John Hawkins is running another of his posts about conservative women/bloggers in which he asks about their worst dates ever. For my money, Megan McArdle bears the bell away with her dinner date:
The food came, I started to eat it, and after the first bite, and he actually made a joke about women eating sausage that made me not able to eat any more food.
Also, as he drank more, he started trying to grab my knee under the table — I’d known him now for an hour and a half. The service was really slow, which was just making it worse… I was so mad at this point because he was like a hydra. I’d slap one hand away and four more would grow in its place…
Then we got up to leave and we walked outside and he was like, “Would you like to come back to my place for a nightcap?” …It was around 8 o’clock at night. I was like, “First of all, it’s 8 o’clock and my night’s not quite capped. Second of all, I wouldn’t go back to your apartment because I just met you.” ….Then he looked at me and said, “Well then, how are you planning to pay for dinner?”
I’ve been married since the earth’s crust cooled, so most of my dating stories go back to college and high school. Wracking my mind about my worst date, I found myself coming up short. There was that one gal who asked me to escort her to a debutante ball, which was really not my comfort zone back in the day. What with all the ballroom dancing and so on. As a True Son of Virginia and mindful of my duties I struggled through the event as manfully as I could though, and it wasn’t until afterwards that things took a very mild turn south.
It being a special occasion with flowers and tuxedos and whatnot, I had driven my daddy’s Lincoln rather than the Dodge Dart Demon that was my customary ride. After the affair was over, and feeling flushed with unchapperoned liberty, exuberant youth and adolescent potentiality, we walked out to the parking lot and got in the car. Van Morrison’s “Moondance” was playing on the wireless, and it seemed much the better notion to your youthful correspondent that he and the young lady might turn up the volume, open the doors and dance to a romantic song in the moonlight. Herself asked if I was joking – she had no notion of dancing in parking lots, moonlit or otherwise – and stayed ret where she was on the passenger side, telling me to turn the music down and get back in, for heaven’s sake. Someone might see.
I was young and judgemental. It was our first and last date, as I couldn’t see myself having much in common with a girl who considered dancing to Van Morrison not merely undesireable but implausible. In the moonlight. On a magic night.
As bad dates go, that’s not much, I know.
What’s yours?
It wasn’t his fault, but there was the date where his car (in which we had both ridden) was stolen from the restaurant parking lot as we ate…
Irony was, he was a cop! LOL
Worst date of all was in high school, though. We had a fancy sit-down dinner my junior year. My boyfriend of three weeks spotted his ex crying (she was NOT crying about him) and promptly ignored me for the evening as he went to comfort her despite her attempts to make him leave her alone. I saw him again two weeks later only to receive from him my copies of the formal pics that were taken. Joke’s on him, though–he was my first BF and as a silly teenage girl I found him interesting only to the extent that he was interested in me.
My first car in high school was a Triumph Spitfire. I saved for the car forever it seemed. Well if you didn’t know English sports cars have electrical systems built by Lucas Electronics. I used to say about it, “Lucas, the Prince of Darkness.”
At any rate I had finally wrangled a date with a very attractive belle. It was a beautiful North Carolina summer night, a dark country road, and a dead electrical system. It’s the first time I had ever seen a woman both furious at me and terrified simultaneously.
I did get kudos for resolving the matter, but no second date.
Ahh, basic training…
Ahhh… being “newly-single” at the advanced age of 50+ (actual age withheld to protect the sensitive, which would be ME), I dabbled in inner-net dating for a bit. And then quit. Nearly each and every experience was bad, but the worst was on the third date with a certain lady, who seemed promising in that she read a lot, could hold a conversation VERY well, had good taste, liked the same sorts of things I did, etc. In other words, all the sticks seemed to be lining up properly.
So… there we were, back at my place, on the couch, and things are getting a lil bit breathy as various articles of clothing began coming off.
And then she sits bolt upright and sez “I have something to tell you.”
“OK,” sez I… “what?”
“I have herpes.”
Well, more conversation ensued… but that was the beginning of the end. Herpes is forever, ya know.
So there you have it… my worst date. In recent memory.
My worst date? It was a blind date. Took this girl to a nice place, she didn’t like my joke about eating sausage and didn’t seem to want me to put my hand on her knee.
Prude.
Using my ex as a benchmark, all dates after her were great. Some better than others-but none really bad.
It is all relative.
