Back in 2008, my friend Max was having his house worked on, and I offered to help.  He hired contractors for most of the work, and he made frequent trips to the contractor's office to iron out all the nuts and bolts before work began.  I accompanied him on a few of these trips and met Lisa, a secretary for the contracting firm.  We flirted, and I asked her out.  We hit up an outdoor cafe.

Lisa and I had the same last initial, and one of her first statements was, "If we get married, I wouldn't have to change my monogram."  I took this as playful banter and said all I could say to that statement:

"That's right!"

The date went on, and she became increasingly touchy-feely.  That's all well and good, and my uneasiness went away.

Until she asked, "What would you want to name our kids?"

"Uh..."

"Because I already have names picked out for the first two."

I said, "I'm sure your names are... fine."

She said, "I'd name them after my favorite places."

I saw an opening.  I took it.  "Where are some of your favorite places?"

Go me.  Changing the subject.

She said, "Miami Beach and West Virginia.  Miami Beach because that place knows how to party, and West Virginia because I lost my virginity there."

"Oh."

"Ironic, right?  Virginity lost in a place called West Virginia?  Heh."

This raised a question, and I asked it.  "You'd name your child after where you lost your virginity?"

She said, "That wouldn't be the only reason.  I think Virginia's a unique name for a boy."

"You'd name the boy Virginia?"

"Yes."

I leaned in.  "What if you had a girl instead?"

"Then I'd name the boy Virginia when we had him."

"What if you had a string of 50 girls?"

She said, "I think that by that point, we'd have used gene therapy to ensure the birth of a male."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Wow."

I hastened to change the subject once more.  "Do you have any hobbies?"  You know, like categorizing bugs, shampooing carpets, collecting fingernails, anything?

She nodded.  "I like drawing.  I'm on deviantART.  I draw wedding portraits for people and sell them sometimes."

"That's clever.  Do you do good business?"

"It's slow right now, but it'll pick up again really shortly."

Then she sort of retreated into herself.  She leaned back, hunched down slightly, and seemed to want to be invisible.  I asked her, "Something wrong?"

She said, "I have a confession to make."

"Okay."

"I don't know if you'll like it."

"I don't either."

"I drew a wedding portrait."

"Awesome."

"Of us."

"..."

"Is that weird?"

I stared at her.  "A little.  Yeah."

"Oh.  Sorry."

She shut her mouth for the rest of the date, and while I tried to engage her, I have to confess that it was really halfhearted on my part, since I didn't want to see her again.

She did, however, send me a scan of the picture a couple of weeks later.  In her defense, she actually was a good artist.  No, I don't have it anymore, and I wouldn't show it to you if I did.

Submitted by Daniel:

Tracy and I messaged each other back and forth on an online dating service, then we decided to meet in person at a park.

That ended up being a big mistake.  She showed up with a small case, larger than a standard purse.  I didn't mention anything about it, and I figured that maybe she had some sort of errand before or after our date that concerned it, and that it wasn't any of my business.

After we had been pleasantly chatting for a little while, she asked me, "Anything dark or secret that I should know about you?"

I thought about it, first about how strange a question it was, but we had met on the Internet, after all.  I told her that I couldn't think of anything too much worse than the standard, "I had tried drugs a few times," etc.

She nodded, said, "Okay," and pulled out her case, which was full of papers.  Photocopies.  Articles.  With my name on them.  She had brought along dozens of articles about a guy with my name who owed child support, was wanted for larceny in three states, and was overall sort of an opposite of who I was.  Our only similarity was our name.  But I wasn't this guy.

She said, self-righteously, "I Googled you.  Care to explain these?"

I said, "Yeah.  It's a different guy with my name."  I looked down at one of the articles.  "I've never even been to Maryland, where this guy is wanted for larceny."

Then, I asked her, "Are you nuts or something?"

"This is you!" she said, increasingly agitated, "This is you!"

Well, at least one of us was sure about the other.  I politely excused myself and left.  It was the most uncomfortable, wacky, and silliest thing that had ever happened to me, all at once.

Submitted by Lizzie:

Submitted by Kimberly:

Ben took me out to dinner and drinks, the drinks definitely easing me into a more relaxed and talkative state.  I let my guard down, admittedly.

It began innocently enough.  He asked me about one past relationship after another, just a little here, a little there.  How long did they last?  How did we meet?  Why did they end?

He told me that he liked dressing up like Elvis for his girlfriends.  I told him that it was likely something that wouldn't turn me on, although I didn't think less of him for having such a fetish.  He then initiated a long, long conversation about how so many women found Elvis attractive.  Why didn't I?

He used examples from what I had told him about my past relationships, using them to indicate that I might have been into something freaky, and, when I didn't change my opinion about his Elvis antics, mused that my relationships ended because I was a "closed-minded bitch."

"Check it out," he said at one point, when I was ready to leave, and he broke into an impromptu Elvis dance-jig-thing right there in the restaurant.  I would have thought it dorky and charming if the guy wasn't such an asshole.  He danced like a walrus that had been set upside-down and was struggling to right itself.

Then, he made a clumsy bow, walked off into the restaurant, and didn't come back.  It was as if he had lost interest.  I was hoping that he had, since I waited ten minutes, then left.  Thankfully, we had already paid the check.

Submitted by Thomas:

When I was 21, I had a job at a guitar factory. I was pretty good friends with my boss, and used to crash over at her house quite a bit. There I met Claire, the daughter of one of her friends, who was pretty damn cute and approachable.

Claire was a fitness nut, and had done a lot of martial arts. I'd studied a bit of Karate and Kenpo when I was much younger, and was thinking of picking it up again. We connected in a friendly way, and I asked her out on a casual date to go watch a Charlie Chaplin revival at the local college. She agreed with some interest, and I arranged to pick her up at work that Friday.

Friday came around, and I dropped by her workplace. She was nowhere to be seen, and when I enquired, they told me that she'd had an urgent call from a friend, and had gone home early. So I called up her home, and after a few tries over the next hour or so got her father on the phone. He told me that her sparring partner from her martial arts class had picked her up, and they'd gone out for a "talk." She'd told her father that she'd be back soon, and would still like to go out with me that night once she got back.

Well, you can probably tell where this is leading. I called a few more times that night, and she had not come home. So I gave it up, and she never got back to me with any kind of meaningful explanation or apology, I decided that I wouldn't ask her out anymore. It wasn't worth the aggravation to be stood up again. How lucky I was, as you'll see...

A couple of years later, I was read a newspaper headline: "Obsessed Stalker Arrested - Victims Hospitalized." There on the front page was the story of how Claire and her boyfriend had been assaulted by her ex-sparring partner, the same guy she'd had to go talk to on the night of our failed date. This guy was a third-dan black belt, and had been obsessed with Claire ever since they had met at the dojo years before. He'd tried to be romantic, then when she broke it off with him he'd remained a very controlling friend who tried to limit her relationships with other men (like me, apparently). Finally, when she got serious about someone, he'd stalked her and harassed her, and she had gotten a restraining order against him.

One night, he broke into her boyfriend's apartment, found them, and slugged her in the sternum with a nightstick, breaking three ribs, then struck her on the head to knock her out. Then he worked over the boyfriend, who fought back as well as he could, but was no match. Luckily, Claire regained consciousness and called the cops, who arrived at the scene in time to stop him from literally beating her boyfriend to death.

That boyfriend had been a football star at high school, and was an athletic, healthy young man in his prime. Now, he might never walk again. His kneecaps had been shattered. His spleen was ruptured. He had multiple fractures, lacerations, and a severe concussion. Though I was pretty shocked to read all this, and sad for Claire, I couldn't escape the sensation that I had been incredibly lucky to have been stood up all those years ago. I wouldn't have lasted two minutes against that guy. I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Sometimes being stood up is a good thing. At least it could teach you some humility. In my case, it likely saved my life.

As a postscript, that guy pleaded criminally insane and went to an institution for a very long time. I bumped into Claire a dozen or so years later, and sold her and her fiance (yet another guy) an old mobile home that I was getting rid of. She seemed pretty happy. I hope they never let that maniac out.

Submitted by James:

Helen was a girl in college who I had admired from afar. I was able to engineer my way into being her partner on a political science project, which meant that we'd be meeting up between classes together.

She was a lot more serious-minded than I was, and when I tried to learn a bit more about her (by asking things like, "Where are you from? What are your hobbies?") she'd give me short answers and tell me to focus on the project. Fair enough. It's what we were there to do, after all.

After an afternoon of hunkering down on our research, I asked her if she wanted to grab dinner. She said no. I asked her why not, expecting to hear that she was busy, tired, or even just plain uninterested. I could have handled any of those.

Instead, she freaked out. "Sure! I'll just throw away my time and efforts by going out with you! Do I have any other work to do? No! Of course not! I'll just skip everything and waste my time with you! You mean all of my work will magically get done if I don't do it? Yes! Exactly right, Helen! Your work will just do itself! Like magic! I'll just magic my work away! It'll be worth it! I don't need to go to college! I can make it big, too, like my sister who went to Cornell! Even if I quit! Especially if I quit!"

