(Click here for part I)

Submitted by Robert:

I saw a girl sitting on the front steps when I made it within sight of the house.  She wasn't Barbara.  I watched her for a long time, then went up to her.

I told her who I was, that I was a friend of Barbara's, explained the situation up to me dropping Barbara off (I left out the part about me sneaking behind the house, although I guessed that she was the crying girl), and asked if everything was okay.

She introduced herself as Barbara's friend, Kerri.  Barbara and the guy I had heard, Eric, had just left, but they'd be back.  Kerri gave me the circumstances behind the evening, and here it is, best as I can remember:

My date, Barbara, had at one point seen one of our classmates, Diego (an acquaintance - we had never really spoken; a photographer and a pretty big guy), with an expensive camera.  Barbara wanted the camera.  She told Eric, and Eric (who, in Kerri's words, would, "Do anything for Barbara") stole it for her.

Diego apparently didn't know who had taken it until Kerri told him.  Diego had promised Kerri that he wouldn't tell Barbara and Eric how he had found out that they had taken it, but he confronted them in school and didn't keep that promise.  Barbara and Eric then denied having anything to do with the theft.

Now, Barbara was leveraging her friendship with Kerri to make Kerri tell Diego that she, Kerri, was wrong: that Barbara and Eric hadn't stolen it in the first place; that she, Kerri, was mistaken/had lied.  Diego was on his way over, and Barbara and Eric had left Kerri behind to deal with him.

"What do I do?" she asked me, "Barbara's my friend, but I couldn't keep quiet once I knew that she stole Diego's camera."

I offered to speak to Diego myself when he came over, but Kerri begged me not to.  She said that her friendship with Barbara was too important and that she was confused.  I explained to her that the friendship evidently wasn't too important to Barbara, to ask Kerri to lie to cover up a theft.  Kerri said nothing to this, but I sat next to her and waited for Diego.

He didn't take too long to come by.  He pulled up and walked over to us.  He was a lot friendlier than I had thought he would be.  He even shook my hand.  He asked Kerri what she wanted to see him about.  Kerri began, "It's about the camera."

She fell silent.  Diego pressed her, "What about it?  Who's got it?  I'm running out of patience, here."

I broke in, "Kerri, do the right thing."

Kerri spilled everything about Barbara and Eric.  She even offered to talk to the police.  Diego thanked her, said that he would take care of things, and he left.

I offered to make Kerri dinner.  Surprisingly, she accepted.  I suggested that we turn out all the lights so that when Barbara and Eric returned, it would seem like she either wasn't there or was asleep.  There were other college students presumably living there, so they likely wouldn't spend most of the night banging up and down the house.

Kerri asked me if I wanted to stay over, and I crashed on her couch, to make sure that she'd be okay through the night.

Barbara and Eric ended up giving the camera back to Diego a day or so later, although I heard that it had a few extra scratches from the adventure.

Kerri and I dated for a little while afterward.  When we're not in college, we don't live too close to each other, so we decided to stay friends.

Submitted by Robert:

Barbara and I met in a college class.  I asked her if she wanted to study together, one thing led to another, and we ended up going out to dinner one night.

It went well, and it felt, to me at least, as though we had good chemistry.  From what I could tell, she felt the same way.  I asked her out again for the following weekend, and she agreed.

Midway through the week, she asked me if we could reschedule to another night.  This was around finals time, and my schedule was becoming increasingly tight.  I offered to do a lunch date over a forthcoming weekday, but she couldn't make any of the potential dates that I threw out.  In the end, she said that she would be able to make the original time.

She was ten minutes late, but that wasn't a big deal.  She apologized and we sat down and had a good first five minutes.  Then she said, "I have to go to the bathroom.  I'll be right back."

I was a bit worried when she didn't come back after 20 minutes.  I asked a waitress if she would mind checking in the bathroom to make sure that everything was okay.

The waitress came back and said, "The bathroom was empty."

I pulled out my phone and called her.  It went to voicemail.  I left a message and decided to wait for a little bit, to see if she would come back.  After all, there might have been a perfectly logical explanation, right?

She came back and apologized.  "Sorry.  I was on an important phone call."

That's all she gave me.  I told her that making me wait a half-hour wasn't really cool.  I was worried, and again asked if everything was okay.

"Yes," she said, and that was it.

Maybe she had an ill friend or relative.  I could certainly forgive that, couldn't I?  And it fit the facts, as it might have been too personal to discuss.

We ordered our dinners and she put her fingers to her head.  "Excuse me, I'll be right back," she said, then stood up and left the table again.

The food arrived and still no sign of her.  I thought about starting, but then remembered that I wanted to be supportive if she was going through something tough.  The last thing she needed was for me to not be understanding.

She came back to the table with another, "Sorry."

I asked her if everything was okay, and she said, "Yes," as if I had annoyed her by asking.  She wolfed down her food without a word and asked me if I could drive her to her friend Kerri's apartment as soon as possible.

It was very hard to remain patient, and I asked her, "Was it a bad idea for us to meet up tonight?"

She said, "Probably, but..." and she rolled her eyes, like she blamed me for holding up her life.  Just to be clear, we both agreed to meet up that night, and she could've canceled at any time.

I paid for dinner, she didn't thank me, and we took off for Kerri's.  Kerri lived out of town, as it turned out, close to a half-hour away.

We pulled up to a house on a suburban street.  The porch light was on.  I asked her if she wanted me to go in with her.  She said that it wasn't any of my business and that I should wait outside until she came out.  She left the car, approached the house, and went inside.

My patience was thinning, but I couldn't shake the feeling I had that she was in some bad trouble.  I didn't want to just take off.  Then again, this had gone on for long enough, and by keeping me in the dark, she was manipulating me, whether consciously or not.

I stepped out of the car and approached the house.  I couldn't see or hear anything from the front, so I went around back.  A screen door and a lit window.  I pressed myself against the house and heard the sound of a girl crying.

It wasn't Barbara, since I heard her voice.  She repeated, "We'll go.  Don't worry.  We'll go.  I promise.  We'll go.  We'll go."  I couldn't tell if she was talking to the crying girl or on the phone.

There was nothing else but the sound of the crying girl for a long time.  Not even the sound of people moving about.

A man's voice said something that sounded like, "Should we ship her out or what?"

No response, but the crying stopped.  I made my way back to the car and called Barbara.  She picked up.  "Sorry.  It's going to be longer here than I thought.  I'll find a ride.  Can you find your way home?"

I told her that I could and that I hoped that everything was okay.

That would have been my cue to leave, but I didn't.  I parked the car down a nearby side street and doubled back to the house.

*********************
Part II posting later today.

Submitted by John:

A friend of mine was on a dating profile site and he linked me to Betsy's profile. The first thing that struck me was how well-written her profile was: no stupid abbreviations, no glaring grammatical errors. That alone was enough to keep her interesting, but the clincher was when she mentioned that she was a fan of Korean horror films. I asked my friend why he hadn't messaged her, and he pointed out a part on her profile that said, "I'm just out of a long-term relationship."

This didn't bother me, but it bothered him. Whatever, I thought, his loss, my potential gain.

I messaged Betsy and we clicked immediately. After three days, of consistent messaging, she said that she felt like she had known me for a long time. I took those words with a grain of salt, but they sure felt good to read.

I asked Betsy if she wanted to hit up a bowling alley for our first date.  She said that it had been years since she had gone bowling, and that she liked the idea.  It had been a while for me, too.

We made it there, and I swear, she behaved as if she had never gone bowling before in her life.  "What are the rules?"  "How do you hold the ball?"  "Can we put the bumpers up?"

These were all okay, as she had said that it had been a while for her.  However, once she discovered that there was a fine layer of mineral oil over the lanes (which, I believe, is typical for most bowling alleys), she became determined to test out the lane for herself. 

After she threw a ball, she started walking down the lane.  People started yelling at her, and she hesitated, turned around, and fell.  She tried to stand again, but fell once more.  She scrambled to her knees and used a bumper to pull herself back to the head of the lane.

A girl who worked at the alley came over to yell at us, and after she had left, Betsy became really upset and bitter, and started mumbling things like, "Why mineral oil?  Are they going to cook the lanes?  Why does there have to be oil on them?" and so forth.

When it was her turn, she told me that I could take it.  Instead, I sat next to her and told her that we could leave.  She said that she wanted me to finish up the set, and she was in a pretty bad state, so I decided that doing what she wanted would be the best way to go.  I put the bumpers down and continued bowling for both of us.

We finally left and she asked if we could swing by a grocery store and a hardware store.  She said that she wanted to make her own bowling alley, since oil and wood was all you needed to do it.

At that point, I offered to drive her home, but she was insistent.  Well, we found a 24-hour grocery store and she bought vegetable oil, but there aren't any 24-hour hardware stores around the area that I know of, so she asked me if I could, "drive around to find some wood."

I asked her if I could drop her off after I did that, and she said that I could.  We drove around and around for a little less than an hour before we found some old crate by the side of the road.  She eagerly pried it apart, plopped a few planks into my back seat, and I drove her home, oil, wood, and all.

I never called her to find out if she had succeeded in making or cooking a bowling alley, but I hope that whoever she goes bowling with in the future will be able to handle it, either way.

Submitted by Danny:

I found a girl on a dating site, Tricia, who seemed genuinely shocked that I had messaged her in the first place.  I think that one of her first messages had a line in it like, "I can't believe that you'd message me.  My older sister's on this site, too, and she gets all the messages.  I'm lucky to get one in a week!"