My worst date? Older boy in my church, no doubt prodded by his mother (she’s such a nice girl, I’m sure). Homecoming game. New dress. Rain. Purple ribbons on corsage fade on new dress (ruined permanently). Carefully straightened, naturally curly hair does a Little Orphan Annie before game is over. Scarcely spoke to me the entire game.
Fell down in pot hole in dark stadium parking lot. Ripped out stockings in both knees, plus flesh. Strap on shoe broke. Date did not see me fall because he was walking ahead of me. Did not help me up. Walked me almost to the door, then fled without saying goodnight. Never spoke to him again.
On the plus side…there is nothing in the world like the cool silken petals of a huge white chrysanthemum brushing against your cheek. Like baby skin, it is.
Good one Nose!
Back in the days before the Fall of Rome [if you have to be picky, it was early 1940s] the Junior Prom was supposed to be Special. Unfortunately, being the bookish nerd that I was, I had no boyfriend. All the girls in the Junior class had to have a date for the prom, and I was the last girl to be asked, by the president of the Chess Club, who had a mouthful of glittery braces and had been coerced into the invitation by the stern Headmaster of the school. As I found out, he couldn’t dance either.
When the Great Night came, my date arrived, driven by his mother, and we were off to the races. I forgot to mention, my mother had purchased for me, a prom dress with a Peter Pan collar. Oh the horror! Oh, the embarrassment!
The whole evening is engraved in letters of fire on my memory, and greatly influenced my future behavior, I can tell you. I saw to it that nothing that bad ever happened again. Many lovers,and husbands later, I am a much more successful [and happier] date — and I never NEVER wear Peter Pan collars.
As for my date, when he emerged from college, minus braces, he went into the diplomatic corps and ended up married to a beautiful Italian contessa.
Some of us are just late bloomers.
Marianne
LOL Nose!
Kriminy, I’m glad I’m not single. I can’t remember any really bad dates. But it has been so long since I’ve dated that maybe I’ve blocked them out of my memory.
Well…there was one date back in highschool where my boyfriend took turns heckling me with the waitress. And I was paying, and stupid enough to give her a tip. Ah, well…glad I’m not 16 anymore.
People can remember DATING?
Nose, I’m sitting here giggling…
Can’t say I’ve ever had any bad dates… worst would probably be a high school dance that my “date” never showed up for.
Anything worse than that I’ve apparently successfully purged from my memory.
The fact that I cannot remember having any truly awful dates probably means that I was someone else’s Truly Awful Date. I’ll ask my wife. Her Truly Awful Date was probably me.
I know that I hold the record for the “Least Romantic Proposal”. (She accepted, but it’s a story for another day.)
-DM
High school graduation.
I had this crush on a guy for quite a while. He hung around with a group of us. He had already had crushes on the other two girls in the group, both of whom had rejected him. I always figured if I just waited, he would eventually get to me.
But , alas, I could wait no more. Asked him if he would take me to grad. Should have let him say No (he was really sorry, he really liked me as a friend but not “that way”) but no, I couldn’t do that. Convinced him to take me as just a friend Uh huh. Fortunately for me I had spent the afternoon drinking screwdrivers with a friend. Mom took me, my date and my brother out for supper that night before the dance. I never found out until later but when my mom and brother realized he hadn’t gotten me a corsage, they went and bought one and gave it to him to give to me. After supper, we went to the school for the … I forget what you called it, where you pair up with your date, they announce your names and you walk through the arch together. We did that. Then he informed me that he couldn’t go with me to the dance. I can’t remember what, if any, excuse he gave me. He just wasn’t going.
Silly, in love, teenage girl that I was, nobody could convince me to go to that dance anyway. Instead I went home and cried my eyes out all night. Only to realize later that all my friends who had been bugging me to go to the dance stag were right. You only get once chance at your high school grad and there ain’t no repeat performances. And I missed it. Yup, worst date ever… or maybe, more accurately, worst almost-date ever.
High school era worst was senior prom. My date set up a post-dance rendezvous with plan B, which plan was foiled, but still ranks right down there in dating debacles.
Adult era had to be a date with the really hot chemistry new girl, who asked me out. Dance to wee hours in big city, crash at my place at 0-dark-thirty. Sleep together wherein the operative word is sleep. Wake the next morning to find she’s emptied my wallet!