She went on like this for a while. I didn't take it too personally, as this was probably her way of blowing off steam from a really overbearing home life.

We didn't end up going out.

Submitted by Andrea:

Brad and I met on the Internet, and he seemed a bit different from most of the other guys I found on there.  For one, he seemed to have an actual personality, and was a good conversationalist.  We talked more and more and he asked me out.


He asked me if I liked surprises.  I told him that I liked pleasant surprises.  He told me that I had to meet him at his house and then we'd head off to an early dinner.  Good so far.

I made it to his house and rang the bell.  I heard a "Cowabunga!" and a computer printer smashed down not two feet away from me!  It broke into pieces, and I looked up to see Brad pulling himself back into a window.

He came downstairs as if he hadn't done anything, my heart beating loud enough for the neighbors to hear.  I screamed, "What the hell were you thinking?"

He asked, "What?" as if throwing printers out of windows at dates was typical courtship behavior.

I asked, "Are you insane?  What the hell?"

He cocked his head and asked, "It didn't hit you.  What's your problem?"

I took a step back, said, "Okay... goodbye," and left.

"Wait!" he yelled, and came after me.

I made it into my car, locked the doors, and turned it on.  He stood in front of it.  Lucky for me, I know how to reverse a vehicle, so I reversed my way down his street.  He chased, but I was able to drive off.

He wrote me a single text: "WHAT'S YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM???" and I never heard from him again.  I took a break from online dating for... well, forever, after that.

Submitted by Andrew:

I'm a producer at a cable channel in a large city.  I had information similar to that statement in my online profile, and Nicole messaged me one day.  She came off as very nice and very creative, hinting that she was an aspiring writer.  We had a great few exchanges, and then she asked me if we could meet up.

We arranged our date and met up at a pub in the middle of town.  She showed up with a dozen scripts and show ideas, and she was ready to pitch them to me for inclusion on the network for which I work.

"Would you mind if I picked your brain?" were her exact words.

I told her that I'd be glad to take a look at a few of her ideas out of courtesy, but that I wasn't allowed to accept unsolicited queries for the channel, and that I didn't want most of the date to be a pitch meeting.  I had enough of those at work!

So she went on in great detail about her idea for a "children's show with attitude," about an alien who comes to earth to sell paper cups but is shooed away by people until he meets a squirrel/mongoose with a massive brood who wants revenge on humanity for lab experiments but then one (or both?) of them fall in love with a human who is an artist but also has secret world domination aspirations, and...

I gave her a few ideas on how to tighten it up, and then she went right into her next pitch without even so much as a thank you.  This next one was about a cockroach that walked on two legs that had a problem in which it would grow and grow and grow.  It lived in a housing complex in a low-income neighborhood and owned several small businesses.  This idea, by the way, she pitched as live action, as opposed to animated.

At this point, I tried to steer the conversation away from pitching.  After all, it was my hope that she was on the date to learn more about me, not to shove her foot in the door... but that's all it really turned out to be.  Whenever I talked about my non-job hobbies, she didn't seem too interested, and even when I asked her ab out herself, she answered anything non-pitch-related with something short and went back into, "So, do you think the roach thing is a good idea?  What would make it better?  When can it be on your channel?"

I was tired of talking with her after a short while, and brought the date to an end after a couple of drinks (my treat, and she never thanked me).

She contacted me the next day to ask if we could go out again and told me that I was a tremendous help to her.  I told her that I didn't think that we were going to work out, and she became really upset and threatened to sue me if I stole her ideas.  I told her that I wouldn't be stealing her ideas, and she hit back with, "Oh, so now you're saying they're not good enough?"

I said, "Yes.  That's exactly what I'm saying.  Bye," and hung up.

Submitted by Kevin:

In high school, I had a crush on a girl named Paula. She wasn’t really my type – she was more of an athlete and I was just a dork. But my hormones propelled me forth and I pursued her.  Back then, I didn’t always think before opening my mouth. During our first date, this proved to be quite unfortunate.

We were having dinner at a Chinese restaurant and I was trying hard to be charming. I’m sure it just came off as desperate and awkward, but I was very inexperienced.

At the end of our meal came the fortune cookies. She opened hers up, and as I was opening mine, I said, “It’ll probably say I’m going to get hit by a car or something.” Yep, stupid joke. She suddenly got up and rushed away from the table.

As I sat there trying to figure out how such a dumb joke had upset her, it hit me like a bolt of lightning: her brother, a few years before, was struck by a car and killed.

I felt like the world’s biggest idiot. Such a dumb joke to make in the first place! And then to realize how badly I had jammed my foot into my mouth...

She returned to the table maybe 20 minutes later and I immediately began apologizing profusely. She really was a nice girl and took it in stride and accepted my apology. But I knew that my already slim chances with this girl had just shrunk even more.

Even afterward, Paula continued to be friendly towards me so I entertained the idea of still having a chance with her. As I said, she was athletic, and one day she asked me if I wanted to go running with her around her neighborhood after school. Again, I was an awkward, out-of-shape dork. But, liking her as I did,  I readily accepted her invitation.

I drove her home after school, we changed, and off we went. I’m sure she must have been laughing to herself because I had no idea what I was doing. I did manage to keep up with her but she was probably running slower than usual for my sake.

Then, about a mile from her house, it hit me. Gastrointestinal pain the likes of which I had never known in my short life. I tried to go with it, thinking it might fade if I just kept running, but every ten feet or so I felt like a knife was twisting inside my gut.

Finally I had to fess up and I asked her if we could just both walk back to her house as quickly as possible.  I made it back without any accidents, but I spent the next 45 minutes creating a stench in her bathroom that would likely unnerve the most stoic of crime scene investigators. All the while her mother kept knocking on the bathroom door to make sure that I was okay.

Once I was finally done, I thanked Paula and her mother and slinked on out to my car, my face glowing with embarrassment. Paula was thereafter always friendly to me throughout high school, but that would be the last of our “dates.” Can’t blame her in the least.

Submitted by Sarah:

When Jeffrey first messaged me online, his profile seemed similar in almost every way to every other guy's profile with one exception: he made his own shoes. My grandfather was a shoemaker and I had always associated shoemaking with a happy childhood. So it was on this unlikely topic that started Jeff and I talking.

He sent me pictures of the shoes he had made, all of which were really impressive for one guy working out of his garage. We talked about other things, but we always seemed to make it back to the topic of shoes, sneakers, and loafers.

I asked him why he hadn't applied to work for Nike, Reebok, New Balance, etc. He said that he was hoping to sue them for stealing his designs, just as soon as he sold enough of his shoes to afford an attorney.

A little weird. We went out anyway. On the date, I couldn't help but notice that he was wearing Asics. I asked him why he didn't wear shoes he had made, and he mumbled something about not wanting to talk about it.

Then he asked me if I was interested in storm chasing, and that there was a big thunderstorm coming into town that night. I asked him if he was sure, as the weather reports I had read forecasted a clear night.

"They know nothing!" he said, "Come chase storms with me!"

I asked him what that entailed. He said, "First, we find a storm. Next, we chase it."

I asked him, "What do we do once we've caught it?"

He gave me a funny look, then asked me if I wanted to come along. We were in the middle of dinner, and something didn't sound right about the whole thing, so I declined. He slammed two twenties on the table and said, "Off I go!" and took off! Right in the middle of dinner.

I didn't hear from him after that night, and call me crazy (as I know some of you will, regardless), but I sometimes wonder what he meant by "storm chasing."

Submitted by Vinny:

Chelsea called me up to tell me that she'd be late for our date.  Stuck in traffic.  No problem.  Thanks for letting me know.

An hour later, she called back to tell me that she'd be even later.  She also said that she had a birthday party to go to that night.  I asked her if she wanted to postpone the date, but she said that she didn't want to.  Okay, but time's burning.

She called me a third time to ask if I could meet her at a coffee place for a quick meeting.  I told her that by the time I made it there, we'd have almost no time before she had to leave for her party.  She said that she could afford to be slightly late to the party, and sounded really enthused about meeting me, so I went for it.

I sat down at the coffee place and waited for her.  She zoomed in, sat down across from me, introduced herself, swigged down some of MY coffee, asked me boilerplate questions about myself ("What's it like to be a firefighter?"  "How do you like living where you do?"  "What do you do for fun?"), looked at her watch, said, "Shit, I've got to go!  It was nice meeting you!" and zipped out before I could learn anything more about her than the fact that she had just given me the shortest date of my life.

I never heard from her again.  What I could have said or done to have turned her off is a mystery to me, but maybe she was just upset about how she treated me.  Either way, I wasn't in any rush to ask her back out for another microdate.

Submitted by Ed:

Mindy and I were out on a date, and it was painfully obvious that she thought very, very highly of herself.  "I'm the one my friends come to for advice," she declared, not too long followed by, "My parents come to me for financial consulting," and "I'm a cooking ace in the kitchen."

