Submitted by John:

Tina was a little quiet on our date, but I could forgive that.  She didn't look at me too often when talking to me, but that was also okay.  She answered most of my questions with short answers that were difficult to extrapolate into further conversation, but even that was all right.

After every sentence, however, Tina would snort what sounded like fifty gallons of mucus up her nose.

Early on, I asked her if she needed a tissue.

She said, "No thanks," SNORRRRRT!

I asked her, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," she snapped.  Okay... point taken.

But after every sentence...

"Tina, what's it like, being a manufacturing engineer?"

"I like it a lot," SNORRRT, "I get to do a lot of writing," SNORRRRRT, "and the people I work with are cool," SNORRRRRRRRRRT.

Jesus God... it drove me crazy really quickly.  I finally hit it head on and asked, "Are you feeling okay?  You sure you don't want a tissue?"

I was afraid that she'd get really upset at me, but she shook her head and said, "No, I'm fine.  I just probably should try to sneeze, huh?"

I wasn't sure what sneezing would accomplish, but she started stroking the bridge of her nose with two fingers.  She said, "Okay," and prepared to sneeze.  Be sure to cover your mouth.  Please cover your mouth.  Why aren't you covering your mouth?

"AAAHHHH-CCHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!11"

If I hadn't grabbed my own napkin a split-second before and held it up as a barrier, I would still be covered, today.  It was a catastrophe.  She turned heads, and I'm being serious.  A huge gob of mucus was all over the lower half of her face, like a chewing gum bubble that had burst.

But she wasn't done.  Another sneeze was on the way.  I reached across the table and shoved my napkin under her nose.

"AAAAHHHH-CHHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!"

My hand got covered, but at least I caught most of it in the napkin.  She readied for another sneeze, and by this time, I could feel so many eyes on me, but I readjusted the napkin so that it would hopefully catch most of whatever was about to...

"AAAHHHH-CCCCHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Yep.  Caught most of it in the napkin.  She stood up from the table, holding her nose, said, "Excuse me," and took off straight for the women's room.  Why didn't she go there when her nose first started running?

She came back, apologized a dozen times, and the rest of the date actually didn't go so badly.  She was a good girl, and I wasn't about to write her off for something like that, but man, was it gross.


********************************
You're lucky that's all it was.

Submitted by Dorian:

My weirdest date (and I've had several that qualify) was probably with Melanie.  She showed up with a necklace that spelled her name out with large children's alphabet blocks, like some sort of nursery school barbarian queen.

She was easily distracted and more excitable than a hummingbird on twelve kilos of speed.  I asked her if her necklace ever weighed her down.

Her response?  "Yes.  Sometimes.  I don't know.  I never take it off, so I wouldn't know the difference."

I asked her, "How do you sleep with it?"

She replied, "Sex with my necklace?  What the fuck?  Ooh!  Dessert!"

After dinner, she asked if we could go to the grocery store for "supplies."  Supplies included three bottles of maple syrup.  "I can't wait!" she exclaimed, and she invited me to her house to... well... fill her bathtub with maple syrup (and a bottle of honey she already had on hand).

Keeping her clothes on, she slid into the tub and thrashed around, thoroughly covering herself with all manner of sticky fluids.  She looked up at me after a minute and said, "I'm not just doing this for my health, Dorian.  Get in here."

It seemed like fun, so in I went.  We sloshed around together, but whenever I tried to put my hands on her, she grabbed them and pushed them away.  Splashing around in a sticky tub together had seemed like a flirtatious act, but maybe this was just her way of having harmless fun.  I didn't press the issue and stopped trying to make a move after a few times.

Ten minutes later, she turned to me, said, "Nighty night," closed her eyes, and went to sleep in the shallow puddle of syrup.  I asked her if I could bring her to her bed, and she said something like, "Not with that army," but perhaps I misunderstood.  Then again, perhaps I didn't.  She seemed really intent on going to sleep, and there wasn't enough stuff in the bathtub for her to drown, so I toweled off as best as I could and left.

She never returned my calls after that.  Yes, I know it's not necessarily a bad date, but it struck me as a once-in-a-lifetime kind of story, and if that works, then so be it.


******************************
It works.

Submitted by Nancy:

Gary took me to a strip mall Chinese place for our first date.  After the requisite chit-chat, he started going on about various women he had dated recently. There were several comments of this sort:

"This one girl I was on a date with last Thursday was batshit crazy."

"This girl I was on a date with last Friday treated me like crap but she wanted a second date all the same."

"Last Saturday, I went out with a girl who kept picking her nose and wiping it on herself. She was pretty cute, though."

It sounded like he didn't have any trouble attracting troublesome dates. The question was, why was he telling me all about them?

"You're different, though," he told me, "You seem normal. A big improvement over last time."

I asked him, "Last time?"

He said, "Yeah! Our last date. It was two years ago. Don't tell me you don't remember."

I had never, ever been on a date with this guy in my entire life. I told him, "You must have me confused with someone else."

He was intent on proving me wrong, "You and I met on Match.com two years ago. Your name is Nancy. You're a teacher. You have a brother, Jeff? Jim?"

I said, "I dont have any brothers. You have me confused for another teacher Nancy you must have dated. Plus, I've never been on Match."

He said, "Oh, it was you, all right. We had a great night together and you never called me back, but be coy if you want to."

"Dude, I seriously have never met you before tonight. We never had a minute, much less a night together."

"Okay, whatever you say."

"I've never been on Match! I don't have a brother!"

He became a bit angrier and said, "And I never forget a face. Cut the act, lady."

Oooookay. I swear I had never met this guy before, and even his biographical details about me were wrong. I made some excuse and ended the date early. He probably took two seconds to forget about me, but I'll be ready if he asks me out again in a couple of years.


*****************************
Could have been worse.  A lot worse.

Submitted by Donna:

Ryan passed a little wrapped package across the table to me on what was our first and last date.  I was touched... how often does someone bring a gift to a first meeting?

I opened it.  It was a bar of soap and a toothbrush.  I stared at them for a few seconds and said, "Thanks... but I don't get it."

He was quick to help, "The soap is to clean with, and the toothbrush is to brush your teeth."

I said, "I know what they're used for.  Why are you giving them to me?"

He gave me a look as if to ask me how it was that I didn't understand, and said, "Hygiene."

I replied, "Okay... but again, why are you giving them to me?  It doesn't strike you as a weird sort of gift to give on a first date?"

He answered, "Everyone needs soap and a toothbrush.  It's practical and will help you out."

He seemed so pleased with himself, I didn't want to press the issue any further, so I didn't.  I thanked him again and put the personal hygiene equipment away.

Then, he said, "I'm going to bring you a magazine on our next date.  As a gift."

I asked him, "You really don't have to do that.  I don't typically read magazines."

"You could read it, though.  It's about fashion.  You little bitch."

My eyes must have opened like headlights.  "What?" I demanded, "What?!"

He sat back as if he hadn't said anything at all out of the ordinary and said nothing.  I prodded him again, "Care to repeat that?"

"A fashion magazine."

"After that!"

"I got you soap and a toothbrush," he grinned and nodded.

You know what I did, then?

I left.


***********************************
Maybe he was only trying to help you.
Or trying to tell you something.

Submitted by Rhianna:

Dan was a really persistent guy online.  He was never threatening or anything, but he wrote me three messages before I decided to respond to him.  Someone that desperate might have been worth checking out.

When we met up at a local breakfast place, it was like he was doing me the biggest favor.  He said, "I canceled my plans for today to meet up with you."  What do you want me to do?  Take you right to my bedroom in gratitude? 

We were taking a walk afterward when he asked me if we could play a game.  I told him that it sounded fun, so sure.  He said that he knew of a haunted house right around there, but that he hadn't really ever approached it.  He asked if I'd go with him to go stand on the front porch and maybe knock.  This sounded like something my 5-year-old cousin would do, but I went along with it.

This house was a bit outside of town, down a road I wouldn't have even seen if I wasn't looking for it.  I asked him how he had found it, and he said that his friend had taken him there a while ago.

The house seemed deserted, but one thing was really weird about it: the porch was brand new, as if someone had just installed it a week before.  It wasn't even painted.

"Maybe someone owns the house," I suggested, "And they're fixing it up."

As we walked closer to it, we heard the sound of a door slamming.  We turned to each other, then he ran up to the porch, knocked on the door, and ran back toward me.

"Come on!" he yelled, and grabbed my wrist so hard that it left a mark.  We climbed back into his car and sped off.  Not ten seconds later, a car followed us out of the driveway and gave chase, flashing its brights and getting really close behind us.

