My Very Worst Date happened when I was in the first year at university, so only 18, and rather naïve and less cynical than I am now. I also was in the habit of regularly snogging random guys at a really awful nightclub, and then agreeing to go on a date with them. Unsurprisingly, none of these guys were particularly suitable, but generally the dates weren’t too bad, apart from this one.

We arranged to meet at Covent Garden tube station in central London. As we were walking down to a bar, we “happened” to bump into a couple of his mates, who were going to the Walkabout bar nearby. We chatted for a little while, but this mainly consisted of his mates being rather nasty to me because of the way I speak (because of where I grew up, I am fairly well spoken, he and his mates were fairly cockney-ish), and telling me that I must be rather stuck up because of this. Hmm. For some reason, this didn’t throw up any red flags (I since realised you can tell a lot about a person from their friends!)

Well, we walked down to the bar (a couple of doors down from the Walkabout where his friends were headed). He bought me a drink and we sat down and started chatting. Pretty much the entire conversation was him telling me how much he’s spent on his jeans, his trainers, his shirt etc. Funnily enough, this didn’t really do it for me, but I’m polite, so I nodded along and tried to look impressed, making a mental note to go on less dates with random guys. As we were coming to the end of our drinks, he said he needed to get some more cash, gave me a long kiss, and excused himself to go to the ATM. I waited in the bar, but got concerned as around ten or fifteen minutes went by, as there was a cash machine just opposite.

I figured I’d pop out to look for him, but he was nowhere in sight, so I headed home. I was moderately concerned about him, as I knew people who’d been mugged in the area, so when I got home, I sent him a text to check he was OK, not mentioning anything about meeting up again, as I didn’t really want to! I got a reply saying “I thought you would have got the message I wasn’t interested, please f*** off”, and then shortly after, a rather abusive voice mail from him and his friends. Not sure why he couldn’t have said he wasn’t interested at the bar, especially as I wasn’t interested in him either.

Although I still snogged random guys in awful clubs, needless to say, I didn’t go on any more dates with them!