If true, then that's fine.  Still, there's a subtle art to being good at things and not bragging.  She volunteered most of this "I'm best at such-and-such" information without pretext.  We weren't even talking about cooking.  Or financial consulting.  Or advice.

After dinner, we made it back to her place, kissing began, and clothing started unbuttoning.  Between kisses, she said, "I taste like pumpkin pie."

I stared at her.  "What?"

"I taste like pumpkin pie.  Lots of guys have told me."

Well, when a girl gives you that sort of invitation, it doesn't really matter how much she's bragged about whatever.  I started my work and immediately she asked, "Well?"

I replied, "It tastes like vagina so far."

She shut her legs, clobbering my head, and drew herself into a ball.  She said, "Well, that killed the mood.  Want to pour some pig vomit on me, while you're at it?"

I didn't know what else to say.  I thought this was an overreaction on her part.  What did she expect me to say?  "Gadzooks!  It does taste like pumpkin pie!  NOM NOM NOM NOM."  No.

She became really unresponsive, and so I decided to leave.  Stupidity on my part, perhaps, but definite overreaction on hers.  Did give me a hankering for actual pumpkin pie, though.

Submitted by Meg:

I hooked up with Steve after karaoke night in college. We had worked together and I had always found him cute, so I asked him if he wanted to hang out after the karaoke night wrapped up. He said yes, and we ended up strolling through the moonlit campus.

Our walk ended with us nestled in a hammock near the empty baseball field. Things had started out well enough, but as time wore on I began to realize that Steve was much drunker that I had previously suspected.

He turned to me in the hammock and said in a slurred voice, "I don't know if I want to fuck you. I mean, I like you with my penis but not with my brain."

I couldn't help it, I laughed. Then I got up out of the hammock and walked away without another word, leaving him swinging in the breeze.

The next day, Steve instant messaged me:

Steve: I feel like I missed the boat last night. Any chance I can get a chance to sail on it again?
Me: Consider our date a Viking funeral. The ship burned and sank last night. Hasta.

//Steve has been blocked from your buddy list.

Submitted by Andi:

I noticed this guy, Eric, at a local ice cream shop.  He was sitting with a friend playing Magic: The Gathering, which I thought was really cute since I'm a nerd, too. My friend gave him my number since I was waaay to shy to do so.

That night, Eric called me, we talked for a little bit, and he seemed really sweet.  Later that week, a couple of friends and I planned on going to a pizza place to celebrate our friend Derek's birthday, so I asked Eric to join me.

He was really excited and he met me there. I gave him a hug and I introduced him to everyone. We walked off and talked for a while and he tried to kiss me. I backed off and mentioned nicely that I wasn't ready to kiss him as I hardly knew him.

He started crying and took off! I felt bad that I hurt his feelings, but seriously this man was 23 years old! He came back after 20 minutes, gave me his necklace, forced his mouth on mine, and whispered, "My penis is 8 inches."

This happened too fast.  I freaked and asked him to leave.  He stayed away from me and my friends after that, but he continued to stare at me. My friends and I eventually left.  He called me non-stop and I didn't answer.

The following week I went to the mall with my friend Maggie.  As we were walking around, she told me, "Oh my god!  Look, it's that crazy guy!"

I saw Eric, and walked the other way.  Of course, he saw me and yelled, "Andi! Why won't you answer when I call? Why won't you talk to me?"

Everyone turned to look at me. I was so embarassed! I ran into Macy's and hid for about 20 minutes. I figured that he must have given up, so I came out of hiding and then I hear, "Andi, what the fuck is your problem? I just want to be with you! Why won't you fucking answer your god damn phone you bitch? Can't you see I'm in love with you?"

I started crying out of sheer embarassment. Eric then left on his own. I was scared he was going to get violent since he had mentioned that he had been in a few fights. A few people in the store came to check on me, but my god I was terrified. I never spoke to him again but he would still try calling me.

Submitted by Ann:

I met Bill at a local mall while I was looking for a birthday present for my then-boyfriend.  Bill worked in a video game store, and we became friends.  After my breakup, Bill and I hung out more often, and it was pretty clear that he was interested in more than mere friendship.  I liked him also.  He was stressed about what to do, so I suggested we just take things slowly.

He countered with a complex set of ideas on how to transition our friendship into a relationship.  One of his bullet points, "Change 'hanging out' to 'dating,'" seemed unnecessary.  However, I agreed to go out on a date with him, although I wasn't sure how it would be different from regular hanging out with dinner and a movie, except for maybe the addition of something physical.  I already liked him as more than a friend, so what was the difference?

He seemed really anxious to impress me from early on.  He was excessively polite, and paid for everything.  I told him that I liked him because of who he was, as opposed to who he was trying to be, but that didn't seem to change anything up.  All through dinner, he was way too attentive and accommodating.  It made me uncomfortable.

Finally, I tried a new tactic.  I told him that he was upsetting me because he wasn't listening to me when I asked him to just relax and be himself.  He became defensive and repeated, "I am being myself," over and over.

It got to the point of ridiculousness... I dropped a pea on my napkin and he grabbed a new napkin for me.  If I sneezed, he'd ask me if I was okay.  I couldn't take it anymore and I finally told him to relax or that things weren't going to work out.

He was quiet for the rest of the date, but he was obviously simmering, casting me dark looks and mumbling to himself.  The date ended and he called a week later to tell me that he didn't things were going to work out.  It was a nice call to receive.

Submitted by Zoe:

Stan seemed like quite the nice guy before we met and even during the first fifth of our date.  It was when I talked to him about work that he went crazy. 

He went on in excruciating detail about his coworkers.  He told me, "There's one who goes to the bathroom every half-hour on the half-hour.  It really pisses me off.  Then there's the one who constantly sniffs and sniffs and sniffs through her nose.  Use a fucking tissue!  Then there's the one who stinks like a carton of monkey shit.  You know what I mean?"

"No," I told him, then asked him why he stayed there.

He said, "I need to make money to take girls out on dates.  Is that a problem for you?"

Oh dear.  Flag on the play.  I told him that money was fine, but that I'd prefer him happy, if we were to end up together.  He said, "Yeah, let's hear you say that when I can't afford your pedicure or makeup set or whatever the fuck you're going to want.  Sorry if I'm blunt, but that's just how it goes.  I'm brutally honest.  I warned you, didn't I?  That I was brutally honest?"

I said, "Well, not all girls are the same."

He stared at me and repeated, "You didn't answer me.  Didn't I warn you that I was brutally honest?"

I defused the bomb with, "Yes.  You did.  I'm glad that you did.  I prefer honesty."

He was freaking me out so much that I ended the date early, called him up the next day, and told him that I was going to be taking a break from dating for a while.  I used his own words, "I'm just being brutally honest here.  I owe that to you," and he seemed to be placated.

Submitted by Jeff:

I met Rita online. Her profile was interesting and she was quite attractive. We met up for a drink at a local watering hole and really hit it off. We laughed, had lots to talk about, and had similar interests.

When it was time to take her home, we ended up making out in my SUV. It progressed to the point that... let's just say I took care of her needs... and she promised to return the favor on our subsequent date.

Our next date was scheduled a couple of days later.  I had planned to pick her up at her place after work. She told me to pick out a movie and a place to eat around her neighborhood and to call her before I left the office.

I left my job at a local newspaper with a movie listings tear sheet from that day's paper. Not knowing her neighborhood, I had no idea about the restaurants in her area or which theater was closest. When I called her, it was from my cell phone stating that I was on my way. She scolded me for not calling from work before I left, like I was told to do. My bad.

I parked right at the front doors to her building and buzzed up. She said she'd be right down. I waited patiently in my car for about 10 minutes before she finally entered my truck.

She seemed a bit cold and asked what restaurant I had picked out. I told her that I wasn't familiar with the area, so I would leave it up to her.  She said, "Hmph... okaaaaay... then what movie are we going to see?"

I pulled out the listings and asked her which theater was closest (so I could decide on a movie).  She looked at me in disbelief and said, "So you didn't plan anything for this date?"

I bit my tongue and said that if we drove down to an area that I was familiar with, I'd be able to pick out the place to eat and the movie.  She said okay to this.

Damn... now, we had to drive about 15 minutes from there to an area I knew and on the way there, she said, "You know, you didn't even open the door for me when I arrived."

I replied, "You didn't come downstairs for what, 20 minutes?"

She said, "That's because you didn't call me from work like you were supposed to!"  Red flags were beginning to magically appear before my eyes.

We got to the restaurant and made idle chit chat, but there was a definite tension in the air and I was beginning to regret this date. After about 10 minutes, we hadn't been acknowledged by anybody and I began to look around the place from my seat wondering if we were going to get served.

Rita looked at me and said, "What's your problem? Why do you keep looking around and not at me?  If you didn't want to go on another date, you could have just said so."

I replied, "If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be here." Trust me, I had snappier things to say, but I let it go and started thinking less about the date and more about the après-date activity which was promised the first date... but that seemed less likely to happen unless this turned around.