Dan said that he'd drive the car into a police station if they kept following us, which they did for about ten minutes.  After they gave up, I asked him to take me back to my car, and so the date ended.

Submitted by George:

Rachel accepted an invitation to dinner and a film screening that we both wanted to see at a local library.  I offered to pay for her at dinner, and she said, "Uh... no.  I'm perfectly capable of paying for myself."  That's fine, but a thank-you-anyway would've been nice, at the very least.

It was evident throughout dinner that she was at the top of her interest list.  Whenever I spoke, she would listen patiently, but then cut in with something like, "Speaking of summer camp, I was awarded the good sportsmanship award one summer..."  Whatever I did, she did better, and she had no problems letting me know.

At the film screening, she would not shut up.  First she expressed disappointment that she had suddenly remembered that she had seen the movie "a million times before."  And you didn't realize this before I grabbed tickets to it (of course, it was okay for me to buy tickets to the film, but not pay for dinner)?

People kept saying, "Shh!" and that quieted her voice into a whisper, but she still spoke to me just as much.

Finally, I turned to her and told her, "I'm trying to enjoy this.  Would you mind just not talking for a little bit?"

She shut up for the rest of the movie.

Afterward, when it was over, I asked her what she thought about it.  She said, "You don't want me to talk, so I'll just stay quiet."

I thought about arguing with her, then realized that her not talking was awesome.


*********************************
When all else fails.

Submitted by Glory:

Jason had an idea that sounded great at first glance — an evening picnic by a lake in a park. He had been a friend of mine for a while, and we had just recently decided to try dating, to see if we had any deeper connection.

The evening started off on the wrong foot almost immediately. When I arrived at our rendezvous spot, there was no sign of him. He sneaked up on me from behind, possibly making me shit myself.

I hit him hard in the face. He asked me what my problem was. I told him that I had a problem with guys who jumped me from behind. He said to forget about it and I helped him carry the picnic items into the park.

He had made pasta salad and lasagna, which was very nice. He also forgot utensils. He suggested that we just sort of tilt the Tupperware into our mouths and spill the food in. That worked for me, but the tomato sauce was really runny and it spilled down my outfit.

He leaned in and said, "Let me take care of that," and then started licking the front of my blouse.

I shoved him away and he yelled, "I was only trying to help!"

So this date wasn't going so well, but I was still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He ate his lasagna like it was the first meal he had eaten for a week. After we were done, he suggested we go for a walk.

During the walk, he kept trying to grope me, and when I asked him not to, he didn't seem to listen. The next time he reached for something of mine, I grabbed his hand and twisted it hard.

At the end of the date, he told me that he had a good time. At least one of us did. He went in for a kiss, but I caught his face with my hand and wished him a good night.

He must have known that something didn't go well, because we stayed friends, but he never asked me out again.

Submitted by Elaine:

Gregory insisted on taking me on a "wine tasting tour" of the area.  I didn't know much about wines, but he was so enthusiastic about it that I figured it would at least be a fun way to get to know each other.  I parked my car at his place, climbed into his car, and off we went.

He brought me to one place and proceeded to get completely hammered.  Thank goodness, I thought, that I could drive a standard, because there was no way I was going to let this guy drive his own car.

I sipped at some of the wines and asked him where we were going to go next, you know, the next stop on our wine tour.

"Thissss is it!" he slurred, "I don't know what's next... your bedroom?  Maybe mine?  Wine tour!"

Okay, so I drove him back to his house, led him inside, onto a living room couch, and left.

He sent me a text message an hour or so later that said, "OMFG I'M PUKING MY GUTS OUT."  Smooth, man.


**********************************
Unusual wine labels.

Submitted by Justin:

Allison was a few minutes late to our date, but that ended up being the least of my worries, as it turned out.  She apologized over and over, but said that it was for an important reason.  I didn't press her as to the reason, and we sat down to dinner without any additional issues.

Over the course of our conversation, she seemed to be interested in discovering how open-minded I was about certain things.  She asked me if I was into anything like divination or oracles.

I told her that I was agnostic and that I supposed that one thing was just as good as anything else.  As long as we didn't hurt anybody, whatever works for you, you know?

Then she asked me if I had a younger brother named Eric, which I do.  She also asked me if I was into archaeology, which I am, to an extent, and then she asked if I liked rivers, which I suppose I like as much as anyone else.

Then it was my turn to ask her: why the questions, and how did she know about my brother, Eric?

She said that she was a regular practitioner of a Ouija board that told her things with astonishing precision.  "That's how I knew about your brother's name and some of your interests.  I hope that's okay."

It weirded me out some.  Despite an open mind, I found it a little hard to believe that a board had told her my brother's name, and the other two questions could have been guesses.  Did she look me up on the Internet?  Maybe that was it.

She said that she sensed that I was doubtful and offered to prove her powers to me after dinner.

I went back to her place and she invited me into her room.  She lit several candles and pulled out a Ouija board.  She closed her eyes and asked me to put my hands next to hers on the indicator, and I did.  She told me to ask it a question.  I asked it silently, but she told me that in order for it to work, I had to ask it out loud.

I asked, "What was the name of my first pet?"  My first pet was a cat named Ralph.

The indicator slowly moved to the R, the A, the L, the P, and the H.  I swear I didn't move it or make it do anything.  There was no way that Allison could have known that.  It wouldn't have been up on the Internet anywhere.

I asked her if I could ask it something else and she said that I could.  I asked, "What's my father's middle name?"

It said some gibberish, that was all.  Allison warned me not to move it, and I told her that I wasn't.  Then she warned me again and I told her again that I hadn't moved it.

A minute later, it had stopped moving, but her eyes were still closed.  She told me to leave her house.  Something I had done had offended it.  I asked her what I had done, and she said that I couldn't begin to understand.  "Leave now," she said again.

I left, but not without looking over my shoulder the whole way back, wondering if vengeful spirits or crazy women would be coming after me.


*********************************
But what does science have to say?
The Global Consciousness Project
Cats named Ralph

Submitted by Lorraine:

Mark and I were out to dinner on a first date.  Aside from giving me weird stares during conversational lulls, things were going all right.  We went over what we did for a living (I'm a hygienist, he was an admissions counselor at a college), a bit about our families, and what we liked to do for fun.

At one point, he asked me, "Do you like card games?"

I nodded and told him, "Bet I could clean your house out at poker."

He smiled and said, "I'll take you up on that.  What stakes?"

I said, still kidding around, "In your case?  Better off using pennies.  If we played strip poker, you'd be leaving my house without skin."

He stopped smiling and asked, "Have you ever played strip poker?"

I said, "In college, once.  Unfortunately, it was before I was as good as I am now."

He asked, "Did you lose?"

I told him, "Big time.  And in front of a bunch of people."

He asked, "How far?"

A warning bell started going off in my head for some reason, but I chose to ignore it and answer, "Uh... down to my underwear."

His nostrils flared and he trembled a little bit.  I asked him, "You okay?"

He shrugged and sat back, then said, "I guess that's okay if you're a slut."

My mouth dropped open and I retorted, "Whoa!  This was almost ten years ago!  There wasn't anything sexual about it at all!  We were all just drunk and having a good time!"

He rolled his eyes, said, "Whatever," and effectively killed the date.


***********************************
But property damage would've been okay.

Hi!

I'll be experimenting with a site redesign today, so if things look a little wackadoo around here for a little bit, then that's why.  If I end up going with something new, then I'd be interested in your feedback.  Thanks for your patience.

- JMG

Submitted by Ted:

Sasha and I met at a concert in a local dive.  She ordered a drink next to me at the bar, and for some reason, I reached over and paid for hers.  We talked about the music, the neighborhood, and each other for a while.  After the set was over, I asked her if she wanted to go out and take a walk, hit up a tea place, or whatever.  She was into the idea.

We went to a late-night Thai place, split an appetizer, and took our drinks to go.  It was really nice out and we walked down the road.  On our way, we passed a homeless guy.  She pointed and said, "Ugh."

Just joking around, I asked her, "Something against that guy?"

She said, "Just the homeless in general.  Get a fucking job."

This was a little harsh, I thought.  I asked her how someone like that was supposed to find a job so easily when plenty of white collar folks were out of work.

She said, "I must have passed like, five McDonald's today that were hiring."

I asked her, "You think they can afford their own place on those wages?"

She said, "Are you seriously that stupid?  Homeless shelters.  Social programs.  No one lives on the street unless they want to or unless they're too drunk all the time to know that there's another option."

