Story Sent in by Louis:

Karleen, who was a paralegal, and I went to a weekend street fair on our first date. All progressed just fine, although she was a little quiet. We walked past various vendors: artisans, bakers, shawarma carts, and food wagons.

It was around lunchtime when we passed one vendor who sold fried dough. Karleen asked if I wanted some and said she'd pay for it. I thanked her for her generosity and took her up on her offer.

After Karleen paid, the vendor handed her two plates of fried dough over his food wagon. Karleen took them both and walked a few steps away from the vendor and I followed her. She then turned to me, tipped one of the plates, and I watched as the fried dough hit the ground.

"Oh, no!" I said.

Karleen said, "That one was going to be yours. Um... yeah."

I pointed to the one that she still carried on her plate. "We can split that one."

She gave me a big frown. "I kind of wanted one to myself. I'm really hungry. How about I buy you a sandwich?"

I said, "Thanks for offering, but you don't have to buy me a sandwich. Don't worry about it. I'll go grab something–"

"No!" she said, "I, uh, I feel bad. Let me buy you a sandwich."

She insisted, so I thanked her and we visited a wagon that had handmade, plastic-wrapped, pre-made sandwiches. Karleen asked me which one I wanted, I pointed it out, she paid for it, and I thanked her again. Then, she walked away with it. I reached for it, but she held it away from me and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Reaching for my sandwich."

She said, "You want this one on the ground, too?"

"What are you talking about?"

She replied, "You want this sandwich, you'll have to ask me nicely for it."

I said, "I already thanked you for it. More than once."

She snapped, "Don't take that tone, jerk-off. I'm a lawyer. I don't have to take shit from you. I want you to beg me for it."

I said, "I would if you were a lawyer, but you're just a paralegal."

Ooh, that set her mad. She threw the sandwich to the ground and pounded away from me. I guessed that the date was over, but the deliciousness had just begun, as the sandwich, unlike the unfortunate fried dough, came wrapped in plastic, and although it was a little flat, I was able to recover and eat it. And thus a small victory was won.

Story Sent in by Cindy:

Joe and I met online, but our schedules were so hectic that we ended up chatting for short bursts late at night, and not meeting in person until about three weeks after he sent me his introductory message. The plan was to meet in a park, take a walk until sundown, then go to a Thai place for dinner.

The main piece of my first-date outfit was a denim dress that had four tiny pockets (really more for style than substance). It was cute, and I didn't think twice about wearing it.

So we met, hugged, and strolled to a bench. I noticed that Joe seemed a bit... well, I guess the word is twitchy. He was prone to slight, sudden movements, and looked behind himself a lot. It prompted me to ask him if everything was okay, and he assured me that it was.

We sat down, talked, and not long after sitting, he pointed to one of my pockets and smiled. He asked, "What 'cha got in there?"

I replied, "Nothing. They look deeper than they are. Nothing will fit in here."

He said, "But I just heard it. You've got something in there."

I asked, "What did you hear?"

He said, "It just said something. You have your phone in there?"

My phone was in my purse. I had no idea what he was talking about. I opened up the pocket and wigged my fingers around inside of it. There was nothing there, and I told him so. That seemed to satisfy him, and we went on talking, although something about that little event made a red flag pop up.

We talked for a bit longer, and the sun went down. It was around that time that I thought about heading to dinner with him when he stared at my dress and gasped.

"There! Again!" he nearly shrieked. "You didn't hear that?"

"Hear what?" I asked, freaking out a bit, myself.

"From that pocket, again! Something said, 'Watch your meal.' What the hell do you have in there? Your phone?"

"No, my phone's in my–"

"A Tamagotchi?"

"Tamagotchi? What am I, twelve?"

"What's in that pocket?"

"Nothing!" I opened the pocket and leaned it toward him so that he could see into it. There was nothing there, at all.

He sat back. "Maybe it's under your dress, then... but I won't go there."

I asked him, "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I swear I'm not crazy. A voice from your pocket told me to watch my meal." He took an extra moment to recover, then asked me, "Ready for dinner?"

I was very ready, but also rather wary. I didn't want him to imagine my dress saying anything else. Still, maybe he had actually heard something from far off behind me and he mistook it to be coming from my pocket. I don't know. I was hungry, and I had a few weeks of decent conversations with him to go on. It seemed wrong to call things off just for something like this. At that point, anyway.

Dinner actually went well. If my dress did say anything more, then it was likely too loud in the restaurant to have heard it. It was way more popular than I thought it would be, and there was a birthday party or some sort of event at the bar. Joe and I talked, and all of the dress-talking craziness from before seemed to have been forgotten.

Well, up until we were halfway through our meals. We had reached that sort of quiet time when we were both occupied with eating. Then, he looked up at me and asked, "What?"

I said, "Hmm? I didn't say anything."

He pointed at my dress. "What did that just say?"

Oh boy... "Nothing. My dress didn't... dresses don't talk, Joe."

"It just did. I heard it. Seriously. Are you messing with me, here? Really. I need to know."

"Joe, my dress didn't say anything. I swear to God. You're hearing things."

He was silent for a few moments, then said, "You're laughing at me."

"Joe, I'm–"

He smiled and sat back. "You are. You're laughing at me." He laughed and twitched all over. "This is all a great big joke. 'Let's make Joe think he's crazy!' Ha!"

I shook my head, already realizing that nothing I could do would change his mind. "Joe, my dress didn't talk."

"Then explain to me these noises and sounds that yours is making. Look, I know you can hear it. It's coming from your dress or your body, but something that isn't your mouth is talking, and I remember before that it came from the direction of that pocket."

I struggled for words, but I simply couldn't be any more convincing than, "Joe, nothing is talking to you besides my mouth. I don't hear anything else. Honest."

He stared for a few seconds, then leaned out from his chair and surveyed the dining room. He muttered, "I'm going to get the check, and I'm going to go. I'm going to get the check, and I'm going to go. I'm going to get the check, and I'm going to go."

The waitress came over, Joe said, "Check, please," then pointed to me and said, "Her dress is talking and just won't stop!"

The waitress glanced at me, then handed Joe the check as if he said nothing at all that was crazy. I offered to help pay, and Joe replied, "I should make you pay for all of this, you asking me out with a talking freakin' dress. That's the least of what I should do..."

He paid for everything, and I thanked him. He said, "Yeah, whatever," then threw his napkin onto the table, stood up, gave me a dark look, and took off.

I checked the pocket one more time to see if there was something I had missed. Then, I saw it.

Within it, scrunched down at the bottom, a little elf cackled away. In a tiny voice he said, "We got him real good, didn't we?"

Just kidding. There was nothing in my pocket, and I never saw Joe again.

Story Sent in by Tyler:

What didn't come across online (although, in retrospect, it did the one time we spoke over the phone) was how much of a talker Nancy was. In person, she did not shut up.

At dinner, I asked her, "How was your day?"

"My day? Well, as soon as I got out of bed, I brushed my teeth, but I forgot that I hadn't had breakfast yet, so I had breakfast and then I brushed my teeth, but then I forgot whether I brushed my teeth or not, so I brushed my teeth again, then on my way to work, I remembered that I brushed my teeth three times that morning, so my teeth were already feeling sparkly fresh and ready for anything, so when they came around at work with apples for everyone, I felt like my teeth could really take it on. The apple they gave me was shiny, but I decided to go and wash it anyway and while I was in the bathroom, could you believe that I was thinking about brushing my teeth again?"

That's what it was like for everything that I asked her. Yes, I understand that she might've been nervous. Yes, in other circumstances, it might've been endearing. But she was a non-stop, literally, non-stop torrent of babble.

