Some dates are incredible and lead to lasting and loving relationships (or at least a hot fling), while others go down as horror stories to be told at happy hours for years to come.
While the storybook dates are far more pleasant to experience and look back on, the nightmare dates are way more entertaining stories to share with the world. Sometimes the best distraction from the abyss of life stress is a good old laugh over the horrible dates of yore.
In a popular Reddit thread, people shared their absolute nightmare dates, and it just confirms that the road to love is paved with dinners from hell.
1. OP kicked it off with a horror story:
So I've known this guy for almost a year now, not really good friends or anything, more of casual acquaintances (we have a bunch of common friends and see each other from time to time, parties etc). A couple of months ago he started messaging me, first on Facebook, then by text (he got my number from a friend, he didn't ask me for it) and most of the time I responded just to be polite. He's nice enough, but not really my type.. so when he started dropping hints about 'meeting up', I just turned him down and said I'm busy, or we'd just catch up the next time there's a gathering with our friends, that sort of thing.
Fast-forward to last week and he asked me out again, which IIRC is the 6th time in the past 2 months. I finally decided to at least give him a chance, cos hey what could go wrong anyway, and who knows what I'm missing and all that jazz. Worst-case scenario it would be awkward, but we've talked more than a few times so I was thinking it can't be that bad and we could actually have a pleasant time.
Date night comes and we meet up in the city after work. We have dinner; nice, cutesy Japanese place.. conversation was okay.. I was certain at this point that it's really not going to take off, he really isn't my type.. but I was having a pleasant enough time and he was a total gentleman and not bad to talk to.
The bill comes, and I was going to suggest a quick coffee before heading home. However, he said that there's something he'd made an appointment for us for and we need to rush off to make it in time. I was a bit intrigued and excited; was it a movie, or a show, a play (he knows I'm into theater)? So we hurry off and he took me to a high-end luxury mall with an attached wing for offices...we went up...wait, this is an office lobby.
It was a f*cking weight-loss center.
So he explains that he's part of this company (he works for them on a part-time basis as a distributor) and he wanted to introduce me to their products which would 'revolutionize' my lifestyle and make the healthier I've ever been in my entire life. (FYI I'm 5'5" and 135lbs). I was totally stunned at this point so I was just nodding like an idiot the whole time we were walking inside. He then left me with his smarmy 'teammates', who proceeded to give me an orientation about their company and a run-through of their health supplements (when he got to the part where the weight-loss products are, the smarmiest one said, "Oooh now this is what you've been waiting for, I saved the best for last!")
I just sat through it because I knew that if I started to say something, I was definitely going to burst and make a spectacle of myself (there was a seminar ongoing and we were at a little table to the side). After I flat-out said that I'm not interested in any of the products and frankly don't believe that I need health supplements (I eat well and exercise regularly), they started on the 2nd phase: introducing me to the 'business' aspect of it.
Basically, it was a networking model of business where you not only sell the products, you also recruit people to sell them and they would be under your 'team', and you get a commission for every sale they make. They rhapsodized about the wonders of the product, how easy it is to sell, and how much money I could be making because they could tell I have the right kind of 'personality' and 'network' for it. Registration was 'only' $1,000, and it was consumable in products...which I could either use or sell to get my registration money back immediately.
I wish I could say I flipped the f*cking table and screamed at them to f*ck themselves with their health supplements and hope they overdose on their products, but no.. right after the 'talk' I just said I should head home since it was getting a bit late.
The guy actually messaged me to say that he had a good time and he hopes to see me again.. and that I would reconsider their products and the 'business opportunity'.
I called some friends up and went out for drinks because f*ck your health supplements that's why.
TL;DR Went on a date, guy brought me to weight-loss seminar, tried to sell me $1,000 worth of weight-loss products, and then tried to recruit me to join their networking business.
When I was a teenager I worked at a retail store in the mall and a guy who worked a few stores down would always come in and talk to me. He was super sweet and genuine and would randomly take me to lunch/bring me coffee and the like. It was nice to just have someone to talk to and who seemed genuinely interested in me and what I had to say. He asked me on a date a few times and I always declined.
I don't like the idea of dating someone who I work with/work next to (just in case it goes sour) After a month or two I finally agree to go on a date with him, because good guys are hard to find! I couldn't just let him pass by. He picks me up at my house and on our way to dinner we get into a car accident. The driver's side was t-boned pretty badly and we ended up having to go to the hospital where he contacted his roommate..... who then contacted my date's girlfriend.