Wow.  I didn't really know enough about the issue to make a further standpoint, but she had just been warming up.  She went on, "People who give them free money are making the problem worse, and it should be a felony.  It's like encouraging it.  And the homeless people themselves should be rounded up.  It seriously lowers land values and makes people uncomfortable."

Rounded up?  For like a soylent green sort of program?  But she wasn't done.

She continued, "They can be allowed into a forced labor thing, so that they can learn the value of hard work.  Why should they just get to sit on a sidewalk all day?  No one does that unless they choose to."

Well, she had to be done now.  Right?  Right?

She followed up, "Property values will go up, homeless people will be hard at work, and best of all, these programs will make them work for housing.  Instead of paying them wages.  Bingo!  No more homelessness.  It could be wiped out in a matter of months if we wanted it to be.  But vagrancy continues to be allowed!  Society needs a few homeless people on the streets as implicit warnings to people that that's what's going to happen to them if they don't work hard.  It's a tough situation."

Okay.  Now she had to be done.

No, she said, "I fucking hate society.  I just want to chainsaw it all up.  Homeless people and society.  And kids.  They're so fucking annoying."

I didn't say much else for the rest of the night, and I didn't ask her for her number when it was over.


******************************************
Someone's a Jonathan Swift literalist.

Submitted by Jackson:

I met Natalie online.  It seemed like we had a lot in common like biking, volunteering at animal shelters, and even playing the trumpet. You know how hard it is for me to find a woman who also plays trumpet? It's not too common.

She seemed very hesitant about meeting up, and I was as supportive as I could be, but I silently wondered why you'd take the time to make a dating profile if you didn't want to meet up with people.

Eventually (after two or so months of regular contact) she decided to go out on a date.  Through dinner, she seemed nervous as anything, and I did my best to try and keep her relaxed.

Halfway through, she slid a thick envelope over to me.  I opened it up and pulled out a questionnaire.  It had to have been about an inch thick.  It had hundreds of handwritten questions that seemed taken right out of Cosmo, questions like:

233. If we were walking together and I tripped, would you:
A. Laugh at me
B. Keep walking
C. Pick me up and tell me that everything would be okay

501. If I didn't call you for a whole week, would you:
A. Forget about me
B. Try calling me
C. Try to come and see me

I asked her what it was for.  She said that it was for me and looked away nervously.  I glanced down and read:

522. It's Valentine's Day!  You buy me:
A. Flowers
B. Chocolates
C. Both flowers and chocolates together

705. I sing in the shower.  You:
A. Laugh and make fun of me
B. Ignore me
C. Clap and encourage me to keep singing in the shower

I slid it back across the table to her and said, "I'm not filling this out."

She grabbed it, put it back in its envelope, bit her nails like crazy, and didn't say a word for the rest of the date.


**********************************************************
Is this a trend?  Have you ever been asked something unusual on a first date?  I was once asked, out of the blue, "Have you ever ridden a goat?"  I replied, "No," and she said, "I wanted to be a pro-wrestler in the 1980s," and that was the end of the conversation.

Submitted by Rina:

Derek e-mailed me on an Internet dating profile site, and distinguished himself immediately from the usual suspects. For starters, everything was spelled correctly, he was very polite, and didn't say a thing about how long his penis was or that he wanted to do me. Sadly, it was the lack of these things, rather than the substance of his message, that attracted me.

He was always very nice, but something was off about him that I just couldn't place. I agreed to a dinner date, followed by a "race," so he said.

"A race?" I asked, "What do you mean?"

He said, "A race that's been going on for years. Nothing ever changes, but it's still fun to watch."

I asked him for further clarification, and he grew a bit impatient and said, "Let's just walk by the river after dinner." It had been warm lately, so I agreed to that idea.

Dinner was awful. He didn't ask me a thing about myself, and I must have asked him a hundred questions about being a med student. I don't need to be talking about myself non-stop, but I need some conversation! "What's the biggest challenge of med school so far?" I'd ask.

He'd reply, "I don't know. The work, I guess."

The best was when I asked him what sort of doctor he wanted to be. His answer was, "The kind who takes care of people, I guess."

I prodded further, "Yes, but one who helps people in general, one who helps their feet, one who helps their eyes..."

He interrupted, "One who helps their feet? Is that a joke?"

I said, "A podiatrist."

He said, "Never heard of it."

Okay then. After dinner, we took a walk by a river and we made it to where the town essentially ended and the woods began. I stopped. He kept going. I asked him, "Where are you going?"

He said, "We're so close. Can't we see the race?"

I asked him, "What is this race you keep talking about?"

He smiled, turned his head to me slowly, and said, "The race into my pants."

Well my friends, I promptly raced away from him, his pants, and his med-student-lack-of-knowledge about podiatry. Definitely the weirdest date I've ever been on.


************************************
There is such a thing as knowing too much about feet.

Submitted by Lianne:

Simon told me that he had an idea for something "different" for our date.  He said that it was something he had done loads of times before, and that it was a surprise.  I considered asking him how something "different" could have been something that he had done "loads of times," but I tried to keep an open mind.

He told me to meet him at a park on a lake about a half-hour away.  I did.  I called him up to find out if he was already there.

"Oh, I'm here.  You'll have to find me.  It'll be well worth it," he said over the phone.

It was a nice day and I figured that it was indeed something a little bit different, if not a little strange, for a first date.  The park was relatively well-populated, and I started up one of the paths.

After a half-hour, though, I grew tired of not spending the time with the guy I had come to spend time with.  I was hungry and becoming bored.  I called him up and asked him, "Where are you?  Let's just meet up and do lunch."

He said, "I should've known that you had no sense of adventure.  I might be sitting over a picnic lunch, waiting for you."

That was promising, so he gave me a hint about direction and I kept going.

That hint didn't work out so well, and after another twenty or so minutes, I was ready to call it quits.  I called him and told him so, and he gave me precise directions to where he was, about as deep into the park as you could go.

When I found him, he was just sitting there on a bench.  No picnic lunch.  His defense was, "I said that I might have brought a lunch.  I never said that I did."

It was a good forty minute walk back to the car, but I must have done it in twenty, and without him.


********************************
Why without him?

Submitted by Carl:

If dinner with Ashley was any indication about how our future would go, then I think I dodged a firing squad.  When we were first getting to know each other, she seemed a little high-strung, but nothing too crazy.  An indicator should have been when she asked me where the closest movie theater to my house was.  I told her, and she asked me if it was near a McDonald's, which I said it was, and then she said that that was why she didn't go to that theater.

At dinner (not at McDonald's) I asked her if she wanted to split an appetizer.

She asked, "You mean, share from the same plate?  No."

So she might have been a little OCD, but I can be fine with that.  It was when our main course was served that things went a bit overboard.  I had ordered a turkey sandwich.  She ordered a salad.

I began eating and she stared at me.  I asked her what was up.

She asked, "That's how you eat a sandwich?"

I looked at my sandwich-holding stance.  Two hands.  Two slices of bread.  Sandwich doings in the middle.  What was the problem?

She handed me a fork and butter knife.  "Use these, please."

I told her, "This is how sandwiches are supposed to be eaten, I'm pretty sure."

She cut in, "I've never seen anyone eat a sandwich like that.  Use a knife and fork, please.  This isn't your house."

Ew.  What the hell was this chick talking about?  To be sure I wasn't going nuts, I asked her, "You've never seen someone eat a sandwich with their hands before?"

She said, "No.  Nobody does."

Was I on candid camera or something?  I looked around the restaurant to see if anyone else was eating a sandwich with their hands, but I couldn't spot anyone in the immediate area with a sandwich.  I refused to compromise on this.  It was ridiculous.  I told her that we could ask the waitress when she came back if it was appropriate to eat a sandwich with your hands, as the waitress had probably seen many sandwiches being eaten in her time.

Ashley laughed and asked, "Are you serious?  Why are you making a scene?  Use a fork and knife.  Now."

"No.  I refuse."

The waitress came by and sure enough, I asked her if it was appropriate to eat a sandwich with my hands.  She gave me a very funny look and said, "I can't think of another way to eat it."

When she left, Ashley pushed her salad away and said, "I've lost my appetite."  The rest of dinner was a bit awkward, but I had a delicious sandwich to eat.  With my hands.


*********************************
Why stop there?

Submitted by Joan:

Roland took me out to a nice Italian restaurant. He insisted on paying for everything, and I was very grateful. He was a smooth talker and I ate up everything he said. This was a guy I really wanted to like, and he had a lot of positive qualities.

