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.

In the Waiting Line

When I was 15, I met this guy while standing in line for tamales on Christmas Eve near my house in Texas. My parents habitually bribed me to wait the three hours it took to procure the best tamales in town during the holiday season.  Although this guy had two first names, instead of a first and last name like any reasonable person (a guaranteed sign of trouble in the south), he seemed nice enough, so I gave him my number and we went out later that week. But it soon became apparent that this guy was still terribly torn up about his ex-girlfriend and I think he tried to recreate the closeness of that bond the only way a 16 year-old boy knows how: in turn painfully over-sharing embarrassing details about his life and bragging about his sports prowess. 

This led to a 45-minute discussion about the joys of pole-vaulting, as well as an admission of bulimia, all while using a tiny can of breath spray as he talked. After I turned down his kind offer to see a picture of his ex-girlfriend and go park somewhere, he decided to continue the date at Wal-Mart, where he bought a CD that reminded him of some school dance he went to with his ex. While driving me home, he put in said CD and started crying. After he dropped me home, I realized that I forgot my jacket in his car.  When he turned his car around to bring it to me, he said, "It must be fate," to which I replied, "No, it's just forgetfulness." 

Chicago with a Side of Whopper and Fries

My first mistake was allowing my parents to set me up on a blind date. The guy picked me up and informed me that we were going to a Chicago concert. I was not that keen on the band but it was a free concert and we had great seats. 

It turned out to be a total bust. My boy sat there not clapping, not singing (who doesn't know the words to Hard to Say to I'm Sorry?) and definitely not moving, never mind swaying or dancing. 

On the way home, he told me he wanted to grab food and drove up to a Burger King drive-thru. At this point, I was shocked to silence. He ordered his food and then casually asked me if I was hungry. I told him I was "fine." After getting his meal, he drove to his house, got out of the car and made his way inside. I had no choice but to follow him. 

He finally wolfed down the Whopper and fries and offered to take me home if I wanted him to. Um yeah! At my front door, he asked me if I wanted to go out again next weekend. I told him no, I didn't want to ever go out with him again. 

I heard through the grapevine that he's now married. I wonder how often he and the wife eat at Burger King...

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."

Hole in None

Very shortly after my 17th birthday I had my first real date ever: putt-putting with a boy I’d met from another high school. His mother and her boyfriend came to pick us up, but when we got to the mini-golf, they made it clear they weren’t going anywhere. So my first date, ever, was a double-date with my date’s mother and her boyfriend. Apparently, she didn’t trust her son to behave himself alone with a girl. Once we started to play I accidentally hit my date in the knee once with the ball, and once right in the gonads with the club on a mis-aimed backswing. Then we went to an adjacent restaurant for the standard burgers and fries fare. The thing was, the boy I was with didn’t have enough money to pay for his own food, much less mine. And his mother wouldn’t give him any. I wound up paying for the two of us, even though he’d been the one to ask me out. I naively kept dating him that summer, but before September I dumped him. He called my house two weeks later; my mother told him I wasn’t home. He told her he’d accidentally cut off a finger in woodshop class.

Stairway to Hell

When I was a freshman at college, I went on a date with a lovely guy, who happened to be a senior, which was a huge deal to me then. After dinner at the local pizza joint, we stopped at his place to pick up something he'd forgotten before heading to his fraternity party. Somewhere on the way down the three flights of stairs that lead to his apartment, I slipped. It was March in Colorado so there was black ice everywhere but of course I didn't see any on the step.

Now when I say I fell down the stairs, I didn't just trip. I full on tumbled. It was like a scene out of an action movie, but to me it felt like everything was happening in slow motion. I could see him (ahead of me) trying to catch me but it was too late. Before I knew it, I was lying in a clump at the bottom of the stairs. I'm not sure what hurt more, my hip or my pride. I can't really explain the pain because I was numb with embarrassment. I immediately popped up and laughed it off while desperately holding back the tears.

