Submitted by Boris:

My strangest date ever was with Carla.  She explained that she had a bit of a twitch.  I could handle that.  What I couldn't handle was what followed:

"It comes with the territory of being a clone."

I smiled at this, as it was funny.  She didn't smile back.  She said, "I'm serious.  I'm a clone."

"Bullshit," was my scientific response.

She replied, "I can prove it.  My parents have documents."

"Show me."

She said, "I can't right now.  They're at my parents' house.  I'm a clone of my great aunt, who died before I was born."

I asked her, "Why were you cloned?"

She said, "My mother loved her aunt and wanted a duplicate."

Figuring that this was just a weird personality thing, I tried moving us on to various other topics... the weather, politics, toe jam... anything but her life as a clone.

She couldn't help herself, though.  She went on almost any chance she had.  Just about everything we talked about, she found a way to "clonify" it.  She even showed me a picture she carried around of her great aunt, who looked almost nothing like her.

It was so much fun that I asked her out for a second date.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Submitted by Kendra:

Roger was really late to our date.  When he showed up, he didn't apologize but told me that he had "lost track of the time."

The entire date, he kept looking at his watch, and did his very best to keep conversation to a minimum.  I picked up on it easily and asked him what the problem was.

He said that he had a sick relative.  I told him that he could have canceled if he was that concerned.  I didn't want to the date to stress him out.  It was already stressing me out, given his distracted attitude.

He asked for the check right after we ordered.  That really bugged me.  I basically wrote him off, did the perfunctory date thing, and let him take off right after.  I have no idea why he agreed to the date in the first place, but I did actually find out why he was really in a rush.

A mutual friend told me that Roger was in a World of Warcraft group, and that he had accidentally scheduled some major campaign for the night of our date.  That's why he was in a hurry.  His "sick relative" was some sort of quest for virtual glory.  Oh well.  Glad I found out what his true priorities were early on.


***********************
Wow.

Submitted by Hunter:

Lesley came off as my kind of woman - friendly, interesting, smart, and fun.  She had a good job, and didn't seem to have much baggage... or, in retrospect, too much in the realm of ex-boyfriends with whom to have had baggage with.

I began to understand why once we sat down in a park, after we had a light dinner at a local tea place.  We were sitting in the grass when she took my hands and looked into my eyes.

"Slow down," she said, then repeated, "Slow down."

I wasn't sure what she was talking about.  She clarified, "Your breathing.  Slow it down.  It'll help."

I asked her, "Help what?"

She didn't respond, but closed her eyes.  I still wasn't sure what was going on, but everything had gone fine up until then.  So what was a little bit of weirdness?

"You're getting sleepy," she said in a monotone, "You're getting relaxed."

I figured this was some sort of hypnosis game and decided to play along.  I closed my eyes, too.  She went on, "You are getting sleepy.  You want to take me out on another date."

I snorted.  I couldn't help it.  But I kept my eyes closed and tried to cover it with a cough.  I'm not sure if she was able to tell, since she kept going.

"You want to take me out on another date.  And after that, another date."

I couldn't do it anymore.  I opened my eyes.  "I'm sorry, Lesley.  Are you serious?"

"Eyes closed!" she ordered.  I slammed them shut.  This was going to be good.

She started humming.  Not a song or anything.  Just a solid note.  For at least a minute or two.  When she had time to take a breath, I had no idea.  I opened my eyes.  Her eyes were closed.  I closed mine again.  She squeezed my hands.  She whispered, "You're going to ask me out again.  You're going to ask me out again.  You're going to ask me out again.  You're going to ask me out again."

Then she did a final hum, hummed louder, then squeezed my hands really tight, then released them and stopped humming.

I kept my eyes closed until she said, "Open your eyes."

I did.  She asked, "You okay?  You were sort of staring into space there for a bit."

I told her that I was fine.  I didn't mention anything about it for the rest of the date.  I never asked her out again.

Submitted by Mary:

Wayne was a chemist who took me out to a fancy meal one night this past winter.  He told me that he was working on a new, organic type of hands-free sanitizer, and had plenty of samples on hand.  He gave me a few.  Thanks, Wayne.

We got on the subject of college, and he asked me if I had any "wild times."  I told him that I had once participated in a sorority's topless march to raise awareness for breast cancer.

He spat out his food all over the place.  "W-what?," he stammered, "You did what?"

I said, "It was to raise awareness for breast cancer.  We carried candles one evening from one end of the campus to the other.  I don't know if that counts as 'wild,' but it was a little daring, but I'm glad I did it.  We raised over a thousand dollars for that one walk."

He stared at me, then down at my chest, then up at me again.  "You were topless?" he asked, stupidly.

"Yes," I repeated.

"Did you have a boyfriend at the time?" he asked.

"Yes.  He had no problem with it.  Are you okay?"

He was silent for a few moments, then asked, "Can I see you topless tonight?"

Then it was my turn to expel all over the table.  I didn't.  I thought I heard him wrong.  "Excuse me?" I asked.

"Can I see you topless tonight?"

I laughed and told him that it wasn't going to happen.

This made him mad.  "You'd show a whole bunch of strangers your jugs while in a committed relationship, but you won't show them to me?  What's the difference?"

I thought he was kidding around.  He had to be.  I laughed again, but when I saw that he wasn't laughing with me, I said, "You're not going to see them.  Put it out of your head."

He sat back and muttered something that sounded like, "Slut," and continued on with the rest of the meal in relative silence.

After dinner, I told him that it was nice meeting him, and then went off home to go take off my shirt and go to bed.


******************************
In Maine this Friday?  Busy?

Submitted by L.:

I met Ryan when he sent me a message on MySpace. As it turned out, he worked at a convenience store close to where I worked, and the day that I stopped in to meet him happened to be my birthday. He actually bought me a teddy bear! It was so sweet.

I learned from him later that he used to be into cocaine, and had been in a coma caused by a car accident, which he had because he was high. He was three years clean though, so when he asked me out on a date, I accepted.

When I met him at the restaurant, he had a bouquet of flowers waiting for me. So sweet! Then he asked if his friends could join us. They had apparently given him a ride there.  To be polite, I said yes.

Worst. Mistake. Ever.

Fortunately, we were seated back in the party room, so my mortification wasn't made too public. The friends, a couple dressed in ratty clothes, brought their two "lovely" children with them. They talked incessantly and ran around and around the table while the mother, who was a good 350 lbs., just kind of stared at them with a blank expression.

Ryan's friend, who needed to be introduced to a shower and looked like he had recently fought against a weedwacker (and lost), asked me if I worked. I said yes, as a single mom I worked full time to support my son. He elbowed Ryan and said, "Looks like you found your sugar mama!"

Ryan just grunted and laughed.

I decided to stick it out for a while, and the conversation turned to how my date and his friend were "state babies," meaning that they worked the least amount possible in order to get as much assistance from the state as possible so that they didn't have to pay for as much as possible. I guess that extra money went to six-packs, cigarettes and tin roof patches for the trailer.

Finally I made an excuse about having to get home to the baby and left as quickly as possible.

Needless to say, I don't go to that convenience store much anymore, and I never went out on another date with him.


******************************
Maybe it's in their blood?

Submitted by Nicholas:

Gina was a girl I met online. I wrote her a short introductory message and we chatted back and forth for two weeks before I decided to ask her out.

Dinner started off simply enough. We talked about work, schooling, family, the usual.

Then, when I said, "I'm thinking about going into law school to do environmental advocacy," something I said must have contained some sort of magic spell that completely changed her personalty and sanity.

She said, "Oh, so now someone has to go to law school to be an environmental advocate? I'm an environmental advocate and I've never been to law school. Thanks a lot for trivializing me."

My first instinct was to go into defuse mode. I said, "I didn't mean to come across as trivializing. I'm sorry. What I meant was that I wanted to do environmental work from a legal vantage point..."

She interrupted me by saying, "Don't you patronize me! I can do whatever I want, without some expensive law degree," she put on a snooty impersonation of (what I guessed was) myself at the end of that phrase.