He bragged about how the business he started himself hardly required any upkeep on his end. I was impressed by this, but also a bit curious: his business was the designing, creation, and installation of kitchen cabinets. How could that not require much effort?

He said, "I'm the big boss. My employees do all the work."

The date went fine, and nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. When I made it home, I looked up his business online. There it was, just as he said, but something was very odd. The president of the company, who he said he was, seemed to be someone else, albeit with the same last name. Roland was listed as, "Executive Assistant Vice President of Logistical Analytic Systems." A strand title for the head of a company to have, wouldn't you say?

I did a bit more research and checked out the link on company history. It was actually started by his grandfather in the 1950s, and now his brother, not himself, was running it.  He seemed to be relegated to a lessor role than that which he had claimed.  He didn't even start the company, and he made a big deal all about starting it!

I figured that I might give him the benefit of the doubt with one more date.  The second time, he was all up on how his workweek went, "He came to me, the head of the company," and "Being the head of the company, I was asked the questions," etc.

I asked him if he had a business card.  He said he didn't have one on him.  I asked him if I could drop by where he worked sometime and he became very defensive at once.  Something weird was up with this guy.

The next week, I called up his cabinet company and asked to speak to the "Executive Assistant Vice President of Logistical Analytic Systems," and the guy on the phone asked me if I was serious.  I told him I was, and he said, "Okay, but... he's... he's not really... well, okay, I'll give you his voicemail."

Roland's voicemail was, "Heeeeeeeeeey!" >BEEP<.  I had nothing to say, so I hung up.  Something about the whole situation gave me a bad feeling, so I ended things shortly thereafter.  Since I've revisited the website, his name and title have been stricken from it.  But the company is still in business.  Weird.

******************************
Fake presidents?
Learn Something: Yesteryear Cabinets of Curiosities.

Submitted by Dean:

Stacey was a single mom, and she made that clear from the get-go.  I didn't have any problem with that.  On the night of our date, she arranged for a sitter, we went out to a bar, did some dancing, some drinking, some kissing, and she asked me back to her place.  I asked her if it would be awkward since her kids and the sitter were there, and she said not to worry about it.  I was fully able to not worry.

We made it back to her house and there were her 3-year-old and 6-year-old watching TV.  The microwave door was open, the smell of something awful was in the air (burnt popcorn?), paint and glue splotches were everywhere, and piles of movies and books were all over the place, as if giant stacks of each had fallen.

She walked in as if nothing was wrong.  I asked her, "Where's the sitter?"

She turned to her 6-year-old.  "Where's my big man?" she asked.

"Here I am!" he piped up and turned around on the couch.

The sitter was her 6-year-old.  Something didn't seem quite right about this, and I asked her about it.  She said, "Oh, Thomas is more responsible than most kids twice his age."

I said, "Which would make him 12.  Still not a good idea to leave him by himself, and taking care of another one."

She became a bit defensive and said, "You don't know my kids, so I don't think you're in a position to judge."

I retorted, "I know that a 6-year-old has no business being a babysitter!"

We argued back and forth for a while, and things were awkward enough to necessitate me leaving.  It was years ago and I moved away from there, but I still can't help but think sometimes about that whole situation.


*******************************
Could've been worse.
Or even worse.

Submitted by Julianna:

I met Henry at a college party. He seemed attractive and fun enough, so I agreed to go on a date with him. About one week later he was rolling up next to my dorm. I should have known the mistake I was about to make when I saw him. He was fully rocking the douchebag package, complete with flashy car and barbed wire tattoos, which I hadn't seen at the party.

It was the point of no return when we got on the highway. Although he didn't have a pass, he kept driving through the Fast-Lane. "Laziness" was his justification for not paying the tolls or getting a pass. I later found out there is a fifty dollar fine for every infraction like that.

It had been about an hour since we left my dorm, and we were officially in the middle of nowhere. Simply because he was cute, I made out with him when we arrived at his apartment. He looked at the time and said, "Oh, my girlfriend will be home soon." Needless to say, I was pretty surprised. Henry had another surprise for me: he was throwing a small party, and he wanted to "hook me up" with his friend Larry.

Larry was okay, but I still managed to have a little bit of fun with Henry, his girlfriend, and their friends at the party. Unfortunately, it all went downhill when Henry got angry and punched his girlfriend in the face for absolutely no reason. In a bizarre attempt to defend himself, Henry started shouting, "I didn't even punch her hard! I didn't even punch her hard," while punching himself in the face.

Soon afterward, his cheeks already puffy from his self-inflicted wounds, he demanded that everyone leave the house except for his girlfriend. Offended and confused, people began to trickle away into the night. Since I was the only person who didn't live close by, I ended up by myself, left to wander the streets aimlessly.

Henry finally called me about an hour later and told me to come back up. He let me sleep on his couch while he and his girlfriend retired to the bedroom. The next morning, I saw his girlfriend leave for work, and Henry slunk out of his bed. I told him that I wanted to go home.

He told me to be patient, and went off to shower, brush his teeth, etc. He came out of the shower, wearing nothing but a black eye and a wicked grin, and informed me that he wasn't taking me home until I gave him a blow job.

Anyway, you can imagine what happened after that. The most mind-boggling thing about the whole ordeal is that he had no idea that he did anything wrong. He kept instant messaging me for months, referring to me as his "friend," and getting increasingly irritated that I wouldn't hang out with him.

Finally, I told him to buzz off. I will leave you with his parting words: "Whatever. You gave bad blow jobs anyway."


*********************************
Help is available.

Submitted by Megan:

On an online dating site, a guy had "winked" at me or whatever it's called. I thought he was interesting based on his profile so I said hello. He didn't have a picture posted, which should have been my first clue, but I proceeded along.

After an e-mail or so, I asked for a picture. I got one, and he seemed normal looking for the most part. His e-mails were funny, which I later learned was probably not intentional. I agreed to meet him for dinner. He suggested we meet at P.F. Chang's. If you have ever been to one of these restaurants you'll notice that they all have a giant white horse outside of the building. When I asked this gentleman where I should wait (I'm always early) at the place, he suggested outside by the big "horsey." This should have been my second clue.

I arrived about 10 minutes before the said time and took my post at the horsey.  He arrived and once we sat down, I quickly noticed what I thought was humor in his e-mails was really just awkwardness. I was counting down the minutes until it was time to leave.

We talked about the normal BS things. He told me he went to school to be a weatherman. Interesting, I thought. He then proceeded to make weather-related comments for the duration of the date, including describing his flatulence as "gale force winds." This is the point of the night where I contemplated going into the bathroom and climbing out the window.

We finished our meal, and I believe I ate at record speed. Throughout the night he made many comments about my nose ring as though he had never seen one before. I should have guessed by this point that a nose ring was going to be pretty exotic to this guy.

When we left the restaurant, he suggested that we get coffee at the Starbucks in the Barnes & Noble nearby. I thought, great; I'll get a cup, BS for a minute, and use it wash down the Chinese food I just scarfed.

WRONG. After I got coffee, because apparently he doesn't drink it, and a cookie that I didn't want but was forced to order, he wanted to sit and talk. Okay, I thought, 15 minutes. I can do this.

I went to sit in the cafe section of the store, but he had a different idea. He told me to follow him. I did so thinking we'd sit in the more comfortable chairs that are scattered about the store. Oh no no... we went and sat... in the CHILDREN'S SECTION! Now, I'm not sure if maybe he thought this was cute, but it was weird. Straight up weird. I felt like a giant sitting at a table designed for a toddler, which is difficult given my staggering height of 5'3".

After sitting there for what seemed like an eternity, I made up some insane reason why I needed to leave right then. Never in my life have I made such a quick escape. I wanted the most direct path from that tiny furniture to the driver's seat of my car. My goal at that point was to have a clean break. No hug, no promise of next time.

I'm not sure exactly what I said, but I did it. I made it to the car unscathed by awkward touching and parting conversation. I drove home thinking about the few hours of my life that just had past and how I'd never get them back.


***************************************
Forced to order a cookie?

Submitted by Owen:

I met Kelly on Valentine's Day at a party when I was 16. We got along pretty well and were both kind of drunk so we fooled around for a while. She asked for my number and over the next week we talked a bit on the phone and made plans to have a date on Saturday. I hadn't dated a lot at this point in my life so I was really looking forward to it.

Submitted by Chris:

Pauline was six years younger than I was.  We sent e-mails back and forth, called each other up, and decided to meet in person.  One weird thing about her: she seemed in a rush to impress me, so much so that she came off as a bit arrogant.  I'll give an example: I told her that I had a few relationships that ended bad.  Her response?