After my freshman year of college I met a guy on OK Cupid and we went to get dinner at Friday's as our first date. Offered to give me a ride, but I said no.
He was a couple years older, well dressed and started talking about how he'd started his own business after college and it was going well. Good for him! Bragging a bit but hey that's an accomplishment.
So after we order he says "Let's play a game. We'll each take out our wallets and compare what's in them." Wasn't a joke, literally started showing me his credit cards and bragging about the high limits, ending with "Clearly you can't afford to pay for this dinner, but don't worry I can cover you." I was pissed and protested but he wouldn't take no for an answer.
So as we leave he says he wants to show me his car. Unfortunately it was before mine in the lot so I had to walk by it. It was a white, windowless serial killer van. He begged me to f*ck him in it, right there in the Friday's parking lot.
I was pretty glad I drove separately.
A guy I had met three days previously offered to pick me up and "hang out". I was cool with that, but he ended up dragging me around on errands (we went to his dentist appointment) and then when I said I wanted to leave, he said he'd give me a ride home but only in exchange for a blow job.
I was pretty scarred about dating after that.
And no, I didn't give him a blow job, I got out right there and walked to a bus stop.
I went on a date with a guy that I met online. He told me to dress nice and that he was going to take me out for dinner. He took me to Subway, ordered a foot long teriyaki chicken sub. He looked at me and said, "I hope you like teriyaki chicken". We shared the sub in his car.
Safe to say there was no second date.
Went to pick a girl up at her house after meeting on a dating website. She seemed significantly larger than her photo, but only in the lower abdominal region. This is when I realized that she had failed to mention that she was pregnant.
Similar story. Guy I worked with kept asking me out, I continuously said no. After about a year, I started to feel bad for the guy and said yes to a date. He asked me to lunch so I figured it could be a quick easy "date". He picked me and took me to Wendy's...where he made me order off the dollar menu...and I could only get two things. After this very quiet lunch where he hunkered over his chicken nuggets like I would steal them he said he needed to stop at Walmart.
We go in and he heads to the lotion section. Strange, but whatevs. He then grabs two scented lotions and asks which one I like better. Being nice I pick one, and he responds with "great! I'll use this for your massage!" O.O luckily I had to work in two hours and told him the massage would have to wait. I spent the next three months trying to avoid him until he quit.
I met this cute girl in college. I asked her out a couple times, she was really into me (numerous occasions we sat in a coffee shop for 6-7-8 hours talking the night away), but couldn't do anything about it as she was seeing someone else. Ok fair enough. I'm a little persistent, we hang out on an off, 6 months later after she and her significant other break up (or so I was told), we start seeing each other.
Fast forward 8 months and she's at my place 6-7 days a week, has taken over half my condo with her stuff, we commute to work together, I'm having supper with her parents, always hanging out with her sisters and their boyfriends, she's always over at my parents, things are going really well. I was crazy about her. Part of the family and all that good stuff.
About a week before Xmas she sits me down and basically says that she never really broke up with her boyfriend, he was just out west. He was coming home and we were over. She was just seeing me "on the side" and quite frankly didn't understand why I wasn't seeing someone else at the same time - seeing how "we weren't all that serious".
Excuse me what?!
On my first date with a guy off an internet dating site, he took us to the Scientology museum in London. I thought "Hmmm, original, easy to find things to talk about/ laugh at the craziness of, this could be fun."
Then he proceeded to read every, single, piece of writing on every, single exhibit, ask the attendant very probing questions about how one goes about joining scientology etc. etc. and sounding slightly too interested to just be intrigued about a religion. Also he was visibly sweating.
Once we were done there we went for a glass of wine and he told me he used to shoot heroin.
I was out of there like a shot.
When I was young and stupid I dated a guy with a temper. He would get mad about something stupid like saying goodbye too quickly on the phone, pick a fight and we'd break up. He would call a day or two later and we would make up. After a few months I had figured out the cycle and I was fed up. So, when he picked a fight as usual I ended it and then didn't take him back. While we were dating I had become close with his sisters and his mom loved me. We had scheduled a girls lunch and his sister begged me to go.
I finally said yes and went. Everything was fine and I had a great time. The whole lunch was probably 2 hours long. At the end I walked to their car with them and the mom grabbed me and said, "Hear him!." Out of the car comes her son (WTF!) who was trying to explain to me why we should be together. I just walked past him to my car as he ran after me.