He asked if I wanted to go to the ER but I brushed it off, saying I was O.K. As we walked to the party, which seemed like 100 miles away but was only a three-block distance, I felt my right hip throbbing with pain. By the time we got there, I was in so much pain that I could hardly walk. I excused myself and had a friend walk me home. When I got to my dorm room and peeled off my pants, I found a bump the size of a grapefruit on my hip! My friend took me to the ER, where I found that I did not break anything but would need physical therapy for a month.

I nursed a huge bruise on my leg and couldn't sleep on my right side for months. I don't know what happened to my date since I never saw him again. I am sure he's told the story of the poor girl who fell down the stairs on the first date many times. It still hurts a little bit just thinking about it. 

Last Night The DJ Saved

I had fancied this really hot, hipster DJ who played at a bar in downtown New York for ages. We were friends of friends and had spent months outrageously flirting with each other. Finally, one night at the said bar, he grabbed me and asked me to come home with him. 

Since he lived in deepest Brooklyn, I invited him to my place instead as I lived just over the bridge in Williamsburg. I suggested we get a cab back there but his option was the train. I offered to pay the fare (about $15) but he countered by saying that the subway would be "more fun."

Unfortunately for our night of passion, the L train was running on a shorter route so we had to get off and take a shuttle bus to my usual stop. A journey that should have taken 20 minutes max prolonged into a one and a half hour voyage during which he yapped incessantly and revealed that his intellect did not quite match up to his looks. 

We got home well after 3 a.m. and I immediately put my pajamas on, yawned and said I was going to sleep. In the morning, I woke up at 6 a.m., mostly due to my discomfort at having him in my bed. When he got up and tried to be seductive and charming, I told him I had to work. After all, I have pay for those late-night cab rides somehow! I didn't say that of course though I wish I did. He left soon after. 

I Ain't Saying She a Golddigger

I met a nice and attractive girl at a bar so I asked her out. She told me there was this restaurant she was dying to try so I made reservations for Friday night. The dinner was good, but very expensive. I figured that on the second date we would go somewhere more casual. But she suggested another fancy place. I obliged, but I was determined to go somewhere cheap if it continued beyond the second date. We had great conversation and I was definitely interested in dating her because she was smart, beautiful and well traveled. When I asked her out for date number three I suggested we go bowling. She sighed and said she really wanted to try this new hot spot she read about. She agreed to bowling, but proceeded to pout throughout the date. I asked her what was wrong and she explained that dating was the only way she ever got to try these upscale restaurants since she was fired from her job six 
months prior. She said she really missed her old lifestyle. I flat out asked her if she had any interest in me beyond my ability to take her to dinner and she shrugged her shoulders. I gave her ten bucks for a taxi and walked out. 



Punched Out

I took about a week off work to recover from my wisdom tooth operation but found that I was chipper enough to go out that same evening and decided to head out to the local gay club with my friends. Armed with a few shots of Jager and the not-so-necessary pain medication, I was unstoppable and looking mighty fine. 

My roommate, who's quite the wing man, spotted a cute and very drunk guy at the bar and proceed to grab his ass and point at me when the looked for the culprit. I took over and began to chat to the young man, who was visiting from Texas. We then hit the dance floor and started to make out. And by make out, I mean he tried to head butt me with his teeth. I thought it was a drunk party foul and tried again to no avail. The guy enjoyed the teeth bashing! I tried to get away but my friends pushed me back, scolding me for never giving guys a chance. Finally, because I was high as a kite, I decided to take him home with me. When we got home, he proceeded to strip completely in front of my roommate and pass out. I was ready to call it a night anyway since my face hurt so much. 

When we woke up in the morning, we started making out. This time, it was less violent because he was laying down and had less momentum to head butt. But then he started to substitute the foreplay with punching. Now I am a non-violent individual but a boy's gotta to defend himself so I played along with what he considered "hot" until he got this look in his eyes. He then proceeded to jump up and stumble into the bathroom where he burst into projectile vomiting. That was the end of that. 

