans to meet up for dinner and movie that same night. We met at the agreed-upon location and started looking for a place to eat. I’m not the fanciest of gals, but I was a little dressed up and was hoping to eat somewhere with flattering lighting and real silverware. He went straight for the 99-cent pizza place, where we ate our slices in near silence. He was grumpy, didn’t really seem to care about anything, and when I asked him questions about himself he gave lazy one-word answers. When asked “what do you do for fun?” he perked up a little and said “drink.”

After the pizza, we headed to the theater, where Rosemary’s Baby was playing. On the way there, we passed a huge warehouse-type liquor store. Upon seeing the rows and rows of bottles on display, my date did a wide-eyed 180 and sprinted into the store, shouting “we should get a bottle of wine for the movie!” I followed him in, and he informed me that he doesn’t know anything about wine and that I should choose. Attempting to class up what was turning into a night with a boring, moody alcoholic, I bought a nice Rioja and we continued on our way.

At the theater, he started trying to open the bottle with his keys, desperately stabbing them into the cork. I just happened to have a corkscrew in my purse that night, and because of this he told me that I was the coolest chick in the world. Slightly flattered, I took a swig out of the bottle and settled in for the movie. In total, I consumed about a half glass of wine, and he chugged the rest of the bottle, clutching it in a two-handed baby-bottle grip. About 15 minutes into the movie, I noticed that he was asleep. He was snoring quietly and whimpering a little bit, but it wasn’t a disturbance so I left him alone.

Around the time when Rosemary is about to have the baby, I fumbled around in my purse for chapstick. He woke up, watched sleepy-eyed as I applied the lip balm, and asked “are you putting that on to make out?” I looked at him incredulously and said “no.” “Oh, ok,” he mumbled, turned away from me, and went back to sleep. At this point I contemplated getting up and leaving him there, but it’s not every day that you get to see Rosemary’s Baby on the big screen, so I figured I’d stay til the end and sneak away then. No such luck. He was asleep during the closing credits, but woke up when I got up.

As we were walking out of the theater he suddenly got really chatty and I felt that he was awkwardly trying to steer the conversation to the topic of sex. Doing the only thing I could think of to curb his post-naptime arousal, I pulled out the book I was reading for my thesis paper and started showing him photos of Cambodian genocide victims. He feigned interest for a minute, but then, when we walked past a sex toy novelty shop, he gestured towards the window display of headless mannequins dressed as sexy nurses with giant dildos on their neck-stubs, and asked me, “so, are you getting any ideas?” I ignored him and powerwalked to the subway, where he demanded a hug, squeezing me as I stood there, arms limp at my sides, thinking I’d rather bear the devil’s baby than endure any more of this horrifically lame experience.

He still tries to IM me every now and again.

I met this guy online, as I’m a divorced mom and only 26. We “talked” over email and text for about a week, and decided to meet up at a bar for karaoke night. While texting, he suggested we play truth or dare to get to know each other better. At first, the questions were normal but then they became intermittently explicit. Of course, we are curious beings and I chalked it up to nerves on his part. He wasn’t overly pushy so I just wrote it off.

When we met in person he was a lot thinner than he had let on. I’m a size four, so I’m not a big girl, but I always feel more comfortable if the guy can’t fit in my jeans!

We had an okay conversation over a couple of beers (as he kept bragging about what a beer connoisseur he was) and he defaulted to truth or dare again. After a few more inappropriate questions, he decided to sing a song. He has spoken of two songs that he always sang, and knew by heart. “Fortunately” the dj was able to find one of his favorite songs. This was the piece de resistance of the date: the song he sang was “My Giant Penis.” Yeah. I turned five shades of red and tried to disappear under the table.

At the end of the night he tried to kiss me and was upset that I didn’t kiss on a first date. Maybe I was afraid he would poke my eye out!

MVWD was during my first week of college. This was when Facebook was first becoming popular and people were still using it to find people they shared classes and interests with. I had befriended several people this way and wasn’t surprised when a guy I didn’t know sent me a friend request. He was also an English major, had good taste in books and movies and we had conversed well over AIM. I thought it was a little odd when after two evenings of chatting he asked me out, but I agreed to meet him for coffee in the most central Starbucks I could think of the following afternoon. He told me that I would recognize him because, despite it being in the high 90s, he would be wearing a long sleeved shirt because he was really pale. He had no pictures on his profile, but I’ve always liked pale nerdy boys, so I thought this might not be so bad and actually was a little excited about meeting this guy.

The next day, I went to our assigned meeting place, and sure enough there was a guy in a long sleeve shirt. Sweating so profusely that most of his shirt was several shades darker than the arms. I gamely went over to introduce myself and before I could react, he hugged me, leaving me with a damp shirt and the distinct impression that he had neither gone outside or taken a shower in about a week. The guy reeked and had the kind of waxy complexion generally associated with recently dead. But at this point I had no graceful way out, so we walked to get coffee. On our walk over, he went on about how he was something of a coffee aficionado and only agreed to go to Starbucks because of me. When we arrived, he promptly ordered some froofy drink. Coffee in hand, we sat, and he immediately launched into this diatribe about how the world would be a better place without some of these people, and how great eugenics can be.

