A blind date, mid-1980s, Indian restaurant in Cambridge. First thing he does is pull out a folder of photos of himself with various celebrities. He goes through them one by one, eight-by-ten glossies in a proper manila envelope, and he keeps clutching at me. After about fifteen minutes of this, I say, “I don’t really think we’re compatible.
I think I should go. ” I get up to leave, and he stands up too and shouts at me as I walk out. I did not look back. I don’t remember what he was yelling.
I was focused on getting the hell out of there. This was thirty years ago, no Photoshop, no iPhone. Just a man in his forties showing off pictures of himself with Jimmy Carter and the Dalai Lama. I was in my late teens and went on a date with a friend of a friend.
He seemed nice, and my best friend vouched for him, so I figured we’d have a pleasant quiet evening. We were just going for frozen yogurt and TV at his place. Everything seemed fine, and he came across as sweet. He told me he liked writing poetry, and my teenage brain thought, wow, a sensitive guy, how refreshing.
Then he said he wanted to show me something. I assumed it was a poem he’d written. “Okay, what is it, Tim? ”
“Well, it’s not ready yet.
But it will be in a couple of minutes. ”
He leaned away from me on the couch, and I got confused. Was he going to write a poem in a couple of minutes? This was going to be awkward.
Then he started making all these innuendos, and it clicked that he sounded like he was describing his penis. The joke was dying fast. Finally, just to shut him up, I said, “If it’s your dick, then no, I don’t want to see it. ”
“Oh, okay then.
”
He sat back normally on the couch. I thought he was kidding. I asked if he was serious, and he said yes, he genuinely wanted to whip out his junk and show me. I asked what he was supposed to say to that, and he said, “Well, my last girlfriend told me she’d been waiting to see it all night.
”
Silence. Then I, being the awkward teen I was, sat back into the couch, not touching him. We’d been cuddling up until that conversation. I waited out the rest of whatever show was on and bolted as soon as I could.
When I got home, I called my best friend and frantically told her what happened. Her response: “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. He likes to do that. ”
I joined a new sports club, and there was one guy who was quiet and sort of hovered on the edges of the group.
I felt bad for him, so I always tried to bring him into conversations. One night we all went out for drinks after a game, and I talked to him for a while. The conversation was hard work, but he seemed like a nice guy. He texted me later and asked if I wanted to get coffee.
I wasn’t really interested, but I knew it probably took a lot of nerve for him to do that, and I thought maybe one-on-one he’d be more comfortable. We met at a coffee shop. He had a big backpack with him. We ordered drinks and chatted, with me again doing most of the talking.
About half an hour in, he said he had a few things to show me so I could get to know him better. Then he did a show-and-tell from his backpack, pulling out various items and pictures and telling me about each one. Some were kind of interesting, like a family trip. Others, I had no idea how to respond to.
Here is a picture of how I had my hair cut in grade eight. He had stuffed animals and lots of items from his childhood. I kept trying to steer the conversation toward the present, to see if any of it connected to a current interest, but he had a rehearsed story for every item and just kept going back to the show-and-tell. Eventually the table was full of stuff, and I politely said I’d seen enough and tried to change the subject.
He said he still had more to show me. I told him I felt sick and left. I felt kind of bad, but it was just getting too weird. We’d been on a couple of dates, and he invited me over to watch a movie.
I showed up, and he immediately handed me a big glass of vodka. I don’t like vodka, and I wasn’t in the mood to drink, but I thanked him and took a sip. He commented that I wasn’t drinking fast enough. I said I wasn’t really in the drinking mood.
He kept pressuring me. I inspected my glass to make sure there was nothing in it. There wasn’t. But when I finished it, he made me another without asking.
I thanked him but said I really didn’t want another. He told me not to be rude, that I should drink with him if he was making them for me. When I finished that one, I said I really didn’t want another, and he brought me another anyway. It was obvious he was trying to get me drunk.
He kept trying to make out with me, and I kept saying I wanted to watch the movie. He held my face toward him and shoved his tongue down my throat. I turned the other way on the couch, putting my feet down by him so he couldn’t reach my face. He got on the floor and walked on his knees to get to me and started trying to kiss me again.
I said I needed to go to the bathroom. I quietly called my best friend and told her to call me back with something urgent in a couple of minutes so I could get out of a bad date. She did, and I took off. After that he kept calling and texting, and I finally told him, “Look, you were obviously trying to get me drunk and kept forcing kisses after I said I wanted to watch the movie.
This isn’t going to work out. ”
He turned up drunk once and brought pictures of his time in Iraq and the army, walking me through them painfully slowly, one by one. I politely excused myself to go have a cigarette, and he lost it. He accused me of being rude, shouted about how no wonder I was single, and then sat on my coat so I couldn’t leave, saying that even if I did, he’d follow me and make me sorry.