If I picked up my fork, she'd interrupt what she was saying with a banal anecdote, like a director commentary on a crappy film: "Okay, so where I grew up, we had only two forks for me and my two brothers, so one time we opened up the silverware drawer and there were no forks at all, and then my younger brother walked into the room with the forks taped to his hand and said, 'Hey, I'm Superman!' To this day we still ask him to tape forks to his hand and call himself Superman."

"That's–" I tried to respond.

"But that reminds me of this time when I crossed the road and when I was in the middle of the street, I stopped and thought of that old joke about the chicken that crosses the road. You know that one? So I stopped and I thought about how unlikely it would be that a chicken would just cross a road in a straight line when a Porsche came zooming at me and honked its horn! I ran across the street to the other side and that's when I thought, maybe that's how the chicken feels!"

"I–"

"Then I remembered a year or two later that it wasn't a Porsche at all! It was a Land Rover. For some reason, the car-identification part of my brain thought it was a Porsche. It probably would've hurt more if I was hit by a Land Rover, huh?"

When the waitress came to take our orders, Nancy must have asked a question about, no joke, about half the items in the menu. She asked if the salad had zucchini, if the pastas were fresh, if the sauces had milk in them, and even what kind of garnish they used on their plates.

The waitress answered each of Nancy's questions, but I could tell that she was becoming more and more impatient. Finally, Nancy said, "Come back to me. Tyler, you order first."

She buried her face in her menu, and I ordered a mushroom and chicken risotto in under 10 seconds. The waitress turned her attention back to Nancy, who pointed to another salad and asked if there were zucchinis in it. The waitress started to recommend various dishes to her, hoping, I guessed, to expedite the decision process.

Nancy finally settled on shrimp scampi. The waitress hurried away, after close to a solid 15 minutes at our table. I asked Nancy, "Do you have major food allergies?"

Nancy replied, "Nope. A friend of mine does, though. He can't eat bread, shellfish, meat, vegetables, or just about anything else. He has to eat special crackers and rice and sometimes he gets a certain sauce on his birthday. Could you imagine that being your birthday present? A kind of special sauce? If he eats anything that he's allergic to, he'll swell up and maybe he'll pop. His guts would be all over the front yard."

"Okay."

"That is, if he was eating in the front yard. It would have to be good weather. You can't eat in your front yard if the weather is bad. Once, some friends and I were planning a picnic and it got rained out, but it's okay because we all had umbrellas and we went ahead with the picnic anyway. I didn't invite my allergic friend, though."

"Right."

"Not because he was allergic, but because I didn't know him yet! I didn't know him until about three years ago, around the same time that I started college. That was before I crossed the street, thinking about the chicken. Not after. At least, I don't think so."

Any kind of conversation on my part was simply futile. I'd say, "Speaking of college, I went to the University of Maryland. I studied–"

"Oh, college! Well..." and she went on until long after her scampi arrived, long after I had finished my risotto. She didn't end up eating a thing, she talked for so long, and asked the waitress to pack it up for her.

Nancy closed out the evening by telling me about a half-dozen stories about times she had food packed up in various restaurants. About as interesting as it sounds. She gave me a great big hug goodnight, then went merrily along on her way.

She didn't do anything overtly mean, but I couldn't really see myself being happy with someone who, verbal splatter aside, didn't even have the courtesy to ask me a single thing about myself. She was way too into the minutiae of her own life for me to ask her out again.

Story Sent in by Viviana:

It was a first date at a bar for Rob and I. We were seated on a long wooden bench that ran the length of a wall. Rob had a good sense of humor, and as the evening went on, I found myself wanting him to like me more and more. I have no idea how it happened, but we went from talking about our landlords to our apartments to our furniture to our bedrooms to our mattresses.

He asked, "Are you one of those Swedish sense-o-foam lovers or are you an old school springs girl?"

"Springs," I replied.

He slid away from me on the bench and said, "Can you show me how you sleep? Pretend this is your mattress."

I gave him a look. "You want me to lie down on the bench?"

"Yeah. Just show me how you sleep."

"Why?"

He leaned in and put a hand on my shoulder. "I just want to see. I'm proving a point. You'll see. I promise."

I really didn't want to completely lie down on the old bar bench. So I pressed my palms together, like in prayer, held them to the side of my cheek, and leaned over slightly, in a mock-sleeping position.

"No, that's not how you sleep," he said, "Show me how you sleep. I promise it'll be worth it."

He stood up, I guessed, to give me more room. I remained sitting, but I leaned over, towards him, on my side, kept my clasped hands in place as a kind of buffer between my face and the bench, then leaned over far enough to touch the bench with my hands. I meant to do it for only a second.

But a second was all he needed. He jolted at me and sat on my head.

"God, Rob, get off!"

He responded by applying more pressure downward. My hands were crushed, my face smashed against them. I could hardly breathe. I thrashed and kicked and I must have made my point somehow, because the next thing I knew, he was off of me.

I was up in a flash. I grabbed my bag and headed out.

"What?" he asked, genuinely as if he hadn't done anything wrong. "What?" he asked, again and again.

My face, hot from both being under his ass and from the embarrassment, didn't bother to respond.

The icing on the cake was an email he sent me that night:

Story Sent in by Adrian:

Cathy and I met in med school. While I had admired her from afar, I more often than not found myself too busy to do any sort of serious dating. When one of my classmates held a party at his house one night in early spring, however, I found myself talking to Cathy for most of the night (it's truly amazing what alcohol can do).

Eventually, I asked her if she wanted to take a walk, maybe grab a late-night snack someplace, then play things by ear (by which I meant that I would've loved to end up at either of our places for the night). She liked the idea, and we left the party. As we strolled (or stumbled) down the sidewalk, she took my arm and kissed my cheek, without a word. It's amazing how such a simple gesture can make a guy feel like he's on top of the world.

We didn't have a destination in mind (at least, I didn't) but we found ourselves in the main quad of the medical school, which was about a half-mile away from where we had started. She led me into the main classroom building.

While the labs were closed, the school kept its classrooms open 24 hours a day, in case anyone wanted to come in and study. The desks and chairs were attached to each other and the floor, so it wasn't as if anyone off the street was going to come in to steal anything and have an easy job of it.

There was, however, one classroom that had a hanging, life-size, plastic display skeleton on a wheeled stand. That's the classroom in which Cathy and I found ourselves.

To make her laugh, I operated the skeleton's jaw and made it say something brainless, like, "Got any fried dough? I haven't eaten in weeks!"

Cathy froze, her smile vanishing in an instant. She said, her voice shaking, "That's such a cruel and heartless thing to say."

I asked her, "Are you being serious?"

She pointed at the skeleton. "That used to be someone! A flesh-and-blood human being! Asshole!"

I replied, "It's plastic. The only thing it used to be was oil."

She shook her head and stumbled back, against a desk. It nearly knocked her off her feet. "Ow!" she cried, "You don't know! Maybe he used to be my fiancé!"

True, we had both drank a lot, but her statements, if meant to be taken seriously, seemed symptomatic of something else entirely. I reached for her to try and steady her, but she wheeled away.

"Don't touch me!" she cried, "I've never been more sober!" She then pushed me out of the way, embraced the skeleton, kissed it, slipped off a ring she was wearing, and repeatedly tried to put it onto the skeleton's hand. Needless to say, it wouldn't stay on, and it kept hitting the floor. Cathy tried, over and over again, to put it on the skeleton. She made cooing and sighing sounds as she stroked it like a lover.

My excitement about being alone with her now nearly dead, I said, "Are you okay? Want to grab something to eat?"

She said, without a trace of her prior anger, "No, I'm... we're good. You can leave us, now. We're good. We're good."