At this point, I was sitting there frozen, desperately looking around hoping to see someone I knew to get me out of this. I then suddenly see his hand on the table. His fingernails were filed into points. Almost two-inch long claws. With some unidentifiable dark matter under them. I stared in horror for thirty seconds, stammered out some excuse and fled. I spent the rest of the afternoon blocking him in every way I could think of and sobbed on the phone to my mother. She thought this was hilarious, but reassured me that I was sure to meet someone less creepy and told me that someday I would see the humor in it. As it turns out, two days later, I was introduced to the man I’m now engaged to and I can finally look back and laugh at My Very Worst Date. I guess mother is always right after all.

I received this e-mail from a guy on Match.com. I had to read it a few times to really grasp its oddness.

My intellectual admiration of the (apparent) you:

I am writing you to inform you of my (intellectual) admiration of you—though admittedly it is based on the statements you made within your profile; still, I don’t believe the statements in your profile are trivial:

“Life ain’t always beautiful, but it’s a beautiful ride.” Indeed it is.

“I love who I am” wonderful!

“I’m usually the first person to make fun of myself” wonderful! I admire your apparent humility.

“…learning new useless facts…” Are you being facetious? Facts are wonderful things that elucidate one’s reality. I admit some may seem unimportant, but I consider that a matter of perspective and an unrealization of the role they can play within Reality.

“…going to the range…” I admit, this does not cause intellectual admiration, but more like (emotional) validation; I myself have a quasi-ob session with firearms; I would recommend a 1911 type pistol, if you haven’t tried it yet.

“…and pretty much anything else someone suggests” wonderful, your apparent open-mindedness.

“…is my new obsession” obsessions are wonderful things, aren’t they?

“I can’t say I have a perfect match in mind. I’m pretty open minded and adaptable” wonderful

Finally, I should say the following: given the context (of this interpersonal interaction) and my own yearning for my “soul mate” (that word is tricky; it could have many different connotations; anyway), my motivation for writing you was I think in part potentiated by emotion, and in part self-deception (nevermind what I mean by this, it’s not that important). Though I show you my intellectual admiration of (the apparent) you, I suspect I would not give you all that you want. But I wish you, out of brotherly love of one’s fellow human, the best of luck in your search and in life.

P.S. Please excuse the manner in which I convey my meanings; it’s a conglomeration of jargon from study of various fields (physics, psychology, philosophy, etc.). And I should state this, for I fear: I do not speak or write to everyone in this way; in fact, I hide it from most; I do not do it to “impress you” (I mean that in the colloquial sense); it is more a reflection of intellectual intimacy that I have shared with you.

I politely declined any further conversation with the gentleman.

I met my date, R, like many other MVWDs, online. He seemed friendly and excited to communicate, so I thought I would give him a try. He appeared cute in his pictures, and we talked on the phone a few times before we met.

I should have known it would turn out badly when he insisted on going on our date on Father’s Day. He claimed it would be his only day off work for weeks, and even though I explained I had plans with my family in the morning, he insisted until I finally gave in. He called me multiple times during lunch to ask for directions, as he thought he saw a sign for a bank with the same name as my area about, oh, an hour away. He was pissed when I didn’t answer, even though I made it clear I would not be able to during the meal with my family, and kept sending me texts about how many miles away he was. I should have told him to turn around right then.

He picked me up in a very well-populated area, and though he didn’t quite match his appearance in his pictures, I didn’t think I should judge him too hard. He didn’t mention that his pick-up truck was so big it would take up two parking spaces (I live in a city with limited parking, so finding one space at all is considered lucky). Oh, he also didn’t tell me he smoked, and proceeded to light up the second we got in the car, making for a rather hazy drive.

We drove about an hour to a city north of mine, and parked to get something to eat. After walking around for about 45 minutes, he decided on a place by the water, which I thought might be semi-romantic. He proceeded to order an appetizer, discussed throughout the duration of the “meal” how he doesn’t have an appetite, and then told me how much I owed when the check came. At this point, I gave up all hopes of the date being romantic in the least. We went back to his house and watched the terrible film, Camp Dread. As I was trying to enjoy his company in a platonic manner, he suddenly pulled up my skirt half-way to ask what color underwear I was wearing. Needless to say, I was ready to go home.

On the drive back to my area, he lit up a few more times, and hounded me on whether or not I believed Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones deserved to be famous more. He dropped me off a good half mile from my house, saying it was easier for him to get back on the highway from there. I jumped seemingly ten feet down from his car and quickly walked away, deleting his number from my phone as I went.

My Very Worst Date happened during my high school years. I had been spending time with this boy, M, whom I’d worked with for about a year or so. Having found myself newly single, I thought it seemed appropriate that he would become my “rebound” (not to be acted on) crush. But of course, being young and naïve, I actually pursued him anyway.

One day, I invited him to my high school’s football game, and was very excited when he actually showed up. We then spent the night holding hands and laughing with my friends. Because of how well things were going, I didn’t think anything of it when M asked for another friend C’s number and started texting her. After the football game, I said goodbye to my friends and he joined me for a movie with another dating couple. He spent the movie leaning really close to me, and I was expecting him to just kiss me. I hardly noticed him texting on his phone, but we were teenagers, that’s what we did. The night ended oddly, with no kiss or hug or anything cute from M.

After the date, I checked my phone, which had six missed calls, four text messages and a voice message, all from C, saying that I needed to call her right away as she had something to tell me. So at midnight I called her, only for her to start saying how sorry she was, and that M had been texting her all night, and actually asked her out! While I was at the movie with him! Naturally, she had turned him down.

M and I are not on speaking terms anymore.