The Crying Game

My first (and only) blind date could only be called a DISASTER. I had broken up with a man after fourteen months together, and was thoroughly miserable. My friend convinced me to have a drink with another man she knew, who had split with his woman a few weeks earlier.
Well, we were small talking, and it so happened he had lived in my BF's home town - incredibly, over 1,300 miles away. A coincidence. He was a corrections officer - incredibly enough, the warden of my BF's cell block when he was a young trouble maker years earlier. Another striking coincidence. ( He remembered my BF well, too. ) Tipping the scale, he showed me a tattoo he'd gotten recently - you guessed it, unbelievable coincidence number three!
Well, it all reminded me of BF, and as nice as this man was, I'd had enough. I open my mouth to tell him so, and before I say a word, he bursts into tears! Tears! He apologised, said he couldn't see another woman so soon after his split. He loved his GF, and never wanted to be apart. Naturally, I'm already fairly upset myself at this point, and couldn't help it - I started to cry as well.
Yep, worst date ever.

Mr Weeble

Editors Note: i used to work in radio and ALL the on-air personalities are either crazy, hideous, morbidly obese or sometimes all three...you've been warned!
I had a guy friend online who seemed pretty smart and funny. He said he was a DJ at a radio station. We progressed to talking on the phone, and he had a GREAT voice . . . duh, he's on the radio!
We shared our deep, dark secrets and some sexual innuendo. I confessed that I have the hoarding/collecting form of OCD. He confessed at last that he had a food phobia, or an eating phobia. He told me the name of the disorder, but I've forgotten. The best I could understand it was that he had a phobia of solid food and a phobia of eating in public. I was like, okay, haven't heard of that before, but everybody has their something, you know?
Finally, he and I arranged to meet at a town between our two cities, at a restaurant, with the understanding that we would have a beverage and go from there. Oh, by the way, he has seen a photo of me. I have not seen a photo of him. I get there first and sit and wait. When he walks in, (and I am being very kind here) he is grotesque. He is extremely tall and extremely obese, kind of bottom-heavy, like a Weeble (wobble but don't fall down). And OLD-looking. I forget how old he is, but not that much older than I. He looks like he could be my father. He is doughy, with odd bulges everywhere. Everyone looks at him when he comes in. I am mortified and a little bit sick at my stomach that I have been trading leers with this person online and on the phone. At the same time, I feel horribly sorry for him. I can't just get up and walk out. He looks hopeful and is trying, I presume, to look friendly. We sit for hours and hours and talk. He drinks numerous iced teas. I finally am starving and order an omelet after checking to see if that would bother him, to watch ME eat. I am 100% sure that I am not going anywhere else with this person, so we sit and talk and time drags on. Finally I have to excuse myself, as I have some distance to drive home. I tell him it was nice to meet him and, because I feel so guilty/sorry for him, I give him an awkward hug in the parking lot.
I avoid him online and on the phone. He eventually leaves me an anonymous obscene hate message on my machine--I know it's him. The voice!! And I am very, very nervous for months afterward, because my friend tells me that, with an e-mail address and phone number, anyone can find your home address easily.

Brownie Tooth Guy

Thank you so much to a fellow Chicagoan for this tale This was the first date I 'd had since moving to Chicago, six years ago. A stunningly beautiful coworker suggested it and her equally beautiful fiancé set it up at a restaurant downtown. When I arrived, another couple, a guy whose actual job was modeling, and his girlfriend that looked identical to the actress Kyra Sedgewick joined us. I thought, with four people this gorgeous, how can I go wrong? Well, then my date showed up. He came in sporting acid washed jeans and a Bill Cosby Original sweater. Thin as a drowned rat and with hair just as slicked back and greasey, he looked like Nicholas Cage had he been beaten and addicted to a narcotic for the past ten years. When he opened his mouth, the teeth were so crooked they appeared to grow in rows, like a shark. Turns out none of the four actually knew him; Kyra2 and the fiancé just worked with him. Despite the obvious unpleasantness of this first impression, I tried to be brave and give him the benefit of the doubt. As it turns out, he was rude, obnoxious and a moron too. He interrupted conversations, took food from my plate, and twice tried to grab my knee under the table. The date was officially over when he ordered the brownie sundae for dessert. Since he talked and guffawed with his mouth full I got a great view of brownie impacted between the rows. Tried to kiss me in the cab on the way home. The cab driver laughed and said he never saw a bigger dumbass in all his life.