He went on a rant about how all graduates are entitled brats, that he didn’t agree with women going to university, and that I was a middle-class nobody. He’d insisted on paying for my drink, so when I came back in, I said I wanted to leave. He demanded I buy him a drink because he was heading up to Camden to meet his mates and didn’t want to be behind on the drinks front. Fine, whatever.
He was clearly insane. I’d buy him one to shut him up and then leave. At the bar, he started throwing ice at the barmaid when her back was turned. When she turned around, he pointed at me and said I did it.
The barmaid and I both knew it was him. After he got his pint, he went back to the table, and I confessed to the barmaid that I was on the worst date of my life and wanted to run away. She poured me a shot of tequila, told the bouncer to distract him, and helped me slip out. He banged on the window and shouted that he’d find me.
I ran home sobbing like a lunatic. Sometimes the people behind the bar just know how to help. I was staying at a nice hotel and had a few hours to kill before evening plans, so I took advantage of their happy hour on the patio with a good book. An older gentleman asked if he could sit on the couch next to mine.
I obliged, since I was reading, and wrongly assumed he’d leave me alone. He ordered me a drink from the waitress. “I’ll have a gin and tonic, and she’ll have another of whatever she’s drinking. ” Then he proceeded to talk nonstop.
It was awkward but tolerable for a while. I figured I’d finish my drink and leave. But then he started going on and on about how it would take twelve little boys to complete some work on his boat. The waitress, bless her, sauntered up behind him, motioning to him and then to me so he couldn’t see.
I made a frowny face at her. She came over and said, “Sir, there’s a call for you in the lobby. Would you like to take it, or should we take a message? ” I tipped her generously and called both her manager and corporate to tell them how amazing she was.
I took a girl once to my favorite Mexican restaurant. She spent the whole time giving me a rundown of her past five boyfriends: why each relationship failed, how each guy was in bed, what they all did for a living, where they took her on vacation. My blood started to boil. I was reduced to an occasional “uh-huh” and “wow, that guy’s an asshole.
” She seemed completely uninterested in anything I had to say. As I was about to get up and walk out, the waiter brought my food. I decided to just roll with it. I started asking questions about her ex-boyfriends while stuffing my face with tasty fried goodness.
Honestly, most of those dudes sounded like pretty good guys. I put on a brave face and let her talk between my bites. Once I was done eating, I got up, said I needed to go to the bathroom, paid for my half of the meal at the register, and left. She was busy texting and didn’t even notice.
On my way home, she texted asking where I was. I told her I’d left and that maybe she should ask one of her ex-boyfriends to come pick her up, since she’d spent the last forty-five minutes talking about nothing else. Got a couple of “you’re an asshole” texts on the drive home, but it’s been radio silence ever since. I went on a date with a girl from the local college.
Things started off all right. She was looking for something purely physical, and I had no objections, so she suggested we go back to her place. The apartment was a mess, sparsely furnished. Her burnout roommate was rolling a blunt on the coffee table in the dimly lit living room, empty forty bottles everywhere.
Still no objections. I could get down with some crummy punk rock stuff to an extent. We went to her room and started making out. She put on some music, and we began taking our clothes off.
Just when things were getting really hot, she excused herself to the bathroom. She was gone a while, maybe five minutes. I got bored, got up, and started checking out the books on the shelf. Then I stepped on something, and it stuck to my foot.
I picked it off. It was a little two-inch square of tinfoil, all burnt on one side. Then I noticed the used-up tea candles in the trash, the spoon, the Q-tips, and the steel wool on the desk. It wasn’t subtle.
This chick was a junkie. I was still waiting for her to come back so I could politely excuse myself when it occurred to me that she was taking so long because she’d probably passed out. I knocked on the bathroom door. No reply.
Knocked again. “What the hell? ”
“I’m almost done. ”
“I know what you’re doing in there.
”
“Yeah, so what? You can’t judge me. ”
“You’re making it pretty easy to judge you, actually. ”
“Oh, go fuck yourself.
”
“Great idea. Enjoy your heroin. ”
I could hear her scrambling to put her kit away, but there was nothing left to say. I went back to the bedroom, put my shoes on, and casually left through the window so I wouldn’t have to say anything to her creepy roommate.
She started blowing up my phone almost immediately. Where are you? What street are you on? Come back, let’s talk.
It’s no big deal, I’ll pick you up. She’d given me a ride there and was now driving around looking for me. Thankfully, a close friend lived on that same block, and he was home. I just walked in, no knock needed, and explained the situation.
“Hey, dude, sorry to bother you. My date’s on a bunch of dope and is following me around trying to convince me to give her the D. Can I hang out here for a half hour? ” He handed me a beer.