I made more small talk but it was received with cold, short answers. We finally were served and when the food arrived, she sat there not touching any of it. I said "If you aren't having fun on the date, you should at least enjoy the food."

She retorted, "Why are you being such an asshole?"

I said, "Listen, if you have internal demons you have to deal with, you should really do so before going out on dates!"

She started crying!  Tears streamed down her face, but thankfully no blubbering.  I continued to eat, not saying anything to her and she just sat there with eyes welled up.  It was very awkward and we sat in silence until I finished my meal.

When the waitress came over, I asked for the bill and she brought it and then Rita finally started to dig into her food. She looked up and said, "I'm not done yet."

I said, "That's fine."  She purposely took small bite after small bite and sipped her beverage slowly, giving me a sly grin, knowing that it was bugging the hell out of me.

Finally, I told her that I had to pay using debit and went up to the waitress station.  I paid and then I walked right out and went home. Yep, I left her there and felt damn good about it, thank you very much. Sure, I could have stuck her with the bill too, but I think she'd need all her money to spend on therapy.

I went on a date a few years back with a girl named Cathy.  She wanted to hike a nearby state park.  I asked her for directions, but she said that it would be easier if we met up for a quick lunch first and if she drove us both to the place afterward.  Sounded good to me.  I can run fast.

We stopped at a local coffee place.  I should have known that things were going to be rough from the instant I ordered a turkey sandwich.  She asked me if I knew that birds were routinely tortured.  I asked her if she knew that birds were routinely delicious.  She frowned at that.

Then the weirdest thing happened.  She ordered the same exact thing.  Turkey sandwich.  Hold the mayo.  Extra mustard.

I said, "I thought that you didn't like to eat tortured foods."

She pointed to a sign behind the counter that said that all of their meats came from a local farm with free range policies, no artificial growth hormone, and where turkeys are treated well, given massages, taught English, etc.

She said, "Ha!" far louder than necessary, which wasn't an accomplishment, as she shouldn't have said it at all.

While we ate, I noticed that she'd never eat while I was eating.  She'd wait for me to stop, and then she'd sneak in a bite.  I asked her, "What are you doing?"

"What?"

"You're not eating unless I stop."

"And that's... weird?"

"We can eat in unison!"

"Okay."

I took another bite and she said, "Six point two."

"What?"

"Six point two."

This was a strange thing to say, but I was hungry, so I took another bite.

"Five.  Point zero."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your chewing."

"You're rating my chewing?"

"Ooh.  Talking with your mouth full.  That's a solid zero there, bucko."

"Please don't rate my chewing."

"Fine."

I asked her, "Do you play any sports?"

She thought for a moment, then said, "Four... point one."

"I thought that I asked you to stop rating my chewing."

"I'm not rating your chewing anymore.  I'm rating your conversation topics now."

"Can you stop rating me in general?"

She dropped her shoulders and looked like Twilight fan number 101 in line for a Robert Pattinson meet-and-greet at a 100-seat venue.

She said, "Zero."

"Look, Cathy–"

"I was just rating how much I like that idea!  Don't get so defensive!"

"Are you ready to hit up that park?"

"I'm not done with my sandwich yet.  Finish yours, please."

She drove us to the park, and we had the most awkward hike in history.

"Two point four," she said, then, "Your posture when you walk."

"Six point zero," she'd say, "Your pace."

"One point zero," she said, "The way you're looking at me, now."

When I stopped to drink some water, she said, "Will you save some of that for me?"

I replied, "There are three more bottles in the bag."

"I know, but I want water from yours."

I stared at her, then handed her my bottle.

"Ten!  Ten!  Ten!" she squealed.  It's okay, number 101!  There's a Taylor Lautner meet-and-greet right across the street!

I stopped to take some photos of the landscape.  Impatient, she moaned, "Five... five.. four point nine... four point eight... four point seven... four point six..."

I was done taking photos by "Three point five," but I was so curious as to what she'd do when I bottomed out that I kept snapping shots.

"Zero," she said, and then once more, as if I didn't hear it the first time, "Zero."

I turned to her and asked, "What now?  Negatives?  Complex?"  Then, with special emphasis, "Irrationals?"

She shook her head.  "No.  But you're at zero for now."

It was nice when we made it back to her car, since that meant that the date was almost over.  But when she started the engine, it wouldn't kick in.  I had a similar problem with my car a couple of years prior, so I asked her if I could check it out.

I slowly held down the gas pedal when I started it up, and it turned on.  She said, "Ten all the way, bucko."

I waited for her to drive me back to the lot where my car was parked, and I sprang it on her.  "You know," I said, "The fact that you rated me on everything out loud was kind of... well, kind of unusual."

"Want to know you final score?"

"My final score?"

She looked so happy.  I sighed.  "Yes please.  What's my final score?"

She looked up as if calculating.  Then she calculated some more.  Then some more.

"I forgot," she said.

"Damn," I said, "That earns a great big zero."

"What?"

"The fact that you can't remember my score.  That earns a zero, I'm afraid."

Then she made a face.  That Taylor Lautner meet-and-greet?  Surprise!  It's Steve Buscemi!  And he hasn't eaten in three days!

She said, "Get out of my car."

"Cathy–"

"Get out!"

"You're–"

She screamed.  I jumped out of the car and slammed the door.  She backed up, nearly hit an oncoming car in the lot, and screeched away.  I didn't hear from her after that, and that, my friends, is an 11.

Submitted by Daniel:

Susan and I had our first date over coffee.  Better that way, since there's less of an obligation than sitting through a whole meal, and if the chemistry isn't there early on, better to not waste anyone's time, right?

My radar was up the instant she said, "I don't believe in sex before marriage," which was the second thing she said, after, "Nice to meet you."

I explained to her that I was willing to take things as they came, even though, I have to be honest, I'm not someone who really has ever minded sex before marriage.  Maybe we'd become friends.  Who knows, right?

But then she WOULDN'T SHUT UP about it.  From the instant she sat down, she went into what sounded like a rehearsed statement all about why sex before marriage was bad for women, bad for self-esteem, bad for her body, bad for the environment, bad for America, bad for puppies... all I wanted to do was sit down over coffee with someone and get to know her.  I already said that it wasn't a problem.  If it ended up being one, then I'd be sure to let her know.  I didn't need to be soapboxed.

"Well, statistics say..." she went on and on.

Finally, I cut in, "I'm really okay with you not having sex before marriage."

She replied, "That's fine, but you need to know why I feel that way."

"No I don't!  Just telling me you're not into it is enough!  Can we talk about something else?"

"I want to talk about this.  I'm almost done."

"Fine."

She wasn't almost done.  She went on for another ten minutes, but I was finally able to pry her away from the topic.  For someone who wasn't at all into sex, that's all that she talked about for most of the "date" so far.  By the time we were finally talking about something else, I wouldn't have had sex with her even if she suddenly changed her mind.  It was that much of a turn-off.

We finally made it onto the topic of movies, sports, hobbies... and... wait... there's a trend here... we'd talk about movies and she'd say, "I like them all, except for the ones with sex.  I don't do sex."  We'd talk about sports, and she'd say, "I like all sports, but too many athletes have illicit sex," and when we talked about hobbies, she... you guessed it, talked about how none of her hobbies included anything of a sexual nature.

Let me state for the record that if you're not into sex before marriage, then that's cool.  It's your body, it's your life.  But don't try to make every situation into an opportunity to proselytize.

The kicker was at the end of our not-short-enough meeting, which I was sure to bring to a close far quicker than I had originally intended.  She asked me, "So, do you think you're going to reconsider having sex before marriage?"

I said, "With you?  Absolutely."

Yes, I'm an asshole.  Yes, it felt good to say.  No, she didn't take it badly at all.  She laughed and said, "You got that right."

Submitted by Jasmine:

Don and I arranged to meet each other at a clock in the middle of a local town's main square.  He showed up looking as if he had woken up three minutes before meeting me.  The first words out of his mouth were, "Do you want to get donuts?"

We went and got donuts.  It was early afternoon on a Saturday.  I tried to get him to talk, but he said, "Donuts first."  Okay then.  He ate his three donuts and had a healthy amount of powdered sugar all around his mouth.  I pointed it out to him and he wiped it with his sleeve, leaving streaky powdered sugar all over his face.  I pointed that out to him and he shrugged and licked around his mouth.

"Want to see a movie?" I asked him, since he wasn't too forthcoming with ideas... or words.

He said, "Want to come back to my place to watch one?"

"No.  We can go get coffee or something.  I just want to talk."

"About what?"

"Anything.  Don't you want to get to know me?  I want to get to know you."  Sort of.  Probably not.

He said, "Come back to my place and we can talk."

"We can talk while we're out, too, can't we?"

"Then we can screw."

"What?"

Yes, he said it.  Then I realized what was going on.  Everything fit.  The guy was drunker than anything.  Or high.  Or something.