Navy era, there was the cute red-headed Lieutenant on Sicily. But come to think of it, on the whole, that wasn’t a bad date. Moonlight on the Mediterranean, gentle breezes in an open air restaurant in Taormina. The det to Sigonella couldn’t get any better than that, even if she was just making her local ratfink-LSO boyfriend jealous.
It was a first date. We took a walking tour of a historic neighborhood near downtown Minneapolis. Later, my date and I returned to his car only to discover the back window smashed in. Glass was everywhere and my belongings were nowhere. I had lost a brand new suit and my purse. My date walked away. He just left me there. But then he came back with my ransacked purse (money gone, but credit cards and ID intact) and the jacket of my suit. He had found them in various parts of the parking lot/garbage cans. He took me out for ice cream, so we wouldn’t end the date on a sour note.
I married him a few years later.
Other than one where the girl in question bolted as soon as we’d arrived at the dinner (her parents forbade her associating with the young lout of whom she was then enamored, so she…um…found her own transportation), I can’t can’t think of any.
Which either means I’ve lead a quiet life, or else getting married has kept me otherwise occupied for a fairly long time.
(1) College days – old money family in old money part of town and me still fresh from the Midwest. She, of course, was fashionably late coming down which left time to be interrogated by the elder Alpha Male (who made it plain his dislike of YHS’ future military profession). The Alpha Female shows, and inquired as to what breeding we had. After a suitably long pause, our response was along the lines of “Well…I *am* housebroken” Followed by “And I know my way to the door…”
(2) P-cola. 1978. Hotshot stud-NFO meets babe at Phinneas’ (remember those days Skippy?) makes arrangement for beach date the following day. Shows up and 3-yo appears at the door (Uh-oh). “Can your mommy come out and play?” is not the kind of line that works outside of the movies.
Trust.Us.
(3) Conversely the best date ever was preceded by a letter on deployment that started out with “You don’t know me but we have a mutual friend who works in a doctor’s office…” And twenty-seven years later the date continues – but that’s another story…
- SJS
Oh yea, I remember P-Cola. Had I been there solo-just think how different my life might have turned out.
“Those babes are out to trap you”.-Right , Candidate Mayo?
I thought it was my Junior Prom, but then remembered my 19th birthday, away at college, when the guy I was dating didn’t show up to take me to dinner as promised. Birthday and all, you know. Turns out he got completely hammered by 4PM and by the time he was to pick me up, his buddies (Frat boys) had him sitting on a stool in the shower trying to sober up. He showed at 9. What a loser. But that’s what dating is about… learning what you don’t want in a longterm mate and weeding them out appropriately.
Interesting stories.
You know folks that what you write on the internet is, like…forever?
Where’s Snake on a subject like this? Oh..that’s right, he’s been married for about 75 years. Nyuk.
b2
Um, I think I might have been someone’s worst date [digs hole in ground with toe]. I was really well-behaved, I swear. I just didn’t know it was a date since we both belonged to the same horde of friends who went to movies together and for some reason I didn’t pay attention that it was just him and me in that instance. *He* realized he was going to have to explain with pictures and diagrams and a paragraph on the back if any progress was to be made … and there was Much Awkwardness. And no progress.
I’m sorry ….
I was a poor (financially) student. I’d been flirting with friend of a friend for some time. She was smart, funny, articulate, but had mentioned a boyfriend in the distance, so I never asked her out. Our mutual friend walks up to me one day, slaps me on the back of the head and tells me to MAKE A MOVE ALREADY.
So, I scrape up two month’s disposable income, and go to a fawncy place, for dinner, are walking in the moonlight on a bridge, over the water, I go to kiss her and she tells me that’s she’s engaged!
I don’t feel I was owed any affection, per se, but I would have planned a whole different, not to say cheaper evening had I known she wasn’t free.
Bad Cat Robot,
It is impossible to believe that anybody familiar with the immortal Alice’s Restaurant could be a bad date! Although, come to think of it, that song did go a long way towards defining a really bad date and I think I used it subconsciously as my own personal bad date meter. I never measured up to a date that bad even though I did find myself on the Group W bench from time to time.
Worst: Went out with a real life movie stereotypical South African racist. Didn’t know before hand…..but after a few drinks it was “Blick” this and “Kaffa” that.
OMG.
Well downhill very quickly when I happened to mention one of my best friends is Somalian.
College. He was 2 years older and beautiful in that pale skinned, dark haired, blue-eyed way men can have. Flirting in Sociology class (it was supposed to be a well-rounded education…).