"Sorry I brought it up," I said.

"Why?" she pressed the issue ever further, "You wanted to keep it secret?"

"No, I—"

"Too late! How are you going to patronize me next? What else aren't I good at?"

I didn't want to feed her anything else, so I kept my mouth shut. Of course, this was also a mistake, as she pointed out, "Now you're not talking to me? That's real mature. What a great date you are. No wonder you're single."

I flagged the waiter down and asked for the check. We had only ordered our dinners five minutes earlier.

"What are you doing?" she asked, then when I didn't reply, she again asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm getting out of here. I don't want to be around you."

Her mouth dropped open. "You? You don't want to be around me?"

She picked up her pocketbook, stood, and stalked off, muttering, "Asshole," as she did.

I asked the waiter to box up both meals.  I figured that there was nothing wrong with grabbing at least a couple of dinners out of that debacle.

When I left the restaurant with the bag, though, she was outside waiting for me.  She came up to me and said, "What the fuck?  Who do you think you are?"

I ignored her all the way back to my car, climbed in, and left her there.  She texted and called me constantly for the next week, but she eventually got the message.

Submitted by Talia:

Back in college, I lived in a brand-new dorm that was about a mile and a half away from campus.  Not a bad walk, but in the winter, it might as well have been ten miles.  The school provided a shuttle bus to and from my dorm to the main campus.

I had woken up really late one morning and ran down to catch the bus.  I made it just as it was pulling away, and I caught the eye of a passenger, a guy seated by a window.  He pointed and smiled as the bus pulled away.  What an asshole!  He could've asked the driver to wait!  That made me a half-hour late to class!

At lunch, a day or two later, I was talking to Sasha, a friend of mine, about the guys at our college, and she mentioned one boy in particular, Kevin.  He was in her composition class.  The more she described him, the more I was interested.  I asked her if she'd be comfortable setting us up, and she said that even though she didn't speak with him that much, she would do it for me.  Why not?  I liked taking the initiative every now and again.

A couple of days later, she told me that she had spoken to him and that he was interested.  Turns out he lived in my dorm!  Those nervous butterflies hit, but I kept my cool.  Sasha arranged the blind date, and it was all set up for that Friday.

Friday rolled around.  Kevin had told Sasha that he would meet me in front of my dorm.  When I showed up and he introduced himself, I realized that he was very much that same asshole who pointed and laughed as the bus pulled away.

"I know you," I said to him, "You laughed at me from the bus last week."

"What?  I don't remember that."

"I do.  7:30 bus.  You pointed and laughed as the bus pulled away and I was trying to catch it."

He looked at me and said, "Shit."  When I didn't reply, he went on, "You've got to admit, it was pretty funny!"

I said, "I don't think so," and went back inside the dorm.


*********************************
There are some buses that are better to miss.

Submitted by Riley:

April and I had plans to meet up on a Wednesday night.  She called me twenty minutes before the date to tell me that a pipe had burst in her house and that her entire room was flooded.  She asked if we could reschedule.  I told her that of course, we could.

On the next dating day that we had set up, she called me an hour before.  This time, a tree fell on her house.  No joke.  She said that a rotting maple in her neighbor's backyard had fallen and smashed right through her living room window.  Could we possibly postpone again?

I mentioned briefly how bad things seemed to happen on days we had picked out for dates.  She admitted that it was strange, but was emphatic that she could prove it.  I didn't press the issue and asked her if she was sure that she still wanted to go out sometime. 

She said that she did and asked to put it off once more.

The third time, there was no phone call from her.  She just didn't show up to the restaurant.  I called her and called her and there was no answer.

Figuring that she had been playing me for an idiot the entire time, I went home.  She was there, on my front porch.

I asked her what she was doing there.  She asked me what I was doing there.  I informed her that I lived there and asked her why she was there instead of at the restaurant where we had planned to meet.

She stared at me for a few seconds, said, "Sausage!" then ran down the sidewalk, down the road, and away from sight.

I pinched myself to make sure that it wasn't a dream, then went inside, ordered some Chinese food, and popped in The Godfather.

Submitted by Justine:

Jeremy offered to take me out to lunch.  At the very beginning of the date, he told me that he was planning to pay for everything.  I thanked him.

When the waitress came by, he told her first and foremost that she hand him the check and not me as he (again) was "paying for everything."  She agreed to do as he said.  He smiled at me.  It was a little strange.  He had already made it clear that he was going to pay for lunch.  Now it seemed like he was doing me a favor.

As I looked over the menu, a third time he said, "Anything you want.  It's all on me."

"Okay.  Got it!" I said this time.  He smiled.  It was a weird smile, like he thought I was four years old.

During the meal, as we talked, he'd reach across the table to touch me, but not conversationally.  What I mean is, he'd go out of his way to do it.  It was obvious and made me more and more uncomfortable.  I even leaned back in my seat once and he tried to reach for me, but couldn't.  He then asked me if I'd lean in closer!  Aaah!

After lunch, we took a walk around the block.  He walked a little too close to me for comfort, and I edged away as subtly as I could.

Finally, he stopped walking and faced me.  "What's your problem?" he asked.

"What?" I asked back.

"It's like you don't even want to be around me!  Every time I try getting close to you.  I'm sick of it!  Either you want to be near me or you don't.  Which will it be?"

I said, "Can you calm down?  This is a first date, and I want to take things slow."

He shook his head and smiled.  "You can start by standing next to me," he said, then grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to him.

That was enough.  I slapped him, open palm, full in the face.  You don't grab someone and tell them what to do.  He let me go and I stormed away.  I'm sure he saw me shaking, but I didn't care.  Where did this guy come off, trying to touch me at every opportunity?

I Googled him just last week.  You guessed it.  He's married.

Submitted by Wendell:

Glenda, a very well-liked, pretty, and popular girl, asked me out in high school for a Friday.  She picked out the restaurant, the after-dinner movie, and seemed to have everything planned out.  I couldn't believe my luck, and figured that this was finally proof that good things happen to nice guys who wait a while.

At dinner, she seemed distracted by something else, and didn't seem at all interested in what I had to say.  I went as far as asking her, "Do you really want to be out on this date with me?"
She yelled, "How could you say that?  What do you think this is?  What are you thinking, that I'm just pretending to be interested in you?"

She got more and more upset, and I dropped it with multiple, profuse apologies.  I hadn't been out with too many women at this point in my life, and wondered if this sort of conversation was normal.  Sorry I asked!

At the movie I tried to hold her hand and it seemed like she couldn't move far enough away from me.  I second-guessed myself over and over.  Was I moving too fast?  Was this really how first dates were supposed to go?

After the movie, she mumbled a goodbye and drove herself home.  Despite how badly it went in retrospect, I was amazed that she had even asked me out in the first place.  I thought about her all weekend and couldn't wait for our second date.

I went up to her at school on Monday and she acted like she didn't know me at all.  One of her friends, Sally, took me aside to tell me that it had all been an act: Glenda did it to make some other guy jealous.

"Wow, what a bitch," I said out loud, unable to stop myself.  Sally clamped her hand over her mouth, then scampered off, presumably to tell Glenda.  I was mortified at the time, but in retrospect, she completely deserved it.

I can't say that, as I've grown older, I've found that women act much differently.

Submitted by Andrea:

Justin was a smooth talker, ridiculously attractive, and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say.  Most guys I had met from the online world had some sort of issue that was apparent right off the bat, but Justin either hid his very well, or perhaps, wonder of wonders, didn't have any.  At least, not any that were too major.

His conversational topics were sometimes a little offbeat ("What's your favorite color of socks?") but he didn't seem stalker-weird.  Just quirky-weird.

Things became uncomfortable-weird when I returned from a bathroom trip and found him across the table from another woman, in my seat.  He turned to me as if I was interrupting something important.

"Andrea," he said, "This is Melanie."

I figured that he had bumped into her and that they were friends.

"We're on a date," he informed me.

I stared at him and said, "Come again?"