I offered to call him a cab or taxi, but he kept asking me back to his place.  I wasn't about to follow him anywhere, but I did call a taxi and sent him back to his house.  I never heard from him again.

Submitted by Wendy:

I left one job for another in summer 2008, and before I left the first job, one of my coworkers, Alan, asked me out on a date.  I didn't know much about him, as we both worked in different departments, but he always seemed happy and friendly, and since I was leaving the job anyway, I didn't see anything wrong with taking him up on it.

I worked in a corporate sales division for a telecommunications company.  Not terribly exciting (which is part of the reason why I left) and the last thing that I wanted to do was to talk work over dinner, but that's all that Alan did.

We sat down at a mom and pop cafe and right after we ordered our drinks, he slammed his suitcase on the table and pulled out sales reports and investor queries.  "I was hoping we could go over these..." he said.

I said in no uncertain terms, "I'm not here to go over work stuff.  Is that why you asked me out?"

He stared at me and said, "No.  I just thought... it was one thing we already had in common."

"Well, we're spending time together to find out what else we have in common, right?"

He looked down at his paperwork, really sad.  "I guess so."

I felt bad for the guy.  He was probably just nervous, so I said, "Let's go over a couple of things, but then we'll put it away.  I'm here to not talk about work."

We went over a few figures and reports, and the time came for our dinner orders.  Neither of us had even looked at the menu, so we took a break to do that.  When the waitress came by again and took our orders, I suggested to Alan that he put the work stuff away.  It was nothing urgent.

He took a very different tone with me, then.  He said, "Just because you're leaving, it doesn't mean that you don't have any responsibilities at the office."

Taken aback, I said, "I fulfill all of my responsibilities in the office, Alan.  You're not my boss so you wouldn't know, but one thing I refuse to do is go over work stuff in my off hours."

"You never take anything seriously.  No wonder you're being fired!"

Whoa!  What the hell?  I said, "I'm not being fired.  I'm quitting!"

"Because you don't take your work seriously!"

"Because I don't want sales figures and company reports to be my entire life."

He smirked and said, "You're obviously bad at it."

I stood up and said, "And you're obviously bad at being a gentleman," loud enough for everyone to hear, and I stormed out.

The next day at work, I found out that Alan had gone to my boss to complain about "how I treated him."  He was severely reprimanded, as it apparently wasn't the first time he had pulled this.  I couldn't wait to leave this place.

Submitted by Sandy:

Clark and I connected over music.  We both had huge music collections and he invited me over to see his.

He didn't just have a music shelf.  Or a music bookcase.  Or a music room.  Every room on the second floor of his house was covered, wall-to-wall, with CDs, cassettes, LPs, 8-tracks... this was a music Smithsonian.

I was amazed by his collection... it beat mine several times over.  He offered to put on whatever I wanted, and I was like a kid in a candy store.  He had a couple of bean bag chairs, and we chilled out there for a while.  He showed me a Doors limited edition LP boxed set.  Squee.

At one point, after we were doing more listening than talking, he asked me if I wanted to hear something cool.  He said that over a school vacation, a couple of years back, he had taken each song he could find, several thousand of them, and managed to import them into his computer and layer them over each other to make a sort of mega-song.

I told him that it was a cool idea, but that I bet it ended up sounding like crap.  He said that it actually didn't sound too bad, but that it had to be listened to at a low volume.  He started setting it up and was really proud of it.  He said that it was like having every great performance playing at the same time, thereby making it the greatest performance ever.  Ehhh... I don't know.

He turned up a couple of knobs on his setup and turned his massive speakers on.

Some feedback, and then... holy shit... the loudest, most awful sound you could ever imagine.  The house shook, dozens of cases fell off of the shelves, I jammed my hands against my ears (didn't help), and Clark?  Did he turn the volume down?  Or did he turn his speakers off?

Clark threw his hands against his ears and made an awful face, as if he had stepped in a mound of elephant shit of an elephant who had last eaten rotten ham and thumbtacks.  He screamed something like, "YA YA YA YA YA YA!" and ran out of the room, down his stairs, and out of his house.

I ran over to the setup and turned the master volume way down.  As for Clark?  He came back a half-hour later, really upset, and blaming ME!  He said that it would take him weeks to recover.  He then asked me to leave, as he had to assess the damage.

That's the whole story, although the look that was on his face when the music blasted... that was priceless.

Submitted by Zachary:

My first and only time trying online dating was back in 2005.  I've never been on it since, and this story is why.

Emma's profile hit all the marks.  She worked in marketing for an ad agency, she seemed smart, had a lot to say, and was damn fine.  I wrote her a message, we went back and forth for a little while, graduated to phone calls, and ultimately made plans for a date.

I wasn't expecting to find someone I liked online so quickly, so I was pretty nervous.  I bought a new shirt.  I hadn't remembered the last time I felt such happy, anticipatory butterflies.  She laughed at my jokes.  She was a great conversationalist.  It was going to be awesome.

Hoooooo... it wasn't.  Not too long after sitting down at dinner, she asked me a bit more about my past.  I told her that I had been steady with a girl, Alana, throughout college, but that it had ended after Alana had moved away for a job.  I mentioned that Alana and I were still in touch, and Emma cut in, "Well, that would have to stop."

I asked her, "Stop?  What do you mean?"

Emma explained, like to a 3-year-old, that she wouldn't let a boyfriend speak with any former girlfriend.  She repeated, "It's too dangerous," over and over.  It was really off-putting.  Even after I said that Alana and I were just friends at this point, Emma repeated, "It's too dangerous," and asked me how far I had gone with Alana.

"Um... sex?  We were together for over three years."

Emma looked ready to explode.  What else was she expecting?  Did she want me to say, "We kissed on the cheek once, because that's all her daddy allowed us to do"?

Emma said, "No, no, no, no, no.  That's got to stop."

I said, "Alana and I haven't been together for over five years.  Are you still in touch with any of the guys you've had sex with?"

Emma said, "None of your business.  And that's different, anyway.  I'm a girl."

I thought about pointing out the hypocrisy of her argument, but opted to not get sucked into the whirlpool.  I changed the subject.  "On your profile, you said that you're into skiing?"

She cut in, "Don't change the subject.  If you don't cut ties with Alana, then I don't want to go out with you."

At this point, my definition of "good date" had gone from, "having a good time with Emma" to "escaping Emma."

Then came the best line of all.  She asked, "Am I being unreasonable, here?"

I said.  "You're not.  You're right.  I'll cut ties with her.  I can see it from your perspective."

Once dinner was over, I made up some bull about having to leave because I had to go into work early the next morning.  Emma was all over that.  "You don't have to go," she pleaded, "Just an hour longer."

I'd rather put a bullet through my head, you crazy Internet psycho bitch.  Why did I waste all of this time getting to know you?  How come you weren't this crazy a week ago?  Or two weeks ago?  Or three?  If you felt justified in acting this way, then WHY NOT ACT THIS WAY FROM THE BEGINNING?

Politely but firmly, I ended the date, and I severed all communications with her shortly afterward.  Alana and I still talk, and I have regular sex.  Not with Alana, true, but most importantly, not with Emma.

Submitted by Nia:

Jordan had the idea to go sledding on our first date together.  He was a friend of a friend, which made me feel good about going out with him.

We took turns on the saucer sled that he brought, until he asked if we could try going down together, with me on his lap.  I figured that it was harmless, so we did it.  On our way down, he pulled my head back and tried to kiss me, but I pulled away and fell off the sled.

He didn't let go, and so he came tumbling after as the sled continued its way all the way down the sizable hill.  He watched it go.

"Go get it," he ordered.

I shook my head and smiled, trying to stay light-hearted about the whole thing.  "It's your fault," I said, "If you hadn't tried to kiss me, then it wouldn't have happened."

"If you hadn't pulled away, then it wouldn't have knocked me off balance.  Now go get it.  I'll meet you back up top."

I shook my head and told him, "No.  I'm not going to get it by myself.  Why don't you come with me and we can get it together?"  I figured that a compromise would work here.

No dice.  "Go get it," he repeated, then said, "Nothing bad will happen to you."

He started up the mountain.  I looked down at the sled and followed him back up.  When we were nearly at the top, he turned to me and said, "What the hell?  I thought I told you to get the sled!"

I said to him, "And I don't like being ordered around.  We get it together or you can get it by yourself, but I'm not going on my own to get it."

He said, "If I go get it by myself, then this is over."

That was music to my ears.  He did, and it was.  Beautiful.

Submitted by Stan:

Patty and I were on our first date, sitting on a bench by a pond in a park, when she turned to me and said, "I bet I can run faster than you."

I told her that I'd see that bet, and we ran to the other side of the pond.  She beat me.  It's all good.  I teased her with, "I'll bet that's the only thing you can do better, though."

She said, "Name something, then.  Bet you're wrong."

I pointed to the pond.  "Bet you can't swim across it faster."

She didn't say anything, but she took off her shirt and pants.  Sweet.  I was too busy staring and she pointed at me and said, "You going to swim across like that?"