He ended up picking a fight with me because "it was my fault we broke up and I didn't even call him so he could fix it." Then he threw rocks at my car as I drove away. I wish I had a picture of what my face looked like when he came out of that car. I never spoke to him again and never accepted another invitation from his family.
I'm sure this has happened to everyone who has dated online:
I met a guy online who seemed really nice. We exchanged a few emails and got along well enough, so we decided to meet up for a matinee. We exchanged pics so that we could ID each other at the theater where we were meeting.
I show up, expecting to see the heavy-set dude around my age because that's what his profile (and pic) said. Instead, he was about 20 years older and 100 lbs heavier than his picture. I am a fairly open-minded person when it comes to dating, and I know that many folks embellish, but c'mon!
We watched our movie in silence, and politely parted ways.
There's been a few but the absolute worst was the woman who turned up to the pub with literally no money, expecting me to buy her drinks and dinner. I wouldn't have minded if she'd have told me beforehand but this was completely out of the blue.
So anyway, we sat there making awkward conversation, or at least I tried to start a conversation, told her about my life, asked her questions. She was too busy texting and phoning her friends to really take notice.
So eventually we did get talking, and then out of nowhere, she told me that she killed her dog. Not accidentally either. I just upped and left and avoided all contact. That was 2 years ago.
I met a local dude on OKCupid and we decided to meet up one night to hang out. He took his penis out in my car because he thought we would have sex. Not okay, sir. Not okay.
All right, I'll post one. So I went on a couple dates with this girl and she was giving me some signs that she was ready to get a little physical. So I lean in close and try to kiss her, and she turns her face away from me. Stunned I end up going home and thinking it was over between us. Later on, she contacts me and starts hinting we should go out again. I decide to go for it, again, after getting some heavy hints and she pushes me away. So now I just ask, what's going on? She says, "I am on dates with you so I don't feel like I'm undesirable, but I'm not attracted to you."
She called me the next day and I told her I'm not dating people who make me feel undesirable, then hang up.
In college this guy from one of my classes asked me to go out with him out of the blue (we'd never even talked before) but he was pretty cute so I said sure. We exchanged numbers and he said he'd call me with details. He called the next day and told me we were going to a resturaunt that was WAY out of my price range. We're talking like no way will this bill will be under $100. I tried talking him out of it and when that didn't work flat out saying I couldn't afford something like that but he insists and tells me not to worry (this all really should have been a clue to me).
So I say fine and agree to go. We get to the resturaunt and the waiter comes over and I go to order (the cheapest thing on the menu) when he stops me and says "Ignore her, we're both having the steak." "But I don't like steak." "She's just saying that because she's poor. We'll have steak." and shoos the waiter away. I'm mortified and pissed and want to leave but he was my ride.
He tries to make conversation and just proves to me that he really is an a*s. Then he says he has to go to the bathroom and leaves. I'm sitting there for a good 10 min. Before he text me "Hahaha I got the sh*ts from drinking last night don't eat without me." that was the last straw I call the waiter over, pay for my meal, and go to the Starbucks down the street to call my friend to pick me up. tl:dr Guy was trying to impress me and was the worlds biggest a*s.
EDIT: just to clear some things up: I paid for just my meal, not his. And I'm well aware I didn't owe him anything I just wanted to make a clean break from this guy.
A girl I had just met asked me out, she wanted to take me to dinner. We end up at this little Italian place, she says she knows someone that works there. When our waiter arrives, he appears visibly shaken, stuttering. She introduces me to him, this is her friend she mentioned before. I can see it right away, this guy has a thing for her, and here she is introducing him to her date.
She then bugs him for special orders and asks if we can get our meals free. He really seems upset, but gives her the "anything for you" look and agrees, I decline and pay for my own meal. I felt really bad for this guy, I could just see his torment at watching this girl date someone else. She was very attractive and very friendly, I assumed he just got friendzoned.
I hung out with her a few more times, but backed off of the romantic part. Then I found out that the guy from the restaurant was her ex-boyfriend, who she had just dumped a few days before and had been dating since high school (this was 2-3 years after I graduated).
tl;dr: girl tried to get her recent ex-bf to serve me free food.