He said, "I'm sort of... I kind of want to be on a date with Melanie instead.  Sorry."

I looked at Melanie, who gave me a look as if to say, "Why are you interrupting my date?"

I turned to Justin and said, "But... how... who... we were just on a date."

He shrugged.  I wondered if I was on candid camera or if this was some elaborate prank.  However, the more I stood there, waiting for more of an explanation, the more I realized that they were both serious.

I leaned in to Melanie's ear and whispered, "Hope you like herpes.  It's why I wouldn't sleep with him," and left.

Submitted by Molly:

Submitted by Gerald:

Helen was a graduate student who worked in a bio lab next to mine. We had chatted on occasion, but didn't have much of a chance for interaction.

One day, when I was waiting for some results, she stopped by and we had a really great conversation. I ended up asking her out, and she went for it, with the caveat that we stop back in the lab after dinner so that she could check on an experiment.

Dinner went great, and we were totally grooving on each other. When we went back to her lab, she sat herself up on one of the lab tables, pulled me close, and kissed me like she was plumbing my very depths.

I climbed on top of her and she cringed. She said, "Gently."

My position was awkward, so I stepped back off of her for a second to readjust, and I must I've jostled the table, since an experiment setup on the lab bench next to ours toppled and shattered on the tile floor.

She shot up in an instant. "You idiot!" she yelled, "Do you have any idea what you just did?"

I didn't, although I had a feeling that it might have been something bad.

Turns out, the experiment I had destroyed wasn't some sort of mutated virus, but a setup that had been running for about 10 days straight. Whoops.

I stammered apology after apology, but she wasn't listening. All I could do was help her clean up. After we had most of it mopped, she told me to go. I asked her if she was sure, and she said that she was.

My bad for being a klutz, I guess. Still, we both should've reconsidered messing around inside of the lab, although I can't lie — something about it still turns me on.

Submitted by Stacey:

Hugo was a singer in my church choir.  He had a great voice and he seemed like a nice guy, so I introduced myself and got to know him.  We both had similar aspirations and enjoyed the same sorts of things.  More than that, I felt comfortable with him, and he came across as trustworthy and honest.

I usually wait a little while to become physical with someone, not because of religious considerations, but more because I want to feel as though I'm more than just a hook up.  I've done the hooking up thing before, and I invariably felt gross afterward.  Hugo understood and didn't even mention anything physical until one night.

We had split a bottle of wine, put on a movie, and he gave me such a sweet look that I couldn't help but kiss him.  It felt like a roller coaster free-fall, but I really enjoyed myself.

We didn't go very far that first time, and he was polite and respectful.  The second time, we went a bit further, and the third time, further still.

After we had been seeing each other for a little while, he asked me if I wanted to have sex with him.  Even though I was expecting the question, it still winded me a little.  I told him that I needed some time to think about it.  He told me that he wanted me to be comfortable and to take all the time that I needed.

One night, after we had spent a nice time together, we went back to his place, made out, and removed clothing.  I told myself that I could always tell him to stop if I felt that it went too far, and that he would be understanding enough to respect what I wanted.

We were naked in his bed, curled around each other, and he asked me to flip over on my stomach.  I did.  He moved away from me and reached into his bedside table.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

He replied, "Nothing bad.  I promise."

The next sensation I had, it felt like he was spreading something on my rear.  I couldn't tell what it was.  Then, he exhaled and I felt a weird scratchy thing.

"What are you doing?" I asked him, this time more insistent. 

When he didn't answer, I flipped over and sent a white, powdery substance scattering.  His nose had some on it.  The first thing I thought of, stupidly, was powdered sugar.  The second thing I thought of was cocaine.

"What are you doing?" I hissed at him.

He made as if to say something, but looked at me as if he had never looked at me before.  It was one of the most frightening moments of my life.  I went on, "You're snorting cocaine?  Off my ass?"

He wiped his nose and stammered, "I... it... it's something people... it's just to relax.  I was going to give you some, too!"

I jumped out of bed, pulled my pants on, and left the house even without fully putting on my shirt.  I flew down the sidewalk, called a friend on my cell, and had her pick me up.  I must have taken twenty showers over the following two days.

In the following days, weeks, and months, Hugo still came to church, but sporadically, and he never once made eye contact with me.


*******************************
He's moved on.  You should, too.

Submitted by Spencer:

We met online.  Her name was Audrey.  She seemed really interesting, although she talked a lot about her ex-boyfriends.  Like, a few clicks south of obsessively much.  I thought that maybe she was just nervous or insecure, so I figured that a date wouldn't do anyone any harm.

Well, it did me some harm.  I picked her up at her place.  Twice on the way over, she pointed out places where she and her exes had "gotten it on."

"That alleyway," she pointed, and then, "Inside that store after closing."

Okay.  Thanks for the information.  At the restaurant, she started laughing and said, "I've been here before.  Mark took me here after a three-day fuckathon at my place.  Wow..."

Okay.  That's great.  Hungry.

I ordered a chicken sandwich.  She reminded me, "You know that I'm a vegetarian, right?"

I nodded.  She went on, "Because the last time I made out with a guy who had chicken before kissing me, I almost puked all over the place."

Okay.  I asked her, "What else do you like to do for fun?  Aside from messing around with guys?"

She laughed and said, "Messing around with guys isn't everything that I do.  It's actually been a while for me... I haven't messed around with anyone for almost a week."

"You sound very accomplished," I said.

She said, "I haven't had many long-term relationships, though.  I have trouble in them.  I cheat."

I mentally crossed her off of my short, short list.  "Oh."

She cut in, "But I'm trying to get better!  I made it last time almost three... almost three."

"Three years?"

She shook her head.

"Three months?"

I frowned.  "Three minutes?"

She laughed.  "Three days!  I'm not that bad!"

Certainly not.  I never minded a random hookup, but listening to this woman's exploits were seriously turning me off.

As if reading my mind, she said, "I don't think I'd make out with you, though.  No offense.  You remind me too much of my brother.  Shame for you..."

I didn't think so.  It was hard to even pretend to be interested in her for the rest of the date, as I had already written her off.  I dropped her back off at her place, we hugged goodnight, and that was the last time that I saw her.

Submitted by Jennifer:

I didn't have much hope for online dating, but Paul came along and blew most of my expectations out of the water.

Admittedly, this wasn't a huge accomplishment, but I was still pretty pumped about meeting him. He seemed smart, relaxed, carefree, and was a good conversationalist. He went on a little much about his past relationships, but I figured that everyone has baggage and I shoudnt be too quick to judge.

We met up at an Italian restaurant. He didn't seem happy to see me at all. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that it was nothing. Clearly, though, something was bothering him. He didn't smile, and had hardly the level of enthusiasm that he displayed online and over the phone.

I would guess that it had something to do with me (even though he assured me that it didn't) and I wasn't sure what the problem would be. My online photos were up-to-date and accurate. I had nothing to go on but his words, whch said that nothing was wrong. I decided to help him try to forget about whatever was bothering him.

He was barely communicative during dinner to the point of basically ignoring my questions. I didn't give up on trying to make conversation, but it was unbelievably difficult.

Finally, I asked him if he wanted to end the date early.  He then said that he had several interview questions for me, and that we'd better get started.

I asked him what he meant by "interview questions," and he said that they were all really personal but that they were required for anyone who wanted to date him.  I told him that I didn't feel like answering such questions.

He then slowly dipped his hand into his spaghetti and tomato sauce and clenched the food into his fist.  I didn't say anything, and he made a weird sort of frown and wrung his hand out.  I couldn't wait for this date to end.

Submitted by Kevin:

Patty showed up to our date a lot heavier than her online profile made her look... and about five years older.  I didn't want to be a jerk, so I went along with it, although these unexpected developments made my tolerance thin, early on.

She tried to be as friendly as possible, and I figured that it wouldn't necessarily be such a bad thing if I made a new friend out of the deal.  I could always tell her afterward that I didn't feel attraction in that way.  After all, she had "fudged" some of her vital stats, so this didn't seem like such a bad idea.