I took my own clothes off, too, and we went down to the shore.  "Go!" she yelled, and in we swam.  Holy god that water was cold.  And I kept touching something slimy.  It didn't bother me much, but I realized that I should've thought things through before trying something like this.

We made it to the other side, and yes, she may have beaten me, but in one way, I had her beat.  My underwear was still on.  She just had her bra.  "Shit," she said, "What am I supposed to do?"

I joked, "Something makeshift out of leaves?"

She said, "No.  What if we grab poison ivy?  Can you go back and grab my stuff?  I'll hide out here."

Okay.  Fine.  I made it back to where we had made it into the water, grabbed our clothes, and went back to where she was supposed to have been waiting.  She wasn't there.

"Patty?  Patty?" I called for her, but she must have been hiding super-well.  I felt weird just leaving her clothes there, but after waiting there for close to an hour and calling around, I had almost decided to head out.

Then she showed up.  "Where were you?" I asked her.

"Hiding.  Like I said I'd be.  Where the hell have you been?"

She grabbed her stuff, just as another couple was coming down the path.  I threw myself in front of her, to shield her nakedness.  The other couple stopped and stared.  It must have looked pretty bad, since the guy said, "Are you okay?" to Patty.

Patty replied, "Yes, I'm fine!  I just have to get dressed!"  They moved on, Patty put her clothes back on, and she said that the afternoon was over and that she wanted to go home.  It was cool seeing her without clothes, all right, but I'm not sure why she didn't want to go to dinner or plan a second date.  I thought that the whole thing was funny.  In my defense, I came right back to where I had agreed to meet her with her clothes.  Oh well.  Nude women, huh?

Submitted by Betsy:

I met Keith one Thursday afternoon, while fundraising on a busy street corner for a fairly well-known children's relief organization. He seemed like a genuinely cool person, a first impression which was probably influenced by the fact that he was performing as a juggler. We chatted on and off throughout the day, and I mentioned my boyfriend quite a few times. At the end of the day, we exchanged numbers, and I thought I had made an awesome new friend.

Fast-forward to that Saturday. My boyfriend had broken up with me the morning before, and I was looking for something entertaining to do. Keith called and asked me what I was doing that evening, and I told him what had happened. He was sympathetic, and offered to come meet me downtown to hang out and grab a beer.

After the bar, I told him it was getting late and I should probably head out, as I was staying with some friends and didn't want to keep them up too late. He offered to walk me to my car, and I told him I had to stop by my office to grab some things. I let us into the building, and showed him around, pointing out the political posters we have up, and entertaining him with work stories.

Well, hindsight is 20:20. Having had no intentions of dating any time soon, I had apparently missed all the signs that this guy was interested in more than a casual evening. All of a sudden, he pushed me up against the wall and tried to suck my face off. I went with it for a moment, but the second he tried to take my shirt off, I pushed him away.

“Can I take off your bra?” he asked.

I replied. “No. It's getting late, I should head home.”

As I ushered him out of the building, he kept trying to convince me that I could stay with him if I was worried about waking up my friends, that it would be fun to keep hanging out. Then he asked me what I was doing the next day. I told him that I would probably be busy.

When I arrived at my friends' house, I had a text message from him. “Good night sexxy bitch (affectionately)."  I don't think I'll be calling him again any time soon.

Submitted by Arianna:

Jeremy is one of the three guys I've ever met online who impressed me enough for me to meet offline.  My date with him was short and awful.  He wanted me to meet him at his house, which I did.

When I knocked on his front door, his garage door opened, some metal music started playing faintly from somewhere, and out he came, on a motorcycle, all in black.  He drove it out to the street, blasted the motor, punched into the air, and sailed down the road.

He didn't return.  I tried calling him, but all I got was a text message from him that said, "WOOOOOO!"

I decided to leave, since I wasn't too impressed.  He called a couple of hours later to ask me where I was, as if I should have been waiting on his front porch the whole time for his badass self to come back.  I didn't bother answering.  Waste of an afternoon.

Submitted by Terry:

Gwen was a part-time waitress and a part-time student at a local college.  I was visiting friends at the college and I struck up a conversation with her.  She was studying biochemistry and came off as really smart but also really down to earth.

She wanted to take me on a tour of the college, and we decided to turn that into a date.  A nice walk outside, a stop for tea, and afternoon of playing it by ear... sounds nice, right?

I met up with her at a statue.  She brought a newspaper and asked me if I wanted to read obituaries together.  Unusual, but quirky.  After the second one, though, I asked her if we could go on that campus walk.  She folded up the paper without a word, stood up, and walked.  I followed.

She made it seem like she was doing me the biggest favor.  "I don't know how much you really want to see."  "We may not be able to get into all of the buildings."  "It's a bit of a long walk."

She seemed... well, weird and kind of sidetracked.  I asked her if everything was okay, and she said that she had a lot on her mind.

Anything she wanted to talk about?

No.

I tried talking to her, but as the date went on, she became quieter, and I couldn't tell why, but it seemed like she was angry at me.

Finally, I stopped walking and asked her what the problem was.  She said that she didn't like my attitude and that I seemed really possessive.

This blew me away.  I asked her what had I done to seem possessive.  She didn't say anything.  I racked my brain, but I couldn't think of anything.  The only explanation that fit was, "she's insane."

She was walking ahead of me at this point, and I called after her, "I'm just going to head out."

She waved without turning around.  I left.  The end.

Or so I thought.  She called me up a bit later, I thought to apologize, but it was actually to forgive me for being so possessive.  Would I like to go out again?

No.

Submitted by Shannon:

Submitted by Thomas:

About a year ago, I found Barbara online.  She was a med student who didn't seem to have the time for a relationship, much less even a single date.  We finally picked a Saturday in February.

During the week that was the lead up to the date, I thought it was weird when once or twice each e-mail or phone conversation, she'd say things like, "I can't wait to see what you're going to do.  You strike me as the romantic type," etc.

I wasn't sure what that was about until I realized that that particular Saturday was Valentine's Day.  Crap.  Our first date.  Valentine's Day.  How much is too much?  I mean, I didn't think that showing up empty-handed would be appropriate.  Then again, there is such a thing as too much.  Flowers?  Chocolates?  Tickets to a show?  An expensive dinner?

It was our first date, and we had been planning it for a while.  I wanted to play it safe, but I also wanted to express how I felt about her.  My plan was to buy a nice bouquet and take her out to a good meal.  Not a $75-per-plate, five-star affair, but a nice, quiet, romantic place.  I called the restaurant ahead of time, and they even said that they would have a live violinist to serenade the dining couples.

I showed up to her house with the flowers on the evening of Valentine's.  She took one look at them and her face noticeably dropped.  "Oh... thanks," was all she said before taking them from me and putting them on her kitchen table.

I suggested, "Shouldn't you put them in water?"

She retorted, "There are so few of them, I'm sure they'll be all right."

Ouch.  For your information, readers, there were certainly not "a few" of them.  This was a sizable bunch.

When we showed up to the restaurant, she wrinkled her face and asked, "This place?"

I asked her what was wrong with the restaurant – I had to book a reservation some time in advance.

She said, "Nothing wrong with it... I was just expecting... I don't know.  If it works for you then I guess it's okay with me.  Let's go."

I suggested going somewhere else, but she was already on her way out of the car.  She said, "You obviously think that this is a good enough place, so come on.  Let's get this done."

Whoa.  Not at all what I was expecting.  I also jumped out of the car and I asked her what the problem was.  Was it not good enough?

Her reply?  "Apparently, you don't think that I'm good enough."

"That's not fair!  I bought you flowers–"

"A few."

"It was a bouquet!  And I'm taking you out to a nice restaurant–"

She snorted and said, "Come on.  Don't ruin this.  Let's just go in and try to forget all about it."

"And be made to feel inadequate all night?  I think I'd rather take you home."

She stared at me and said, "It's Valentine's Day."

I said, "So you have flowers, and until a minute ago, you had a guy willing to take you out for a nice meal.  That's more than a lot of people have."

I dropped her off at home and aside from the obligatory, "You're an asshole" and "Happy Valentine's Day, asshole" texts, I didn't hear from her again.

I heated up some leftovers at home, and they tasted great.

Submitted by Anonymous:

I met an older boy, Josh, at a party. We had a great time together, it turned out that we liked the same music and movies, and we basically just had a lot in common. As it came time to leave, he asked me if he could take me out on a Wednesday afternoon. I thought, weird time for a date, but okay, why not?

The Wednesday of the date, he called to tell me that he was downstairs.  I went to meet him and literally the first thing he said to me was, "So, I didn't get my paycheck.  I can't really take you anywhere nice." Wonderful start to the date right?

I was too nice to say anything that I was thinking, so I just smiled and nodded.

We got to his car, he had the crappiest Jeep with absolutely no doors or roof.  He said, "Heh, I should have warned to you wear a hat."  Yes, Josh, yes you should have.

He took his old, sweaty baseball cap and stuck it on my nicely done hair, without even asking! Then he said, "So what's it gonna be? McDonalds?"