I'm not sure why, looking back, but I mistook self-deprication for charm, and kept pursuing her.  She'd slip in little things like, "My sister is a lawyer, and she has two master's degrees," out of nowhere, making me wonder if she thought that talking up her sister would make herself more attractive. 

Tricia, at one point, asked me if I'd find her more attractive if she weighed less than 130 pounds, because her sister weighed less than 130 pounds.  I said something like, "I'm into you.  Not your sister.  Can we stop talking about her?"

She informed me that she liked talking about her sister, that she was proud of her, etc.  In the time leading up to our date, I just essentially ignored it when she brought something up about her amazing sister.

On the night of our date, I half-expected Tricia's sister to show up instead of Tricia, but Tricia was good enough to be there herself.

Of course, the girl was in rare form, injecting anecdotes about her sister whenever she could.  I had promised myself that I wouldn't fly off the handle or even acknowledge it.  She'd mention her sister, I'd smile or nod and then bring up something totally unrelated.  I could tell that this was frustrating her, but she was obviously playing some sort of game, and I wasn't about to join in.

Finally, she said, "Do you know of anyone who'd be interested in my sister?"

Jokingly, I said, "Yeah.  You.  You never stop talking about her.  I feel like I know more about her than I do about you."

She smirked, as if she had a joke that she couldn't wait to tell me.  She did: "I don't have a sister."

It took me a moment or two to ingest what she had said.  After some time in silence, I asked her what she was playing at.

She said, "I just wanted to see if you'd believe me, and you know, also to see if you'd be more attracted to her than to me."

So it was all just a game after all.  I don't like playing games, and I told Tricia then and there that I would've been interested in her if she didn't run me through all of that "sister" nonsense.

As things were, however, I told her that I probably wouldn't be interested in seeing her again.  She looked as if she was going to cry, but she held it in.  Dinner came to a fast close, and that was the end of that.

Submitted by Jess:

Walter took me out to dinner and a club.  At dinner, he kept asking me all sorts of weird questions, like how old I was when I lost my virginity, what I wore to bed, if I ever touched myself in the shower, and other such things.

It had been a little while since I had been out, so I figured that we had nothing to lose by continuing out to the club.

While we were there, he ground against me repeatedly.  I kept moving away from him, but he didn't stop.

I had had a few drinks and excused myself for a moment and called two gay couples that I knew.  I explained the situation and we came up with a plan.

They showed up about a half-hour later.  I excused myself from Walter's presence once more, pointed them in his direction, and returned to Walter. 

Sure as can be, he started grinding against me again, but cue my gay friends.  They arrived on the scene, danced around us, and especially close to him. Wouldn't you know it, he backed off from then on.

They never gave away that they knew me, and Walter became seemingly more and more uncomfortable.  He offered to drive me home less than 20 minutes later.  I had turned the evening around on him, and of course in retrospect, I should've ended things earlier, but I still felt pretty great at the end of the evening.

Submitted by Roy:

Helen and I had a lunch date at an outdoor cafe in a park.  We were talking about this and that, when out of the blue, she asked me about my love life.

I didn't have a problem talking about it, but it seemed like she was really champing at the bit to learn about my past.  I gave her the five-sentence, general background.  It was all that she really needed to know.  That seemed to satisfy her, and I didn't ask her about hers in return.

A little while later, we were on the subject of friends, and I told her a story about my friend, Samantha.  Samantha and I had been out camping, and she was terrified of bears, and so she thought that she heard one outside, etc.  The story itself doesn't matter.

Helen, though, fastened onto Samantha at once.  "She's your friend?  And you went camping together?"

I said, "Like three years ago."

"Did you guys sleep together?"

Ignoring all alarm bells that were ringing like Notre Dame, I reported the truth.  "Yes."

"You made out and everything?"

"That's right."

"With your friend?"

"Yes."

"On a camping trip?"

"Correct."

"Your friend?"

I asked, "Why are we talking about this?"

Helen said, "I'd like to meet her."

"Why?"

Helen cracked her knuckles.  "I'd just like to meet her."

"You going to kick her ass?  She has a boyfriend now.  It was three years ago."

Helen asked, "So you're not friends anymore?"

"We still are."

"And her boyfriend's cool with your history?"

I said, "I don't even know if he knows.  What does it matter?"

"He doesn't know?"

I shrugged.  Helen stood up and excused herself to go to the bathroom.  She never came back.

Submitted by Denielle:

My first date with Steve went really well. We'd planned a quick date, but ended up spending 12 hours together, ending the night at a park where he phoned his best friend, Joe, in front of me to tell him all about the wonderful girl he'd just met. It was awkward, but I found it kind of sweet.

The next day, he called me and all he could do was talk about Joe: how great he was, how much he approved of me, and all about the fun things that they did together. Then he asked me if I wanted to meet him. I figured, sure, why not? So Steve picked me up and we drove over to Joe's house.

As we drove into a really bad area of town, I tried not to judge but couldn't help wondering what I was in for. The whole way there, Steve went on and on about Joe. I guess I should have been annoyed, but it was kind of cute to see how well they'd bonded and I was actually excited to meet him.

We got to Joe's house and I immediately noticed the young girl sitting on the porch with two kids running around her and a baby in her arms. She couldn't have been more than eighteen years old.

"That's his wife, and those are his kids. That one's my goddaughter!" Steve pointed out excitedly. Then he added, "And there's Joe!"

Out lumbered a large man who was easily pushing his 30s. I tried not to do any math with the kids' ages and girl's age, but I already felt uncomfortable.

When we got out of the car and walked up to the rundown little house, Joe didn't do anything to put me at ease. He was very stern and quiet, and anything he did say to me was directed at my chest. Steve didn't seem to notice.

After about five minutes of getting-to-know-you chit-chat, Steve told me "Well, you two have fun!" and walked off with Joe to his car.

What?

Turns out, Steve and Joe had planned to go shooting in the desert, and figured that I'd be just fine staying at the house with Joe's wife and kids. I asked Steve to take me home, but he got really upset and refused. He stormed off with Joe and left me. At that point I already knew I wasn't going to see Steve again after he got me home, so I decided to try and make the best of it.

Joe's wife was very timid and jumped every time that I spoke to her. The only thing she asked me was, "How long have you and Steve been together?"

"Just one date."

She said, "Get used to this."

Steve returned three hours later, still angry with me.  He dropped me off at home and sped off without even saying goodbye.

That night he called me to apologize but I didn't forgive him and luckily never heard from him again.

Submitted by Chrissy:

James was a short guy with a deep, deep voice.  He was a soccer coach on weekends and worked at a coffee shop during the week.  He was well-read and seemed more interesting than not, so I didn't think that I had anything to lose by going out with him.

First thing he did was walk me into a McDonald's.  Then he gave me a look and said, "Nah, just kidding.  We're across the street!"

I liked his sense of humor and felt even better about him.  We sat down in an Irish pub and perused the menu.  We both ordered drinks.  For every one that I ordered, he ordered four for himself (I only ordered one, by the way).

Towards the phase of dinner during which your server would ask you if you wanted coffee or dessert, James said, "Okay.  Confession time."

I looked at him, bracing myself for whatever he was about to say, but he said nothing.  He laughed.  I laughed a little bit, too, but not as much as he did.  Ah, nothing brings out the laughs like confession time.

He stopped laughing.  "I killed someone."

I stopped laughing, too.  "You what, now?"

He said, "I killed someone.  In high school."  He smiled at me and raised his hands.  "I'm a murderer!"

I waited for the punchline.  Where was that punchline?  Anytime now, punchline.

"My grandfather," he said, "I walked into his house and slammed the door.  Not on purpose.  And it gave him a heart attack.  Or something like that.  Now he's dead.  I killed him."

Why was he telling me this?  Why was the urge to run becoming harder and harder to fight?  Most pressing of all, why didn't he stop smiling?

All I could think to say was, "I don't have a better confession than that.  You win."

He raised his glass and drank.  Any good feelings about him now blasted out of the water, I looked forward to my nice, warm, murderer-free house with its equally nice, warm, murderer-free bed.

At the date's end, he leaned in to kiss me good night.  I gave him my cheek, hoping that he'd be okay with that.  He was.

He called me a couple of days later to tell me that he had a good time and thanked me for not being freaked out about his confession.  I told him that I appreciated his interest, but that I didn't feel much chemistry.

He was silent on the other end of the phone, for what were likely the creepiest ten seconds of my life.  He said, "Okay, well, thanks," and hung up.

Submitted by Chad:

One of the first things I learned about Michelle was that she was middle-school class president three times in a row.  She was obviously proud of that fact, slipping it into our talks whenever she could.

Sometimes she would say it jokingly, such as during a playful argument: "Well, you must be wrong.  I was middle-school president for three years in a row."

Sometimes she'd be more serious about it.  "I was hoping that being middle-school president for three years straight would be my ticket to popularity and more friends, but in many ways, I was more isolated than ever..."

Michelle, by the way, was 23.  I was 28.  She was just finishing law school, and worked in a law office to support herself.

Once, I made the mistake of asking her, "Did your middle-school executive experience help you land in a better law school?"

She answered, "Yeah.  I wrote one of my application essays all about it."