The prospect of following through with this plan was solidified when, in the middle of a conversation about grade schools, she grabbed a few straws, attached them to make a long straw, put one end into her water, lifted her shirt to bear her gut, and slid the other end between some fat folds to make it look like her stomach was drinking through a large mouth.  She made a slurping sound.

When she saw my expression, which was a mix of wonder, confusion, and nausea, she shrugged and said, "Take it or leave it.  I'm proud of who I am."

Not long after this statement, she pulled down a little too hard on the straw and her water cup toppled, sending it all over her lap.

It was really funny, and although I had no desire at all to date this girl or ever see that much of her skin ever, ever again, she seemed fun enough to keep around as a friend, which is what I did.  According to her, such antics have netted her guys in the past.  Whatever, though.  She's cool.


******************************
Do I have the guy for her.

Submitted by Tina:

My date with Frank was crazy from start to finish.  He met me at a statue in the middle of town, which was on a traffic island.  Not exactly the most logical place to meet up, but he insisted on it.

When I arrived there, he lifted his shirt to show me that he was wearing a full-length bullwhip as a belt.  "I'll use it if you misbehave," he told me.

I informed him, "I never plan to misbehave around you."

He replied, "Sounds like you're already misbehaving."

I suggested that we go to lunch, and he stepped off the island, almost right into a passing car.  It honked and sped by.  Frank gave the car the finger.  The car stopped.  Frank ran, and I ran after him.

We had made it down a few blocks when we passed a nice cafe.  I suggested that we go inside and he agreed.  A shellacked sausage hung from behind the counter, and when it was our turn to order, Frank pointed to it and said to the cashier, "I want that!"

She glanced at it and said, "Sir, it's not for sale."

Frank said, "I'll have a muffin then."  He pointed to me.  "She'd also like a muffin."

I interrupted, "Actually, I'd like egg on an English muffin."

He wrinkled his nose and whispered, "Egg?  Gross.  Forget about making out with me.  Eggs are chicken vomit."

I didn't reply, but he looked at me as if he expected me to.  He then leaned in as if to whisper something else, but belched right in my face.

"Ugh!" I yelled, right there, in front of the cashier and the few people in line, "Goodbye!"

I stormed out, but he followed me.  He asked, "What's your problem?"

I spun around and asked him if he was drunk or high or both.  He laughed and told me that he wished that he was any of those things.  He then said, "Stop acting all crazy and let's have dinner."

It was the middle of the day, but the fact that he was telling me to stop "acting all crazy" was enough to write this guy off.  I walked away, and this time, he didn't follow me.

Submitted by Ross:

Trina showed up late and with all sorts of black stuff all over the right side of her face.  It looked like a speckled pattern of little pebbles.  I asked her if her face was okay.

She replied, "My friend crazy glued some tree bark to my face.  I spent most of the morning and afternoon soaking it and scraping it off."

"Why would your friend do that?"

She said, "Because he's an idiot.  He does stuff like this all the time."

How curious.  I asked her, "Were you awake during this?"

She replied, "Yes.  No.  I don't know."

I said, "Wow."

She said, "Tree bark!"

I stared at her, said "Wow," again, and then had a very strange dinner in which most of it was spent watching her picking at the tree bark on her face.

After dinner was over, we said our goodnights, I wished her luck with the bark, and that was the end of it all.

Submitted by Erik:

Melissa surprised me as a very dynamic and interesting person on a dating site where most people's profiles read like they were written by 4-year-olds.  I asked her out to a coffee place.

She showed up looking great, but one thing I noticed was that her shoes were mismatched.  One was a black sandal, the other was a battered, white lace-up model.  I took it to be a quirk, smiled to myself about it, and left it at that.

We were having a fun, playful talk when I decided to bring it up.  All of a sudden, she got really quiet.  She told me that the white shoe belonged to her grandfather, who had recently died.  Then, she started crying.

I took her hand and asked her if I could get her anything.

She regained composure after a few minutes.  I apologized for bringing it up, and she snapped, "Well don't bring it up again!" a bit louder and more emphatically than I think she meant to.

The bubbling, happy person she had been, for the rest of the date, went quiet.  Not really quiet... more... muttery...

"Fucking mention my fucking grandfather you fucking piece of shit..."

I hoped to have misheard her.  "What?"

She said, "What gave you the right to bring up my grandfather?"

I said, "I didn't.  I brought up your shoes."

She wrung her hands.  "Stop talking about it!"

I said, "Fine!"

The rest of the date was extremely awkward, but thankfully its end wasn't very long in coming.

Submitted by Eva:

I teach at a ballet company, and noticed over the course of a semester that this one guy kept showing up late in rehearsals and sitting in the back row of the auditorium. I didn't think much of it, and took him to be the relative or boyfriend of one of the girls in my class. He looked about fifteen or so.

One day, after a few weeks of this, he approached me after class, once my students had left. He introduced himself as Rory, said that he loved ballet, and especially watching me dance. He asked me out, and, flattered, I agreed.

He took me out to a nice restaurant that looked out on the ocean. He was pretty quiet, so I tried to pull him out of his shell.

He was actually eleven years younger than I was, but that didn't really bother me. We were both over 20, and he seemed mature and polite enough. Still, there was something strange about the way he would look at me. I had never really seen him up close prior to that, and something about his gaze made me feel like he was imagining me without skin.

As we were finishing our meals, we got on the subject of family, and he started asking me some weird questions: "Have you ever been to Indiana?" "You strike me as someone with a very scientific mind... have you worked in the sciences?" "I wonder what it would be like to be the child of a doctor...?" "Have you done a lot of modeling?"

Maybe I was already on edge, but the fact that my sister goes to Notre Dame, I used to work in my university's chemistry department, my mother is a doctor, and I had, in fact, modeled... it seemed like he knew a bit too much about me.

Trying to make light of the rapidly discomforting situation, I smiled and asked, "You've been reading up on me?"

"Oh, yes. For months."

That long overdue cold shiver rippled down my back.  I said, "You're kidding, right?"

He shook his head.  "I even know the hospital where you were born."

I brought the date to an early close.  He only called me once afterward, and of course I didn't call him back.  He also stopped coming to my ballet classes, and I haven't seen him since then.  The only thing I can think of is that I might have come across as uncomfortable or intimidating and he didn't like it.  Either way, hopefully, I'll never hear from that creepster again.

Submitted by Josh:

Submitted by Laura:

Jake was a photographer I had crossed paths with a few times while working at an ad agency.  He was good at what he did, and showed me his portfolio, which was impressive.  From the topic of photography, we moved on to discussing each other, and professional involvement led to personal interest.

We would call each other back and forth for a few weeks, and he asked me out on a date.

At dinner, I couldn't help but notice that he had lugged a large amount of photography equipment with him.  I asked him if he had just come from a shoot.

"No," he informed me, "I was hoping to take your picture.  After dinner."

It was a little off-putting, but I told him that as long as it remained clean, I wouldn't mind, as long as he'd provide me with copies of any photos that he took.  He agreed, and the rest of dinner went mostly well.

We took a walk at sundown in a park by the Hudson River.  He set up his equipment and went to work.  He told me to "act natural," but also gave me a few tips here and there: "Tilt your head up," "Smile," "Look this way," etc.

It was pretty fun for a little bit, but soon I became tired.  We had been at it for almost an hour, and the sun was well set by then.  I asked him if we could do something else, or if he wanted to head out, seeing as wherever we went, he'd have to carry all of his equipment.

I'm not sure what went wrong, but he must have completely misunderstood something that I said.  All of a sudden, he came up close to me and began talking really fast and really low:

"I'd love to take pictures of you with your clothes off.  I mean, not right here, but if could go back to your place and you could just take off your clothes, I'd give you any photos I took and I'd pay you however you wanted to be paid, although I excel at physical payments, if you catch my drift.  If you catch my drift.  Do you catch my drift?  All it would be would be five minutes, that's all."