Awkward pause. He said, "I'm jut kidding..."

That time I actually did speak up.  "McDonalds on a first date? Wow, I'm going out with a real Romeo, huh?" I laughed at the end to try to make it seem like I was kidding.

He bought it. "Oh, I know the perfect place!" he said, and we drive off...

Turns out this "perfect place" was a cheap, disgusting Philly cheese steak... I can't even call it a restaurant... stand, I guess? Anyway, it looked gross, but I didn't want to be a bitch, so I just ordered.

It came time to pay and he said, "Oh shoot, I don't think I have enough to cover both of us. You mind chipping in?" Now, I don't expect boys to pay for everything, but on a first date? It's kind of customary.

Anyway, I threw in a few dollars. Then guess what he did? HE ASKED FOR IT TO GO! Yes... on the first date, this boy decided to take me back to his house... I already felt so uncomfortable, but I didn't know what to do, so I just went.

The rest of the date was spent sitting awkwardly on his couch, eating this disgusting cheese steak, and watching Finding Forrester (which is not a date movie, let me tell you). He kept scooting closer, while I scooted farther away and took as long as possible to eat my sandwich.

Thank GOD my mother called me, so I excused myself and begged her to help me figure out a way to get him to take me home.

We came up with a story, I laid it on him, and he agreed to take me to my house. He said, "But not without a goodbye kiss," grabbed me, and started making out with me. I was in shock so I didn't push him off right away, but... ew.

Fast-forward a week... I was sick as a dog with the worst cold of my life.

Fast-forward three weeks... I was finally well again and went to a party. He was there and he asked me out AGAIN.  I played it cool and changed the subject, "So, Josh, what have you been up to?"

"Ugh, I was super sick."

"Oh yeah, when was that?"

"Like, around the time we went out."

Great. I got a Philly cheese steak and a cold... and neither was free.

Submitted by Ryan:

When I was in college, I was working at the local Go-Kart track until I could find something permanent.  One day, I rolled my ankle and spent the next three weeks on crutches.  This drew the attention of Samantha, a gorgeous blond in my accounting class.  We flirted and would pass notes in class and finally decided to meet up for drinks and karaoke.

When I arrived at the Mexican restaurant, Samantha was already there with a group of guys, who I found out were all guys she had dated in previous weeks.

Things got awkward fast so I walked to another part of the restaurant and was later joined by my "date."  She slammed drink after drink and became more and more inebriated.

As the evening progressed she started making out with me, sucking on my fingers, and running her hands up my shirt.  I thought things were going well, but felt bad as I wasn't drinking that night.

Shortly into one of these intense sloppy make-outs, her flavor of the previous week decided it would be a good idea to shove me into the wall to try and start a fight.  I laughed at him and was saved by Samantha, who told him that I was taking her home.

We got into the car and the entire drive consisted of her sucking on my fingers and rubbing on my leg. Once I got her home, she asked me to walk her in.

As we got to the front door, she turned around and kissed me.  Then, she pushed me away, slapped me, and called me a pervert for trying to force her into something she didn't want to do.  She went inside and slammed the door shut.

Um, okay?  What the hell just happened?

The next time we had class, she sent me text messages consisting of "Are you ok?" "Why aren't you sitting with me?" "I thought we had a great time... when can we do it again?"

I ignored the messages but finally fielded a call from her in which she chewed me out for not responding to her and for being a huge asshole just like every other guy at the school. 

Apparently, she doesn't understand that being a schizophrenic basketcase tends to make guys come across as assholes.

Submitted by Cynthia:

Ralph and I had our first date at an Italian restaurant.  It was a nice place that I had always passed by but never tried.

The waitress took our orders without fuss, and everything was fine until a big, grey-haired guy with a big, angry frown stormed over to our table.

He pointed at Ralph and said, "I thought I told you never to come back here, boy."

Ralph glanced at me and said, "You must have me mistaken for someone else."

"I remember you, Ralph.  You think my memory's shit?  Three years may as well have been three days ago, or three minutes.  I want you out."  The guy glanced at me.  "I'm doing this girl a favor."

"What's going on?" I broke in.

Ralph stood up,threw his napkin on the table, and said, "Come on, Cynthia.  This place just lost itself a customer."

As we walked out, the guy called after us, "You're no customer, Ralph.  You're trash!"

Ralph turned back, walked past me, and got right in the guy's face.  He said something I didn't hear, and then someone shoved someone else, and then the next thing I knew, they were on the floor, swinging and kicking at each other.

Someone yelled, "Call the cops!" and someone must have, since a police car was there in less than a minute.

Ralph was arrested, and the angry guy and I had to give statements to the police.  I have no idea what Ralph did three years ago to upset the guy (who I'm guessing was the manager/owner), and at this point, I don't want to know.  All I know is that my first and last date with Ralph was a truly arresting experience.

Submitted by Alexander:

Lara and I had a nice enough first part of our first date.  We went out to a Japanese place, split sushi, and had an overall pleasant conversation.  She was attractive and a great conversationalist, so I figured that she would likely be a good bet for a second date.

When we were done with dinner, she asked me what I wanted to do.  My idea was to find a cafe for dessert, if for nothing else than a change of scene.  She recommended that I follow her home (we drove separately) as she had made a cheesecake.  I'll try anything homemade, so I followed her back to her place.

Turns out she had an apartment with her older sister.  When we came in, I sat down in the kitchen and Lara prepared to pull out the pie... when her sister walked in wearing a pajama top and boyshorts.

She locked eyes with me, said, "Oops, sorry!" and turned around back to her room.

I let a smile slip, and I looked at Lara, who was staring at me, holding a plate of cheesecake, and not smiling at all.

"What the fuck?" she said to me.  I thought that I had misheard her.

She said that she saw the way I had looked at her sister, and proceeded to remind me, over and over, that I was on a date with her and not her sister.

I told her that I was merely surprised and that I hadn't looked at her sister in any particular way.  I was just surprised to see an unexpectedly scantily clad girl walking into the kitchen.  After I had explained this, I asked for my cheesecake.

She picked it up off the plate and slammed it onto the floor.  "Eat it!" she shrieked.

I stood up and left that instant.  I had better things to do with my Friday night than spend it with some insecure psycho.  Anything was better than that place.

Submitted by Duane:

Shannon and I met in the building where I work.  We work for different companies, but bumped into each other enough in the employee cafeteria to become good acquaintances.  We decided to meet up on a Saturday morning for a walk in a park.

The first thing she did when we met up was give me a big hug and she put her arm around me as we walked.  Slow down there, champ.  I gingerly removed her arm.  She put it back.

I said, "We're just friends, meeting up for a walk and maybe coffee.  I think it's a little too soon for... you know, arm-in-arm."

She said, "If this wasn't a date then why the hell did you ask me out?"

I explained that I just wanted to get to know her better, in a situation that wasn't an employee lunch line.  Surely she could understand that her action could be perceived as going too fast.  Couldn't she?

Nope.  She said, "You can at least act like you want to be with me.  Can we at least hold hands?"

I shook my head.  Holding hands?  No.  I didn't even know her last name!

I asked, "Can't we just take things as they come?  I'm not in a hurry."

"But you'll ask me out for a weekend date.  If we're not going to even act like we like each other, then how is this any different from work?"

Before I could point out the flaws in her logic, she went on, "You know what?  Forget it," and stormed off.

She still doesn't speak to me in the employee cafe.  She does a lot of glaring, though.

Submitted by Dana:

Ian sure pulled out all the stops on our first date.  He made me a mix CD, brought me flowers, and even sang to me from outside my window.  He was funny, and really poured the charm on.  A little dorky?  Sure, but I didn't think of that as a bad thing.

At dinner, he told me that he could do a fun trick with his nose.  He held one nostril shut, and made a booger bubble out of his other nostril.  A bit gross, to be sure, but he must have miscalculated the force at which he blew, because a second later, a gob of mucus exploded out of his nose and whacked against the dinner table.

"Oh shit," he said, gathering up the mess, "I'm sorry."

It was okay, until he tried it again, this time with his other nostril.  This time, no bubble came out, but mucus dribbled down to his lip.

"You can stop," I told him, "I'm thoroughly... impressed."

He asked me if I could do any silly human tricks, and I told him that I was extra-bendy.  He followed that up with, "I bet you're great in the sack."

I said, "That's not why I brought it up."  And it really wasn't.

He rolled his eyes and said, "Sure, sure," then tried the mucus bubble bit once more.

Thank goodness the waiter came at that moment.  Ian spent the rest of the date talking about how bendy his prior bunkmates had been, but I wasn't paying much attention anymore.

We split the check at the end, and that was the end of that.

Submitted by Richard:

Moira and I met on the Internet, and after we spoke for a little while, she hinted that she knew a great place for a first date.  I asked her where, and she told me that I'd have to ask her out on a date to find out.  She was really bright and seemed like a hell of a lot of fun, so I went for it.

Her "awesome place"?  Ruby Tuesday's!