She seemed pretty level-headed other than this strange obsession, so we progressed to meet-in-person phase pretty quickly.

The date went well, although she seemed shy and not too talkative in person.  It was okay, and somehow or other, we kept things going.

Towards the end of dinner, she asked if she could show me something.  She pulled out a middle-school yearbook.

She had to be kidding.

She wasn't.

She opened it up to the page that had a big picture of her as fourth-grade president.  "This was the best year by far," she told me, and explained that she had enacted a classroom rule that had something to do with students who played sports or something... I actually don't remember.

She went on for about five minutes when I asked her, "Why are you so obsessed with that time of your life?"

She rationalized, "It's normal for people to talk about their past.  It's how you get to know them, right?"

I guess she had a point, but a 23-year-old discussing middle-school politics as if it was the greatest achievement of her life... came across as sad.

I asked her what else she had done that had made her proud.  She just stared at me, trying to think of something.  I prompted her, "Well, you made it to law school, right?"

"Big deal," she said, "Anyone can do that.  How many people can you name that were middle-school class president for three years in a row?"

Trying to seem engaged, I asked her, "Do you have any of the other yearbooks handy?  From the other two years during which you were class president?"

It was an innocent question, I thought.  I had resigned myself to having this be the main topic of conversation with her for the foreseeable future, and I figured that I might as well placate her.

She didn't like this question, though.  She slammed her yearbook shut and muttered that jealous yearbook editors had disrespected her office by putting another person's photo in the "president" spot, someone who had run against her and "should have lost."

I asked, "So... you weren't really president for three years in a row?  Just for one?"

"No!" she shouted, "I was president for three years!  Those fuckers sabotaged the election!  I was president, but they rigged the election so that this other fucking bitch would seem to win.  I was president, no mistake about that.  I was president.  I was president!"

I asked, "But how can you be sure that you didn't just lose?"

It was as if I had slapped her.  She trembled, shook her head, and said, "How dare you... how dare you!"

She gathered herself, slid out from the booth, and said, "You pay for this, fucker," as she stormed out.

I was planning to pay for it anyway, but I'm really glad that she showed her true colors before things progressed any further.

She wrote me an e-mail to apologize.  I replied that I made it a practice to never date politicians, real or fake.  She wrote back a babbling, nasty, incoherent response, and I didn't reply.

Submitted by Sherman:

Nancy was actually the girlfriend of a guy I played frisbee with in college.  I was surprised when she got in touch with me five years after we had all graduated; surprised because she and I had barely ever interacted, and I had assumed that she and my frisbee teammate had gotten married or moved away or whatever it was.

I didn't ask her why she reached out to me of all people, but we caught up over the phone, she told me that she and her college boyfriend had broken up three years ago, she lived nearby, and asked if we could do drinks sometime soon.  Why not?  Despite the question mark hanging over the circumstances, I rationalized that she just wanted to hang out and talk over the past.

She gave me the biggest hug, and I ordered drinks for the two of us.  She pounded down several, became more and more touchy-feely, and was finally about as legally on top of me as one can be in public.  I asked her back to my place.

She attacked me with unbridled passion as soon as we stepped into my apartment.  She ripped off her clothes and we slammed onto the bed.  We went at it for a while, and her moans and yells became softer and softer until finally she wasn't moaning or yelling at all... she was breathing heavily.  Or... wait... was that...?  Oh no.  She was crying softly.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

She swallowed and let out a sob.  I stroked her face and again asked her if everything was all right.  Then, she said something that knocked me flat.

"That wasn't like him at all.  And I really wanted it to be." She buried her face into my neck and cried her heart out.

I held her for the rest of the night, and she alternated between crying and moving away from me in the bed as far as she could go.  Then, she would reach out for me, only to push me away again a second later.

In the morning, I woke up to the smell of eggs being cooked.  No, wait... eggs burning.  I jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen.  Eggs were certainly burning in the pan on the stove, and Nancy was nowhere in sight.  She must have started them, thought better about waiting for me to wake up, and left in a hurry.

I never heard from her again, nor did I reach out to her, thinking that no good would come of it.  I hope that she's doing well, whatever she's up to.

Submitted by P.:

During the summer of 2006, I signed up for a popular internet dating site. Like most people my age (36 at the time), I was working and taking care of kids. I didn't have much spare time, so I figured that this was a good way to meet people.

I met Peter on the site.  He seemed nice, said that he was 46, had a good career, and was pretty conversational.  He lived over an hour away from me, but when he asked me out to dinner, I agreed.

He picked me up near the main entrance to my housing development (I didn't want him to know exactly where I lived just yet). When he arrived, it was clear that he was at least 15 years older than he said, and his online picture was obviously from many years earlier. He was also wearing a leather jacket that I'm sure he saved from 1970.

Having hired a babysitter, I wanted to at least go out and have a nice conversation, so we went to a Japanese restaurant, which was about a ten-minute drive. Once there and seated, I realized exactly how shallow this man was.

He kept telling me how much money he had, how large his house in upstate New York was (after all, his neighbor was none other than Hillary Clinton!), how much money he spent on his boat, etc. etc. etc. It was really quite boring and insulting.

After another one of his "I was talking to Hillary the other day and she's really a nice person," comments, I asked him what he thought of her policies. I explained that I thought that she did a disservice to many women that were being emotionally abused by staying with Bill Clinton after his multiple affairs.

His response? "Oh, I don't get involved in politics. I haven't voted in 20 years." Great. Just a shallow, apathetic man.

He barely asked me anything about myself by the time that dinner ended. We got back into his car and I gave him directions to my development.

Instead, he pulled around to the back of the restaurant, took off his seat belt, and was all over me before I even knew what was happening.

I explained to him that I wasn't interested and that I just wanted to go home. He laughed and tried again. I more forcefully explained to him that I wasn't interested and pushed him off of me.

That only seemed to turn him on even more, so I reached for the door handle and tried to open the door. It was locked (automatic locks), so I told him that if he didn't take his hands off of me, then I would scream bloody murder. He finally understood, pulled away and drove me back to my development's entrance.

While I was walking home, he called me. I thought that he might have been lost, so I answered the phone. No, he wasn't lost. He told me how disappointed he was in me because he wanted something for driving all that way and I could have at least given him a blow job.

I said, "So meeting me and spending time getting to know me wasn't enough for you?"

He arrogantly said, "I wanted more." I wished him luck and hung up on him.

Needless to say, I don't date people I've met through the Internet any longer.

Submitted by Elena:

I met George at a friend's party about 6 months ago. He was unbelievably good-looking and most certainly charming. When he asked me out for the following weekend, I agreed.

I had just graduated from the Police Academy a few months before, and didn't really think it was necessary to tell someone right off the bat that I was a cop, for fear that it might scare them off from asking me out.  So I decided to wait and see how the date went before I told him (if he didn't ask first).

Well, he didn't ask, but maybe he should have...

We decided to go to dinner and then maybe get a few drinks. Dinner went fairly well, so we went to a nice bar in the nearby city afterward.

As soon as we got there, he ordered three shots and slammed them down within the first two minutes of being there. He had another two shots about 15 minutes later. Red flag #1: we were supposed to be getting to know each other, not getting black-out wasted. But he loosened up a bit, and so I took this as an opening to learn some things about him.

We got on the subject of his past. This is when I found out that he was currently AWOL from the Marine Corps, and that the cops were looking for him. Astonished, I asked him why he had left and what had happened.

It turned out, he was on leave from the Marines a month before, and while he was home, he got a little bit too drunk (surprise, surprise!). "Things got out of hand," he told me, "and before I knew it, I was being accused of aggravated rape and manslaughter. I didn't do it, so I had no choice but to skip bail, and now here I am, having to hide from everyone. I swear I didn't do it. I need you to believe me."

When I told him that he was under arrest, he laughed, thinking that I was joking. I wasn't. Last I heard, he's still awaiting trial.

Submitted by Katie:

Stan was very attractive and when he asked me out, I agreed. He seemed like just enough of a "bad boy" to show me a good time, and yet not be the sort of guy who was secretly married, belong to a gang, or of the type to get a tattoo of my face after the first date.

Stan drove a 1969 Cadillac that he loved more than life. It took about 20 minutes to get the thing running and had faded buttercup-yellow paint. It was not exactly a thing of beauty, but you had to admire the work that he had put into the beast.

He picked me up for our first date and opened the door for me like a gentleman.  While I waited for him to get behind the wheel, I noticed a blanket and some meager picnic supplies in the backseat. He pulled away from the curb.

I said, “I thought we were going to a movie.”

He replied, “I thought of something better. It’s a surprise.”

So I sat there quietly and tried not to be freaked. I subtly patted my pocket to make sure that I had my phone in case he turned out to be a rapist and I needed to call for help.

He turned onto a little dirt road and we drove up the hill toward the radio tower. The sight was beautiful. The city lights were glistening below us, and the stars were strangely bright even with the city all lit up. It was gorgeous.

We moved out onto the hood of the Cadillac and talked pleasantly while we ate our small meal and admired the beauty. It was an amazing first date so far.

“You can’t tell anyone that we ever came up here,” he said casually.

I replied with a smile, “Why not?”

“This is a no trespassing zone. It’s illegal to be up here.”

I got a little bit nervous that we’d get caught, but that just made the sight and the atmosphere and everything else so much more intense and fun. I leaned over and kissed "bad boy" Stan.  The kiss soon turned into an intense make out session.