What's Your Story?

Do you have a true, bad date story? Can we have it please? Then your story can join the ranks of such literary pearls as:
"Thankyou For Coming", "The Stain in Spain" , "If the Spew Fits" , "The Speed Date" , or my choice for most embarrassing date, "Stuck On You" . and of course the "Worst Date Ever",! C'mon, you know you want to, so just do it! ( bet you've heard that on a date before) Just send it as an e-mail at baddatesite@yahoo.com or leave it in the comments section below.

Prom Story

Oh....my senior prom...
I went with a boyfriend and we drove an hour to our dinner reservation - which was awful. We had purchased a prom package deal for maybe 100 bucks - virgin drinks, dinner, dessert, a picture. They were out of dessert and the picture was a polariod.
We were late leaving the restaurant so the photographer was getting ready to leave and we had to call a friend to get him to convince the photographer to stay so we could have our pictures made. We drove the hour back - in the pouring rain ( by the way I couldn't even get in or out of his truck without a step-stool).
When we got to the prom everyone was trying to talk to us - asking us if we had heard the news... My date's house had caught on fire!!! We went and had our pictures made and went to see the remains of his house. It was crazy..He was supposed to host the after-party at his house but obviously that had to be changed...yeah, that was a pretty bad night for dating.

A Very Long Drive To a Very Short Date!

An old friend from high school and I had been corresponding for six months, when we finally got to meet up again. I drove 650 miles checked into a motel (paid for it myself) and waited for him. When he arrived he threw me on the bed and tried to make love to me. Unfortunately he couldn't uh, let's say "rise to the occasion". He then went into the bathroom put his clothes on and walked out the door. As he was walking out I asked what was wrong he said "this is not going to work" and left. After anticipating this for 6 months you can imagine what a bummer this was.
Editors note: When he said "This is not going to work" was he looking down?

Bible Guy

I have quite a few bad date stories. But the one that takes the cake was the first guy I dated after my divorce 3 years ago. I decided to be proactive and try the online dating format. I corresponded with this guy for about a week and he asked me out. I had not seen a photo (bad move on my part) but agreed to dinner. When I called him to confirm our date I got this really odd voice mail message that made reference to some obscure bible passage. Now, please understand that I'm not what you would call religious. My profile clearly referenced my musical tastes and what you would call "new age" interests While I thought the voicemail thing a bit odd, I tried to maintain a positive attitude so we set up a time for us to go out.
The next night he picked me up at a friend's house and showed up in a mini-van. Immediately, my reaction was "omg, this is not good". I walked out to meet him at his vehicle and the inside looked like he lived in it...fast food remnants, sporting goods, etc.I knew this was no love connection but I tried to be a good sport and at least make it through dinner. We went to a local restaurant where he started to spout off his very fundamentalist religious rhetoric. He told me that "the government" has already developed "mobile execution stations", I think he meant that these are like the emissons testing vehicles but more sinister. Basically he said that the end of the world is coming and people who refuse to have a bar code/mark of the beast would be executed. He leaned into me and serious as a heart attack says "so, what are you going to do on judgement day? Are you going to take the mark of the beast?" Needless to say "mark of the beast" is looking more appealing by the moment. At this point, I'm thinking that this date can't get worse...but low and behold it got much worse. There was a large group of people adjacent to us at this restaurant and were obviously celebrating a child's birthday. There were helium balloons all over their table. My date summons the waitress with whom he had been relentlessly flirting with and says "can I ask you a favor"? Immediately I put two and two together and started praying "god please don't let him do what I think he is about to do"! You guessed it...he procured a balloon and managed to suck helium and do his best Alvin and the Chipmunks impression. I started inhaling my dinner in the hopes of getting out of there ASAP. He managed to get the attention of the entire restaurant and then asked me out again for the next night. I told him my to take me home and politely declined further dates.
After this fiasco I realized that dating takes a lot or work and a lot of humor. I started giving my dates silly little nicknames. This guy was affectionately called "Jesus Boy" by me and my friends. This was one of many frogs I had to kiss. Some of the others were "college professor guy whose kitchen looked like a nuclear waste dump", "Yoga instructor that looked like Yoda" and "transvestite dude" (you figure that one out)! and countless other potential suitors. I'm happy to say that I finally did manage to find a great guy and we both like to laugh about my very laughable dating exploits!