It was a little weird after all the build-up, but I went for it.

She told me that she always got the same thing when she went there, ever since her first boyfriend asked her out there seven years earlier... the same first boyfriend who she hasn't spoken to since their breakup, but who she knows is now a dentist, is engaged, moved to Iowa and then came back to the area, owns a cat named Oswald, lives in a nice part of town... wow.  You sure do know a lot about your ex-boyfriend's whereabouts and doings, Moira.

She told me that she just had to figure out how to correct things, that was, make it so that he would be back in love with her.  No one she had met since him, apparently, had measured up.  Oh boy.

"How will you go about 'correcting' him?" I asked.

She said, "He'll correct himself.  Eventually.  He'll realize that he never had it better.  I've waited this long.  I can wait longer."

I asked her why she bothered going on dates if she was still really into this guy.  She just said that she was lonely and wanted to meet new people in the meantime.  Wow.

I had a pleasant enough time, aside from the fact that when the date was over, I knew more about her first boyfriend than I did about her.  She didn't ask me a single question about myself, and I had to wonder how many other guys she had taken to Ruby Tuesday's.

Submitted by Sarah:

Robert was an acquaintance who invited me out to a bar with some of our mutual friends.  I asked him if he meant it to be a date, and he said that he would like that.  He seemed nice and so I took him up on it.

About eight of us ended up together at the bar, so it was a good crowd and Robert paid very close attention to me.  We bought each other drinks and were in our own little world.

Then, Billy arrived.

Billy is the best friend of one person in the group, so Billy is usually invited to everything, even though he's typically an asshole to everyone and people tend to leave earlier when he's around.

"What's up, motherfuckers?" was his first line.

We all mumbled our greetings and he went straight for the bar.

Oh, and the friend who always invited Billy along?  Robert.

Billy, with a beer, sat next to Robert and I, snorted, and said, "Nice tits."  Then, he turned to Robert and asked, "You tapping that, man?"

Robert grinned, glanced at me, and said, "I hope so."

Eew.  I smiled as best as I could in response, and Billy said, "Does she talk?"

"Hi, Billy.  We've met before," I said.

"Too bad," he said, and downed his beer in seconds.  He hit Robert on the shoulder and asked him if he wanted anything.  Robert was still working on his drink, so he said no.  Then, Billy pointed at me and asked, "How about you, cumbucket?"

I stared at him and said, "Wow.  You're an asshole."

He smirked and went to the bar.  I told Robert, "You're not going to be tapping anything tonight."

He clinked my glass and said, "The night's still young."

I excused myself to go sit with the larger part of the group, and aside from a few outbursts from Billy, he didn't mess with me anymore that night.

When I went to leave, Robert came up to me to ask if he and I could go out on a proper date.

I pointed to Billy and said, "Rob, I think you're taken," and left.

Submitted by Norma:

>>>>>>>>>>
From Larry
To Norma

Hi Norma.

I really liked your profile. Which beach is that in the background of that photo? Malibu? I've been there before, so that's why I'm asking.

It looks like we have a lot in common, so hit me back whenever.

-Larry

>>>>>>>>>
From Norma
To Larry

Hi Larry.

I'm really impressed with your profile, too, especially the part about wanting to climb Mt. McKinley. How go your preparations?

I'm also an avid reader, and I hope to switch careers soon. I'm already burnt out by my 9-5, and I think I can handle something more risky, like going into theology or the arts. I don't really know yet, but I think I'd be happier.

Are you happy as a Nissan sales clerk?

- Norma

>>>>>>>>>
From Larry
To Norma

Norma -

You seem so much deeper than most of the people on here. I'm glad that they're not ALL wackos. My preparations for the McKinley climb are a little behind schedule, but I'll be all set to go by summer of next year.

Life's too short to do stuff that you don't want to do. Just so long as you're responsible, I think you should totally follow your dream. What specifically in theology do you want to explore?

Being a sales clerk is fine. Want to meet up?

-Larry

>>>>>>>>>
From Norma
To Larry

Larry -

Sounds great! When would you like to meet up?

-Norma

>>>>>>>>>>
From Larry
To Norma

Norma, you didn't answer all of my questions from the last message that I sent you. You're therefore either ignoring me or have something to hide. Ether way, I'm not interested.

>>>>>>>>>>
From Norma
To Larry

Are you serious?

>>>>>>>>>>
From Larry
To Norma

I'm dead serious.

>>>>>>>>>
From Norma
To Larry

I'm not interested either, but mostly because you're insane.

Submitted by Kevin:

Jenny asked me out over a dating site and I was really looking forward to it.  She was short, really cute, had long dark hair, and had done modeling for a couple of print ads in the past.  Nowadays, she's a manager at a music company.

However, things went south faster than you can say, "What happened?"

The first mistake I made was hold a door open for her. She asked me what I was doing and I said that I was trying to be polite.  She went on a tirade about how guys put all of their politeness up front and center, so that we (guys) would thus ensnare women and by the time they realized that we weren't nice, they'd already be in a committed relationship with us.

I told her that I hadn't planned to stop being polite, and she said, "We'll see."  Great start.

Dinner went okay, but afterward, she insisted on going to a music store to look at guitars.  I play a little bit of acoustic but I'm actually into harmonica.  Doesn't matter.  She got into a conversation with the guy behind the counter that was clearly more enriching to her than anything I had said.

It's okay, though. I was equal to it.  I was able to cut into the conversation with guitar information of my own, and I know that I caught her off guard.  She said something like, "Kevin, we're having a conversation here."

I said, "I'm sorry.  I thought that we were trying to have a date."

She wagged a finger at me and said, "You're already turning rude.  I knew it."  She smirked.

Clearly something was wrong with this girl, and when she was finally done looking at instruments, we said goodnight and that was it.

She called me twice in the following week, but I was all done with her.

Submitted by Robert:

Back when I tried online dating, I never had a lot of success. Lets be frank, I'm kinda fat and most women just tune you out when you mention this. Imagine my surprise then when a relatively attractive girl named Alice sent me a message, and after a little bit of chatting she said that she'd love to go and have a few drinks with me.

Well, I ended up meeting her at a bar close to her house. I arrived about five minutes early, and she showed up right on time, looking pleased as punch to see me. After a few drinks and chatting for a bit, I felt great. She was smart, read the same kind of books that I do, and even liked the same kind of beer that I do. Seemed like a winner so far.

Then, out of nowhere, Alice asked me if I wanted to trade some secrets. The first secret she told me was about the time she got drunk at a party. Her ex-boyfriend bet her $10 that she wouldn't make out with her best friend, another girl. They had done it, but the ex-boyfriend claimed he hadn't seen, and they ended up making them make out three or four times until he admitted he'd finally seen it. I laughed along with her. It was a funny story, and also kind of hot. Awesome.

I told her about the time I got drunk and accidentally ran into a clear plastic door when someone shut it in my face. It was a bit embarrassing at the time, especially when I fell unconscious as a result, but she laughed and smiled about it.

Then, abruptly, she stopped laughing and looked me in the eye. "I have another secret to tell you.  I had an abortion a couple of months ago." Having said it, she suddenly burst into tears.

Suddenly nothing was fun anymore. Everyone in the bar was looking at us, and I just wanted to leave. Alice wouldn't stop crying, and so I offered to go and get her some napkins.

By the time I'd gotten back she thanked me, and cleaned herself up. She was slowly calming down again, apologizing and wanting to change the subject. She rushed off to get another round of drinks so I'd have time to think of my next story.

I ended up telling another story or two, but I wasn't much into it anymore. Alice kept sniffling and making little noises on the other side of the table, like she would start crying again at any moment. She eventually stopped making comments entirely.

Unable to stand talking to a brick wall any longer, I told her that it was getting late and that I'd better consider going. She looked immediately horrified, and begged me to stay. When I was hesitant, she asked if we could go to my car for some privacy. Considering the glares I was getting from some of the patrons in the bar, I consented.

In the car, we chatted about books we both enjoyed. After a bit, she started kissing down my neck and exploring me with her hands.  Awesome.  There's nothing that can go wrong.

Then she started crying again. "I'm sorry," she told me, "But this is reminding me of my ex-fiancee."

The ex-fiancee apparently convinced her to have the abortion in the first place, claiming that once the procedure was done, they would have a reason to stay close. He broke up with her a week later.

The girl was really sobbing this time, and when your shirt is soaked with tears the last thing on your mind is continuing the date. I sighed, and suggested that maybe things would be for the best if we parted ways.

"Please, don't leave just yet" she told me as tears gushed out of her eyes. She fumbled with the zipper on my pants. "I'll give you a great blowjob."

Instead of the "No thank you, I feel like I would just be taking advantage of the situation" line that I meant to say, all that came out was, "All right."

Now, I know some people have heard the line, "The lapdance is so much better when the stripper is crying." Well let me tell you one thing: the blowjob is not better if there's tears running down your shaft.

I dropped her off at her car afterwords, and neither one of us tried to contact the other. I don't think either one of us blames the other very much.