My stomach did a sudden flip. It had nothing to do with the things that his hands were doing. The car moved. We had parked on a small slope and Stan’s fixer-upper Cadillac’s brakes had given out. We rolled backwards down the hill, the car came to a sudden stop, and we went flying off, into the brush.

Stan got up and let out a scream. The back end of the Caddie was wrapped around a tree trunk.

I pulled out my phone and called for a tow truck. We spent the rest of the evening in jail and he even made me pay the trespassing fine.

Submitted by Brianna:

Gary was a medical student who I had met through mutual friends. He seemed somewhat arrogant, but after some persuasion from a friend, I agreed to go out with him for a dinner date.

He called every girl he had ever dated, “Whore cunts.” He compared his bowel movements to “Evacuating after Hurricane Katrina,”  and to prove that he was looking for more than a one-night stand (like I cared at this point), he showed me an e-mail that he had sent to a girl in which he asked her to be his girlfriend. He then produced her response e-mail.  Shockingly, her answer was no.

He told me that he had a couple of dates with a girl who had a colostomy bag. He claimed to really like her, but, “You know she liked it up the butt.”

I replied, “I’m sorry?”

“Well, she had colon cancer. Only people who take it up the ass get colon cancer.”

I said, “My father had colon cancer last year.”

He leaned into the table and motioned to me like he had a secret to confess. “Your dad’s a fag.”

Astounded, I replied, “Excuse me?”

“Your dad's a closet homo. Your mom probably knows. He takes it up the ass.”

After the urge to punch him in his face subsided, I told him that I needed to go, and we left.

Out on the street, I started to say goodbye and hightail it out of there when he said, “Let me take you home.  My car is right here.”

“No thanks, I like the walk.”

He said, “It’s okay, I don’t want you walking at night.”

“Oh, it’s fine," I said "It’s totally safe. I walk at night all the time."

“I am not letting you walk home alone,” he demanded.

“And I’m not getting in your car.”

With that, I turned around and got out of there as fast as I could. On the walk home, I called the friend who set me up for this and told her that under no circumstances was she to convince me to go out with anyone I had doubts about ever again.

Submitted by Kevin:

Jess and I spoke online, and then over the phone.  At least twice, we spoke from sunset until dawn.  She lived an hour away from me, but after a couple of weeks, I asked her if she wanted to meet in person.

She said that she'd be up for it, and then she asked if she could make a special request.  She asked that I find a restaurant to take her to that had a roof deck.  She wanted to eat on top of a building and never had done it before.

I told her that I would try to find one, and she sounded so grateful that I resolved to not fail in my task.

I lived in the suburbs, but it wasn't too hard to find a restaurant on the top floor of a building.  The next time I spoke to her, I told her that I found a place on the 10th floor of a 10th floor building, a bar and grill.

She asked if it was on the top floor or on the roof proper.  I told her that it was on the top floor, and she told me that it didn't count.  She wanted to eat outside, on a roof.

Given that, I asked her if she would consider a picnic dinner, one in which we brought our own food to a roof, as finding a rooftop restaurant, at least in our area, would not be easy.

She said that she wanted to eat in an actual restaurant on a roof, and that was that.  I asked her if she would consider postponing a rooftop dinner for another time, and she said that she already had her heart set on a rooftop dining experience.

I asked her if she knew of any rooftop restaurants offhand, and she told me that she didn't.  The closest big city was Phoenix, AZ, over an hour away from both of us.  I called up about 20 restaurants there, and finally found one that had a roof deck for a second floor.

I called to tell Jess the good news.  Her reaction?  "A second-floor roof deck?  I don't think that counts."

I asked her if it would do.  She said, "I guess," but it was thick with reluctance.  At this point, though, I had done exactly as she had asked.  She never specified anything other than "roof deck," and I was relieved to have found one.

The day of the date, I called her up to ask her how she wanted to arrange logistics.  It would likely be fairest, I thought, to meet there separately.  Otherwise, driving to her house, driving to the restaurant, then dropping her back off at her house and returning to my place would take the better part of a night.

"You can pick me up," she said.  I asked her if we could meet there in separate cars, and she said, "That's okay.  I don't really feel like driving."

I picked her up, and we had a good conversation on the way to the restaurant, although she seemed a little too interested in the roof deck aspect of it.  She asked me, "Do they have tables with umbrellas?"  "Does it have a nice view?" and so on.

Having never been to this place (it was a Tex-Mex BBQ place), I didn't have answers for her, and she seemed slightly upset at this.

We finally made it, and it was clear from the get-go that she didn't like the look of it.  The restaurant seemed nice enough – it was no dump, but her problem wasn't with the atmosphere.  Her issue was with the...

"Roof deck?" she said.  "You call that a roof deck?"

I asked her what the problem was, and she said, "It's just on the roof!  Of a one-story building!  That's hardly a roof deck."

But a roof deck it was, and she had to admit that.  We ate dinner, she sulked the entire time, hardly said a word to me all the way home, and slammed my car door closed.

Submitted by Raymond:

Melanie and I met at my mechanic's while we were both having work done on our cars.  She was earning an MBA at a nearby university and I ran a small business, supplying housekeeping staff to various local hotels, colleges, etc.  We both had a lot to talk about, and I was really pleased to get her number.

On our first date, I took her out to a nice restaurant on a river.  We had a good chat.  She told me that she was interested in starting her own business herself, a catering franchise or a bakery.

This prompted me to ask her what she considered to be her culinary specialties.  She then offered to make me dinner.  I took that to mean that she liked me enough not only for a second date, but to have that second date at one of our places of residence.  Great so far.  She even kissed me goodnight.

The second date took place at my apartment.  We split the cost of ingredients, and she went to work in my kitchen.  I asked her if I could help, but she shooed me away.  I was very glad to have her over.  Things were looking good.

A knock at my door.  Strange.  I lived alone and wasn't expecting anyone.  I opened it, and a young woman I had never seen before stood there.

"Hi!" she said, "Is Melanie here?"

I called for Melanie, and she came in from the kitchen.  Melanie embraced the girl and introduced her as her friend, Brianna.  "I invited her over to share dinner," Melanie explained, "I hope you don't mind."

I was a bit disappointed, as I was hoping that this would be a date between just Melanie and I.  Also, I never minded house guests, but I was a bit surprised that Melanie sprang this on me without prior notice.  Well, maybe Melanie was nervous, and had invited Brianna along for moral support.  Or something.

Brianna sat down at the kitchen counter and asked Melanie, "Who else did you invite?"

Melanie glanced at me and said, "Jeff, Amy, and Trent."

"Wait..." I began.

Amy interrupted, "Trent?  You seriously invited Trent?"

Apparently, Brianna and Trent had a history, and an unpleasant one at that.  They were on-again, off-again lovers, and this was an "off-again" period.

I took Melanie aside to ask her how the date had turned into a dinner party.

"I didn't think you'd mind," was her explanation.

I told her that I didn't mind meeting new people, but that it was a bit of an imposition to spring a dinner party on me in my own home.  I didn't think that we had enough food to go around.

Melanie told me not to worry, that she'd make it work, and that I should talk to Brianna while Melanie busied herself in the kitchen.

After talking with Brianna for 20 minutes, I think that I ended up learning more about her than even her parents knew about her.  She told me all about how Trent had mistreated her, how Trent was an asshole, how Trent cheated on her, and how she hoped that Trent would ask her to sleep with him again.

Not long after, Jeff, Amy, and Trent arrived.  Jeff and Amy were a couple, and were very into each other.  Trent popped open one of my beers without so much as asking for my permission, and promptly disappeared with Brianna in the direction of my bathroom.

I was becoming more and more frustrated, and I told Melanie that the food in my house wasn't purchased for her friends.  She became upset and told me that I was being unreasonable.  "What's the problem with an impromptu dinner party?" she asked.

I didn't want to cause an issue, so I let things lie.  Melanie was doing all of the cooking, after all.  However, Melanie then said something that caught me off guard:

"They're my friends, so you're just going to have to get used to it.  They all have keys to my place; they can come and go as they please.  I'd expect you to do the same thing for them."

I was so taken aback that I didn't know what to say.  I left the kitchen to collect my thoughts.

When I returned to my living room, Jeff and Amy were almost on top of each other, and they asked me about myself, what I did, etc.  Amy had this habit of nodding her head constantly, as if everything I said was amazing.  Jeff rubbed Amy's back non-stop and said, "Wow," or, "You go, boy!" after everything that I said.  It irritated me.

I went into my bathroom.  As half-expected, Trent and Brianna were inside.  They were talking, but Brianna was topless.  She covered herself up with her arms when I walked in, and Trent, sipping from my beer, said, "Do you mind?  We're trying to talk."

"Excuse me?" I asked, as I wanted to give him a chance to take it back.

He leaned in and said, loudly and slowly, "Private conversation.  Leave."

That did it.  I snapped.  I said, "No.  You leave.  This is my house.  You don't come in here, drink my beer, occupy my bathroom, and talk to me that way.  Get the hell out."

He reached his hand as if to put it on my shoulder.  I smacked it away.  He stood up and swung at me, but he was too slow.  I grabbed the back of his shirt and flung him out of my bathroom.  He smashed against the wall in the hallway.  Brianna screamed, and Trent shouted, "What the hell, man?"

I yelled, "Get out!  You think I'm joking?  You're not welcome here!"