"Well, you don't know what a bad ending is to a relationship.  I've had so many that I'm a bit of an expert on them."

I'm sure she didn't mean to come off sounding "I'm better than you," but it wasn't just evidenced in this exchange.  Anyway, I figured that there would be nothing wrong with giving her a shot.

On the date, any amount of haughtiness that she inadvertently showed me before went through the roof.  The girl was dead set on proving to me how much wiser she was.  I felt like this went way past simple nervousness.

I told her, "I had a rough patch with my dad when I was in my mid-teens, but things are mostly better now."

Her response?  "You had dad problems?  The problems that I've had could fill a book!  I'm like the go-to girl among my friends whenever they have problems with their parents, since I've had almost every situation happen to me."

Okay then.  Uh... a good friend of mine passed away in high school.

"You think that's rough?  Three of my friends have committed suicide, two are still in a mental institution, and I'm the 'crisis person' of another one."

What a lively competition we were having.  I told her, "Wow.  You've sure had a lot happen to you."

She agreed wholeheartedly.  "I've had more things happen to me at 25 than most people in their entire lives!"

That statement was a monumental turn-off.  What a stupid thing for an upper-middle-class white girl from Kenilworth (Illinois) to presume.  Maybe I should've given her another chance, or maybe she was just super-nervous.  Either way, I wrote her off at that moment, and nothing more she said in our "bad-lives-pentathlon" made me feel anything more than a desire to stop spending time with her.


**********************************
Someone with more experience.

Submitted by Jessica:

Phil and I met at art school.  He was was 10 years older than me but we both had a weird, nerdy sense of humor so we got along great. (How we met: he asked what I kept in the pockets on my shoes and I replied "spiders.")

He seemed a bit too grabby and clingy, but one day while talking about our favorite amusement park rides he suggested that we go to Six Flags together. Awesome! He told me that he had a season pass.  I had some expendable cash, so we ventured forth on a sunny weekday!

Everything went cool until we actually arrived there. We waited in line in the Texas summer heat for about an hour. Augh.

He motioned for me to pay first, which I did (around $50? I think?) and I stepped into the gate. I couldn't wait to run and jump around like a idiot to the crazy latin techno that played over the speakers.

I noticed I was waiting there for an awfully long time. He walked up to the gate and told me that he didn't bring his pass; it was at his house, nearly two hours away in a town I never even heard of.  "BWHUH?"

I swallowed my angst and figured we could just head to his house, grab it, and come back! So I begrudgingly left, carressing the metal bars as I departed to get a hand stamp. The whole point was to spend time together anyway.

So we get to his... oh wait. It's his extraordinarily old grandmother's house in the middle of the freakin' boonies. Not that I'm judging him for living with relatives; we're starving art students. But man. He slept in a damn closet. He was 30. There was something terribly creepy about that.

So he started looking for the pass in the weirdest places and yelling at his grandma who was clearly feebly warding off death with a stick.  I checked out his extensive VHS collection. Some good ones, mostly 1980s kitch.

So he gave up looking and took me out back to this secluded wooded area and we explored a creek bed.  He then told me about his super-awesome best friend who he was immaturely infatuated with. She got hitched and is preggers but he still treated her like a kid.  He mentioned pushing her into the snow.  Shoving a 26-year-old pregnant woman isn't nearly as funny and cute as you think, buddy.

So while I tried to scoot further away from him, I realized that I wanted to go home, right then and there.

Needless to say, the whole ordeal was extremely awkward.  I got conned out of $50 for reasons that elude me (possibly sinister?), got a tour of his backwoods creepy love shanty, and regaled with stories of borderline abuse about the woman that got away (with her life).


************************************
Eh... here's why you're probably better off.
And another reason.

Submitted by Hannah:

The worst date I ever had was in summer 2005.  Reggie invited me to his cousin's soccer game.  We'd probably do dinner afterward, maybe a movie, who knows?

Reggie's cousin was in this "Soccer Mozart" league or something that pushed kids into sports waaaay early.  I'm talking 2 years old.  That's how old Reggie's cousin was.  The field was full of 2-year-olds in red shirts and blue shirts, all bumping into each other, drooling, or crying.  They were allowed to use their hands, but it was a little sad to see all the parents getting frustrated with their little kid's inability to bring a ball into a large net at the end of the field.

"This is bullshit," Reggie said, turning to me, "These kids suck."

I informed him that it might have to do with their age.  He shook his head and said, "No.  When I was their age, I could've kicked a ball over those trees."

"So what happened?  Can't do it anymore?"

His response to this was to grab one of the balls on the field (there were several in play) and kick it high into the air.  It didn't go over a tree, but it was a strong kick, I'll give him that.

A woman in a referee's outfit came up to him.  She said, "These balls are for the children!  You're not two years old!  You're not two years old!"

This got Reggie mad.  He mimicked her, "You're not two years old!  You're not two years old!  Get a grip, grandma."

She said, "You're going to have to leave."

Reggie said, "Make me, grandma."

She replied, "We have security here to protect our kids.  Your behavior's putting them in danger and I'm going to call them right over here if you don't clear out."

In response, Reggie grabbed another soccer ball and kicked it.  This one also didn't go over a tree.  Two large men in white t-shirts approached.  Reggie took off, across the field, kicking every ball he could on his way.

The two security guys came towards me, but the referee woman said, "Not her!  Go after him!" which they did.  Reggie ran into the woods on the other side of the field.  He texted me about twenty minutes later, asking if I could pick him up from a road nearby.

I picked him up and he said he wanted to go back to watch his cousin play, but I advised him that it wasn't a smart idea.  He said that it was a free country and that he could do whatever he wanted.

Okay, so I drove him back to the field, where they had the kids lined up for drills.  The referee woman was running the show, but as soon as she saw Reggie, she blew her whistle and pointed at him.  Reggie took off again, but this time when he ran over the field, he jumped over the two makeshift lines of kids, and a few parents at the other side of the field tackled him.

Somehow he fought free and ran for the woods again.  The referee woman got in my face and warned me not to come back.  I said, "Yeah, because I'm the one acting like an asshole," and I left.

Reggie texted me again: "Bring me back to the field."

I texted him, "Can we do something else?"

He never replied.


*************************************
July 27, 1986.

Submitted by Al:

Tracey and I arranged to see a movie and then have dinner.  We went to see Avatar.

Around halfway through, she began snorting at the action onscreen, shaking her head, and rolling her eyes on a regular basis.  I asked her if she was okay.

She said, "This is the most boring thing I've ever seen."

I didn't know what to say, so I stayed silent.  A minute later, she repeated, "This is the most boring thing I've ever seen."

I was enjoying myself, but I definitely wanted to be conscious of her feelings, even though she hadn't thanked me when I paid for the ticket.  Or the drinks.  Or the popcorn.

I began, "Do you want to... what do you want to...?"

"Can we go?" she asked.

I didn't want to do that, so I asked, "Can we stay just a little bit longer?  I'm sure it's going to pick up."

She moaned and looked back at the screen and said, "This is the most boring thing I've ever seen."

Less than five minutes later, she asked me again if we could leave.  I told her, "It must be almost over by now.  He just tamed one of those freaky flying velociraptors."

"I can't take it anymore," she said, removing her 3-D glasses, "I just can't."

She stood up and left.  I stayed inside, got my money's worth, and stayed for the whole thing.  I didn't count her as a big loss, as I'd be happier with someone who had a bit more patience.  And who thanked me for paying.


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YouTube - Something Less Boring Than Avatar (Safe for work.  Unless you work here.)

Submitted by Richard:

Colleen was a girl I noticed on a particular online dating site. I had checked out her profile a few times and liked what I read, so I messaged her. I didn't hear back from her, so I moved on.

Six months later, I received a message from her in my inbox. No explanation about why it had taken her so long to write back. Just a message as if I had written her the first e-mail the day before.

In reply to her message, I said, "I'm surprised to hear from you after so long. You must have been really busy for the past six months :) ."

Her response acknowledged every question/statement I had except for that one. I wrote it off as probably a personal matter, and we eventually made plans to meet.

Meet we did, at a park. It was a beautiful fall day, there was a lake nearby, and I was looking forward to it. She showed up looking great. I had pretty much forgotten about her long absence.

As we were walking, she confessed, "I'm sorry that I didn't contact you for six months. I was going through a tough time."

I said, "That's okay. Don't worry."

She stopped walking and said, "Promise you won't go taking off or something."

"I promise."

"I was being investigated by the police. For something really, really bad."

A strange thing happened in my chest, then. It turned cold. She went on, "One of my friends... former friends... got mixed up in a drug thing and someone ended up dead."