Ahh...I have been in this situation. But not as a date. Here is my story
So I'm working at Borders (This was around the time that it had just gone into voluntary administration in Australia) and I'm chatting to a customer for a bit about how I'm trying to find work as a freelance graphic designer while finishing up uni. She mentions to me that she might have some work for me. I give her my card and think I've totally found a new client.
She invites me to a local coffee shop to 'chat' and I'm really excited about some prospective work. During our coffee chat, she asks me what I do. "Okay.. she must have forgotten" I thought. I told her I do graphic design and she goes 'Ooohhh cool! I used to do graphic design too! But I dont need to do that anymore' This is where I think.. hang on.. why is she even talking to me?
So she pretty much was trying to recruit me to pretty much become her lacky and sign up for a pyramid scheme, where i can sell vitamins and whatnot, get people i know to work for me and earn even MORE money and get cool shit like holidays and loads of money and gift cards and clothes and everything. But she just would. not. stop. selling it to me. I regret giving her my card. I got a text from her the other day saying that we should catch up. Yeah. No.
So pretty much, this friend of yours seems to be milking every single acquaintance he knows. Acquaintances are good because they are not close friends, but they are still connections. This lady I met seemed to wave to a lot of people, so I'm assuming she had tried to poach them from their monotonous retail jobs as well.
Honestly, the best thing to do is just ignore his texts and emails and whatnot. Works a charm.
Fun story time!
I'd been seeing this girl for a few weeks, and it wasn't exactly fireworks, but we got on all right, and it was the first time I'd actually tried dating someone after breaking up with my ex-fiancee, so I wasn't looking for a home run. She'd told me she was pagan at the outset and I assured her I didn't mind, as long as she didn't try to force it down my throat. For her part, she was true to her word, but it should've been a red flag from the word go. So anyway: She tells me she's leaving town for the weekend to go to a pagan convention (or gathering or somesuch) a few towns over for the weekend and she was excited about it. For my part, I wanted to try to be supportive and non judgmental about her beliefs, so I offered to accompany her, but she said she'd be fine and would call me when she got home.
So I'm at home, playing internet video games in my underwear Sunday afternoon when I get a call from her (a day early) and she's panicked and sobbing on the other end, and it's only after much bleating and confusion that she's able to get out that she needs to see me ASAP. So I go full hero-boyfriend mode, immediately drop what I'm doing (I even put on pants!) and race over to her place thinking something awful has happened.
I burst through her door rapid-firing questions like "What's wrong?" "What happened?" "Who did this to you?" and "How can I help?" and she eventually tells me that she ran into an ex-boyfriend (also pagan) while at the convention, and that they'd had sex. I felt my gut drop out. Rape. One of my closest friends had been raped a couple years prior and it was a nightmare I had no desire to witness again.
"So you were raped?"
"Well....no."
"But you had sex with him?"
"Yes."
"<Hername> I know it can be scary to admit, but I'm not going to think less of you if you were raped. You can tell me."
"Well, I WANTED to have sex with him."
Cue palpable confusion pause. I had to not only try to parse this new bit of information, but also shut down the Rape Reactions going on.
"You...wanted to have sex with him?"
"See it's like this. I like you a lot and I don't want to hurt you, but you have to understand he POSSESSED me."
"He...he what?"
"He has a strong dark magic aura that I succumb to whenever he's around. He makes me not myself."
I'm pretty hopelessly lost at this point. I've tried to respect her beliefs up to this point but this is a bit of a tough pill for me to swallow. I tried to gain solid footing one last time.
"Possession sounds like it was against your will. If that's the case, it was rape, and we should go to the police department."
"No no. It wasn't rape. It's just that the dark magic clouds my mind with desires."
"...So, basically, you're openly admitting to me that you slept with another guy, and you're trying to rationalize it with something you know I don't believe in."
At this point she blew up on me. She was furious that I wasn't more sympathetic to her dark magic plight, and couldn't believe I could be so callous and selfish. After about ten minutes of cyclical yelling. I just turned to leave and told her to have a nice life. I'm not normally this witty, so you'll pardon me for including my snarky exit one liner. As I opened the door she screamed at me
"What, you don't even LIKE ME anymore?! Just ALL OF THE SUDDEN?!"
Calmly, I turned around, gave her a sarcastic grin and made jazz hands and said
"It's like magic." and then left.
EDIT: Okay obligatory "let's nip this misconception in the bud" thing. Addressing the "You kinda jumped the gun on rape." thing. Yeah. Yeah I did. I want you to take "crisis level panic inducing racking sobs" and add in "I had sex with someone but clearly dont' look happy about it" and see what your first assumption is.