The Pecker Shaper

I went out with a fellow who was on the shy side. ( put mildly) How he got the courage to ask
for date in first place was beyond me, but he did. So what made it a bad date?
In the restaurant we were seated at a table that had the salt shaker,
but no pepper shaker. He happened to want the pepper, but when the waitress
came by, he got tongue tied and asked her for the "pecker shaper". He became so
embarrassed that he got up from the table and disappeared. So there I was, with no
date at all. That makes a bad date, right?

What's Your Story?

Do you have a true, bad date story? Can we have it please? Then your story can join the ranks of such literary pearls as:
"Thankyou For Coming", "The Stain in Spain" , "If the Spew Fits" , "The Speed Date" , or my choice for most embarrassing date, "Stuck On You" . and of course the "Worst Date Ever",! C'mon, you know you want to, so just do it! ( bet you've heard that on a date before) Just send it as an e-mail at baddatesite@yahoo.com or leave it in the comments section below.

Who Doesn't Like A Little Head?

Editors note: On weekends I'm going to start reposting some of the classic bad dates from the past months, hope you enjoy this one.
In a moment of temporary insanity, I decided to join an online dating site. So this guy emails me, and boy, he was totally hot. Young, thick dirty-blond hair, buff...but that was a problem. He was young...like 10 years younger than me. Being a single mom, I'm particular about who I will date. It's not just me anymore, you know. I have to consider who it is I may potentially bring into my child's life. Anyway, he tells me that since he has a eight-year-old, he doesn't see the age difference being a problem. Okay, so we meet. Well, if he hadn't walked right up to me at the restaurant, I would not have recognized him. Yep, he was buff, all right, but his head was not in proportion to his body. It was TINY. The movie Beetlejuice came to mind, with the shrunken-head guys. His cheeks were sunken in. The thick dirty blond hair was actually thin, unkempt and sun-bleached white (I HATE that). No thick, kissable lips like in his picture; his mouth was a thin gash, and he had BRACES. I was still reelng from that shock, when, in the course of our conversation, he admitted that he'd lied about his age. He wasn't 27, he was my age. Anyway, I made it through lunch and mumbled something about possibly getting together over the weekend. Normally I'm really upfront about my feelings if I'm not interested, but I really was just speechless at the whole thing. Later, I emailed him (I know, lame) that I couldn't see him anymore because he had lied. So began his email campaign of totally dissing me, calling me every name in the book and insisting that he didn't lie to me, he just withheld the truth until we could meet in person. And even though I'd told him that I hadn't dated in a while, he kept saying I was trying to pin him as a liar just to cover the fact that I had "too many dates to handle." Whatever.

The Stalker Guy

Editors Note: One of my favorite blogs is "OystersnBeer" by SadieLady. Go check it out. I thought I'd already stolen all of her bad date stories, but today found one that I'd apparently overlooked ...so I grabbed it, enjoy.
One Halloween, while out with some friends, I met a bartender dressed as a fireman. He had the hat and the red suspenders, over a bare chest of course. And probably some pants and boots too; I just remember the bare chest. Anyway, we flirted some, and when I finally went home that night I had given him my phone number. I ended up meeting him out for drinks one night soon after that. We talked, had a couple drinks; it was nice. Well the next day I received a huge bouquet of flowers from him. And while yes, it's always nice to receive flowers, sometimes it can also be a bit of a bad feeling too, like when it's from someone you do not want to be sending you flowers or, in this case, from someone you think just did way too much too soon.

All my friends thought it sounded exciting that a guy had sent me a huge bouquet of flowers after spending only a few hours getting to know me over drinks though (did I mention most of those friends were either married or in seriously long relationships and got vicarious thrills from my dating stories?), so I brushed off the paranoia and decided to go out with him again. On the second date, though, I heard the story of his divorce. Yes, he was divorced, and it turned out he had 2 kids to boot. Wow. Twenty-something single me was really not digging finding out that this guy, though cute and nice, was divorced with two kids. And the story wasn't pretty, because it involved a custody dispute, an ongoing one. Seriously, at one point I think I saw a tear in his eye. So, much as I sympathized for the guy, no way was I going to go out with him, I thought to myself.