Melanie jumped out of the kitchen, which smelled like burnt fish, and yelled at me, "Who the hell do you think you are?  Why are you so hell-bent on ruining everything?  What's wrong with me inviting some friends over?"

I pointed at Trent.  "This guy comes in here, doesn't even introduce himself, helps himself to my things, talks down to me in my own house?  No.  He leaves."

Trent stepped right up to my face and said, "You're a real asshole man.  A real asshole."

He shoved me.  I punched him, hard, in the jaw.  He stumbled backward and yelled, "What the hell, man?" over and over.

Jeff and Amy attended to Trent as Melanie yanked me aside.  "What the hell is your god damn problem?" she hissed.

I couldn't believe it.  We were all in the same room together.  Did she not see that he had shoved me first?  "He shoved me first!" I said.

She threw her hands up and shoved past me.  "Fine, if that's how you want it."  She turned to her friends and said, "Come on, everyone.  Let's go."

Jeff and Amy were out the door first, followed by Trent, who turned to me as he left and said, "I know where you live, man."

I replied, "You're welcome anytime you want me to kick your ass again."

Brianna, now with her blouse on, ducked out next, and Melanie, last of all, shot me a final look and said, "Good bye," before closing the door.

Worst of all, I couldn't expunge the smell of burnt fish from my place for days.

Submitted by Clare:

I met James at a friend's party two years ago. He was funny, smart, and attractive, so when he asked me out for the coming Friday, I agreed.

When I got home that night, I found that I already had a friend request from him on Facebook. Seeing my opportunity to get to know him better before our date, I accepted his request and sifted through his profile.

He seemed pretty normal except for one thing: every picture on his page (at least 20 or more) was of him with one to five cats.  I imagined that this could mean one of two things: he was either extremely affectionate and caring, or he was one of those weird momma's boy types who cuddled his cats on Friday nights while his mom did his laundry and cooked him dinner. I later found out that truth can be stranger than imagination.

The conversation at the restaurant went fairly normally until he asked me if I had any pets. When I said that I had a cat, he exclaimed "Awww!" so loudly that the surrounding patrons turned to look at us.

After asking me about 50 different questions about my cat, he asked me, "Can I come over to see your kitty later?"

Thinking this strange but innocent, I told him, "Maybe next time, once we get to know each other a little better."

The subject changed, but five minutes later, he asked me again if he could see my kitty. I laughed, thinking that he was joking, and he looked at me with a more serious expression and told me, "I want to make your kitty purr.  Rawr."

He made a hand gesture. At that point, I no longer knew if he was talking about my cat or something else, but I was getting creeped out. I didn't say anything and took a bite of my food, hoping that he would change the subject, but he persisted, asking me, "Can I pet your kitty?" and "I'd love to make her meow."

I asked the waiter for the check.

The whole way back to his house, he insisted that I come in and see his cats before I left, telling me that he had "Quite a collection." I figured I'd see the damn cats and then leave, writing him off as someone I wouldn't be seeing again.

We pulled up and went in.  Five cats greeted us, and I asked him if he had any more.

He said, "Unfortunately, the others are no longer with us," and gestured to the fireplace. I followed his hand with my eyes, and was taken aback by the 11 stuffed cats that were definitely no longer with us. By this point this guy was on my weirdo radar.

I played it cool and told him that I should get going, and he got upset. I muttered my apologies for having to leave, and he shouted after me "You could at least say goodbye to my cats! You don't have to be so rude!"

I feel bad for the girl whose kitty he's trying to pet now.

Submitted by Brent:

Tia's online profile specifically mentioned the words, "adventurous," "spontaneous," and "fun-loving."  Taking these at face value, I attempted an appeal to these stated qualities on our first date.

I picked her up early for dinner and asked her if she liked playgrounds.  There was one with awesome swings at a park near me that no one ever visited.  I like swings.  True, they're not as adventurous as a first date spent rappelling down Aconcagua, but they're a close second, and I thought that she'd be all over that.

"Uh... no," she said, "Are you serious?  Swings?"

I was very serious, and I informed her of how serious I was by swinging (ha!) by the park.  It was on the way to the cafe.

"Look at those swings!" I told her, "They're so swingy!"

She gave me a great look, then said, "Yeah, so... dinner?"

I paid for dinner, and she didn't thank me.  However, I figured that she could repay me by regaling me with tales of her spontaneity and adventurousness.

I asked her, "So, how are you spontaneous?"

She shrugged.  "I don't know.  I just like going out and seeing where things take me."

"Except to playgrounds."

"What?"

"Nevermind.  Where has spontaneity taken you recently?"

She ran a hand through her impeccable hair and said, "I went to three parties last weekend."

"And?"

She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.  "That's not spontaneous enough for you?"

I said, "That's average spontaneity.  In college, I would hit close to ten parties in a weekend, and those were the ones I'd remember.  Not that this is a competition or anything, but when I say 'spontaneity,' I mean something like, 'driving for three hours for great homemade ice cream,' or 'trying to sneak into the Pentagon,' or, 'going to a playground and swinging on the totally awesome swing set.'"

She asked, "You tried to sneak into the Pentagon?"

"On a fifth-grade field trip.  I made it to the Lincoln Memorial before my teacher caught up with me.  She was really fast for a 300-pounder."

Tia frowned.  "I see.  I'll try to fit in another few parties to impress you.  I think that most people find me spontaneous enough."

I said, "Don't misunderstand.  I'm not upset that you consider average human social action to be fun.  I'm just curious that you consider it to be 'spontaneous' or 'adventurous.'"

"I'm plenty adventurous.  Some girlfriends and I went on a trip to San Francisco last summer."

"Where'd you camp?"

"The Hilton San Francisco."

"Oh.  So when you wrote, 'spontaneous' and 'adventurous' on your profile, those were just cubes of sugary lie-powder, compacted and processed to entice guys to you under false pretenses?"

She stared blankly.  Had I crossed a line?  I knew how to fix it.  I suggested, "How about this: we go to the playground, and then we can go to a party afterward.  We can both be spontaneous and adventurous together."

She opened her mouth as if to say, "What a great idea, Brent!" but she obviously thought better of it, because she said, "I don't think that this is going to work out."

"Two parties?"

"I don't think so."

"Too spontaneous?"

She shook her head.  We said good night.  She probably had lots of spontaneous things to go and do, like brush her teeth and watch Reality TV.  I called up my friend Josie, who was totally game to hit the playground.  Then we went stargazing and were chased off of an angry farmer's field.

Submitted by Charlene:

When my friend's often shirtless, British next door neighbor asked me out to dinner after a few flirtations, I was intrigued. I only knew that he was in good shape, was funny, and (according to my friend) wasn't a psycho.  Good enough for a dinner, I figured!

So, he picked me up.  He looked good and he smelled great. When he complimented me and leaned over to give me a smooch, I let him.

We went to dinner, and I asked him, "So, what do you do for fun?"

"Oh, I like to party."  Then he launched into how lonely he was, and how much he just wanted a good woman to love.  This is all fine and good, but no one wants to hear the whole dump on a first date.

I attempted to change the subject.  "Have you read any interesting books lately?"

"No, I don't read books," and then more lonely talk.

We finished dinner, and I figured that I would try to end the night early. It couldn't get worse, right?

I asked him to take me home, as I was tired. He said, "Okay, but do you mind if I pick up some cocaine on the way?"

I was too surprised to say no, and since this was squeaky-clean Minneapolis, I was curious to see how such a deal would go down.

We drove to a shady street and parked.  After a few minutes of waiting in the dark, a shadowy figure made his way across the street and over to the driver's-side door. My date cracked the door open and swapped money for coke. I stifled a giggle as he drove me home.

We arrived at my house, I said, "Thank you for dinner," and opened my car door to leave.

"Wait!" he said, "Can I come in?"

"I'm sorry, I'm really tired."

He started to cry.  "If you don't fancy me, tell me you don't
fancy me."

I said, "No, you're very nice.  I just need to go inside."

"Please, can I just come inside for a few minutes? I would really like to just hold you."

I slipped out and headed for a building that wasn't mine. Just in case.

Submitted by Zachary:

Joni was a couple of years younger than I and was finishing up college.  We had planned to meet up on a Thursday night.  When I called her Thursday afternoon to confirm, she told me that she had just been assigned a mountain of homework and might have to either start the date early or cut it short.

I told her that this was fine, and asked her if she'd rather postpone.  She insisted that she'd still be able to meet up that night, and that we'd probably be better off ending it early.

Our plan was to rendezvous at her college, which was a half-hour away from me.  She appeared a few minutes late, wore solid first date attire, gave me a huge hug, and carried two small packs of potato chips.  She handed me one of them.

"This kind of has to be our first date meal," she said, "Sorry."

She must have read "What the hell?" from the way that I looked at her.  She went on, "I just have too much homework to go out.  I'm sorry!  I have a big pile of it due tomorrow and a test on electromagnetism on Monday."

She then caught herself and stared at me wide-eyed.  She said, "Do you prefer regular or sour cream and onion?  I can't believe that I didn't even ask."

I didn't say anything.  She said, "Well, say something!  Aren't you happy to see me?"

"I... guess.  I'm sorry.  I was just expecting a bit more than a hug and chips."

She brushed my face with her hand and said, "Aww, I'm sorry.  Maybe next week?"

I said, "Yeah.  Maybe next week."