Matchmaker, Matchmaker Make Me a Match

Before internet dating became the norm, I signed up with a matchmaking service, which featured 3-ring binders full of members' one-page profiles that included pictures. I picked out a decent-looking guy in his early 40's with interests and attributes I liked and we arranged to go on a date. So in walks this guy, who had to be in his 60's, with a horribly bad toupee and he makes a beeline for me. At this point, I wanted to die but I decided to be polite and not walk out so, instead, we sat down for dinner. Big mistake. I don't even remember what we talked about during dinner because all I could hear was the whistling coming from his ill-fitting upper dental plate every time he spoke. Since I didn't walk out on him or take him to task for lying on his profile, which I now suspect other women had justifiably done, he took this to mean that I liked him and hounded me with phone calls that I managed to avoid for weeks until one late night at work. I quickly pretended that my phone was malfunctioning and that I couldn't hear who was on the other end of the line. He kept saying, "I know you can hear me," upper plate whistling all the while through the speakerphone. At least, he never called again!

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.

In the Bedroom

I waited a couple of months to sleep with this great guy I was dating. Usually I like to get physical earlier to make sure there is sexual chemistry, but I could see this becoming something serious so I thought I would try to wait awhile and not rush things. We finally went back to his apartment after a fun Japanese dinner and I was ready to get down to business. He toured me through his spotless two-bedroom place, saving the bedroom for last. As soon as we entered I gasped. There were seven of the most childish stuffed animals I have ever seen on his bed. They were all lined up in a row just staring at me. I was horrified and mumbled something about having to play tennis early in the morning and left. I never returned his calls and didn’t feel bad about it.

Silence is Not Always Golden

My first couple of dates with an engineering professor I met on Match.com was okay. He was pretty passive: he'd never ask the host for a table or the waiter for water. I decided to give it one last try since he otherwise seemed to be a nice, smart guy. But I decided that I wasn't going to step up and do anything. I would do the Dinner of Silence and resolved to not speak unless he asked me a question. It was the quietest (and longest) dinner ever. Afterward, we went to the parking lot to get our car from the valet, but he was nowhere to be seen.  My date said, “Let's just wait, he'll eventually show up.” 

I wasn't willing to devote any more time to this date so I took it upon myself to look for the valet who I finally found in a car lying across the seat, snoring, with his feet hanging out the window of his own car. I politely said, “Excuse me” several times with no response. My date was standing at the front of the lot, just watching me, so I reached over and grabbed the valet's toe and shook it. He woke right up and got our car immediately. Finally, as we were driving away, my date turned to me and said, “I thought you were obnoxious back there.” I can't tell you how hard I bit my tongue on that one. Thought I'd never hear from him again, but he actually called the next day. Go figure. I did not return the call.

Check It

I met this guy through a friend at a Christmas party and we had a successful first date full of laughter, good food and chemistry. When he called for a second date he explained that it was also his birthday. I felt a little awkward about spending that special day with him since we just met, but he said birthdays weren’t a huge deal for him and he’d rather spend it with me than doing something with friends or family. He picked me up and took me to a fancy restaurant that I had read about. I bought him a miniature chocolate cake as a surprise since he was taking me somewhere so nice. 

When we got there he ordered a pricey bottle of red wine and filet mignon. We had a great meal and some romantic kisses, but when the check came he just sat there. I went to the ladies room thinking that there was no way he expected me to pick up the check. When I returned the check was still sitting on the wood table just staring at me. He must have known I was irritated because he said he didn’t have enough cash or a credit card assuming it was my treat. Rather than saying something I paid the $210 bill in a state of shock. I was so disgusted I knew I was never going to talk to him again and I didn’t. Every time I drive by that restaurant I kick myself for picking up that tab.