So here's where the constant phone calls start. And I admit that at first I could've had a hand in making things turn out differently, but I didn't. See, that first time I talked to him again after the second date, I was very polite and all, and when he asked me out again, I said no, but I made it an I'm-saying-no-because-I-have-other-plans-for-those-nights-already no, not an I'm-saying-no-because-I'm-not-interested-so-don't-call-again no. So he kept calling. And by calling, I'm talking trying-to-call-you-all-day-long kind of phone calls. The day these phone calls started happened to be a day I went out with some friends after work, so I didn't get home until kind of late. And when I got home, there were 2 messages from him. Plus the caller ID showed he had called another couple times and not left a message. And I would have called him back, but then the phone rang right while I was looking at it, thinking how weird it was that he had called 4 times in one day. And the caller ID of course showed his name. And again, there was an opportunity where I could've prevented future hideousness by just picking up and telling him I didn't want to see him again, (nicely of course), but I was so irked that he was calling a 5th time in one day, after only 2 dates, that I let it ring. And I sat there and listened to him leaving a third message.

The next day I got home from work and found 2 more messages. Which I did not return. Again, just too irked to deal with it. And then the next day, I got a phone call from him at work. He called while I was on my lunch break, so I got the message from our receptionist. And shortly after I returned from lunch and got the message, he emailed me. At my work email. To say that he had called at lunch and left me a message. As if I wouldn't get it. I mean, dude.

So the following days the phone messages were just crazy. All upbeat; the guy was still trying, still convinced I was going to pick up one of these times and say "yes, let's go out tonight!!" Let's see; one message I remember getting said "I had a thought that you've probably been out of town the last few days. So hey, call me when you get back and get my messages." And then, "Hey, is your machine working? So, call me." Etc.

And then he called me again at work, and this time he actually caught me. He didn't mention anything about the fact that I had not returned 27 phone calls (yes I did keep track, and no I'm not exaggerating; believe me, my friends and I spent much time talking about this while it was going on. well, me talking and them mostly laughing their asses off, choking on their food over lunch while I tallied up the previous day's calls, that kind of thing). And in my tally I was keeping track of the times caller id showed he had called, but he didn't leave a message. And still not an entire week had passed since our 2nd date. So anyway, back to him catching me on the phone at work: that was creepy. For me, anyway; for him, it was apparently very pleasant, with little to no awkwardness. He actually said that the reason he was calling me that time was to tell me that he was graduating from the fire academy that week. (Yes, he was a fireman at Halloween, and meanwhile training to actually be a fireman ... whatever.) Like I would be really interested in knowing that. So I basically responded to him as curtly as I could, trying to make it clear I did NOT want to be talking to him, but he had called me at work, and I worked near people who could and did overhear (eavesdrop on?) all my conversations, and this is not a conversation I wanted people to overhear. But I thought I got my point across real clear, and I was essentially rude to him in the manner in which I ended our conversation. So rude that I was really not expecting to hear from him again.

Which is when he decided to show up at my place of work one day.

Yep, that's right. Luckily again, I was at lunch with friends when he came. But I could. not. fucking. believe. it. So I drilled the receptionist: what did he say? how did he seem? Well, apparently he was in a great big good mood. And he had a friend with him. He explained to the receptionist that he had just graduated from the fire academy that morning, he and his friend decided to go out to lunch to celebrate, and the lunch place just happened to be right across the street from my office, so he thought he would just drop by. Ok, where I was working at the time, the only restuarant right across the street was a bagel sandwich shop. Seriously? You just happened to have your celebratory yea-we-graduated lunch at the bagel sandwich shop? Man.

And here's the real kicker, at least this is the part of the story that really made my friends blow snot out of their noses from laughing so hard whenever I told the story of my stalker: he actually told the receptionist that he stopped by after his lunch that day because he wanted me to see him in his uniform. I don't even know what the fuck to say to that. (And I did ask the receptionist about the "uniform," and she said "I could hardly tell it even WAS a "uniform.")

Thankfully, though, that was the last I heard from him.