She handed me the other bag of chips and said, "Here, for your trouble."  She then leaned in, kissed my cheek, and said, "Good night!"

I went home and promptly forgot about her.

Submitted by Anonymous:

Alan and I met through an online dating site. I was skeptical about meeting anyone on there since I’d had a few weird experiences in the past, but this one takes the cake!

The first warning signal occurred before our first date.  Alan asked me out and said that he would text me before the weekend with the details. I never heard from him, so I assumed that he’d changed his mind.

Then on Monday he wrote to tell me that he’d left his phone in his friend’s car over the weekend and just got it back. He asked if I’d like to meet sometime during the week. Despite my better judgment, I agreed. We decided to meet at a bar close to Alan’s house since he mentioned that his car was giving him trouble and he didn’t want to travel too far.

When I got to the bar, I figured Alan would be there since I was running a bit late. As he was not, I sat down to have a drink and wait. I sent him a text to see where he was and to find out how much longer until he arrived. He said that he was only a few minutes away and that he’d be right there.

When he finally walked in the door, 15 minutes later, I was pleased to finally meet him.  He was very tall with a lean, athletic build and deep brown eyes.

Alan began with stories of how he’d spent his years since high school in the military, fighting in the Persian Gulf, and that he was pursuing a career as a surgeon. He told me that he had a scar on his abdomen from where he’d been shot with an AK-47 but his Kevlar vest had protected him and he’d only been burned.

He then told me to feel an area on his thigh under the shorts he was wearing... I expected to feel another battle scar. Instead my fingers brushed up against a pair of satin and lace underpants! Alan then told me that he liked to wear women’s lingerie and that he would also like it if I could use a strap-on dildo on his behind.

My reaction was controlled – I’m in the medical field and have been trained not display my facial expressions when presented with a case that is shocking. I’m also a very open-minded and non-judgmental person so I didn’t want to make him embarrassed. After all, everyone has their own quirks and kinks. But I did find a way to end the date as quickly as possible after that. 

Needless to say, I didn’t contact Alan again and when I finally heard from him several days later, he wrote me a text to say “Where have you been? I left my phone at the gym and just got it back.” I never responded and have also taken my profile off the dating site. There will be no more online matchmaking for me after that!

Submitted by L.:

Chris and I met online.  We e-mailed and texted back and forth for a couple of weeks before deciding to meet up.

We met at the harbor and went to go find something to eat. We had a pleasant conversation.  I ended up having to cut it short because my son's babysitter called and had to leave. He walked me to my car and then I gave him a ride to his. No kiss goodnight, but a nice hug.

I told him a few days later that I would be interested in dating him. He said no, not because he didn't like me, but because he didn't want to jump into a relationship. He wanted a three-month waiting period.

I told him that I respected that, but that a three-month waiting period wouldn't work for me, and thanks anyway. He appreciated my honesty and wished me luck in the dating world. We agreed to stay friends.

Later that week, I went on another date with a guy, Ben, and we totally clicked.  The entire night was perfect except for the fact that it had to end.

Ben told me that he wanted to date me exclusively, get to know each other, be boyfriend and girlfriend. I was thrilled. We changed our statuses on Facebook and everything was just peachy.

The next evening I received a text message from Chris: "Saw your status.  So I guess that's it then."

I reminded him that he had clearly expressed his desire to be friends first and not date anyone, that I had told him that his plan wasn't what I was looking for, and that he had rejected me, albeit very kindly.

What followed were two hours and dozens of text messages (literally) from him about how I had led him on, how he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend the following week, how he would have enjoyed being naked and talking with me, etc.

Nothing I said, not even copying and pasting his own e-mails, helped. I dropped the subject and apologized. Even after this, he wanted to stay friends.

A few days later, during casual chat, I mentioned something about wanting to go to the beach at some point during the summer. His response was, "Well, if you had done things differently, it would have been me and you and our kids going to the beach, but now it's going to be just me and my babies."

I blocked him and cut off all contact after that.

Caitlin contacted me on a dating site.  She was an elementary school teacher, blond, and with a terrific set of blue eyes.  Her messages came across as enthusiastic and she was clearly interested in me.  More than that, we had a great rapport from the beginning, and she was quite the flirt.  We made plans to meet up at a seafood restaurant and I couldn't wait.

When I arrived at the place, I scanned the tables:

Old couple.

Young dude.

Two women.

Thirty-ish man with a girl who looked exactly like Caitlin.

Two old dudes.

Wait.

I caught Caitlin's eye and she walked over to me.  We went to her table and introduced me to Harvey, her older brother.  He was a stocky guy with dark eyes and an awfully firm handshake.  He didn't say a word as I sat down.

"So," Caitlin began, "I have some explaining to do.  Harvey's my brother.  It's been two years since I've been in a relationship, and I wanted to try out some new things–"

I said, "Not interested in a threesome, unless you have another sister."  I turned to Harvey.  "No offense."

Harvey frowned.

Caitlin laughed.  "Nothing like that!  No.  Can we, you and I," she pointed at me, "Just pretend that we're out on a date?  Like Harvey isn't here at all.  Just no touching or kissing or anything like that, of course."

I stared at her and glanced at Harvey, who had just flared his nostrils.  I said, "With your brother watching?  I don't understand why he's here."

Caitlin said, "How about just this, then... here..."  She reached across the table and clasped my hands.  She looked in my eyes and went on, "I had a really great time with you tonight.  I'd love to see you again."

"Uh... me too," I said, then took my hands away and stood up.  "I wish you the best of luck."

I left disappointed, but glad that she had revealed herself to be a loony early on.  That's far earlier than most people let me know.  If they let me know at all, that is.  Usually, it comes in the form of showing up for work in just a scarf, or screaming at donuts.

She called me an hour later and apologized about the set-up.  "It might have been better if I told you from the beginning that my last boyfriend really, really burned me.  Harvey's a little protective, and for once I'm actually taking his advice and letting him help me vet potential dates.  It worked out great, though.  Harvey and I both like you."

That was strange to hear, as my total in-person interactions with them had totaled approximately seven minutes.  "Three cheers for that."

"You're not angry, are you?"

"No, but I think that I'm better off dating someone in the traditional way, with no family present."

She cleared her throat.  "Because I was wondering if you'd make out with me in front of him."

I paused.  It was an awful idea.  Nothing but trouble.  Like throwing a rock into a nest of horny hornets.

I said, "Does Harvey like that plan?"

She said, "I haven't told him yet, but he'll go for it.  You could just pretend that he isn't there.  He just wants to make sure that you're on the level, and I'm sure that you are.  What do you think?"

I checked again.  Yep.  Still an awful, terrible idea.  It was a road with nothing but heartache, drama, and angry, axe-wielding brothers at the end of it.  It was like willingly walking into a room filled with rattlesnakes, and covered in tasty rattlesnake snacks.  No way.

"Sure.  When and where?" I heard myself say.

The three of us met out in public, in a park.  She had a blanket with her.  Harvey was, as always, silent.  I had never even heard the guy's voice.  She said, "I know a good place, away from everyone.  Let's go!"

The place was a tiny clearing off the paths, surrounded by trees.  We sat down and she inched closer to me.  "So..." she began, and the next thing I knew, her mouth was on mine.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harvey.  He looked like he was ready to punch through a sequoia.  His hands moved down to his crotch. 

I broke away from Caitlin.  "Sorry.  I can't.  This is just too weird."

Caitlin took my arm and said, "Come with me," she pulled me up and away from the blanket and Harvey.  We walked about fifteen steps away and she turned to me.  I expected her to try and convince me to continue with her plan, to say something like, "We're already here, so we might as well."  I was expecting that.

What I didn't expect was for Caitlin to jump onto me, wrap her legs around me, and lick my face.  If she was counting on me to wrap my arms around her body to hold her up and support her weight, then I would have, but for some reason, she let go before I could.  She fell hard on her rear.  On a rock.

"Agh!" she yelled, "I fell on a rock!"  Her eyes reddened and moistened.  "Harvey!"

Harvey was approaching, now.  It had all happened so fast.  I wasn't sure if he was going to help her up, pick a fight with me, or touch his crotch again.

He helped her up, and she clutched at his chest, repeating, "Harvey nookie?  Harvey nookie," over and over.  He stroked her head.

Harvey looked up at me and said, "I've got it.  Thanks," and then he looked down at Caitlin, "Okay, sweetie.  Let's go.  Let's go."  They turned back to gather up the blanket.

If you're thinking that this sounded like the perfect time to leave, then we're on the same page.  I never heard from Caitlin, Harvey, or her nookie again, and I still think that I'm better off.

Submitted by H.:

When I was in high school, I dated Samaya for some time. I met her at my cousin’s house and we really hit it off. We exchanged numbers, started calling each other, and one thing led to another.  

We are both of Indian descent, and her father is a prominent member of the community. Since she wasn't allowed to date, she was always scared that we would run into someone her father knew and that it would get back to him. So, whenever we went out, she was always really careful and we had to sneak around.

The last time I went to go visit her (she lived somewhat far from me), we went to get lunch at Chipotle. As we were getting ready to go inside, she asked me if I could just go pick it up for her and bring it back to the car because she was scared that somebody inside would recognize her.

Now, normally I wouldn't mind picking up food for her and bringing it back and eating in the car, but I guess I was just fed up with always having to sneak around. Plus, it meant that I would have to spend some time away from her while I was waiting in line, ordering, etc.