I stepped away and told him, "I don't think so."

He looked down and said, "It would only be five minutes.  Just five minutes.  Just five minutes," as if how much time it would take was the only thing I objected to.

I stepped away again and said, "Listen, I had a nice time.  Let's just... I'll maybe see you around?"

I walked off, and after me, he called, "Just five minutes!  Just five minutes!  Fuck!"

Five minutes later, I was on the subway and as far as possible from him.


******************************
And what happened after?

Submitted by Eli:

Ellen was a morning nurse at an elderly care home.  Thinking this awesome, I asked her out.  We had a light dinner during which she spent most of the time talking about herself and asking me absolutely nothing.

After our early dinner is when things got weird.  We sat down on a bench in a park, and she whispered, "Can I tell you a secret?"

Secrets are great.  I like secrets.  "Sure," I said.

"I like being tickled."

That's cool.  Everyone's different.  Some more than others.  Then, she followed up with, "Do you want to tickle me?"

I looked around in the fading afternoon light at all of the children, parents, joggers, and walkers around us.  It didn't seem like the proper time or place.  Still, she seemed like a girl who wanted to get it on.

"Maybe we could go back to... my place or your place?" I suggested.

She didn't like that idea.  "Too early.  Would you just tickle me right now?  A little?"

Again, I looked around.  I poked at her middle.

"YAAAAAAGH!" she squealed, loud enough to turn every head in town.  She jumped away and looked at me wide-eyed.

She demanded, "What the hell are you doing!?"

I must have been as pale as anything.  I stammered, "I-I... you wanted me to... er... tickle you, correct?"

She leaned in and said, "Not there!  That's my most sensitive spot!  Try somewhere else."

"Do I have to?"

She nodded vigorously.  I tried to wiggle my fingers under her armpit.  She had it clamped down tight.  I kept trying.  She kept squirming.  Finally, I jammed my fingers under her arm and she yelped so loudly that I thought she had died.

I took my hand away and she laughed and wrapped her arms around my neck.  "That was great," she said, "Thank you."

Yeah she was weird, but the date itself was just not-crazy enough for me to ask her out again.  She never returned my calls, though, so I figure she found some feather or something.


*****************************
Awwwwwww...

Submitted by Alison:

I worked retail for years and stupidly got involved with a coworker. It became even more awkward when I was promoted above him. I became so much busier, and it cut into the time we would've otherwise spent trysting in the back room. He assured me that he understood, but I wasn't so sure.

One day, a customer came with a return. He had tried to initiate the return himself, rather than call for a manager, which was the rule.

Something ended up going wrong and the register started beeping like crazy. I went over to investigate and found what he had been doing. I told him to call me over next time, before starting a return himself.

He then slapped my rear right in front of the customer!

After I had finished the return, I took him into the back room to talk, very calmly, about how things had to be a little bit different now that we were at different professional levels.  He said that he understood, and excused himself to go to the bathroom before coming out onto the sales floor.  All good, I thought.

When he didn't come out for a while, I called him via the intercom to the back room.  No answer.  I sent another employee to go check on him.  The employee called me from the back room, "You'd better come back and see this."

When I went into the back, there were piles of merchandise scattered all over the room.  If a hurricane had whipped through, it couldn't have done greater damage.  Everything was miscategorized, spilled, or otherwise out of place.  It likely took ten minutes to accomplish, but it would easily take two weeks to undo.

On the whiteboard by the schedule, the words, "I quit," were written in permanent ink.

Lucky for him, I never saw him again.

Submitted by Maureen:

Clark asked me out to a dance night at a local dive bar. He came across as a fun and daring kind of guy. He told me that he sometimes did stunt driving work in TV commercials, and even sent me some videos of his work.

The first thing I noticed upon meeting in person was his dandruff. There was more of that than his actual hair, I think. It wasn't the little, pinprick flakes, either. These were crumbs.

Well, gross, but maybe he was trying a new shampoo and it wasn't working for him. It was okay. Once we started dancing, I focused of having fun.

We sat down after a few and he ordered us drinks. Some of his head crumbs fell into his martini. Do I say something? Do I not? Before I had decided, he drank a swig of it down. Yummy.

He sneezed at one point, sending head crumbs everywhere. One got in my eye, but I was able to remove it without fanfare. He asked me to dance again, and we did.

The bar turned it's lights off and out came the black lights, which, you probably know, cause anything white to glow a bright purple. His hair lit up like a planetarium projector. Whenever he moved, crumbs flew off everywhere.

I sat myself down to gather my wits. He was very nice to me for the rest of the evening, but I just couldn't get past the flaky invasion.

As it turned out, we stayed friends, and his dandruff has since improved dramatically.

Submitted by David:

Pauline was a strange one.  During our date, I couldn't tell if she was picking fights with me or just poking fun.  Almost everything I said, she found a way to make me a bad guy:

I said, "I worked at that job for three years, and I don't miss it."

She'd reply, "Ouch.  You could be a bit nicer."

I said, "I'm estranged from my father."

She'd reply, "You probably blew something he did way out of proportion."

I said, "I like sports."

She'd roll her eyes and say, "Great.  You're one of those."

I wasn't sure why she stayed with me on the date, since I was obviously such a hateful, spiteful, nasty person who liked sports.  We got onto the topic of how she came into money recently and was able to take a lot of time off.

"How did you do that?" I asked her.

She answered, "I was in a car accident.  Other person's fault.  I took them for almost everything they were worth."

I asked, "Were you badly injured?"

"Not at all.  But they don't need to know that."

I was incredulous.  "So you committed insurance fraud."

She rolled her eyes and said, "Don't be so dramatic.  They crashed into me, remember?  It was their fault."

The "evil bitch" siren cut through the fogginess inside my brain.  My plan was to have a civil end to the evening.

She wanted to go to an ice cream place not far from the restaurant, and we agreed to take my car.  As I was driving over there, she must have grabbed (or tried to grab) my steering wheel three times, to try and get me to avoid "other cars," "potholes," or "pedestrians," none of which were actually there.

"Don't grab my wheel!" I finally yelled at her.

"There's that temper!  Come on!  Yell at me again!  Feels good, doesn't it?"

I turned around that moment, drove her back to her car, and kicked her out of mine.  I'm not 12 anymore, and the time for playing stupid games is past.

My guess is that she's married now.


*******************************************
Was she British?

Submitted by Roger:

Miranda had a great idea for our first date: an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.  She showed up about fifty pounds heavier than her online profile picture, and was sure to pile every kind of meat onto her plate to create a culinary facsimile of Mt. Everest.

Fork and knife?  Not for Miranda!  It was as if she had her hands tied behind her back and she dove into the pile like she was a-bobbin' for apples – meaty, greasy apples.  There was no one else in there yet, as it had just opened for dinner.

She must have caught my expression, because she thankfully explained herself moments later: "I'm totally fucking wasted right now.  I had the day off!"

She laughed, and chicken parts came out of her mouth.  Ah, Miranda.

After dinner, she was all over me.  I was ready to head on out, but she wasn't.  She sidled up to me and asked me if I wanted to have some fun with her in my/her car right there in the parking lot.

Seeing as how I'd have rather had sex with a cod, I informed her that I couldn't really take advantage of someone who was drunk.

She informed me that she wasn't drunk.  She was just, "Horny and confused and happy." It was adorable, but not altogether alluring.

In insisted on driving her home.  She had no business driving to the strip mall in the first place.  I put her to bed on her couch and though she tried to kiss me, I was faster than she was, which was easy, since she had ingested her body weight and then some of Chinese buffet foods.

Her car ended up getting towed from the parking lot, because she had forgotten where it was.  I heard about it through a friend, though.  I wasn't planning to see her again.

Submitted By Nicole:

Larry and I had been talking over a dating website for several weeks.  He seemed like a well-rounded guy who had his life together and someone I’d want to get to know better.  If anything, a friendship could develop, and who knew? Perhaps more, if the chemistry was right.

We agreed to meet at a farmers' market at a local park for a short meet and greet.