Again, it's something I have experience with, and it's not an easy thing to admit happened. Think long and hard about whether or not you'd rather be the guy that's overly worried it's rape when it's just a stupid cheating space case (the conclusion I settled on anyway), or if you want to risk being the person yelling at someone who has just been raped for cheating on you.
I'll gladly make an a*s out of myself every now and again to avoid being the latter.
Back in high school, there was a very beautiful girl named Melissa in a few of my classes. This was the mid to late nineties, and pregnant teenagers weren't as common as they are now, so I think it added to her mystique that she had a child. It never bothered me, though. I just thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. So, any chance I got to be around her, I took it.
She needed a tutor? Check. Someone to talk to? Check.
I never had the guts to ask her out, though. I wasn't much of a looker myself in high school, so it took me a pretty darn long time to do it. Finally, I did, and she said yes! I can't remember how it went down, but I think we decided that I'd pick the restaurant, she'd pick something else to do.
So, she shows up with her sister. That should have been my cue to NOPE it back inside my house. But, I didn't, because I was an idiot. We went to eat, and then she said she had a "surprise" for me that she thought I'd really enjoy. I was excited; did she really plan something?
We pull up to a small convention center and start to head in. I'm already starting to WTF it when we make our way towards one of the rooms, and there it is. Clear as day on a sign out front of the door.
Amway.
I cannot describe my internal anguish and feelings of absolute fail during the lecture and the meetup afterwards. They didn't even sit with me; we'd arrived late, and they moved to open seats on one side while I sat on the other.
I barely remember how I answered the inundation of Amway people's questions, but somehow I made it through the evening. I remember never even seeing Melissa or her sister during this time, and as we finally met up to go home, I was utterly destroyed.
We got home, she looks me dead in the eyes and tells me that she had a really nice time tonight. I echoed the sentiment, told her sister it was nice to meet her, and went inside.
Never even looked at Melissa again.
So my friend scored a date with a girl he'd had a crush on for years. A super hot crush with a strict and religious family. He tells me he needs me to come on a double date because she will only go out with him if her cousin can come along.
Well off we go and her cousin is surprisingly hot too. This favor seems to be working out in my favor. The plan is to start with an "Irish picnic" on the private beach (we sat on benches and drank a beer). My date has one beer and starts to act odd. She tells me I'm so good looking, she's whispering and giggling with her cousin. Then another group shows up and we all start chatting. Somehow she offers to give one of the guys there a ride home as we're leaving to go do whatever was next. She pulls him into the back seat and her cousin sits next to her for some reason. The sun has gone down and this guy only lives 5 minutes away.
We're driving for like a minute when my buddy leans over and whispers, "Dude, she's blowing that guy!". I look back as a streetlight lights them up. Oh yes she is! To be clear, we are all in the same car.
Now we drop off BJ guy who is like, "Thanks guys!!". And this is where the night gets worse.
My buddy says, "I need you to just come with us to eat. I'm sorry but I'll pay!" He's super intense about it but also I'm starting to laugh about this blatant sluttiness and his date just looks so embarrassed. So I grudgingly say fine.
We're driving like 5 minutes again and this girl is still trying to talk to me from the back seat. Then she leans forward and starts to kiss my neck! I pull away and tell her to stop. This happens maybe 10 more times and her cousin is restraining her and is mortified. I'm leaning forward in my seat to get away from crazy. Ok, she is too crazy for a restaurant so my buddy decides to do a nearby, local cheese-steak place that is pretty popular.
We get inside and my friend starts laughing at me. He tells me to check my neck in the mirror. Yes, I somehow have a crazy slut hickey! I don't even have time to lose my shit on this girl when she hops over the counter and starts yelling an order into the microphone at the register. "We'll have fries!"
We dragged her back out to the car and sat her in the back seat. I stood guard from outside the car (so she couldn't blow any passerby or anything), while my friend had a dinner date. The whole time the crazy girl was begging me to please please f her and trying to climb out. I though less of her cousin for leaving her but she said she needed to wait for her to sober up or whatever before they could go home. That took about two more hours of annoying.
I actually saw her the next day and she couldn't look anyone in the eyes or talk to us. There was no second date for anyone.
TL;DR Girl had one beer and went crazy. Blew another guy on my date.