I didn't want to leave her alone, but she soon made up my mind for me on that front, too. She wheeled the skeleton right out of the classroom and down the hall. I followed her and she hurried ahead and out of the building with the skeleton. By the time I made it to the doors that opened out onto the quad, she was already halfway across, at a full run, having picked up the skeleton. The metal display stand itself and the plastic skull, which I guess wasn't wired to the rest of the skeleton, were on the ground, but she kept going.

I grabbed the skull and rack, brought them back to the classroom, and decided to wait until the following week to see if Cathy would bring back the rest of the prop. When it didn't appear, I left an anonymous tip with campus security, and they said that they'd look into it. However, the rest of the skeleton never showed up, at least in that classroom, again.

As for Cathy, I didn't make any further overtures toward her, and aside from cursory greetings, we barely ever spoke another word to each other.

Story Sent in by Muriel:

Dan and I had a date set up for a Friday night, after both of our workdays. It was to be a late dinner, as I had a few errands to run first, including grocery shopping.

"I have a fun idea," he told me earlier that day, over the phone, "Why don't I come grocery shopping with you? I promise to make it fun."

Instinct told me no, but my spirit of unusual first dates won out, and so we agreed to meet at my supermarket, and after that, I'd drive home to put my stuff away and he'd meet me a bit later at the restaurant. Again, I knew at the time that it was unusual, but he was really enthusiastic about it, and he was a fun guy, so we made it a definite.

I grabbed a cart at the market and started on my quest for food. I had already acquired some fruit, granola, cheese, and eggs when he texted to ask where I was, and I wrote back that I was in the cereal aisle, or wherever I was at the time.

He showed up with armfuls of cantaloupes, which, without a word, he dumped into my cart, crushing my eggs.

"What are you doing?" I said, "You just crushed my eggs!"

"The ones in your cart or the ones in your uterus?" he asked.

I said, "Would you mind taking these out of my cart?"

He held up a finger. "I have a better idea. I'll be right back." He skipped away, and so I brought the cart, myself, back to the produce section and put the cantaloupes back where they belonged.

No sooner had I done that when he showed up with two large watermelons and dumped them into my cart.

"Dan, seriously, stop," I said, "Put those back."

"I have a better idea," he said, then skipped away again.

Yes, I know. I should've listened to my instincts about the whole thing. What good could've come from meeting the guy in a supermarket? Then again, if he was this stupid, then maybe it was better to find out this early in our "relationship."

I put the watermelons back, and it was some time before I saw Dan again. In fact, I had very nearly completed my shopping when he showed up once more, this time with what was likely every pack of string cheese in the market.

I saw him coming from down the aisle, and I called, "Don't even think about dumping those in here."

He hurried over to my cart, and I did my best to block him, but most of the string cheese packs ended up in my cart. The rest fell to the floor. He looked at me with a big smile, as if he had just done exactly what I told him to do.

I shouted, "Are you five years old? Clean this up!"

He gave me a sheepish look, then knelt down to pick up the string cheeses from the floor, and then stood to pick them out of my cart. As he did so, many of the packs that he held fell to the floor, and he stooped again and again to collect them. It was pathetic, and this time, he didn't so much skip as he did drag his feet away.

I hurried to the checkout, but Dan didn't show his face or contact me again. That day, or ever.

Story Sent in by Enrique:

Angela and I went out to dinner at a Chinese place with a fish tank. The moment we walked through the door together, she said, "Oh, those poor fish!"

I replied, "Yep. They're what's for dinner."

It was a poor choice of words, because I heard her gasp behind me just as the hostess approached us. I told the hostess, "Table for two," and I turned to Angela. Her face was pressed to the fish tank and she made a series of whimpers.

"Angela," I said, "Ready for dinner?"

She stood up and said, "Not until these fish are freed."

I said, "They're fish in a fish tank. Did you want to do dinner, or–"

She cut in, "I'm not going to eat a thing until these fish are free. I'm serious. It's unethical. No one asked the fish if they wanted to be here."

She didn't seem to be joking at all. The hostess gave me an impatient look, and I said to Angela, "Don't you own a cat? Did you ask your cat if she wanted to be at your apartment?"

Angela said, "My cat's better off than most people."

I replied, "These fish might be better off than most... er... fish."

She turned, stomped out of the restaurant without a word, but she did flip me off, behind her back, as she left. I wasn't going to do dinner there on my own, so I waited a little while and then took off, myself.

Last I checked, the fish tank was still at that place. I am therefore sad that Angela likely died of starvation.

Story Sent in by Lillian:

At our first date dinner, Paul was very excited to tell me something. "I had a vision," he began, "Of us."

"A vision?" I asked, hoping for a punchline.

He said, "Yep. This morning, after I woke up and shaved, I pulled on my pants and it suddenly hit me. It involved dinner, then a bedroom."

I choked on my ziti and said, "A bedroom?"

He replied, "Oh, you thought I meant bedroom sex? Ha! No, I pictured the two of us painting a bedroom."

"Okay..."

He cleared his throat. "And then, you know, having sex."

I sighed. Another online dud. He was quick to catch my disappointment and jumped right in with, "Oh, you though I meant intercourse sex? No, no. I meant discourse sex, as in a discourse, a talk, about gender. As in, we paint the bedroom, then talk about gender... issues."

"All right, Paul. I don't–"

"Then you suck me off."

I stood up. He laughed and said, "You don't get it! I said that if you suck, then me go off! You know, if you suck then I'll go, you know, somewhere else!"

I left him there, with the food and with the check. I had hardly eaten, in all honesty, but I wasn't going to sit there and be disrespected by some bonehead with no common sense or decency.

Story Sent in by Eugene:

Sandra was a very attractive but quiet girl with whom I went to high school. We had a lot of the same friends, and she always acted a bit shy around me. That, in turn, increased my interest in her, and I did my part to engage her in conversation, finally chipping through enough so that we could be called friends.

It was around this time that our high school was gearing up for a Day of Silence (www.dayofsilence.org). A Day of Silence is an event in which students take a vow of silence for a single school day to draw attention to anti-LGBT bullying. A noble cause, and a noble event. Not every student participated (Sandra and I did), but many did, and our school was supportive.

A week before the Day of Silence, I asked Sandra out to dinner. She named the evening of the Day of Silence as a good time to meet up. As the event was (as I understood it) meant to draw attention to bullying in school, I believe the general plan was to go back to speaking after classes were over.

The event went well, and after the final bell rang, I sought Sandra to confirm plans for the evening. When I found her, she remained silent, but confirmed the details by nodding her head. I thought about asking her, "Are you going to be silent the whole time?" but further thought that that would be bad taste, and so I went on my way. I assumed that she wouldn't have agreed to the date that night if she was going to be silent for it.

Well, my mistake. She remained silent through all of dinner, leaving me to do all the talking. At one point, I think I even asked her, "If you were planning to be silent the whole time, then why did you tell me that tonight would be a good night for this?"

Her response? Silence.

I tried to make the best of it, and cracked some jokes that made her smile. I thought that maybe if I gave her a good enough impression, she'd break the silence and we could still salvage the evening.

I guess I didn't try hard enough, because she was quiet the whole time. When the food was served, though, she certainly opened her mouth for that.

I had originally planned on treating her, but due to the circumstances (it was really like I was out on a date with myself), I had decided to ask her to split the check. When it arrived, I glanced it over and then slid it to her.

She gaped at me, and to help her out, I said, "I think you owe $12 or $13."

She took out a pen and wrote a message on a paper napkin, then slid it to me.

She had written, "Silent people can't pay. Sorry."

I looked at her note for several moments, then up at her. She gave me a what-are-you-gonna-do shrug.

Was she seriously pulling this? After I spent all of dinner talking for two? No way. Not happening. I was fed up.