We met each other (he looked just like his pic – so far so good), grabbed a coffee, and proceeded to a bench where we could talk and get to know each other better.

Out of the blue, he brought up the subject of not being able to drive because of a DUI and rambled on about how DUIs are so overrated and that such a strict law should be eliminated - probably because his count stood at three.

If this wasn’t enough to make the law-abiding citizen in me uncomfortable, he continued with his story of how this was not his first run in with the law and how he was under HOUSE ARREST.  In case I didn’t believe it, he lifted his pant leg to show off his fancy ankle bracelet – let me tell you, it was QUITE impressive.  Hmmm… alarm bells were sounding in my head.

Throughout this entire exchange, he would continually move closer to me, all the while poking and prodding me as if I were a science experiment… or a tasty treat he was about to consume. He'd constantly reach out and have to press his fingertip to every one of my beauty marks in his vision. A little personal space if you don’t mind!

My continual requests for him to stop touching me fell on deaf ears. He even went so far as to grab at my hands and ask if he could "pop off" my acrylic nails.  Can you say "skeevies"?

As I sat there pondering my exit strategy, he complimented me on my sandals.  Not content to just voice the compliment, he suddenly grabbed my sandal, foot, and all, and continued with the compliments.  Errrm... just a bit CREEPY?

I pulled away from him and again asked that he stop touching me and told him that, no offense, but I didn't like a virtual stranger being so touchy with me.  Not heeding of my complaints, he put his hands on my neck, began massaging me and told me I needed to loosen up.

At that point, I informed him that if he didn’t keep his hands to himself, I would let loose and get touchy with him – and NOT in a good way.

Only 20 minutes had passed since we met up in the park.  This was nowhere close to turning out the way I had hoped.

As we sat there, my phone was hanging out of my pocket.  He saw it and grabbed it and despite my incredulous protests he refused to give it back.

When I asked him what he thought he was doing, he replied, “Trying to unlock your phone.  I want to see your naked photos.”

Excuse me?  Sorry, I don’t do naked photos.  Never have, never will.  And if by the remotest chance I did, I’d never in a bajillion years leave them on my phone.

After wrestling my phone from him and still sitting on the bench next to each other, he commented on how good I smelled.  I scooted away from him a bit, thinking, “Okay, he is trying to be complimentary.”  He next asked me quite directly, “Can I smell you?”

“Errm…no.  Just no.”  Ignoring my denial, he leaned into my personal space and proceeded to take a HUGE sniff. Ugh. Really?  This couldn't be real.  I MUST have been on some sort of reality dating show where your friends set you up on the worst possible date.  Right?  Right?  Unfortunately, no, this was the real deal.

By that point, I had had enough but I was trying to be polite and civil, while seriously wondering how fast I could run in sandals and if I could make it past the perimeter range of his ankle bracelet before he caught up to me and starting cutting me into pieces.

I told him that I had to get going and he offered to walk me to my car.  I thanked him but declined.  He persisted and managed to spoil even that bit of seemingly normal-ness he had shown by stating, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything to you.”

Wowzer. Now I definitely had warm fuzzies.  I managed to say goodbye and walked away without looking back, thinking, “Let’s just chalk this one up to experience.”

You would think this was the end of it.  I had been polite, but I hadn’t played all girly and coy, sending him confusing signals or anything of the sort.  There had been no chemistry, just a whole lot of total weirdness that I didn’t want to get involved with.

Once I got home, I found that he was trying to Facebook friend me.  It was odd because the request was from a different name than what I knew his to be.  When I asked about it he told me that "Larry" was his "industry" name.

I sent him a polite email stating that I wasn't interested in him in that way but I appreciated him taking the time to meet with me.  He then offered to send me his naked photos – as if that would be the clincher to change my mind and close the deal.  I politely declined and wished him good luck.

My worry was that if I didn’t make a “clean break” he would be angry at the rejection and try to hunt me down.   From our conversations that day, he seemed to be the sort who didn’t take rejection very well.  He replied to my e-mail saying, “Fair enough, I’m too much for you, I’m too wild, I understand.”

No response from me.

A second email 10 minutes later, “Seriously, wtf…I’m PHENOMENAL, most women would love to be with me.”

Again, I did not respond.

Another 10 minutes minutes passed, and yet another email was received:  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you…” blah, blah, blah and signed the email “disturbed but tolerant."

Disturbed was right. Thankfully I haven’t heard from him since.


*************************************
Good thing he didn't try to kill you.  You might have stuck around with him all week.

Submitted by Moira:

Charles and I had great chemistry online and met up.  We had dinner at a nice cafe and he had the idea to hit up a playground afterward.

It was nighttime and no one was around.  We went down the slide, climbed up a climbing wall, and had a generally good time.  Then came the tire swing.

I sat on it first and he spun me around and around so fast that I thought I'd be sick... but it was a hell of a lot of fun.

When it was his turn, I was determined to spin him even faster than he had spun me.  We were laughing and spinning and having a great time...

...and the swing's rope broke, taking him down to the ground.  He smashed his head and there was an unfortunate cracking noise.  He was motionless.

"Charles?" I asked, deathly afraid, "Are you okay?"

He moaned a bit, then his eyes fluttered open.  I helped him up and he was able to walk, but staggeringly.  I insisted on bringing him to a hospital.

They saw him in a hurry.  Turns out he had a minor concussion.  Nothing more, thank goodness.  He kept apologizing the whole time, and so did I.

When he asked me out again, we were able to laugh about it, and although we didn't go past three dates, the scare I had on that first one definitely qualified it as one of the most unfortunate dates I'd ever had.

Submitted by Reggie:

Isabelle was a girl I had the hots for at work.  Yes, hot work girls are taboo, but you've never met Isabelle.  You'd break quite a few taboos if ever you met her.  She had a boyfriend, but that didn't stop her from flirting with most of the guys in the office.  Except for Bill from operations.  No one flirted with him.

Turns out I was at work late one day, and I heard someone shuffling around.  I looked over my cubicle, and saw Isabelle, pushing a cart between rows of cubicles on the other side of the floor.  I didn't think that she saw me, and despite how dick-hardeningly hot she was, I kept my distance.  Work romance was taboo.  Yes, I'm contradicting what I said above, but I had a feeling that she was trouble.  Bad trouble.

So I was working at my desk when she approached from behind and put her hands over my eyes.  "Guess who?" she asked.

"Bill from operations?" I guessed.

Wrong!  It was Isabelle!  Oh, Isabelle, you joker.

"Working late?" she asked.

I replied, "Sure am!"

Then she did this weird thing with her lips, like puckering them, blowing air in and out of them really fast, and then sucking on her lower lip.  All right.

"You married?" she asked.

"Don't think so."

"Let's have a speed date.  Want to watch me masturbate in the women's room?"

I laughed and said, "It sounded like you just asked me if I wanted to... uh... heh.  Ah..."

"Yes or no?"

------------------------------

Next day, I was called into my boss's office.  "Sit down, Reggie," she said.  I sat.  She went on, "Security saw you going into the women's room after hours yesterday with Isabelle."

I nodded.  "The toilet was backed up.  No one was around, and I wanted to help.  I'm sorry if I wasn't supposed to."

My boss's expression softened and she said, "Oh.  Well, don't worry about it, then."

"Done."

I returned to my desk.  Isabelle came up to me five minutes later.  She said, "My boyfriend wants to kick your ass."

"Why?" I asked, "Did you tell him about last night?"

She nodded.

"Oh.  Why?"

She said, "He's my boyfriend."

I asked her, "So, you want to be honest with a boyfriend while going behind his back to touch yourself in front of other guys?"

She said, "I lost you somewhere."

I opened my mouth for a reply, but she interrupted, "Busy tonight?"

"Yes."

"Oh," she said, and left me alone.


***********************************
There are, in fact, even weirder places to get your freak on.

Submitted by Cary:

I messaged Anna on a dating site.  She lived about 50 miles away, but her profile described a nearly perfect woman for me.  I understand that people oftentimes post profiles that aren't true reflections of themselves, but she hit so many nails on the head, that if even some of them were accurate, then I imagined that we could have really had something special.