Never heard from her again. We met at a nice restaurant. Sat down, had a decent conversation, and started looking over the menu and the wine list. I asked if she had a preference regarding the wine.
She said no. I ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio since I didn’t know her taste, a middle-of-the-road selection. When it came, the waitress brought two glasses and did the usual tasting. When she went to pour my date’s glass, she quickly declined.
The waitress poured mine and left. I asked if she’d prefer something else, and she launched into what I can only describe as a temperance lecture. She was stridently anti-alcohol, and my ordering wine had clearly upset her. This was a first date, so I had no way of knowing any of this.
If she’d told me her thoughts ahead of time, when I asked her preference or when I was ordering, I’d have gotten something acceptable to her. Instead, I got an endless lecture. She called me a drunk, rude, and insensitive, repeatedly, all in about five minutes, and she’d only just met me. When the waitress came over and asked if everything was okay, I told her no.
I told my date our date was over and asked to be receipted at the bar. Both my date and the waitress looked shocked. My date grabbed her sweater and stalked out. I picked up my glass, the waitress picked up the bottle, and led me to the bar.
At the bar, I met a very nice young lady with different ideas, and we shared the bottle and a very nice evening. I once met a circus girl on Tinder. Her profile said she was an aerial acrobat for a circus that toured all over America, and she was super cute, so I swiped right. She messaged me on April first, saying she had a show that night and wanted me to come see it.
I had reservations about trusting a stranger I’d just met online on April Fool’s Day, but I went anyway. When I arrived, I noticed the venue was much smaller than I’d anticipated. No way she was doing aerial acrobatics on a stage with a ceiling only twenty feet tall. I went to buy a ticket, and my date was the one selling them.
Perfect time to introduce myself. I did. She gave no hint of recognition that I was the guy she’d been messaging on Tinder. The line was long, so I didn’t press it.
The plan was to meet for drinks after the show, so I shook it off, took a seat, and planned on approaching her afterward. The circus was a disaster. The host started the night with the most inappropriate racist jokes I’ve ever heard, even from close friends. There’s a time and place for that kind of humor, and I consider myself open to a wide variety, but when a large group of strangers start looking around furtively to see if anyone’s laughing or offended, things get awkward fast.
His crew was talking loudly in the back room, and he had to talk over them most of the night. Honestly, the only saving grace was the contortionist and sword swallower, who was genuinely talented. My date’s bit came up second. She didn’t do her usual aerial act.
Instead, she performed something involving a chair and a cream pie. It was nothing special, and the audience could barely muster applause at the appropriate pauses. During intermission, the next performer was a performance artist who walked up to the mic and started reciting a poem. I thought it was actually pretty good, right up until he took his pants and underwear off mid-recite.
Fortunately for the audience, he had his dick tucked between his legs, so it wasn’t full frontal nudity per se, but still slightly disturbing. He continued his deep, serious poem without any mention of his disrobing and finished by exclaiming, “Hail Satan,” then turned around and took a bow, presenting the audience with the old dick and balls he’d been shyly hiding. I had never laughed so hard in my life. I didn’t even talk to her before I left, and I unmatched her the next day.
She sent me a message the following morning thanking me for coming, so she obviously recognized me. She was just using Tinder as a way to advertise and get guys to pay for her shitty circus show. My ex. We dated for almost a year, starting about six months after my wife and I separated.
Things were okay at first. She was nice and sweet. But a few things bothered me. She never learned how to knock; she’d always just walk in my back door when she came over.
I asked her to stop a few times, but it never clicked. She acted like I was inferior because I didn’t go to college. I was eight years older than her, thirty-three to her twenty-five, had a good job, made decent money, but she always acted like she and her college buddies were better. And last, she was abusive.
The one thing I couldn’t tolerate was her hitting me. She did it once, and I explained exactly why that wasn’t appropriate and that it wouldn’t be tolerated. She did it again. I scolded her again, and it seemed to fall on deaf ears.
We were out with several of her friends at a fancy restaurant. She’d driven, and we’d left my car at her house, about fifty miles away. The dinner was going well. I was charming her friends with my jokes and listening to them, just getting to know people.
I made a joke, don’t remember what it was, but it was slightly off-color. Nothing that would make other patrons look, but kind of a shocker. She slapped me right in front of her friends, in the middle of a crowded, classy restaurant. I got up, told her I didn’t need this, and walked out.
Being sixty miles from home in one direction and fifty from my car in another was a pretty shitty predicament. I called a friend who picked me up and took me to my car. Gotta love friends who come get you, no questions asked. Not technically a date, but I was solo at a bar on Easter night and started chatting with a woman next to me.
She was cute, and the conversation started out decent enough, with some light flirting. Gradually, I got hints that she was the self-absorbed type who always managed to steer the conversation back to herself, but I figured maybe she was just nervous and gave her the benefit of the doubt. We were a few drinks deep and had moved seats to sit closer. Religion came up.