I said, "Then silent people shouldn't have eaten. Pay up."

She gave me a bug-eyed stare, but when it was clear that I was serious, she gave a closed-mouth groan and pulled out her wallet.

Oddly enough, for the rest of the school year, long after the Day of Silence, she continued to give me the silent treatment.

Story Sent in by Kathleen:

Will and I were at dinner on our first date at an outdoor cafe on a summer night. He had a small, blue spray bottle with him, and would spritz himself with it every few minutes.

"It's to cool me down," he explained. It wasn't an especially hot evening, but if that's what kept him comfortable, then that was fine.

We were in the middle of a decent conversation when he asked, "Do you smell farts?"

Instinctively, I sniffed the air. Then, I held my breath. "No. Do you?"

He said, "Not right now, I mean, ever. I've never, ever smelled a fart."

"Lucky you," I said, wondering what brought on the topic.

He spritzed himself with the bottle. "Can you describe it to me? What do they smell like?"

I wondered at why he chose me, of all the people in his lifetime, to describe such a thing to him, and in all situations, why on a date.

He continued, "I think it's a medical condition. I can smell things like the food, the street, and your musk, but when people around me have complained about fart smells, I can't smell a thing that would cause such a disturbed reaction."

I was approaching a disturbed reaction, myself. Still, I played along and said, "Like rotten eggs. Can we move on?"

"Eww!" he said, making a face, then spritzed himself again, "Gross! No wonder people get so freaked out by them."

Desperate to move away from this talk, I said, "At least the food smells good."

He sprayed himself with his bottle again. His face was dripping wet. "But in a few hours, it'll fart out of us, and then it won't smell good. Like rotten eggs. What's the medical condition where you can't smell?"

He sprayed more water onto himself. All this flatulence talk, his soaked face, and the heat were making my head swim. I said, "Anosmia. But I don't think there's such a thing as just tuning out one smell."

He grinned, then leaned to one side, then farted. He said, "Guarantee you, I won't smell a thing."

"That's amazing," I said.

What was amazing was that I was still out to dinner with this guy. I hurried us to a hasty close. He definitely noticed and spent the rest of dinner trying to be extra-nice to me and insisted on picking up the tab, take me wherever I wanted, etc. I thanked him for dinner, went on my way, and stopped dating for a while after that.

Story Sent in by Marc:

Peggy and I were supposed to go to dinner, but when we met up, she said, "I have a better idea: let's go to the beach!" The closest beach to us was about 40 miles away, and as much as I liked spontaneity, I thought that an 80-mile round-trip to a beach on a first date (in separate cars, she insisted) wasn't the best plan.

When I told her that, she said, "Not the ocean beach! Here, follow me." She jumped into her car and I hurried into mine. She took off, and I followed her.

We wound up about two miles away, on the shore of a reservoir. She sat down on the grass, crossed her legs, and lifted her arms, as if someone had just made a touchdown.

It was a cloudless evening, and aside from all the bugs, it was pretty out. When I mentioned that to her, she said, "Shh," and maintained the same unusual position. I tried to make conversation a few more times, and each time was met with a "Shh," so I stopped trying.

She finally dropped her arms and shook them out. She said, "I'll meet you at the restaurant. There's something I have to do here. I won't be long."

I went to the restaurant, curious, but ultimately pleased that the date would hopefully be starting in earnest. I had almost made it there when she called my phone and I picked up.

"Come back!" she said, "I need you back here."

The first thing that flashed through my head was that someone had given her trouble. I asked, "Are you okay?"

She replied, "Yeah, but come back here. I forgot something."

He voice didn't sound frightened, but insistent. I turned around and went back to the reservoir. When I arrived, she was nowhere in sight. I looked around, called for her, and even called her phone. No reply. I waited for several minutes, tried her phone again, and then headed back to the restaurant.

After I had parked and had been waiting in the restaurant vestibule for any word from her, she called me. I told her that I'd be waiting for her in the restaurant, and that I wasn't planning to meet her anywhere else.

"That's fine, I'll be right there," she said, followed by something that sounded a lot like, "I just have to get the baster out of my ass."

She hung up before I could ask her to clarify. She never showed up, and I never heard from her again.

Profile Sent in by Glen:

The six things I could never do without

I believe that eating the brain of another living being is the only way to truly become smarter. I don't kill things, but I will eat the brains of freshly dead roadkill. No I am not a hick so stop askin. I am based in scientific knowledge. If you eat the muscles of a chicken you wil grow muscles. Stands to reason if you eat brains, you will grow brains. My father is a doctor and he swears this is true.


I spend a lot of time thinking about

Politics and how much better we'd all be if the politicians from both sides of congress met up over a dinner of brains. Think of the smartness that would be there and the atupidness that would be gone.


On a typical Friday night I am

Frying brain with friends.


The most private thing I'm willing to admit

taste human brain once. Too salty. lol

Story Sent in by Henrietta:

David and I had been friends for a little while. We had met at a party not long after I had moved to town. We had very similar musical tastes, and would sometimes hang out over drinks and talk about a new group or trade mp3s or whatever else.

He asked me out to dinner and a concert. While at dinner, he confessed that he had liked me for a while, and wanted that night to be a date. He was always nice to me, and I always looked forward to seeing him, so I told him that that was fine. I figured we'd play things by ear, but I remember being optimistic about the whole thing and wanting to learn more about him.

At the concert, though, my hopes unraveled a bit. A rock group was performing, but it wasn't really thrash metal. Still, that didn't stop David and a couple other guys from moshing with gusto. Whatever, I thought, as long as he's having fun.

Then, he came up to me, sweaty as anything, and asked, "Yo, does my head smell funny?"

I gave it a sniff, and to be honest, I didn't smell anything unusual, and I told him so.

"Damn," he said, "Be right back."

He left the venue, and so while I waited for him to return, a couple of other guys chatted me up, and we talked for a while.

When David finally returned to me, his hair was a wet, sudsy mess, as if he had—

"I just washed my hair!" he said, "Now smell it."

He shoved his head at me again. It smelled like a fruity flower garden, and he had a bit more rinsing to do. I told him that his head smelled great, but that he needed to wash out the rest of the shampoo or whatever he used.

He asked the nearby bartender for a glass of water, then dipped his fingers in the glass and ran them through his hair. Then, without waiting for me, he joined the non-moshing crowd and moshed like crazy. The band was playing a ballad, for crying out loud!

I excused myself from the people with whom I'd been talking and slid through the crowd to where David was in rare form. I asked him, "Who are you moshing to?" and he didn't reply. I tried once more: "Do you want to come over to the bar?" No response.

I left him thrashing there, and I returned to the folks at the bar. The band cranked up their next song, and it was at that point that David came back over, again, a sweaty clump. At that point, I noticed that something smelled, but it wasn't his hair.

"Hey," he said, nearly flopping against the bar. Then, taking notice of my expression, he asked, "What?"

I said, "Uh, you kind of do smell, now."

He looked aghast. "Seriously? I just washed my hair!"

I replied, "I think it's b.o."

He sniffed at himself, then ran his hands through his hair, stuck them under his shirt, and rubbed them around his armpits. "Try now," he said, holding a pit up to my face. It still smelled, and I told him so.

He shrugged, downed a beer, then grabbed my arm and said, "Come on! Let's dance!"

He was my date, and I was, actually, in the mood to dance, so I followed him out to the floor, and he actually danced like a normal person. However, about halfway through the song, he said, "I'm tired, now. I want to go home. Want to come with me?"

I said, "If the date's over, I might stick around–"

"No!" he said, "Then I'll stick around, too."

I stayed there for a little longer, alternating between dancing and talking with David and the small group to whom I'd been talking, before. Whenever I spoke with them, David silently brooded.