I felt my heartbeat in my skull. I asked, "What was it that you were being investigated for?"

She said, "Sorry! I mean... not dead. Just hurt really bad."

I had to sit down somewhere. Why are there no benches when you need them? I said, "Just explain things to me."

This got her angry and she said, "It's really none of your business. All you need to know is that I wasn't involved in any way, and that everybody's fine."

"All except for the dead or mostly dead guy."

She growled and said, "It was a girl and shut up. I told you it was none of your business."

I know I had promised to keep cool, and you'd better believe that every ounce of my energy was devoted to that. The best thing, I thought, was to end it there and then.

I told her, "Look, I don't think this is for me. I'm sorry."

She frowned at me and said, "Congratulations! You're an asshole!" and just sat there. I left. Thank God I never heard from her again.


************************************
Neato information about capital punishment and murder.

Submitted by Allison:

I had known Alex for over a decade; since high school.  I had kept up with him over the years, as we would chat on instant messenger fairly regularly.  He made me laugh and he is really smart, but we never lived in the same city so nothing ever happened.  I had often wondered if things would be different if we didn't always live hundreds of miles apart.

One day he told me that he was visiting my city (as this is where his parents lived and where I had moved back to after college.)  We decided to meet up and see each other in person for the first time in probably five or six years.  The plan was simply to get dinner, so we agreed on a restaurant that was halfway between our respective locations.

He walked in and hugged me and then said that he wasn't hungry right then, and perhaps we could just go walk around for a bit.  Despite being hungry myself, I obliged.

The restaurant was surrounded by a strip mall; not exactly a romantic location, but I enjoyed chatting with him online so I figured we could at least have a good conversation.

Most of the shops in the strip mall were closed, so we were awkwardly walking around in front of closed stores, and it turns out, we had nothing to say to each other in person.  I kept trying to think of things to talk about but he didn't ever really respond, so it was just a lot of awkward silence.

Then he went in for a hug.  Then a kiss.  A kiss where he engulfed my entire face with his mouth.  I pulled away and had to wipe half my face off.  He kept trying to go back in for more and I said that I was hungry and wanted to go eat.

He tried to hold my hand and hug me and just overall wouldn't stop touching me, and I kept pulling away, which then prompted him to ask why I wasn't very affectionate.  I never thought of myself as being anti-affection, but I didn't want to have my face swallowed by possibly the worst kisser of all time and I really just wanted to eat.

I made something up about how I've never been one for PDA.  Despite this, he kept pulling me in towards him, no matter how much I pulled away and tried walking towards the direction of the cars.

Then he started pulling my shirt down and talking about how awesome my boobs are (let me assure you, I was not wearing anything revealing).  I continued to try to pull away and he kept trying to touch them, and at one point he tried to bury his face in them.  Now, I've known this guy for what felt like forever, so I didn't want to be a bitch, but I don't know if I'd ever been more uncomfortable in my entire life.

I finally got him to meander over to where our cars were parked, and then I tried to say that I needed to get going.  I unlocked my car and he climbed in.  I can't even remember at this point how I managed to get him to leave.

I have since tried to block a lot of this out of my memory.  I do remember, however, driving home and having the thought that I would never again yearn that he lived closer.


***************************************
"I've known this guy for what felt like forever, so I didn't want to be a bitch"
In this case, I'd say that "being a bitch" is warranted.

How Not to Kiss
Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape 
Crisis Connection's Debunking of Rape Myths

Submitted by Justin:

Mia and I had met briefly once before for a pretty quick after work date, and despite it being a little rushed, we both had a nice time.  To make up for the rushed first date, she invited me to her place for some home cooking.

It smelled great when I walked in, and I was honestly looking forward to it.  There was a salad, stuffed potatoes, and a casserole.  She was still working on the casserole when I walked in.  She was happy to see me, but was understandably sidetracked.

The casserole was finally ready after a little while and we sat down to eat.  The salad was great, and I went for some of the casserole.

The pasta was tough, and even sometimes crunchy.  It tasted like it had hardly been cooked at all.

She asked me how it was.  My mouth was full so I nodded, but that didn't seem good enough for her.  She tried a huge forkful herself, made a strange, twisted face, and ripped my plate away.

She said, "I wanted it to be perfect!  I wanted it to be perfect!"

She put on boiling water and dumped the entire contents of our plates into the pot.  I still had salad on my plate, and a stuffed potato.  I told her, "Don't worry about it.  I think you might be making it worse."

She turned to me and said, "I followed that recipe to the letter!  You don't tell me how to cook!  It's going to come out right!"

The kitchen stopped smelling good, and all of the contents of the boiling pot smelled a little strange.  She started grabbing other things.  "Here!  I'll make sure it cooks!"

It was when she had decided to pour flour in that I stood up to go.

"You don't go!  You don't go!" she shouted.  Then she said, "Shit!  I forgot the baked macaroni!"

All this time, she had been baking something on the oven, and it was now burnt beyond recognition.  I offered to stay to help her clean up, but she insisted that I do nothing.  She really wanted to make me dinner, but it was getting hard to breathe in there, so I opened a few windows and slipped out.

She called me up as I was in my car to ask me where I was.  I told her that the whole situation was making me uncomfortable and that I would talk to her later.  She yelled and yelled, but I was already on my way out of there.  I had offered to help, but didn't want to deal with the hysterics.


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Fun Pasta Facts!  (from the National Pasta Association.  Yes, apparently, there is one.)

Submitted by Liz:

My first date with Tom was pretty good.  He didn't do anything that made me uncomfortable, and he seemed to be actually interested in everything that I had to say.  The man himself was a little bland, but not so much that I wouldn't consider a second date with him if he asked.

When I came home, I signed into my Facebook to find that he had requested my assent to "In a relationship" status.  Certainly not!  We just had one date!  I turned it down.

When I woke up the next morning, another request from him.  This time, he wanted me to sign up for being "In an open relationship."  No thanks.

By that evening, he had requested, "It's complicated."  No!  No!  No!  It's simple!  We're not anything!  We had one date!  Stop trying to show your friends that you have game by being in a rush to change your relationship status!

He defriended me shortly thereafter and didn't contact me anymore.  He wasn't exactly the sort of guy I'd miss, so luckily, it was a neat and tidy end.


*******************************************
Relevant Articles by Jared:
Switched - Changing Relationship Status at the Altar
Glamour - How Social Media Can Ruin Your Relationship
Time - Potential Perils of Changing Relationship Status

I've never been a fan of Facebook relationship statuses.  Especially if you're a girl, I'd imagine that all of your creepy guy friends are just waiting for your "In a relationship" to switch to "Single" so that they can bombard your wall with, "OMG WHAT HAPPENED?" and "if u need 2 talk, u kno u always can 2 me" and "Let's hang this weekend.  We'll forget all about that bum.  My place.  Bring wine."  I prefer leaving it blank.  The people who count will know that you're in a relationship.

What are the upsides to advertising it?  If you're a guy or girl, I'd be curious.

Submitted by Mark:

Betsy messaged me on the Internet.  Her profile made her sound like an off-the-wall party girl, and I had mostly outgrown that phase, but she was persistent, which was rare, and she seemed interested in me, which was also rare on any dating site.  My logic was that if she saw enough in me to find common ground, then perhaps I was being too hasty by dismissing her.  Why not, I figured, so we set something up.

We talked about the standard stuff: work, family hobbies, killer asteroids... wait, come again?

"It's true," she said, "A killer asteroid is going to hit us in 2014.  I read all about it."

This was strange indeed.  You'd have thought that we'd have heard about it by now.

She said, "No, no.  The government can't let word about it get out, so they silence any astronomer who discovers it.  It would create mass panic!"

I asked, "So how do you know about it?"

"I was told.  It's going to smash into the ocean or Canada."

I grinned.  "So nowhere important, then."

She said, "Make fun of me if you want to, but let's see you laugh when your hair's on fire."

This posed an interesting dilemma, and I posed it to her: "If the government silences everyone who knows about it, then how come you haven't been silenced?  Or how come the person who told you about it hasn't been?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Are you fucking retarded?" she asked, "They have to let some misinformation come out, otherwise everyone would know about it!"

"But how do you know that the 2014 thing isn't misinformation itself?"

She sighed.  Sorry!  You mention something crazy, you should EXPECT TO BE QUESTIONED ABOUT IT!

She said, "I have connections in the government, but that's all I can say."

"Is this information on the Internet?"

"Probably not.  I don't know.  I've said too much."