She forgot we’d already talked about it. She’s Christian with good morals. I’m non-religious but perhaps spiritual, and I believe everyone’s entitled to their own beliefs as long as they don’t infringe on others. She seemed surprised but okay with it the first time.
This second time, though, she was stunned, wide-eyed, battle mode engaged. “You don’t believe in God? On Easter? You say you don’t believe in God, you piece of shit!
” She motioned to pour her glass of water on my head, and I somehow calmly diffused that. She continued, “I can’t believe I wasted my time with you. ” She’d attracted the attention of the bartender and patrons. “He doesn’t believe in God on Easter!
” I somehow calmly asked the bartender for the check, separated the payment, and said, “I enjoyed talking to you, but you’re being rude, and I’m leaving. Have a good night. ” I calmly walked out as Miss Good Morals sat stunned that I’d left her. Only once did a date make me walk out for reasons of pure stupidity.
It was in my undergrad years, studying pre-veterinary medicine, which meant a lot of the people in my major were science-nerdy girls. I was shy, but I always sat by this girl Nicole in my anatomy class. She was quiet, very smart, and, well, she had it going on. Dark hair, petite, pale skin.
I went basically all semester without asking her out. Finally I got brave and asked if she wanted to get food with me after class. She said yes, which shocked the hell out of me. I was stoked.
I got us reservations at a local Italian place, nothing fancy. Everything was going well until she asked if I had any pets. I told her about my blind kitten, Ray Charles. She brought up weed, since I’d mentioned I smoked occasionally.
She asked, “Aren’t you worried it’ll hurt Ray? ” I paused. “No, I smoke the weed. What do you mean?
” She said, “Aren’t you worried about the neurotoxins from the secondhand smoke hurting Ray? ” I was going to correct her, but then I figured, eh, good point. Strike one. A bit later, we were talking about our favorite movies.
I said mine was a tie between Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Jurassic Park. She said she’d never seen Jurassic Park. I asked why, and she straight-up said, “Because it’s a stupid story. ” She seemed kind of upset.
I said something like, “Yeah, the plot’s a bit weak, but the CGI was revolutionary. That was one of the first times people got a good idea of what dinosaurs were like. ” She said, “Yeah, like, if they existed. ” I laughed.
“Wait, did you say if they existed? ” She said, “Yeah, if they existed. How do we know for sure? ” At this point I couldn’t tell if she was trolling me.
I was dumbfounded. “Well, as you may know, we have a lot of dinosaur bones and fossils. ” She scoffed and said, “Scientists could have made those up. ” Strike two.
I tried to explain that no one would fund a project whose sole purpose was to fabricate species that never existed, but she changed the subject. At that point, I realized I’d made a mistake. This girl was as dumb as a box of rocks outside the classroom. Toward the end of the meal, we were describing our parents.
She said both of hers were devout Lutherans. I said my mom was a tiny Irish holy roller and my dad a big fat Italian atheist, and I joked about opposites attracting. She made a snide remark, basically asking why my sweet mom would want to marry a stupid guy like my dad. I said, “Because he’s a really great guy and really smart.
” She chuckled and muttered, “He must not be that smart. ” I thought, what the hell, why am I even here? Did she think that was funny? I tried to smooth it over with a joke.
“You know, you’re much sweeter in class. ” She took it literally. “Why’s that? ” I said, “Because, to be honest, I’m not getting a great first impression.
” She said, “Well, you’re just a white boy. ” Strike three. I dropped twenty on the table and walked out. Not sure this one counts because I didn’t walk, but I almost did.
I thought a guy was super creepy and super insane on our first date, mainly because he showed me pictures of a disembodied boob on his phone, one that had been removed for cancer. He turned out not to be a serial killer, just a doctor, and he gave me a long, rambling lecture about the importance of doing self breast exams so I wouldn’t end up like the disembodied boob. I texted my best friend immediately: “Oh, I have the best story. I went on a date with a guy who showed me a boob on a table, all bloody, and then lectured me about boobs.
But he’s all muscle-y, and I really wanted to see what his arms felt like, and we had this great conversation over text. ” So we went on a second date. He said, “I can’t believe you went out with me again. I was just nervous, and you asked about my job, and I word-vomited.
” Now we tell that story all the time. His family thought it was hysterical at Thanksgiving. His mom laughed so hard she cried actual tears. He sends cautionary emails to my family now, with subject lines like, “Look at this lump, don’t smoke, all of you,” and “Check out this leg bone.
That white part is cancer, and it’s replaced the whole bone. Go straight to the doctor when you have pain. ” At first my brother and sister were like, “Can we opt out of this listserv? ” But it grew on them, and now they find it hilarious.
I find it really endearing. We’re getting married this summer.