I refused and told her that I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. We got into a big argument about it and ended up going to Taco Bell because they had a drive-through, which meant that I could stay with her the whole time.

When we got there, she told me that she wasn't hungry anymore. Fine. When we got to the window, I didn't ask her if she wanted anything. I got my food, pulled into one of the parking spots, and started eating.

She glared at me and then went off about how I didn't care about her and that I was such an asshole.

I responded with saying that she said that she wasn't hungry and that she could have told me when I was at the drive-through that she wanted something, and that we could share my food or go get some more. 

She wasn't having any of that and gave me the silent treatment until I dropped her off.

We broke up via phone on my drive home.

A little while after, I found out that she had lied to me about being single when we met, and she had also lied about her age. I laugh when I think back about it now.

Submitted by Kerry:

I met Nick at college, and besides being insanely hot, he was also charming, funny, and smart. He was also very insistent. That should have tipped me off right there. However, when he asked me out after class one day, I couldn't turn it down.

I met him that night at his house before going to dinner. When I walked in, I noted his parents sitting on the floor, reading the Bible by candlelight while his sisters knitted in the corner.

Okay, kind of weird, but hey, they're devoted Christians (I also later learned that his Dad was actually a pastor), so whatever, it could have been worse.

After we left, Nick asked me if I liked surprises.  I told him, "Sure, who doesn't?" So we got in his car, and this is when things officially got a little too odd for a first date.

He insisted on tying a scarf around my face so that I wouldn't "see where we were going." I would have jumped out of the car right then and there if it wasn't still somewhat light out and the scarf wasn't somewhat see-through.

About 10 minutes later, I realized that he was driving in circles around the same neighborhood over and over. I asked him where we were going, and he said "Don't worry, we're almost there." Classic last words, I thought. That's when we pulled right back up to his house and he guided me back inside and up the stairs to his room where he had a picnic basket of food on his bed. Um, okay.

Officially creeped out, but not ready to rush out of there like a paranoid freak, I decided to see what would happen next. I mean, what could happen? There's a pastor downstairs, right? So I refrained from asking questions and we started eating.

That's when Nick got teary-eyed.  He said, "I have a confession to make.  A few months ago, my father's co-pastor and his family went on vacation.  The co-pastor has a really attractive daughter, and while they were away, I... I broke into their house and masturbated into the girl's sweater."

The alarms in my head rang furiously. Time to leave! Nick pleaded with me not to go.  "It's okay now!  Honest!  My father and her father worked something out so that she never found out about it!"

Some "Christians" they were. I left the room and marched right down the stairs past their little Bible/knitting session and left.

Submitted by Cody:

Jocelyn and I were seated next to each other at dinner in a rounded booth.  I felt that things were going very well, and she was playing along with everything that I threw at her, conversation-wise.

At one point, I touched her shoulder casually, in an effort to appear friendly and flirtatious at once.  She looked down at my hand, made a frog-like frown, and edged away.  It was easy to see that she didn't like it, so I didn't do it again and forgot all about it.

After dinner, I hadn't made any plans, but depending on the weather, I knew of a nice stroll by a lake, a cafe, or possibly even billiards.  I was pretty easy going, and though it was the suburbs, there were a lot of things to do.

Jocelyn scuttled all of those plans.  "I... uh... I have something to do.  That I forgot about."

She hadn't mentioned having plans after dinner before, and I guessed that she was trying to end the date.  I didn't want to put pressure on her, but I didn't want to give up so easily, so I asked her if I had done anything to make her uncomfortable.

She answered, "Well, maybe if you kept your hands to yourself, Mr. Touchy-Feely."

I had a feeling.  I explained that I meant it as a casual touch, and that I was sorry if it had made her uncomfortable.

"Uncomfortable?" she spat, "You don't touch a girl on a first date!  Are you psychotic?"

In my mind, she was a bit out of line.  Still, I didn't want to respond to her rapidly rising temper with a similar attitude.  I simply said, "Okay, Jocelyn.  I'm sorry."

"So you understand why I have to go?"

I really struggled with this one.  "I–I guess.  I mean, if you feel that you have to."

She moaned and raised her voice.  "Not good enough!  You have to learn this.  It's guys like you who fuck it up for the rest of them!"

Okay, too much.  Mental check: was I out of line here?  I stepped away, thanked her, wished her a safe ride home, and turned away.

"Where do you think you're going?" she yelled after me, "Hey!  Hey!"

She wrote me two text messages that night.  Verbatim, they read:

1. I don't know who you think you are, but you're going to wind up miserable and alone.  Get a life, asshole.

2. Did you know that guys who touch girls frequently are more likely to end up raping them?  I have every reason to be on guard.  You have to be more sensitive and respectful.

I wrote back, "I wouldn't rape you for ten million dollars."

She didn't reply.

Submitted by Rachel:

For my birthday, a friend of mine, Greg, bought me tickets to see Star Wars in Concert. I knew that the tickets probably cost him a bit, so I graciously thanked him and even got kind of excited to go, despite not really knowing much about Star Wars.

About a week before the concert, Greg confessed that he had feelings for me. I didn’t feel the same toward him, and I made that very clear, but I agreed to call the concert a date, thinking that he might surprise me. Who knew? Maybe we would have some chemistry?

He picked me up for our date, and did not open my car door for me. I’m one of those archaic women who still actually appreciate chivalrous men, but this wasn’t a deal breaker for me at this point in the night. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Once inside his car, he offered me one of two cans of soda that he had packed with him. If I’m the only person of the opinion that it’s kind of kooky to bring canned soda for the 30-minute car ride of a first date, then so be it. I think it’s a little weird, but at that point, my mind was still open.

The rest of the car ride went smoothly, at least conversationally. The ride itself had me holding onto the door, uneasy with his driving. He seemed to believe that changing lanes required a maneuver similar to parallel parking, except at speeds upward of 60 miles per hour.

So he hadn’t gotten my car door and he wasn’t great at driving, but he had brought me a can of warm soda, which I believed was a sign of deep respect in underdeveloped countries where soda is sparse... maybe?

Dinner was the most enjoyable part of the evening, by far. Conversation picked up and the Chinese food was delicious. We talked about an array of things, and even had a few moments where sparks didn’t exactly fly, but got a little bit off the ground.

Then we got to the concert. We were late, but only by about ten minutes. What annoyed me wasn’t our lateness, but the fact that we climbed every single stair in the event center, all the way to the very top row. Turns out that the tickets I’d assumed cost him a pretty penny probably didn’t put him back very much. Still, I’m impressed by more than price tags, and I was willing to see the date through, so I made the best of it and smiled my way up to the oxygen-deprived heights.

We sat down.  I was tired from our trek, but I didn’t want to seem rude, so I tried to make conversation about the show.

He shushed me!

That’s right. He shushed me like a third-grade teacher for trying to (gasp!) communicate on a date.

At that point, I was kind of done. I didn’t say much else throughout the rest of the concert, or the ride back home.

The very next morning, he called me to ask how I felt the date had gone. I told him that I didn’t think we had much chemistry, and he accused me of leading him on.

Submitted by Julie:

I first met Louis at a bar near my house when I was out with a few friends. I thought that he was a cool guy and we ended up talking all night at my friend's house after we left the bar. He asked me out for the upcoming Monday and I was all for it.

He showed up at my house on time, and I volunteered to drive. We spent the first couple of hours going to three different houses belonging to his friends, and he got stoned at each one.

We ended up back at the bar at which we had met a few days earlier, and we both got pretty drunk. Since I lived right near the bar, we walked to my house. I knew pretty much by now that I had no interest in him as anything more than a friend and that if he asked me out again, I would most likely say no.

When we arrived at my house around 2:00am, he asked me if it was possible to crash at my house, as he was pretty drunk to drive home. Being the nice person I am, I said yes.

Don't ask me why, but when we got inside, I grabbed a bag of chips and some soda, and told him that he could lay on the bed with me.  We lay there (fully clothed) for a couple of hours and just talked until we both crashed.

I had to get up pretty early for work the next morning and when I did, I had to crawl over him to get out of the bed. I remember when I did, I stepped on something wet on the floor, but for some reason I didn't think much of it at the time. When I had finished my shower and was getting dressed in the bathroom, I heard him run out the front door and yell, "Bye!  Talk to you later!"

I thought this kind of weird and ran into my bedroom... where I immediately understood why he had taken off so fast.

The whole side of the bed where he had slept was soaking wet. He had wet the bed in the night! I realized that what I must have stepped on when I first got out of bed were his wet clothes! He must have woken up in the night to discover himself in that condition and taken off his pants and underwear! It really grossed me out to think that he had to put those wet clothes back on and drive home in them!

I washed my sheets and completely doused my mattress with ammonia! I pretty much assumed that he would never be calling me again! But I couldn't believe it when I got home and the phone rang for over an hour with him calling and calling me.

After talking to my mom, I kind of felt bad for him... thinking how embarrassed he must have been and what I would have done in that situation. So I answered the call, and told him that what really bothered me was the fact that he didn't even offer to help me clean up or apologize. He said that I was right, and then asked me if I was still interested in hooking up that night for dinner!

I said that I didn't think that things were going to work out between us and he said "Yeah, me neither," and hung up on me!