Well, what do you say to that?  She seemed depressed and despondent for the rest of the date, really a big change from how she had acted before.  When I asked her if everything was okay, she replied that it upset her how people "just didn't know about the asteroid threat," and that it was a heavy burden to bear.

A little too much of the crazies for me.


***********************************************
A FRIENDLY MESSAGE FROM JARED:
Top secret government links.  Read at your own risk:
http://space.about.com/cs/asteroids/a/2003qq47impacta.htm
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/02/asteroid.reut/index.html
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news138.html

Submitted by Jackie:

Dan was unlike any guy I've ever dated before. Most guys I've met from online sites came across as nervous or "putting up a front." From the get-go, Dan was a shoot-from-the-hip, tell-it-like-it-is with no apologies kind of guy, and I liked it.

Our first date was at a bar & grill. He asked me, "Are your online dates anything to write home about?"

I said, "Not really. Everyone's way too uptight."

"Fuck 'em," he replied.

Crude but right to the point. It was refreshing.

I asked him, "You're into welding, right?"

"Hell yes. I weld everything."

"What's your favorite thing to weld?"

"Everything."

Prior to this, he had linked me to his online sculpture portfolio. Some of his projects were over twenty feet tall and had to be taken apart to be moved from place to place. I was impressed. How unusual!

He invited me to his local studio after dinner, and I accepted the invite. We arrived inside a large workspace that looked like a tornado had slashed through a scrapyard.

The date went downhill from here in a hurry, though. He opened up some crates and looked inside.

"What the fuck are these?" he asked, then repeated the question.

I asked him what was wrong. He didn't answer but picked up a phone, dialed a number, waited a bit, and shouted, "What the fuck did you send me, Hal? I asked for kegs! These are like mini kegs or something. I wanted actual size kegs! What the fuck did you send me? Call me back now."

He hung up. His language wasn't anything unusual. It was his tone that changed, and it was nasty. He dialed what I figured out was the same number again, and again, he left a similar message on poor Hal's machine. Then again. And again.

Dan looked up a me and said, "Sorry. This might take a while. Maxing out his voicemail is the only way he'll get back to me. Might be an hour of this. Look around if you want to."

Was I expecting him to be compassionate? Maybe, and my expectations of him were probably too high. Still, I hope that he got the kegs he wanted. He didn't end up getting me.

Submitted by Jon:

I had already been on one date with Tanya, and we had a nice time.  She seemed nice and fun, although nothing about her really excited me (at least as of yet) so I decided to try a second date with her.  If anything could bring out more of her personality, I thought it would be going out with a group of friends, so I asked her if she'd be interested in going to a happy hour kind of thing on a Friday.

She didn't like the idea at all.  "How does that make any sense?" she asked, "So you're asking me out with your buddies?"

I explained to her, "No.  We can hang out for a little bit and then go do our own thing.  I just thought it would be fun."

She asked me who would be there in particular, what each of them did, and how old they were.  Exasperated, I finally said, "Want to just go out on our own?"

She said, "Thank you!  It took you long enough to get it!"

I didn't like this game, so I told her that I'd be in touch, only I wasn't.

Submitted by David:

Jillian and I met through a photography trade organization.  We had both found some success working with ad agencies.  My work has included several different subjects, while she has worked primarily with models.

We were out for drinks, chatting things over, when we broached the topic of past relationships.  She said that she had just emerged from a long-term relationship that had lasted just over three years.  We talked about that and my own past.  Mostly superficial stuff.

Once we hit the topic of work, though, she mentioned something curious.  She mentioned a romantic encounter that had occurred after hours at her photo studio with a male model.  It was a hot story, but she mentioned that it had happened about a year ago.

I did the math and realized that she had cheated on her boyfriend.  I asked her if she had any similar stories, and she said that over the past five years, she had hooked up with various models.

I asked her if her boyfriend had minded.  She told me, "You think he knew?  That's just how it's done in this business.  It wasn't cheating, but he wouldn't have understood that."

Being in the business myself (but not working with models too often), this was the first I had heard that such a practice was as ubiquitous as she had said.  I understood her well enough, and was sure to not ask her out again.

Submitted by Leora:

Ben's profile on the dating site hit all the right notes.  It sounded like he had friends, said that he had everything he wanted out of life, and was able to take things easy.  I liked how his sense of humor shone through, and we set up a date at a restaurant.

Early in, I noticed that something was off in the way that he would laugh after almost anything I said.  It wasn't Zeus-like peals of mighty laughter, but I'd pick up my coffee and say, "Smells good," and he'd giggle slightly.  I like cracking jokes, but not everything I said or did was funny, but for some reason, he seemed to find it so.

He also poked me in my upper arm a couple of times before I asked him to stop.

When I was in the middle of talking about a book I was reading, he said something like, "Wow.  So any chance I'll get some tonight?"

I informed him that it wasn't even a remote possibility.  He said, "I see.  Wait here a moment."

He stood up and took off.

I considered myself lucky, but early the next morning he left me a voicemail to ask me out again.  He sounded drunk when he left it, and I didn't call him back.

Submitted by Paul:

Gwen was really excited about meeting me.  I was really into her, too.  We had some of those long conversations in which you forget about the time that passes, the sort that makes you feel like you just finished a satisfying meal.  I learned all about her, her work as a landscaper, and her family.

The first date was her idea.  She invited me over to her place and said that she'd cook for me.  This was very exciting, and I really couldn't wait.

For some reason, I had thought that she lived in an apartment.  It was a house.  Her father answered the door.  He welcomed me in and sat me down in the living room.  It smelled like someone was cooking, but Gwen was nowhere in sight.

He started asking me about my job, my life, my family, my prospects.  It was very uncomfortable, and it was like had had every question planned at the outset.

After the first round, he called his wife in.  She gave me a nice smile, but she sat next to her husband and asked me her own set of questions.  The husband stared at me the whole time, but she barely made eye contact at all and spoke very softly.  Her questions were ridiculously weird.  She asked me things that sounded like they came from a psychological questionnaire: "If a parking meter ate your quarters, what would you do?"  "Do you like animals?"  "Does the hole in the ozone layer make you sad?"  WTF?

At one point, I asked if Gwen was around.  Her father said, "Yes," and left it at that.

Gwen did arrive to announce that dinner was ready.  I sat down with her and her parents at the table.  Her father said a grace that lasted about ten minutes, and he kept eying me the whole time.  What was he expecting?  Me to stop him?  To steal some food while he wasn't looking?  Stop testing me, old man!

No one said a word at dinner.  Well, that's not true.  Someone said, "Pass the green beans," once.  Gwen hardly even looked at me.  I kept telling myself that it would all be over soon, that I'd be able to leave, and that, on the plus side, I'd have a well-cooked meal.

Directly after dinner, I was able to thank Gwen for the meal.  Her parents stood up and escorted me to the door.  Good night.

Gwen called me later and told me that I had impressed her not-easily-impressed parents.  Yay.  She then said that she had a nice time, and that for our next date, we could all go out to dinner somewhere.

I asked her if it would be possible to have a date without her parents, and she told me, "Probably not until we're married."

Okay, then.  No thank you.

Submitted by Maria:

Submitted by Tina:

On my second date with Rob, I had offered to make him cookies.  He was really excited about it, and came over to my house before dinner.  He showed up early and I had to take a shower, so I told him to help himself to anything in the kitchen while I was upstairs in the bathroom.

Shortly after starting the shower, I realized that I had forgotten to grab a new soap I had wanted to use.  It was in my room, so I threw on my robe and left the bathroom.

On my way there, down the hall, I heard a thump from my room.  I entered and found Rob hiding, lying down on the floor on the far side of my bed, close to the wall.

I asked him what he was doing in my room, and then I noticed that the top drawer of my bureau was ajar.  I must have turned fifty shades whiter and told him to leave my room and the house.

He didn't look me in the eye as he shuffled past, but he did leave a crumpled pair of my underwear on the floor where he had hidden.

Submitted by Sherry:

Polite is the word I'll use to describe Aaron's first impression.  He came across as very well-mannered and thoughtful.  First impressions, however, can be deceiving.

The first inklings I had that Aaron was a controlling type was at dinner.  I went to pour myself some water from a decanter on the table.  He asked me, "What are you doing?"

I said, "Pouring myself some water."

He replied, "No.  I do that."  So saying, he took the pitcher and poured the water for me.  At the time, it was off-putting, but I took it to mean that he was being nice.

When it was almost time to order, he asked me what I was going to get.  I mentioned a steak.  He said, "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer something like a salad?"