Finally, David and I left together, he tried to plant a wide-open-mouth kiss on me, which I successfully avoided, and we went home to our separate places of residence. He didn't ask me out for another date, although we still hung out in groups of our friends, and we're still acquaintances.

Story Sent in by Eric:

Valerie and I were having a great first-date dinner. She spent about as much time laughing at things I said as she did talking, which I took to be good.

At one point, I told her about this time when my little sister used the bathroom for close to three hours, preparing for a date of her own. When she finally left the bathroom, it smelled like a never-cleaned latrine. I had told my sister, "What the hell did you do in there?" and she replied, "It's just my perfume. Shut up," and she went out of the house smelling like livestock.

Valerie happened to be drinking from her beer when I told her that, and she spewed out a mouthful across the table and all over my face.

"Ugh!" I cried, then mopped at my face with my napkin and smiled. It was gross, but I wanted to have a sense of humor about it, since Valerie had shown me hers all night.

Once I had dried my face, I told her that I was going to head to the bathroom to wash off.

She then spat a mouthful of beer at me, again! And laughed! What the hell? Once was a funny accident, but this second time was definitely on purpose, and I was fast losing my sense of humor about it. We were attracting stares. I hurried away from the table, washed myself in the bathroom, and returned.

She took another big mouthful of beer, gargled it, and leaned toward me. I said, "Do it again, and–"

She did it again. I slammed my hands on the table and yelled, "Cut it out!"

She screamed, "Asshole!" then grabbed her purse and left me there with a dripping face. I have no idea what she thought was going to happen after I had warned her not to do it again, but having her out of my life was an acceptable reward.

Story Sent in by Michelle:

Roy and I had planned to meet for a first date: drinks and dinner on a Saturday night. We had spoken online for about three weeks before, and I was looking forward to meeting him.

Imagine my surprise when, on the morning of our date, in my pajamas and robe, I opened my front door to grab the newspaper, and he was already standing there, on my porch, reading my paper!

I nearly jumped out of my skin, but I recognized him from his profile photos and said, "Roy?"

He looked up at me and said, "Hey, Michelle. I know I'm a bit early but I figured we could hang out all day. Maybe have breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. What do you say to that?"

I said the truth: "Uh, I have plans today before our date. That's not going to... uh... work."

He shrugged and replied, "That's fine. I can come with you. Maybe I can help you run those errands."

"They're not all errands. I'm catching up with friends."

"Great. I can meet them. Here, I brought you your paper."

He gathered up the pages and thrust them at me in a clump. Maybe he was trying to be cute, but it wasn't working. I didn't want to open my screen door, so I said, "Just leave it. I'll pick it up, later."

He said, "I've already been out here for a while. I can keep waiting here, while you're out. I have nothing else to do today."

"No, Roy. Please, just let me meet you for dinner later on."

He replied, "Okay, well I'll probably just walk around the block or something, but you have my number if you want to hang out any earlier. Okay?"

He left, and swiped my paper from the porch and closed and locked the door. I waited a good, long while before venturing outside, and when I did, I couldn't help but notice the strong aroma of urine on my porch. I didn't own a dog, so I had no idea how the smell could've been so strong there, unless something – or someone – used my porch or the area around it as a toilet.

I called Roy later that day to cancel the date. The entire set of circumstances were just too creepy. Thankfully, he never showed up again, and I'm still not sure how he found my house, to begin with.

(Frighten the flawed - Embrace the Fear at Jared's Inkwell - JMG)


Story Sent in by Marlon:

After a string of uninspiring meet-ups, I found Ashley's profile online, and nearly fell over myself to write a message to her. Here's someone whose profile referenced my favorite musicians, authors, and childhood cartoons. I had to meet her.

Meet her I did. I took her out to a steakhouse that we both liked, and, from my point of view at least, everything seemed great. She ordered the grilled chicken salad, I ordered the prime rib with a side of vegetables, and we were gold.

We were both into photography, and were showing each other examples of our work (on our phones) when I told her that I had to use the bathroom and that I'd be right back. As I slid out of the booth, the waitress arrived with our dinners. I looked forward to having dinner and continuing the conversation with Ashley upon my return.

I walked into the men's room and hurried to the urinal, which was within sight of the door. As I did my business at the urinal, the bathroom door swung open. Ashley stood there with my prime rib dinner in her hand.

"Uh, what–?" was all I was able to choke out.

She said, "You forgot your meat!" then set my plate on the floor, shoved it toward me, such that its peas and carrots spilled all around, then turned and fled.

I picked up the plate at once, set it on the sink, then finished at the urinal, cleaned up the vegetables on the floor, washed my hands, grabbed the plate, and left.

I found a handwritten note on the table upon my return: "Sorry. Wanted chicken nuggets." I was stuck with the check for both of our meals, but as it didn't look like she had touched hers, I ordered it boxed up and had it for dinner the next night. As for Ashley, I never heard from her again.

Story Sent in by Paula:

Kevin and I met through a speed dating service, and out of the six guys I met at the event, he was the only one who could make consistent eye contact with me, so when he called to ask me out, I said yes.

He took me to a bar and grill, where he obviously was a regular. He recommended various meals on the menu, and told me about the beers that the place apparently brewed in-house. Taking his advice, I ordered one, as did he, and everything started off just fine.

"I've had lots of sex," he said, not long after he had finished half of his beer.

"That's wonderful," I replied, hoping he wouldn't elaborate.

"I've done it with models, musicians, even a married elected official."

"Okay."

"Some have asked me what my secrets are. I tell them, 'No secret. It's a simple, two-step process: step one is knowing what a woman wants, step two is giving it to her.'"

The speech sounded rehearsed. Dinner was on its way, but I already wanted out.

He continued, "But finding out what a woman wants is difficult! If you ask them, they clam up like a clenched asshole. Am I right?" He laughed, slapped the table, laughed some more, and went on, "So I have a way of doing it."

"Okay..." I said, racking my brain for a quick way out of the situation.

He said, "For only three easy payments of $29.95, I'll part with my secrets in book form: Finding Out What Women Want. It's a trove of examples, real-world situations, and emergency lines to use in order to get any woman at the bar, the beach, the subway, the street."

"I-I think I'm good."

"Well, what if I threw in a $5 Toys R Us gift card?"

I asked, "What makes you think I'd be interested in this?"

He sat back. "Playing hard-to-get? All right. I'll spill. I could tell within a minute of meeting you that you're a smart woman who admires success. Am I wrong? And what if I told you that my program's been translated into Spanish, for sale in Spanish territories?"

He paused, as if waiting for the amazement that never came, then went on, "Incredible, but true. This product works. And it's yours for three easy installments of $29.95. Small price to pay, considering that that's only about two or three dinner dates. What do you have to lose?"

"I don't know. Dignity? $89.85?"

He replied, "Well, don't forget that $5 Toys R Us gift card."

"I haven't forgotten it. I think I'll pass. I'm not your target audience. At all."

He smiled and leaned closer, "But what about those guy friends of yours, you know the type, the ones who have no game whatsoever?"

Guys like you? I thought.

"Imagine their faces when they see something like this. 'Finally, what I've been waiting for!' they'll say. Guaranteed! Guaranteed!"

I stood up. "I'm sorry. I don't think this is going to work. I'm not a fan of having stuff sold to me, and this isn't really a date, to me. It's like a sales meeting."

"All right," he said, "I understand. Still not good enough. Tell me what I could do to sweeten the pot."

I shook my head. "Nothing, at this point. I'm sorry." I walked out on him, even though I felt terrible about it. I had never walked out on a date before, but this guy was so clueless, so delusional, that I thought it was justified.