Our messages went back and forth for a while and were overwhelmingly positive.  After a few weeks, I asked her if she'd want to meet up.  She said that she would.  Great.  Where should we meet?

"I'll come to you!" she said.  Stupendous.

Then, two days before, she let me know that she couldn't come out to me.  "I don't have a car," she explained, "And I won't take the train."

"Why not?"

"A train hit my uncle when I was a little girl."

"Okay.  I can probably make it out to you, but when you said at first that you'd come out to me, how were you planning to do it, if you don't have a car and won't take the train?"

"I don't know."

"Okay."

The day that I was going to drive out to see her, I called her to let her know that I was on my way.  Voicemail.

I made it out to the coffee place where we were supposed to have been meeting, and she was a no show.  I called her phone.  Voicemail.

I waited for fifteen minutes when she called me.  Where was she?  She had gotten a ride from a friend to... you guessed it!  My town... fifty miles away.

"Miscommunication" is what she called it, but I had been crystal clear when discussing the logistics of the day.  Why would there be any kind of miscommunication?  Why would I have assumed hat she could have made it out to see me after she had made it so clear that she couldn't?

I was really tired of her by this point, and I strongly suggested shelving the entire plan.  She pleaded with me not to, and said that she could wait around my town for a bit.  I told her it would probably take me about an hour to make it back there.  She said that that would be too long, then asked me if I'd wait for her at the coffee place.  No way.  Goodbye.


******************************
Even trains can be lucky.

Submitted by Gina:

Max took me to a lounge, with the expectation that we were going to a concert shortly thereafter.  Max was younger than I was, but he gave off the impression of being mature and self-made.  He was in law school, and preparing for the bar.

We had a drink, and he threw out this gem: "So I have to be honest with you here... you were my backup plan for tonight."

I asked him, "What do you mean?"

He said, "I was going to be baking chocolate chip cookies with this other girl, but she canceled on me."

I wasn't sure if "baking cookies" was a euphemism for something, but he ordered another drink for himself, downed it in a hurry, and asked, "Ready to go?"

My opinion of him was significantly lowered, but I wasn't ready to write him off just yet.  We climbed into his car and drove to, I assumed, the concert.

It ended up being a small bistro on the other side of town.  He climbed out of the car and asked me to follow him.  I said, "This isn't the concert."

He said, "I know.  We'll get there.  Just follow me, please."

I followed him to a little patio where a couple was out to dinner.  He said, to the girl, "Good thing you canceled.  Look at what I'm out with!"  He pointed at me.

It was probably the most humiliating moment of my life.  I looked at him, and in a flash, I knew exactly what to say:

"Max, you're my cousin!"  I turned to the girl and said, "Don't worry about him.  He's always been like this."

He turned to me.  "What the hell are you talking about?  We're not related!"

I smirked.  "Drop the act, Max.  I'm not in the mood tonight."

"Fuck you, and fuck this," he said, storming off.

I took a cab home, but it was worth every penny.


********************************
Guess he never saw this.

Submitted by Lana:

Alvin and I started talking online, and it progressed to the point of a date.  At some point beforehand, I had told him that I love baking, and he asked me, "Will you bake something for me?"

I thought he was asking if I would bake something for him sometime, and I promised him that I would.

That weekend, we met inside of a local mall, and he asked, "So what'd you bake me? Is it back at your car?"

I told him that I didn't have anything, that I must have misunderstood.

He said, "What was there to misunderstand? You said that you were baking me something."

I told him, "I thought you meant that you wanted me to bake you something sometime."

He rolled his eyes and said, "Way to cover for forgetting.  Never mind.  A very convenient misunderstanding."

"Not really, since we're fighting about it now."

"Okay, just calm down."

What was he talking about?  I was perfectly calm.  He was the one getting agitated, all over a misunderstanding that anyone else would've laughed off.

I informed him, "I am calm."

He said, "Whoa... psycho girl.  Bye, then," and left me standing there.  Of course I'm better off, but if he could become that bitter over a misunderstanding involving baked goods, then I fear for whoever he ends up with.


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This is why he was upset.

Submitted by Jacob:

Brooke had it all – a former high school cheerleader who had actually written papers on political science that ended up published in academic journals.  Brains and everything below were in good order.

Which is why I was amazed that she'd go out on a date with a dumbass like me.  I co-own a small computer networking/repair business, and she called me up one day with a network issue.  A friend of a friend of hers had used my services a year or two earlier, and my name came up when discussing how to solve the problem.

I went over the her place and fixed it up in less than an hour.  She invited me to stay for tea, and somehow or other, I don't know what happened, but the spirit of some major player must have possessed me... I was never as smooth as I was at that moment.  I had every witty line, every great comeback, and the most insightful things to say.  I kept her laughing and the way that she looked at me started to change subtly over the course of our talk.

I took a leap of faith and asked her out to dinner.  She went for it.  Hot damn!

The ensuing week, I was nervous as hell.  Did she think that I was that suave 24/7?  No!  I'm a computer geek who has a World of Warcraft account, although (I promise) that I still have a personality.  I don't know what came over me.  The mojo just flowed.  But would it flow twice?

Dinner at a Thai place Saturday night.  She showed up looking absolutely stunning, in a red dress and a smile.  I felt the urge to cry, to urinate, and to scream all at once, I was so nervous.

Was she in for a repeat of my debonair performance?  Hardly.  I stuttered, stammered, almost spilled the water, tried as hard as I could to suppress a yawn, failed at suppressing a yawn, noticed her noticing my yawn, sweated, couldn't think of anything to say, and

She asked me if everything was all right.  I thought, the suave me would say, "I'm fine.  All's good," but the honest me would say, "No."

"No," I said, "I've been nervous all night.  I wanted to impress you, but... well..."

She leaned in and kissed me.  All of the tension, the fear, the doubt... it washed into my chest and twisted things into each other.  I was swimming in warmth.  It felt amazing, like a warm, wonderful bath.  I... I...

I farted.

I couldn't help myself... all of that nervous energy that I had let go... I started laughing.  So did she.

We're married now.


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Congratulations.

Submitted by Erron:

Ben was this adorable surfer I had been hanging out with.  Mostly with a big group of friends, but we managed to sneak off and make out and give each other massages every now and again.  Sigh.

Cut to our first actual date.  Since neither of us had a car, we hopped a muni train to grab some food and then we were headed to a friend’s party.  The train was surprisingly full for that time of night and we ended up sitting across from a Chinese woman holding a small baby.  I’ll never forget the outfit she had on – a puffy 80’s silk jacket with a primary colored abstract pattern and these screaming pink floral stirrup pants.  And this was in 1995, people.  But I digress.

Ben and I were all snuggled up together, chatting and giggling about a prank we had pulled on one of his roommates, when I looked over, just as this woman placed her mouth over the baby’s nose and sucked out the snot out of it.

Dis  Gus. Ting.

I can’t tell you what she did with it after that, because I immediately gagged, doubled over and threw up.

Ben, stunned, pointed at his shoe.  “You threw up on my shoe!”   He hadn’t witnessed the horror that I had, only my reaction.  I held one hand over my mouth and vigorously pointed the other at the woman.

Again, but at least laughing this time he exclaimed, “You just threw up on my shoe!”  I continued to gag with my hand over my mouth as he sat there shaking his head at me for two more stops.

We decided to skip dinner and went for beers instead.  I was terribly embarrassed (the beers helped ease my shame), but Ben was a champ about it.  He just laughed at me and told everyone at the party about it, so I'm pretty sure he wasn't too traumatized.  That, and he asked me out again.


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Ew.

Submitted by Morgan:

When I was in college, I met Alexandra at the campus swimming pool. We bumped into each other on a semi-regular basis and had a really great rapport. She was from the Midwest and was trying to make friends. I was from a big city and was also into meeting new people and seeing where things went.

