Wandering to the Folks

After I ended a long relationship, my best friend from college thought it would be a good idea to fix me up with her boyfriend's childhood buddy because we were both wine connoisseurs. I agreed. 

The location of our first date was a wine cafe. It did not start well. Within five minutes of the date, he was already pointing out that I had a "terrible habit of biting my nails." I was troubled by this critique but ignored it and the other small comments that danced on my nerves.

After lunch, he suggested a walk. I'd had too many glasses of wine so I agreed even though I knew the date was going nowhere. On route, he asked if I would mind stopping at his old friend's house for a minute. I didn't mind especially since he came into town for the specific purpose of our date. 

We approached the house and rang the bell. An older couple answered the door, which totally confused me. It took me a while to realize that they were his ex-girlfriend's parents, who clearly were not over my (apparently highly eligible) date. 

We sat at their outdoor bar (drinking beer mercifully!) for two whole hours discussing how he would one day marry their daughter and how wonderful their relationship had been.

I have never felt more uncomfortable in my life. This dude still wants to know why I never called him again.

Un-Date Action

While I was grabbing coffee before class, a cute enough, well built guy came up to me. We chatted a little and I gave him my number. He seemed normal enough. He called and we organized to meet up at the grad students' lounge and head to a party the following Wednesday. I don't like house parties but I figured I'd try to be open minded. And birthday parties are always kind of festive, right? 

When I arrived at the lounge, he was sitting by the fire. Half asleep. Lovely. He woke up and proceeded to pound three beers (to my one glass of white wine) and then insisted we do Jager Bombs. Then he began a monologue about industrial music. For the record, I am a slummy hipster. I don't like industrial.

After texting incessantly while we sat there for about an hour, he announced that we had to leave for the party NOW. We rushed into a cab and headed off. He stopped at a liquor store, and asked me to pitch in for booze because he was "broke." Perfect. Then, after some detours, we finally found the house (he'd copied the address down wrong). At that point, he realized he did not have enough money to pay for the cab. 

I paid and tried to remain optimistic. I realized that we were in an icky part of town that I did not know well but still I was ready to party. We entered the house and there were a grand total of four people there. They were trashed and wanted snacks. So my "date" and the two girls left for the store, leaving me there with the host, who regaled me with tales of his recovery from meth addiction and his former penchant for visiting prostitutes. 

When the others got back, I escaped to the restroom and texted eight different friends telling them to call me and pretend to be my roommate. My friend A graciously obliged and informed me that our pipes had burst. You see, since she was not good in a crisis, I had to go to her. I got in a cab and got the hell out.

But before I did that my companion for the evening walked me out to the cab. 

"Is this a date?" he asked.

"No, it's not," I replied affirmatively.

He proceeded to assure me that he would call again. 

My response? 

"I wouldn't."

Two Drink Minimum

I was out visiting a friend in Los Angeles and met this guy. We stayed in touch with each other and he decided to fly out to visit me in New York, which was also where his sister lived. He asked if I would mind if his sister came with us on our first official date, since we would be spending the other evenings of his visit alone together. I agreed and of course I wanted to meet her, even though I was a little scared of her, since she sounded like a real no nonsense kind of chick. We went to dinner and I only ordered a salad. Even though I normally love to eat, I wanted to appear dainty and feminine, so I was fine with just a few small bites of food. Big mistake. They were pounding drinks and I joined in even though I’m a total lightweight. By the time we got to a comedy club I was hammered. I literally passed out at our table and began snoring away on my date’s shoulder. Apparently the comedian even started making fun of him. After being woken up I headed outside where I proceeded to barf in the street. His sister managed to call their mom and tell her all about me and the evening. I was mortified. Miraculously he wasn’t upset and still liked me because now he’s my boyfriend.

Teenage Tale

I was 15 and had spent the second half the night making out with my first bona fide boyfriend on his basement couch (the first half being spent at dinner and a movie). In between swapping spit, we were swigging shots of Jose Cuervo. I was obliterated. I stumbled into the bathroom at one point and tripped over an area rug. As my entire body pitched forward toward the sink, I caught a glimpse of my long hair suspended straight up in the air. My mouth, which was about to be a canal for projectile vomit, connected with the rim of the sink. Gonk. When I stood up, bleary-eyed, my two front teeth were broken in half. Like a West Virginia meth addict's. I panicked--but only slightly. Then I puked. I walked out and showed my boyfriend my jagged smile ("loooooook!"), already crying. He had been fixing something on his drum set. He started crying immediately, saying, "You're gonna hate me!" Then he bent over the skeleton of his drum set, bared his front teeth, and smashed his face into the metal. Gonk. Half his two front teeth were gone. Now that's love.

Blood and Whine

I asked a girl I was casually dating to attend a charity wine tasting event and, as could be expected, we both caught a pretty good buzz. At dinner afterwards, I ordered a Cabernet, while she had a straight gin martini. Followed quickly by another. And another. She then says she’s not feeling well and heads to the restroom to purge, but returns feeling much better, and wants to head to the bar across the street for one more drink. Unfortunately, another dude she was dating happened to be there. He looks at her, ignoring my presence, and asks her if she was coming over that night. Annoyed, I started to leave and she ends up following me. As we were walking along on our way home, she keeps talking about this other guy.

I suggested that we sit down to discuss what just occurred. However, instead of sitting on the bench, she went head first into it and looked up at me with blood pouring out of her nose. People began stopping and asking her if she is OK, while looking at me like I just punched her in the face. I duck into a bar and grab a ton of napkins. I am now cleaning blood of both our shoes, while she tries to get Niagara Falls to stop. She starts slurring about the other guy again, at which point I blurted out an obscenity, and turned around and went home.

Dine and Dash

When I was 19, I met this guy and we exchanged numbers and even had a good night kiss after a few too many drinks. The next day, I went out of town for a few weeks, but he invited me over to his apartment for dinner and a movie after I returned. I didn't really remember what he looked like so when the guy answered, I was hoping it was his roommate, because this person was missing two of his front teeth. Unfortunately for me this was my date. As much as I wanted to leave I decided to stay for the dinner that he had prepared. Everything was fine until he asked if I noticed anything weird about my salad dressing. I told him I didn’t and he said, "I added some protein powder to your dressing because you mentioned earlier that you don't get enough protein in your diet." Between the lack of teeth and him slipping mysterious nutritional supplements in my food, I knew this was going nowhere. We still had a movie to watch and it was only 8:00pm so I couldn't say that I was too tired. Then he said, "I have to tell you something. The reason I invited you here instead of taking you out is because I am now on house arrest and am only allowed to go to school and work." I thought he was joking until he lifted his pant leg and showed me the monitoring device on his leg. In the few weeks I was on vacation he had gotten sentenced, for what I have no idea! At that point, I didn't care about being polite; I grabbed my purse and said I had to go.