I informed him that I had eaten a salad for lunch.  Then he asked, "Was it a big salad?"

I replied, "I filled a bowl with romaine lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and dressing."

"Okay," he said.

We were in the midst of a lull during dinner when he looked up and said, "Good news: whoever marries me won't have to work."

"What if she wants to work?"

He shrugged.  "She'd be wasting her time.  I already make enough."  He raised his glass as if to toast, and I toasted him halfheartedly.  Then, he shot the kicker: "Her only job, so to speak, would be to see to my needs."

He must have caught my expression, because he hammered the final nail into his coffin with, "Which are few!"

I politely told him that, if he was serious, that I didn't think I was the girl for him.  He took it well, we finished dinner, and went our separate ways.  I can't imagine who would want to be with a guy like that in today's world, but I'm sure he'll find someone.

Submitted by Joel:

Sara was a talker.  She was outgoing, tall, and really good at making conversation.  I met her online and met up after a couple weeks.

At the bar, she kicked back a few and began going on about her ex-boyfriends.  One of them couldn't get off unless she was tied down.  Another one put on makeup to pretend to be a black man.  Another one liked dressing up like a dinosaur.

Through her descriptions of these guys, I discovered that the one who liked dressing up like a dinosaur was someone I knew from work.

I asked her if the guys who pulled this stuff in the bedroom would be glad to know that she was spilling it all.  She said that she was no longer bound to keep their secrets, since they weren't in a committed relationship any longer.

I'm glad she got that out of the way before I told her anything.

At work the next week, whenever I'd see the guy, I couldn't get the Jurassic Park t-rex roar out of my head.

Submitted by Scott:

Alison and I had arranged a fun first date: dinner and pool.  I went to her house to pick her up and she invited me in to meet her two dogs, Salvo and Mensa.  One was a black lab, the other a Jack Russell.  She got right down on the floor and tussled with them.  Awwwwww... sweet.  Dogs.

Then they started licking her face.  A lot.  She giggled as they slid their tongues all over her cheeks, nose, and mouth.  Oh, gross.  You're not going to let them lick inside your... yes, you are.  Oh gross.  Not in your mouth!  Stop!  Stop letting them lick your face holes!

Okay, so she stood up and asked if I was ready to go.  Gonna wash your face, honey?  No, of course not.

The date went all right.  She was waaay too into herself, but at least she got me to forget all about the saliva-filled adventures of a couple of hours prior.  She was definitely into me, and flirted more as the night went on.

After I beat her at two games of pool, I drove her back to her house.  I figured that we were going to kiss, and all of a sudden, as I pulled up, I realized that she hadn't Listerined, sucked down a bar of soap, or done anything else to cleanse herself of dog slobber.  Dogs clean their anuses with their tongues.  Did I really want to taste the taste of canine sphincter at the end of the night?  No thanks.

I told her to have a good night.  She didn't leave the car.  She was waiting for something.  She said that she had a nice time.  I said that I did, too.  Silence.  I turned to her and told her that I was kind of grossed out by the dog incident and that I didn't want to kiss her as a result.

She opened my car door, said that she didn't want to kiss me either, and left.  Serves me right for being honest, I guess.  At least I didn't have dog juices splashing around inside of my mucus membranes.

Written by Charlie:

Shauna was a paralegal and we worked in the same town.  She was a friend of someone for whom I was a personal trainer.  We agreed on a place to meet for an early dinner after work.

For an appetizer, we decided to split buffalo wings.  They arrived and she went right in with her fingers, divvying them up, placing one on her plate, one on mine, and so forth.  Sorry.  Did you wash your hands?  Then, she made a sound like, "Fffflaaassbbbsssshhmmaaaagrrraghh" and sucked the meat off the bones like a cartoon character.

Her mouth was all orange and messy.  She wiped it with her arm.  She went for her water, choked, and spat some out, on herself and on the table.

I told her that it wasn't a race, and she apologized and said that she'd slow down.

She didn't.  She ate all of the celery without asking me if I wanted any.  When our meals arrived, she took ginormous bites of her burger and followed them up with huge forkfuls of accompanying salad.

This in addition to occasional snorting noises made my appetite vanish.  She pointed to the burger and fries on my plate and asked, "You going to finish that?"

Funny thing was, this girl was as thin as thin could be.  She was very nice, but the idea of one day potentially kissing such a food intake valve... turn-off.

I asked her one more time to slow it down, and she did, but I felt bad about it.  If this was how she ate, then this was how she ate.  This was a first date and I didn't want to be too judgmental, but I found it impossible to be otherwise.  I didn't even want to hug her.  Maybe I was being too harsh.

She slurped up her water through a straw, inhaled it all the way to the bottom, hiccuped, and stifled a belch.  Nah.  Too much for me.

Submitted by Paulina:

I went on a date with James this past fall.  We had agreed to meet up at a bar.  I arrived first and sat in a booth.

When he showed up, he gave me a big hug and sat next to me.  I asked him if he'd prefer to sit across from me.  Easier to look at each other and talk and all that.  This seemed to confuse him, and he said, "Okay..." as if this was a strange thing for me to suggest.

He would touch me through dinner, little touches, grazing his fingers on my wrist and all that, but it was overboard.  He was doing it way too often, and it wasn't casual.  He was making a concerted effort to do it.  That and slide his foot up and down my ankle.  I shifted away twice but that didn't stop him from trying.

At the point at which he called me his "girlfriend," I told him that he was moving a bit fast for me.

That set him off.  He asked me what this was if it wasn't a date, what I was expecting from him, and he lectured me that I shouldn't have a profile up on a dating site if I didn't want to date.

I told him that he shouldn't have a profile up if he didn't know what "date" meant.  He raised his voice and commanded me not to lecture him, that he had had more significant others in the past five years than I'd have in my life.  I pointed out that this wasn't something to brag about, and he became even more upset.

I came to realize (a little too late) that this was a game he was playing.  He wanted to keep me with him as long as possible, and me arguing back and forth would only serve his purposes.  I gave up on arguing with him then and there, and the remainder of the date was him making all sorts of passive-aggressive comments.

Submitted by Julian:

Anna was a dinner date of mine a few years back.  We were on the subject of past relationships and she mentioned that she was friends with all of her exes except for one, "but I'll get him," she said.

I asked her what she meant by "getting" him, and she said that she was saving money for a huge surprise for the guy: a truck full of flowers, a singing telegram, an all-expense-paid trip... somewhere... she said that she really wanted his friendship and didn't understand why he didn't want to be friends.  Therefore, she was going to do (what she called) the "single nicest gesture" she had ever done for someone and give him all of these flowers, telegrams, and trips.

Then, she asked me if I was friends with all of my exes, and I told her that I wasn't.  In my case at least, they were exes for a reason, and I didn't really desire any friendship with them at all.

She took this personally for some reason and told me that I was never a true friend, since a true friend would stop at nothing to maintain a friendship with friends.  I told her that sometimes friendships had to end because of one reason or another.  This only made her madder, and it definitely ruined the date.

I'm really glad that she never considered me a friend.  She might have organized some sort of elephant-donkey-circus-parade to show up at my front door to win me back.

Submitted by Carol:

Kyle introduced himself to me over a dating site.  In it, he confessed to an interest in cars, among other things.  He insisted on picking me up, and he did so in the most tricked out muscle car that I've ever seen.  It was polished to perfection, and was black and had a blue flame design.  Its blasting engine must have woken up the entire town.

From the moment I stepped into his car, he would not shut up about street racing.  How it was in his blood, his brother's blood, the blood of his sister, who painstakingly washed his cars...

He must have gone double every speed limit and took the longest way to get to our destination.  Some of the curves he took so fast I was sure that we'd go flying off the road.

"Jesus, relax!" he admonished me, "It's not like I haven't been doing this for years."

I asked him if he'd drive any differently if he had a kid in the car.  To that, he asked, "My kid or someone else's?  Someone else's, of course not.  My own, hell yes.  I'd want him to learn the trade from a young age."

My heart pounding out of my chest, we made it to a restaurant.  When he ordered his dinner, he asked that the check be brought along with the food, and winked at me.  I asked him what that was about, and he said he wanted to fit in as much driving time as possible that night.

There are professional street drivers, yes, but this guy was a reckless driver, plain and simple.  I asked him if we could do something else.  He said, "What, like tiddly-winks?  I'm a real street driver.  You'd better start getting used to that."

I asked him if he'd just drive me home after dinner, and he seemed disappointed, although I had a feeling that he'd take out his frustration on me by driving like a crazed baboon.

My feeling was right.  I'm sure that that night took a few years off my life.