Story Sent in by Larry:

Andrea and I went to a crafts store on our first date, one that had a jewelry-making class. It was sparsely attended: just the two of us, the instructor, and one other girl were there for the crafting, but we went in with enthusiasm, nonetheless.

It was meant for novices, and so the instructor started us on using hard, plastic beads. We started with making bracelets, and as the instructor went on about color compliments and patterns and such, I took an interest in Andrea's project.

When I queried her about it, though, and even on topics unrelated to bracelet-making, she remained curiously quiet, like I had said something insulting earlier in the evening, although I had done nothing of the sort. She shot some pretty venomous glances at the instructor, at least it looked that way, but it's possible that I misinterpreted them.

As I finished tying my bracelet closed, Andrea pointed to my yellow and purple-beaded work and asked me, "Who's that for?"

"You," I replied, and I meant it. I couldn't see myself wearing such a bracelet.

Andrea gave the instructor a heated stare, flared her nostrils, breathed heavily, then turned back to me and said, "Well, it sucks!" and she ripped it out of my hands, threw it on the floor, stomped on it, threw her own bracelet down on the table, and stormed out of the shop.

I was shocked by the explosion. The instructor and the other student watched Andrea leave, then looked at me, without a word.

My bracelet was a little scratched but otherwise just fine. The hard plastic we used didn't easily shatter. I opted to remain in the shop, rather than follow Andrea out, and when I asked the instructor and other student if they wanted to order in, since I was supposed to have been out to dinner anyway, they agreed, and so we all ate together.

I didn't end up dating the other student (or the instructor), but at least I made a couple of new friends out of the whole, weird affair.

Story Sent in by Alice:

Jason wrote to me online. Unlike a lot of the guys who had written to me before, he seemed gregarious and interesting, and I looked forward to finding messages from him in my inbox. It wasn't long before he asked me out on a first date.

When we did meet in person, he said, "Whoa. Your pictures don't do you justice." It was a sweet thing to say, although the experience shortly took a turn I didn't expect. After we strolled around for a few minutes, he said, "Oh, shoot. I forgot something in my car. I'll be right back." He took off, and I waited for him for about 10 minutes.

He returned with a big smile and said, "All better. So, you were saying about your college..."

I didn't ask him what he had forgotten, and figured that he maybe left his lights on. Anyway, it was time for dinner, and we sat down in a nice place. After almost a half-hour of drinks and talk, he once again said, "Man, you are beautiful. God almighty. Be right back." He stood and left the table.

His similar words before both disappearances were not lost on me. Perhaps it was his way of assuring me that he'd be back. Maybe. In any event, I figured that he went to the bathroom, and that was that.

He returned and we ordered dinner and everything was fine. He was a bit dorky, but seemed well-rounded, and we never ran out of things about which to talk.

After close to another hour, and another drink or two, he stood and said, "You are so gorgeous. Oh my God..." and he left the table once more.

I resolved to query him about it upon his return, and several minutes later, he came back. I asked him, "What's with the really nice compliments before you take off for 10 minutes?"

He giggled and said, "Yeah, see, you're just so beautiful–"

"Answer the question."

He said, "Well, it's meant as a compliment, so it's nothing for you to be worried about..."

"What's meant as a compliment?"

He replied, "My jerking off."

I went rigid. I couldn't think of a thing to say. He quickly followed it up with, "I do it because I don't want to screw things up. If I didn't do it, I'd have been all over you by now."

"Waiter! Check!"

"Seriously," he went on, "I'd have torn your shirt off and have sucked... well, I wouldn't be able to control myself. It's just how beautiful you are and..."

The check arrived. I offered to pay my share, but he insisted on covering it. Over and over, he apologized for making me uncomfortable. As the rest of the evening had gone well, I wondered if I was being too judgmental about the whole thing.

Then, after the check was paid, he stood up, said, "Wait right here, you gorgeous thing. I'll be right back. Your face just makes me want to... oh, yeah. Be right back," and nearly ran for the bathroom again.

I was gone by the time he came back, whenever that was.

Story Sent in by Ned:

Ariana and I had sat down to dinner on our first date and she ordered a salad. When it arrived, she didn't start on it, and I thought she was just being polite, as my food hadn't arrived yet.

I said, "Thanks, but you don't have to wait for me. Go ahead."

She replied, "I'm not waiting for you."

When our meals arrived, hers with cole slaw, mashed potatoes, and chicken, she poured the entire contents of her dinner plate into her salad and mixed it all together with her fork and knife.

I didn't say anything, but I was fascinated, and she looked up and said, "Start. You don't have to wait for me."

I asked, "Do you always mix your food together like that?"

She stopped what she was doing and said, "Everyone mixes their food together like this."

Being someone who has never mixed his food together like that, I felt inclined to say, "I don't."

She said, "Then don't. This is how I do it." She finished mixing her foods, then dug into them, fast and furious. I ate my dinner, and we remained in silence for a couple of minutes.

That was, until she said, "Whoa. I'm filled to bursting. Here. Try some." She upended her lettuce-potato-slaw-chicken mix and glopped it, unceremoniously, onto my own dinner.

"Stop!" I said, "No, thank you!"

She gave me a look like I had just hit her. "Wow. You must really hate me."

"No, I just—"

"No, I could tell. There was hate there. Whatever. Let's just end this shit charade."

"I don't hate you."

She smiled. "Well, I hate you. So hurry and finish your precious dinner, so you can get out of here with some dignity."

I purposefully took a longer time to finish my dinner, and by the way I saw her fidget, check the time, and fidget some more, it must have been torture for her. As soon as I was done, we split the check and she zoomed out of there like the place was on fire.

Story Sent in by Wallis:

When I first encountered Gerald, in front of a local hockey rink, where he had arranged for us to meet, he smelled like he had taken a bath in women's perfume. The rink was just outside of the main part of town, and we had planned to do dinner together, but standing within 10 feet of him was like having someone stuff three pounds of rose petals up each of my nostrils. It was hard to breathe.

He noticed. "What's wrong?" he asked.

I coughed, "I'm sorry, your... cologne..."

He laughed. "That's not cologne. You like it?"

I coughed a few more times, trying not to appear too sensitive, but I'm not sure what he was thinking in the first place. He smelled like a funeral parlor.

"Come here," he said, then gave me a big hug, pressing me to his chest.

It was overwhelming. I couldn't take it, and I shoved him away.

"What the hell's your problem?" he barked, then screamed, "Did you hear what I asked you? I asked you a goddamn question! What the hell's your problem?"

I yelled, "Your perfume is making me choke, asshole!"

"It's not perfume!" he shrieked, then ran away. I was so shaken that I went inside the rink to sit down for a little while, then called a couple of friends to come hang out. I was afraid that he'd come back, but he didn't.

Story Sent in by Chris:

Amie talked so much about her last boyfriend during first date dinner, I felt like I knew more about him than I did about myself, by the end of it. At one point, she said, "I think he still has a pair of my shorts, in fact," and she pulled out her phone and called him, then and there, to ask him.

It was easy to decide that there wouldn't be a second date, but she hadn't yet pulled out the biggest surprise of all.

After we left the restaurant, she texted like a madwoman and then asked me, "Want to go to Margot's?" Margot's is a dessert place that makes awesome shakes. I was game, if only to have a shake and a pleasant association with which to end the evening.

At Margot's, Amie ordered two shakes (she insisted on paying for mine) and then, after responding to a text, she stood up from the table at which we sat and said, "I'll be right back," leaving me there with her shake.

She never returned. I sent her a text and called her after a half-hour, and neither received a response, so I figured that she was gone and I had two shakes. It was awesome.

Two weeks later, after I had mostly forgotten all about her, she sent me a message: "Do you still have the shake I left with you?"

