During my junior year of high school, I agreed to be my best friend’s wingwoman to another high school’s homecoming dance. Her almost-boyfriend had a cute friend who was going to be my date, so it seemed like it would be a great night.
But, of course, it was not meant to be a great night. The cute friend bailed three hours before the dance, and the only other friend Almost-Boyfriend could get to come on such short notice was J.
Now, I didn’t mind that J was scrawny and looked like Kip from Napoleon Dynamite except with Uncle Rico’s curl-under hair. I didn’t mind that he was a foot shorter than me (I kid you not). I was even willing to ignore his obvious shyness as we drove to dinner (at a Mexican place where I had contracted mononucleosis two months before).
J wasn’t eating his salad, and I tried to make conversation by asking him if was feeling all right. His answer (while staring down at the table): “I have food allergies… Do you have food allergies?”
I have no food allergies. We didn’t talk for the rest of dinner.
At the dance, I managed to avoid dancing with him, for the most part. But in the spirit of trying to get my best friend and Almost-Boyfriend together, I condescended to go for one slow dance with J. To him, this apparently meant taking my hands in his and swinging our arms in giant erratic circles, hitting other couples mercilessly in the process.
He asked me to be his girlfriend at the end of the night.
I’m still trying to figure out what planet he was from.
This isn’t actually MY Very Worst Date but I was dragged along on it. My roommate (L) was set up on a blind date and asked me to go along because she was nervous.
B showed up at our apartment and I was appalled when he walked in. He was wearing dirty, destroyed jeans (you just can’t call them ripped, fabric was flapping when he walked) and an equally dirty flannel shirt that was open to expose the formerly white t-shirt trying to contain his beer gut. A few minutes later, we were in the kitchen talking. I leaned over to pick something up and he slapped my behind. Hard. Then he told me I need to lose weight. Gee, thanks, B. Wow, you’re really turning out to be a prince of a guy.
B informed us that we were going to his place. I was not comfortable with this because I really didn’t like him but L said it was fine.
We walked in the front door and were immediately assailed by the most foul odor ever. It smelled as though someone had died in the next room. B ushered us into the kitchen – and L and I stared in horror. There were dirty dishes piled up on the table, in the sink, on the counters and even on the floor. Black flies flitted around from plate to plate. “This is the kitchen,” said B.
He led us into the hallway and there we were slapped in the face with the smell emanating from three overflowing litter boxes. L asked how many cats B has and he answered “Just one.” Obviously whenever the litter box gets full, he just puts down a clean one.
B headed upstairs and stopped when he saw a tiny kitten playing with a few Styrofoam shapes. B yelled at the cat and apologized profusely for the mess, gesturing to the shapes. This is what he apologized for? I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to rescue the poor kitten and get out of there.
But no, the date continued. B led us to his room which, as you can imagine, was just as clean as the rest of the house. There were dirty clothes all over the floor and moldy plates piled up on his dresser. The only place to sit was on the bed.
The rest of the afternoon consisted of B telling us how great of a catch he is. Finally, he drove us back to our apartment – where I immediately took a shower.
B called L a few days later and asked her out again. L said no – then B asked if she thought I would be interested in going out with him. L said she didn’t think so. We never heard from him again.
I met M, a gorgeous Indian guy, at a tango dance. We hit it off, talking about dance (he also liked salsa) and our jobs, and exchanged numbers.
A couple of days later, he called while I was at happy hour in his neighborhood, so I agreed to meet up afterward. I told him I was done drinking but would happily share an appetizer, but he insisted on ordering a whole bottle of sparkling wine. The whole conversation consisted of him trying everything he could think of to alternately impress me and get me up to his apartment. My lack of interest in a second date was confirmed by a terrible kiss at my subway stop, and I spent the whole night sick from the glass of wine he’d pressured me into drinking on top of everything I’d had at happy hour.
But what makes the story is a conversation I had with a new boyfriend a few weeks later. He was telling me how he had been out salsa dancing in that neighborhood, and this Indian guy named M (an uncommon name) had been all over one of our mutual friends. We both cracked up when I said, “I went out with that guy!”
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.
I met T on an online dating site where I had previously met a boyfriend and several platonic friends. I live in a big city but don’t have a car. At the time, I relied solely on public transportation. T lived in a totally different city, about 20 miles away. However, he attended the university that was just a few blocks from my apartment, so we agreed to meet there for lunch. The fact that he didn’t offer to pick me up and drive me somewhere was OK, since there was a strip mall type place on campus, and I figured we could get Chinese food or something.
I didn’t know where anything was on the campus, so I wandered around for a while until I found T. And he did not look like his pictures. He was still moderately good looking, though, so I figured I’d continue.
Instead of walking to where the restaurants all were, we went to the student lounge. Which would be OK, except I wasn’t a student there, and the only food place was Subway. I like Subway as much as the next person (except maybe Jared), but not for a first date. But what’s even worse is that he didn’t order any food. He ordered himself a Diet Coke (because he only drinks Diet Coke and water) and didn’t offer to pay for my drink. But I’m a modern woman, I can handle going Dutch (even though I do believe that, traditionally, whomever asks for the first date should pay, especially if it’s only a $1.50 soda).
I was feeling a little hesitant at this point, but I stuck with it because we were compatible in our emails. But the conversation lagged. I asked questions and he gave one-word answers…until he asked me about my feelings on the zombie apocalypse. I told him I didn’t have any, because zombies aren’t real. He launched into a 30-minute diatribe on zombies. It was at this point that I called it quits and left. Luckily, he didn’t try for a kiss or a hug.
He did keep texting me for a few weeks after. It hurts me to say that I completely ignored him, but I just couldn’t handle it anymore.