A few months later, I met the guy who would become my future husband.  Turns out, he not only actually knew Louis, but said that I'm not the first girl to whom this has occurred!  To make matters worse, at one point we bumped into Louis at a bar.  He pulled my then-boyfriend at the time aside while I went to the bathroom and told him that I was going to sink my claws into him and never let him go! I sure let that one get away!


*********************************************
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWFXf2qjXeg

Submitted by Stephen:

Helen and I met online.  I wrote to her first, and she wrote back IN ALL CAPS.  It's a minor thing as things go, but it bugged me a little from the beginning.  In my second message, I wrote to her that she didn't need to SHOUT.  I could "hear" her just fine.

Her response?

"LOL OK," followed by the rest of her message, again, in all caps.  Aside from that, she seemed normal.  We decided to meet.

We took a walk before dinner, and my god, she never shut up.  "When I was six, my cousin taught me how to play 52 pickup with a deck of playing cards.  That was when I realized that people everywhere would try to take advantage of me for everything.  When did you learn that?"

I must have said something like, "I haven't found all people to be that way.  It seems to me that–"

"That reminds me!  In seventh grade, I went to a friend's family's farm.  They were like, super-wealthy.  My friend rode her pony all over the place, and I begged her to let me ride it and she said that she wouldn't because I had never rode on a pony before so I just stood there in the middle of the corral and cried and then her father came along and asked why I was crying and I told him and he told his daughter to let me on the pony and then I climbed onto it, it took off, and I fell off of it.  That's when I learned to stay away from ponies."

The girl never asked me a single thing about myself, and although her stories were absolutely fascinating, I was tiring of them.

She went on until she said, "The craziest thing I've ever done?" (without having been asked), "I once took a dump in public."

I stopped walking and stared at her.  I asked if she was joking, and she assured me that she wasn't.  An ex-boyfriend had dared her to do something crazy "obviously hoping that I would flash him or jerk him off or something," she said, "But I showed him.  I crapped in my pants."

I didn't say anything.  She went on, "It was okay!  I was like, ten feet away from his car, and I had a spare pair of pants in there.  I had to go change right after, of course.  But he never asked me anything like that again."

That pretty much sealed the deal: I wouldn't be calling this one again, regardless of whether she was putting me on or not.  I don't even remember much about how the rest of the date went, or how it ended... just that it did.

Submitted by Alissa:

Three years ago, I joined an Internet dating site and was contacted by a dorky-looking guy who I frankly did not find physically attractive. But he seemed nice and intelligent.  We had a very nice phone conversation and he asked me out to dinner.

Now here's some background: at the time, I was 50, and this guy was 58. The photo that I ran in my personal ad was taken the night I went to a black tie affair three years earlier (and I looked the same), so I was decked out in an evening gown and had my hair done in an elegant up-do. Regardless, I looked fabulous the night of this date. (I happen to be an attractive, stylish woman, who is in very good shape, thanks to years of exercise and proper diet).

When I met the guy in person, his face dropped. It was obvious from his expression that he was disappointed, which was ironic, considering that he wasn't exactly Mr. America. In fact, he resembled a tall, dark-haired version of Woody Allen. As we were walking to the restaurant, he asked me why I didn't have my hair up and why I wasn't dressed like I was in my photo.

Despite this, I decided to make the most of the evening. We had a nice dinner and conversation... except for the part when he talked about his ex-girlfriend, and how amazing the sex was with her. But it was obvious that we weren't clicking. So at the end of the evening, I thanked him for dinner, we said our goodbyes, and we both went on our merry ways.

Or so I thought...

A couple of months later, I placed an ad on a different site, using the same photo I had placed on the site through which I met this guy.

Lo and behold, the guy had also joined the site and contacted me out of the blue, bombarding me with e-mails in which he acted as if he didn't know who I was. I responded and reminded him that we had, in fact, met, and we didn't click, but I wished him good luck with his search.

The guy then replied back, saying that he didn't recognize me from the picture, which didn't make sense, since this was the same picture I had posted on the site through which I had met him. He added that this was either a very old photo of me, or a photo of someone else because I looked nothing like that in person. He said that, in person, I was an "extremely unattractive old woman."

I was so appalled that I wrote him back and told him off, telling him that he was a complete asshole. He replied again, claiming that I was no lady for using that kind of language, and that he had just gotten laid! He also said that he was sorry that he spent so much money on the dinner we had because I wasn't worth it, and he had a good mind to demand that I pay him back because I had deceived him! I mean, this was out and out mental abuse of the worst order!

From the tone of his e-mails, I got the impression that:
A) He was drunk, and/or
B) His ego was bruised because he knew I wasn't attracted to him, and/or
C) He was just plain nuts, and/or
D) All of the above.

Regardless, I was so traumatized by this that I refrained from dating for quite some time.

There are a lot of wackos out there, but this one was the world champ!

Submitted by June:

I met Jerry through work. We had a few mutual interests, one being a love of muscle cars.

At the time, I drove a '66 Chevelle SS 396 and I really understood car speak. So when he finally got up the nerve to ask me out to dinner I went for it, thinking that it would be an interesting evening.

The evening came and I was ready for the date.  When he never came by to pick me up, I felt a bit upset, but then the phone rang. He asked me if I could come to his house, as there was a problem with his car and it wouldn't run.

He only lived about a half-mile away. When I arrived at his house, I found him lying across the hood of his beautifully restored '77 Trans AM,  sobbing. He explained that the transmission blew on his way home from work and that it would cost him a lot of time to repair. I tried to be as understanding as I could... I knew how upset he must have been with all of his hard work now needing repair.

I said that it was okay, and that I would be happy to drive us to the restaurant.

His exact words, I will never forget them, were, "I can't possibly leave my baby at a time like this." He explained that he was too upset to eat.  So ended that date with him.

You would have thought that I had learned my lesson, huh?  No.  A few weeks later, after his car had been repaired, he apologized for that night when his car had broken down. Would I please consider attempting another first date?  He told me that he had bought a another car to restore.  It all was interesting to me, so I said yes.

He picked me up on time in his new baby, a '67 Chevy II Nova. Dinner went well, I enjoyed the conversation, and he told me a few car stories that had me laughing.

After dinner, he took me to a back road (no, not for what you are thinking), to push the new engine.  I really enjoyed that, and he seemed like a great guy.

That is until we started back to my house and the engine sputtered.  We rolled to a stop. I figured that he had overworked the new engine and now we were paying for it.

He admitted that we ran out of gas. Why did we run out of gas? He explained that whenever he bought a car, he always allowed it to run out of gas to see where the needle would be on the gauge when he would actually be out of gas.

I understood his reasoning, but why why try this on a first date? Good thing I wore casual shoes!  We pushed that car, and anyone knowing what cars back then weighed will appreciate the effort that it took.

That was the last date we went on but it has a happy ending. That was about 20 years ago, he and I are married to other people, we are still friends, and he is still the only one I allow to work on my cars.

Submitted by Dustin:

I met Kimberly when I was seventeen years old.  I worked at a candy store in a local mall and she came in several times and flirted with me, but I was naive and never really tried to follow up with her.

Then one night she was there at closing time and she told me she didn’t have any way to get home.  I agreed to give her a ride, and she hung out in the empty mall while I closed down the store.

I drove her home and as I dropped her off at an apartment complex, she leaned over suddenly, gave me a nice kiss on the lips, then got out of the car.  She proceeded to write down her phone number and hand it to me through the open window, asking if I would call her for a real date.

I got a kiss without doing anything and she was very attractive, so I promised to give her a call.

I called a few days later and we set up a date – I would pick her up at a local bowling alley where she was hanging out with friends and we would rent a movie and go back to my house (remember I was 17 so it was my parents’ house…) to watch it.

I picked her up, we put in the movie, and snuggled on the couch.  There wasn’t anything naughty going on, though, just some hand holding and other harmless stuff.

The bad/weird part happened when it came time to take her home.  Having already dropped her off once, I knew where to go, but as I pulled off of the freeway near her apartment she said “Turn here.  You can’t drop me off at home.”

I was confused, but I followed her instructions and brought her to a trailer park.  She instructed me to park in a dark shadow, then surprised me with this:  “I ran away from home the other day so I can’t go home.  I’m hoping my friend Alexandra will let me stay in her room.  Can you go knock on the door to that trailer and see if Alexandra is there?”

Not knowing what else to do, I got out of the car and knocked on the door.  Immediately, a large woman wearing what looked like a crumpled bed sheet as a muumuu opened up and yelled at me.  “Are you with Kimberly?  Where is she?  She’s in trouble and you need to take her to her parents immediately.  Where is she?”

I backed away, feigning ignorance (and horror), ran back to my car, and peeled out of there with the lady yelling after me.

“So,” I asked Kimberly, “What now?  Is there anywhere else you can stay?”

"No.  But I’m not going home.  Just drop me off at Walmart.”

“What will you do there?”

“I’ll call some people I know.  It’s not your problem.  They’re open 24 hours.”

Not knowing what else to do (again), I dropped her off at Walmart.  Another quick kiss on the lips and she was gone.  I felt bad, but I had been thrown into the middle of things.

The next day the phone at home rang.  I picked it up and recognized Kimberly’s voice asking for me.  I was getting ready to answer when I heard my mom on another phone downstairs say “You’re not the kind of girl I want my son hanging out with.  Never call this number again.”  Then she hung up.

I never saw Kimberly again, but I still remember the feel of her kiss.