I replied, "It's gone."

She wrote back, "What happened to it?"

I emailed, "I drank it."

A day later, I received a PayPal invoice from her, for about twice the price of the shake. After having a good laugh about it, I deleted the invoice and tried to forget all about her again.

Well, she made that a bit difficult, sending me emails about every day for half a year before she finally stopped. Funny how she was more concerned with being reimbursed for her shake than for actually being a good date, in the first place.

Story Sent in by Stephanie:

On our first date, Jack asked me to meet him at a library. I didn't think anything of it at first: it was a central location, and I assumed that from there, we'd head to dinner.

Instead, he took me into the library, led me to an aisle of shelves, and said, "Wait here. I just have to use the bathroom."

He hurried into the neighboring aisle, then poked at books through the shelves so that it looked like they were falling off, into the aisle I was in, by themselves. Yep. Scary.

After doing that for half a dozen or so books, he came back and said, "Okay, I just went to the bathroom. Ready to go?"

"Yes," I said, without referencing the book thing. He looked at me as if he really wanted me to mention something about it, but I thought it was pretty silly, so I opted to ignore it. As we left the library, he asked, "Anything strange happen while I was gone?"

"Nope."

At dinner, he said, "They say that library's haunted. What do you think?"

I replied, "I don't believe in ghosts."

"You didn't see a ghost knocking books off of shelves while you were there?"

"Nope."

He inhaled and exhaled loudly, as if transmuting exasperation into rage. Once more, he asked, "You saw no books falling off of shelves while you were there?"

"No."

He said, "Fine. This will be the only time I pay for dinner, ass-bitch." He called the waiter over, paid the check as quickly as he could, said, "Good night," and left. What a relief!

Story Sent in by John:

Just after sitting down to dinner on our first date, Mia took off a large shoulder bag that was almost bursting with papers. I knew she was a teacher, but this was the middle of the summer.

"Schoolwork?" I asked her

She replied, "My lawsuits. I'm in the middle of five."

If the little voice in my head was a person, it would have waved two red flags in its hands, two between the toes of either foot, and one in its mouth. I asked, "For what?"

She said, "If we get there, tonight, I'll tell you."

She had never mentioned being in any sort of trouble, whether in an email or either of our two phone calls prior. In fact, at that point, I didn't know if she was the one suing or being sued, or, as there were five suits, if it was a mix and match.

I was so curious that in the middle of dinner, I suggested (unnecessarily), "Maybe you should move your lawsuit bag under the table. You wouldn't want to spill anything on them."

She replied, "The lawsuits are all against me. Back in my wilder days, I had a habit of going out at night and throwing dog shit against people's doors and windows."

That was all the explanation I received. I asked, "And they're suing you for it?"

She said, "Whatever. It's not like they're going to get anything. There was hardly any damage."

"When were these 'wilder days'?"

"Look, I shouldn't even be discussing this with you. You could be, I don't know, a spy for the other sides. I've just got to read through them all and it's stressing me out."

"Okay."

She pointed a finger at me and said, "They're saying I did it because they were families who didn't tip me at the end of the school year, but that's not true. That's all I'm saying."

As I didn't want to wake up with a pile of crap on my porch, I nodded along with her, and kept a smile on, right up until the date ended.

Story Sent in by Barbara:

I was out to dinner with Alex on our first date, at a popular hole-in-the-wall establishment that I had always wanted to try. He seemed a bit shy, so I did my best to engage him and laugh and put him at ease.

At one point, before our meals were served, he excused himself to go to the bathroom. As he departed, I realized that I also had to visit it, so I waited for him to come back.

When he did, I stood and said, "Be right back."

He grasped my wrist and said, "No!"

I asked, "What's wrong?"

He said, "The b-bathroom's unisex."

I replied, "That's okay. I don't mind."

"It didn't, well, it didn't, you see, the problem is that, well, it didn't exactly... er..."

The act of standing made me need to use the bathroom ten times more. Spit it out, man!

He finished, "It didn't, uh... didn't flush my pee all the way down."

"That's all right," I said.

"You don't understand. That means, you'll see my pee."

"So?"

"And, you know. Pee onto it."

I forced a smile, gave him a thumbs up and said, "Can't wait," then headed to the bathroom.

Once I was done, I returned to the table.

Alex was gone.

Story Sent in by Tony:

This happened to me towards the end of my senior year in high school. I was out with Sondra on a first date, and after taking her out to dinner, I asked her if she wanted to go to a nearby bakery to have some dessert.

"No," she said.

I, however, had my eyes on a slice of cheesecake since we passed by the store windows on a walk earlier in the evening. Walking in the bakery's direction, I asked, "Then would you mind if I ran in to grab a slice of cheesecake?"

She said, "You do that, and I'll lie down, dead."

Without waiting for a response from me, she lay down on the sidewalk, made a contorted face, and went still.

"Ha, ha. Okay. Stand up," I said. She remained there. "Come on," I cajoled, "Let's go."

A middle-aged guy walked by and asked, "What's wrong?"

I replied, "Nothing. She just... does this sometimes. She's fine."

The guy took my word for it and continued on. I leaned over Sondra and tugged at her arm. It flopped around, for all purposes as if she was dead. "Sondra, come on. Please."

She closed her eyes, but otherwise remained still. I lost more patience. "Come on," I said, "Let's go. Right now."

She made no movement. I said, "Fine! Be dead!" and stormed off, towards the bakery.

I swung by the place of her "death" once I had my to-go slice. She was actually still there. I took a few steps toward her, then thought better of it and went back to my car.

When I drove past the block where she had "died," on my way out of town, I noticed that she still lay there.

When I saw her in school, the following Monday, she actually lay down on the floor, right in the hall, and feigned death again. For the remainder of the two weeks of classes, she did exactly that, no matter where I encountered her, and wouldn't move, apparently, until I had left the vicinity.

I did manage to have some fun with it. On a particularly hot day, I encountered her outside the school's front doors (among a group of friends) and she lay down on the sidewalk, which was likely warm enough to cook an egg. I made conversation with some of her friends, pretending to take no notice of her.

Finally, she said, "Ow, damn it," and shifted her body to a nearby, grassy area, where she proceeded to "die" once more. I've never seen her since high school graduation, but to this day, I wonder if she'd play dead, just out of habit, if she saw me again.

Story Sent in by Mira:

Before dinner on our first date, Tom and I walked through a local college campus. It was a nice, early autumn night. He said, "You look really great. Do you mind if I take your picture?" It was an unusual request, but I felt pretty comfortable with him, so I told him that he could. He snapped a shot with his smartphone after posing me, and we continued on to dinner. We had a long talk afterward and at the end of the date, we kissed goodnight. All seemed well.

The next morning, I woke up to a dozen, literally a dozen, emails from him. All had subjects that read, "What do you think of this one?" "How about this?" "This one's my fav!" "I like this one" and so on. Each email had a photo attached, and each photo was an image of my head messily superimposed onto a naked woman.

I didn't know whether to be frightened, shocked, or to laugh: two of the photos (subject lines: "Skin so smooth?" and "I love this blend") featured my head on black women (I'm white). One of the photos (subject line: "SPOOOOOOOOGE!") had my head superimposed onto a photo of a woman, taken from behind, so that it looked like my head faced backwards.

No messages were written in the emails. Just the photos were attached. He hadn't at all hinted, during the date, that he was planning something like this, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. I did, however, decide that I likely wouldn't see him again.

He left me two voicemails in the ensuing week. One was friendly and didn't at all mention the photos. It was a simple, "Hi, how are you, let's hang out again soon" message.