After some time of talking poolside in bathing suits, I asked her if she wanted to go out for dinner sometime. She said yes, and I felt like a million bucks. It's amazing how something like that can make your month.

I arranged to meet her outside of the house she subletted with some of her friends. I called to let her know that I was on my way, and her phone rang and went to voicemail. No biggie. I made it to her house and knocked on the door.

The lights were on within, and there was definitely some movement, but no one came down for about five minutes. Odd, but easily forgettable.

The door opened and one of her roommates opened it, a large girl with the biggest chest I'd ever seen. Holy God.

"Ready to go?" she asked me.

I responded, "Er... with Alexandra, yes. She here?"

"I am Alexandra."

I smiled, positive that Alexandra was playing some sort of trick on me. I had never seen this roommate of hers before. She was taller, larger in the chest region, and had much smaller eyes than the Alexandra I knew, and I had seen the girl in a bathing suit.

Sure that it was a game, I put my hand out to introduce myself. "Hi, I'm Morgan."

She shook my hand. "Alexandra. Ready to go?"

"You're not Alexandra. Where is she?"

"Yes I am. I'm from Missouri, my father's a doctor, my mother's a paralegal. I have two brothers. I am Alexandra."

Okay... weird. But I was equal to it. I asked, "What was the name of your first pet? We talked about it at the pool last week."

She shook her head and said, "I'm not playing this game. Are we going out or not?"

"I'm not playing a game. Where's Alexandra?"

"Okay," she said, and closed the door in my face. I tried Alexandra's number again, and it went right to voicemail.

When I saw her from the pool from then on, which was rare, she completely ignored me.

Submitted by Melissa:

Fred was an excitable, curly-haired guy from the Internet who asked me out on a date to a Japanese place.  Nothing seemed to bring Fred down.  We traded stories about past relationships.  Mine seemed particularly ugly when compared to his, and he seemed to have had comparatively fewer romantic partners, but no big deal.  Maybe he was just picky.

When he picked me up, we gave each other a hug and he passed me a white box.  Inside was a blue kimono.

Unexpected and extremely generous, I thought.  "Thank you..." I said, truly touched.

He said, "It's not for you to keep.  It's to wear out tonight.  To dinner."

I told him, "I... hmm... I'm not sure if I should wear a kimono out to a Japanese place in a strip mall..."

"Of course you should," he said, very sure of himself.

I replied, "I've been to this place before.  They don't really stand on ceremony, and I wouldn't want them to be insulted... I don't know..."

He said, "What's the big problem?  I want you to wear it.  You won't do this for me?"

Something in his tone said, "Danger!  Danger!  Red alert!" and I carefully folded the kimono back into the box.

Choosing my next words carefully, I asked, "Maybe we could do something else?  I'm just not too comfortable with this idea."

He grabbed the box away, muttered, "Should've known," and took off, just like that.


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Missed out.  You could have looked like this.

Submitted by Liz:

I got married young (19).  My husband and I were nine days apart in age, and last year for our 21st birthdays, we decided to go to Vegas with my husband's best friend (Jim) and his girlfriend (Kristen).

Submitted by Carl:

Joan was the kind of easy going, free-spirited college girl I had a soft spot the size of Texas for. I played in an acoustic coffeehouse band, and she would often listen to us practice outside the dorms. It didn't take long to notice her attention was primarily focused on me, and having spoken a few times with her, we eventually arranged an official first date.

On the way to her dorm room to pick her up, I passed a really pissed off looking dude who was staring me down with all six and a half feet of his frame. Being the happy-go-lucky guy I was at the time, I shot him a reassuring, "Things can only get better, buddy."

His response was to get noticeably more irate and red in the face. Fuming would perfectly describe his mood at that moment. 

Knocking on Joan's door, it sounded like she was undoing half a dozen locks. With the door open, she said, "I have to finish getting ready.  Would you mind waiting on the couch?" 

About a minute later, someone pounded on the door. Violently. In what seemed like a blur, in burst the pissed off looking guy from earlier, staring at me with this crazed, maniacal look that quite honestly scared the shit out of me.

He said, "Who the fuck are you? I'm not scared of you! Who the fuck do you think you are?"

He barked these three phrases, and variations thereof, at me for what seemed like a semester-long period of time.  When I failed to answer him ("frozen with fear" would perfectly describe my mood at that moment), he moved on to physical threats.

This white guy said, "I gonna kill your white ass!  I'mma beat the shit out of you, boy!"

As it was explained to me later, this guy was Joan's stalker.  He'd learned that she'd taken a liking to me and was planning a date that night. Apparently he didn't know what I looked like, though, which may have saved my ass when I'd seen him earlier. 

Luckily for me, his behavior was well known in Joan's dorm hall, and campus security was on the scene pretty much immediately. The guy had already been caught breaking into her room a number of times (thus the numerous locks), the last time being when she awoke to him standing over her. That incident had gotten him kicked out of school, so when they found him back on campus again they reported him to the regular police who arrested him for communicating threats and trespassing. A short time later I recognized him in a local news story as the guy who was holding up rush hour traffic on the interstate by threatening to jump off a bridge. 

He didn't jump.

As for the rest of the evening... having been so shaken by the incident, Joan asked me if we could just stay in and talk since both her roommates and friends were at home for the weekend.

She proceeded to spill her guts about having had another stalker in the past. She ended up crying. Having abandoned any hope for a positive upturn in the course of the evening, I began spilling my guts about things that had affected my life, too... which lead to me sobbing. It ended up being very cathartic for the both of us, and despite it being an intense bonding experience, we never saw each other again.

I held off on dating for a while after that.


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Something going around?

Submitted by Brenda:

Robert took me out to dinner.  He was a little quiet, but seemed to have a lot of interesting experiences to share.  He had traveled around Africa and Europe, and (according to him) saved a France-based charity from going bankrupt by literally going door to door for them to ask for funds.

He was back home in the states to finish up his undergrad degree and worked part-time at a local church.  It was the oldest church in the area, and was really beautiful.  He asked me if, after dinner, I wanted to go and see it, since he had a key.  It sounded fun and kind of daring.

I don't know how many of you have been in churches at night, but I think they can sometimes be creepy in the daytime.  Seeing it at night was really freaky, but in a good way.  We walked up the aisles, around the pews, up to the altar, and up to the balcony.  Robert was coming out of his shell a little bit and was cracking jokes.  He seemed to be feeling more comfortable with me, and I with him.

He then asked me if I wanted to see the bell tower.  Ooh yes.  He led me up there and we caught the view, which was beautiful.  He excused himself for a moment and climbed down the ladder, then closed and locked the door behind him, locking me inside.

"Uh... Robert?" I called after him.

He made a fake evil laugh and said, "I'm just kidding.  Here..."

The sound of fiddling with the door.  It didn't open.  I called his name again.  "Robert?"

I heard him mutter, "Shit!  God damn it... oh fuck..."

I looked up, hoping to not be struck by lightning, then looked down and asked, "What's the problem?" even though I had a sneaking suspicion as to what it was.

He said, "I thought that this was a master key to everything.  It won't open this door."

I called down, "Well, you're going to have to find some way to open it.  I'm not staying up here all night."

Silence.  Then, "Any way you can climb onto the roof from there?  I can open a window and pull you in."

I was incredulous.  "Are you crazy?  Climb down from the steeple?"

"That's what I would do."

"What you would do is irrelevant!  You would also lock me in here!"

He groaned.  "It wasn't on purpose!"

"Just get me out!"

"Fine, but I'm not breaking this door down.  I don't want to get in trouble."

I told him, "You're already in trouble.  If you don't get this door open in five minutes, then I'm calling my parents, and you'll like that even less!"

He didn't manage to open it, so I ended up calling my father, who met Robert downstairs and managed to jimmy the door open.

As we all went downstairs together, Robert actually said, "I told her not to go in there, but she..."

I wheeled on him and yelled, "You locked me in there!  And now you're lying about it?  I never want to see you again!"  And I didn't.


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Happy Easter, one and all.