Oh, except for the following year, when I went out with a bunch of friends on New Years Eve and we ended up at that bar where I had initially met the guy, and he was working, and he was giving me dirty looks, and he had to take my drink order, and he brought me the wrong drink. And when I said "I didn't order a screwdriver, I ordered a vodka tonic," he said very nastily "well SOMEBODY over here ordered a screwdriver." Then he interrogated everyone around me about what drink they had ordered. No one had ordered a screwdriver. He mumbled under his breath, made me a vodka tonic (I watched carefully as he made it to make sure he didn't spit in it or anything), then glared at me with a bright red face of hatred when he put it on the bar in front of me.

Ah, it's so much fun to look back on dating experiences. Really makes you want to get back out there and date again.

The Heroin(e)

My worst date isnt all that bad. My friend once met someone on a dating website. He took her and her cousin out for drinks. He made the mistake of picking them up. On the way back, after having a cool evening, the cousin overdosed in his car. Turns out she had being doing heroine and he hadn't realized. He had to stop the car on the side of the highway, give her CPR and then take her to the hospital. Needless to say that was the first and the last date.

Thankyou For Coming

Editors Note: This story is one of my favorites from a few months ago, so I'm re=posting it. But be fore-warned , it contains adult themes concerning foul, disgusting behaviour, so don't read it...I mean it, do not read this story!

Hi,
We went out to dinner on Saturday night, and you called yesterday. I will NOT, under ANY circumstances, be calling you back, and I thought you might want to know why.
I had high hopes for you, you know. You were really cute, seemed articulate and reasonably intelligent, and worked at a decent job. But, man oh man, you SO BLEW IT.
Dinner was good, I have to admit. We chatted amiably and there weren't any of those long pauses in conversation where you feel all awkward and desperately scan the room looking for something to comment on. In fact, dinner was pleasant enough that I invited you up to my apartment for a drink. That's when things started to go wrong.
First off, even though I did ask you to come up, I'm not a slutty gal. I suspect that you thought just because I asked you to come in my house you were going to get LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY, but, let me tell you, asking me about whether or not I like "toys" on a first date and about my feelings regarding oral sex - that's a big NO for me. It's not that I don't like those things, I do, but that's just WAY too personal for a first date. In the same way that I wouldn't tell you about, for example, the worst thing that ever happened to me, or how I felt when my grandma died, or about my parent's divorce, or about how many hours I was on the toilet when I got food poisoning - because you see, those are personal things and I DON'T REALLY KNOW YOU, and therefore, they are INAPPROPRIATE, I'm not going to chat with you about my sexual habits. Strike one
Okay - so I thought that that was weird and rude, but you leaned in to kiss me and, what the hell, I kissed you anyways. Here's where things went REALLY WRONG! Cumming in your pants because of a 5 minute kiss is NOT IMPRESSIVE and does not bode well for the bedroom and I'm thinking at this point, maybe this is why he's so concerned with toy habits. While I would like to think that maybe I'm some kind of INSANELY good kisser and that because of my skill you were overcome, so to speak, I don't think that's the case. At this point I just wanted you to leave. That was strike 2.
So, then you went to the bathroom to "clean up" and then came back out and gave me this pathetic excuse about how you just remembered you had to return a video that you had left at a friend's house and needed to leave. By the way, that was a completely transparent lie, but I just wanted you to GO AWAY so I pretended to believe it. I suspect you were embarrassed, which you had every right to be, but come on, how stupid do you think I am? I can't believe you bought it when I nodded my head and emphatically agreed with you that late fees were indeed horrible and that, yes, it was an urgent manner that you retrieve your video and get it back RIGHT AWAY. Strike 3 for baldfaced, idiotic lying, you sorry ass.
So, you finally leave, and I'm thinking THANK GOD THAT'S OVER, and GODDAM IDIOT, and I put my sweats on and go to the bathrooom to wash my face and brush my teeth and I soap my face off and rinse it off and grab the handtowel I keep by the sink and I look down squinting because there's water in my eyes and think, "what's that?" and then get a whiff of it and realize OH MY GOD YOU BASTARD you cleaned off your sorry dick on my face towel. Were you not taught any manners? There was plenty of toilet paper, which I would have thought to be the logical choice, but you used my FACE TOWEL. I gagged and threw the towel out of the bathrooom. This is strike 4, and by the way, I had to throw the towel away and while you owe me a nice, thick purple face towel that hasn't been soiled, I will never claim this because that would require seeing you again, and I DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES want to do so.
So anyways, that pretty much sums up why I'm not returning your call, and why I don't like you. You suck.