The second one said, "Hey, Mira. It's Tom. I haven't heard from you. Is this about the photos? 'Cause if it is, then, uh, I mean, I can't see why you wouldn't contact me. So, yeah, I mean, just give me a call back. I can make some... I guess I'll just make some more and send them until I hear back from you, so yeah..."

He sent two more, but they paled in comparison to the first batch. Haven't heard from him since.

Story Sent in by Jerry:

I met Angela on a dating site, and our first date was at a restaurant. She showed up 15 minutes late without any kind of apology or explanation. That alone was a strike against her, but once we sat down, she asked me, "Had any luck with online dating?"

That's a bad question to ask. It's like asking, "Met anyone else you clicked with?" on a first date.

I replied, "Well, I've met you."

She rebuffed my compliment. "But have you met anyone else you got along with?"

I replied, "A couple of people. You?"

She asked, "So you're saying you had sex with other people? From online?"

I had, in fact. But it seemed like a poor time to mention it. Instead, I said, "I've met other people and sometimes it's worked out for a few dates and sometimes it hasn't."

She said, "So you've had sex with people you've met online, then."

"I–"

"All right, then."

She reached for her water glass and spilled it onto the table so that the water would pour in my direction. I shouted, and as I mopped it up with my napkin, she fled from there, and I never heard from her again. I suppose I should count myself lucky that we hadn't ordered food.

Story Sent in by Dorrie:

I met Paul online, and our first date was short. We met in a park and he, a big guy, gave me an unexpected, large, bear hug. He then laughed and slammed a fist into his hand and said, "Ha, ha! You're so small, I bet I could smash your head between my fists like a stack of Saltine crackers!"

I asked, "Why would you say that?"

He said, "Just putting it out there, in case you were planning to try something."

I asked, "What could I possibly do to warrant the threat, let alone, the action?"

He sighed. "I dunno. Let's just do dinner, all right?"

"No thanks." I hurried back to my car. I heard him say something behind me that sounded like, "bitch," but I'd say that's preferable to being caught. between his fists.

Story Sent in by Pedro:

Christine looked good on our date, but she had a cotton swab tucked behind each ear, like pencils. My first thought was that she had placed them there while readying, and had forgotten to take them off.

I said, hoping to appear polite, "You have swabs behind your ears."

She nodded. "I know. How was your day?" That was all the discussion we had about them.

We split an appetizer and as we ate and talked, she nonchalantly took one out from behind her ear and swabbed around the inside of her mouth. I didn't say anything about it, and I'd never seen someone do that before. She went about it as if it was perfectly normal.

When dinner came, more of the same. She switched off between swabs, and set about constantly rubbing them about the inside of her mouth, usually after every couple of bites. She often had a fork in one hand and a swab in the other, and when she was done with a swab, she'd put it back behind her ear. It was troubling, but I said nothing about it.

After we had eaten, and Christine had two very used cotton swabs tucked behind her ears, the waitress asked us if we wanted dessert. We decided to split a slice of layered chocolate cake.

As the waitress went to retrieve it, I asked Christine, "Do the swabs really help to keep your mouth clean?"

She said, "Better than floss. Here." She took one out from behind her ear and held it right before my eyes. It was discolored, brown and yellow, and had little bits of food clinging to it. I thought for a nightmarish moment that she was offering it to me to use, but she said, "Look at all this that would've otherwise been in my mouth."

With that, she tucked it behind her ear. I asked, "And you reuse them?"

She replied, "I try not to, but I haven't had a chance to buy new ones yet, so if you rinse them and dry them, they keep for a little bit."

Good to know. Of course, she went mad with them, in her mouth, between every bite of cake. She was nice otherwise, but that was a pretty big hurdle for me, so that was our first and only date.

Story Sent in by Teresa:

On our first date, Larry and I talked, over dinner, about our respective families. As it's the smartphone age, we showed each other pictures of those about whom we spoke, to put faces to names, and such. At one point, after I flashed past a photo of myself and my cousins (in which I was wearing jean shorts), he said, "Whoa, those are your shorts?"

I flicked back to the photo. Indeed, it was a shot of me in my jean shorts that went down to just above my knees. I said, "Yes. Like them?"

He replied, "You wear those in front of your family?"

I said, "Yeah. There's nothing risque about them. On family holidays, I've worn bikinis in front of my family."

"Holy dogshit," he said, "Really?"

"Yeah. It's just my family."

He stared at the photo for enough time for me to say, "Okay, moving on..." and then I flicked to a few more photos, gave them brief explanations, and then put my phone away.

"I still can't get over you and those shorts," he said, "Are they comfortable?"

"Yeah."

"They look it. Do they press tight against your skin?"

I had a feeling where this was going. I said, "They're just like any other shorts. Nothing super amazing about them." To move the conversation along, I said with a smile, "Maybe I should ask you about your shorts."

"Well, that's why I'm asking," he said, "If they're that comfortable, then maybe I should, I don't know, try them on. If you wouldn't mind letting me borrow them."

Whatever smile I bore likely vanished there and then.

He went on, "I mean, I'd wash them. I wouldn't just sweat in them after a few jogs around the block and hand them back to you sweaty."

I didn't reply, and he kept digging himself into the hole: "Or like, if you lent me your bikini and I wore it, I mean, I wouldn't just hand it back with hairs and stuff sticking out of it. I'd wash it, of course I'd wash it. So, what do you think?"

"You want to borrow my... shorts...?"

"Do you see anything wrong with that?"

I suddenly had lost my appetite. "Quite a few things. I'd rather not... I don't usually lend out my clothes to... people... er... who aren't me."

He nodded. "Yeah. More of a second-date thing. I gotcha."

We moved on to other topics, but at one point he did say, "If you don't let me borrow them, I could always go out and grab a pair for myself. I just thought, this would be free and risk... free."

"Yup."

"They just look like really comfy shorts. It's not like I'm, you know, asking you to, you know, model your shorts over your bikini and then take off your shorts and bikini so I could try them all on at once. I mean, that would be weird."

"We should get the check. I'm kind of tired, all of a sudden."

He insisted on paying for dinner. I thanked him and we parted ways. He called to ask me out again, but I told him that we'd likely be better off with other people, and he took it just fine.

(How to write a solid antagonist? I blog about it here: Good Bad Guys. - JMG)


Story Sent in by Stephen:

Annette was a blind date. During our dinner, I noticed that she didn't say much and that she repeatedly held her hands out, palms upward, and extended and curled her fingers. At first I didn't mention anything about it until I finally asked, "Bad circulation?"

"It's the blood," she said, "It needs to be reminded where to go."

I said, "So poor circulation, then?"

She put her hands down, then picked up her water glass and shook it slightly. "This needs blood," then she picked up her dinner plate, "and this," she set her plate down, then picked up the stand-up drink menu and shook it, "and this."

"But they're not living," I informed her.

She looked down at the floor, as if she was considering what I said. Finally, she replied, "They need blood to nourish. Yours might do."

I laughed. "I need mine. They'll have to get it someplace else."

She said, serious as anything, "But you don't need all of yours. When you give blood, they take some from your bag of meat to fill up other not-bag-of-meat things."

What the hell was she talking about? "Other things?"

In response, she picked up her plate and the drink menu again. Pretending to understand, I said, "Oh. Those things."

She nodded, evidently very excited. "They want your blood! They can't exist, otherwise. Nothing can. That's really the secret to life."

"I'm sorry. Plates want blood?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not just any blood. Yours."

"Why mine?"

She shrugged. "Ask it. I'm only a messenger."

I said, "Maybe after dinner."

She went back to eating her wrap and curling her fingers, and I asked for the check. Wouldn't you know it, I not only completely forgot to ask the plate why it needed my blood, but I also failed to remember to ask Annette out again.