Copious drinking in the campus bar – rousing game of quarters. More drinking. A casual stroll to his dorm room.
Fast forward oh, about 10 minutes. I’m in the bathroom doing what drunk freshman do, date is in his dorm room. I return in quite the state of dishabille, but in my deluded condition believe I look quite fine, thankyouverymuch.
Did the date agree? No. he. did. not. I was escorted to the front door of his dorm and pointed in the general direction of my dorm (up and down a hill across campus). Then the door of his dorm was closed, firmly.
I found my way to my dorm room (the memory of which has not faded as it does not exist) – and did not emerge for 2 days. There was more embarrassment to follow, but we are only talking about dates here…
A friend of mine (who will remain anonymous and was definitely not at a certain VRC squadron on the west coast anytime in the last 20 years,) set me up one night. The girl was a friend of his girlfriend, and was:
“A really nice, interesting person. You guys are both pretty unique. You’ll hit it right off.”
“Okay.”
So off we go for dinner. My friend and his date are having a fairly decent meal, and I am chatting the friend up trying not to let her shoehorn her way into their conversation.
About halfway through dinner she leans over and says, “let’s go outside, I want to tell you something.”
(This being California you can’t smoke in restaurants, and I do enjoy my cancer sticks every now and again.)
“I have something important to ask you,” she says with the sort of tone you usually reserve for asking if people know their mother is dead or they have terminal cancer. “I mean, you seem like a nice guy, but I want to ask you this.”
“Okay.” I take a drag and wonder if it’s something really out of the park (like she used to be a man) or a trifle more mundane (like her parents have a giant painting of J. Edgar Hoover over their bed.)
“What lifetime is this for you?”
“Pardon?”
“What lifetime is this for you? Because this is my fifth.”
“Really.” Really, where is that waiter, because I could do with another scotch right now.
“Yes. I’m actually from a moon of Saturn.”
“Far out.” As in say, your brain is far out of your head.
Later, it would be revealed that she was discharged from the service of the United States Navy for being a little “mentally divergent,” to use the line from 12 Monkeys.
This auspicious occasion also marked the beginning of my prohibition against dating anyone who wears any manner of uniform to work with the words “U.S. NAVY” printed thereon.
Disco Dalhgren, Youngster year. After 2 dances she told me she loved me. Started leaving cakes and pies for me in Main Office. Just “happened to bump into me” while I was on dates with other girls. All I could think of was, “Play Misty for Me.”
(Yeah, I’m old, it was before “Fatal Attraction.”)
Hard to top Drew’s One small step one giant leap for deranged dating experience. lol
I was 17 and asked this girl out who had been flirting with me for well over a month, and I eventually asked her to prom. We went out on a date first and I was a bit nervous as this was my first date where I would be driving. After what I thought was a nice movie of holding hands and a small bite to eat, I turned the wrong way on a one way street. Well, narrowly missing meeting my maker, I flipped the car around and apologized and drove her home. I got a kiss on the cheek and that was that.
A couple days later and 2 weeks before prom, she elects to not engage my services as an escort to the formal. Hmmmm, corsage ordered…car detailed….tux rented to match her dress……pissed off 17 yo. Well it goes to show that things work out for the best, I ended up with a gorgeous tall redheaded girl who agrees to go with me as friends. We have a wonderful time, I hit is off with her sister whom I start dating 6 months later. 14 years have gone by and we are expecting our first child this month. Makes me believe in divine intervention because it turned out that the original girl was interested in me only because a friend of hers was. Once she lost interest, my fair date did as well.
Would you believe me if I said I never dated prior to marrying MacGyver?
Yeah. I didn’t think so.
High school. Senior year. I drove a 1965 Mustang and she was great, if not tempermental. We had seen Public Image Limited and New Order in concert down in Irvine (PIL was SOOO much better than New Order) and were heading back up the 5. We managed to get stuck in traffic right around where the 5 and the 101 split and my temp gauge goes through the roof.
My date was anything but mechanically inclined (think artist) so he panicked worse than I did. He was incredibly uncomfortable and unhappy about having to sit on the side of the freeway waiting for AAA to show up so he hitched a ride (literally – stuck his thumb out and hopped in with the first person to slow down for him) and left me sitting there on the side of the freeway with my car.
Took the tow truck almost 2 hours to show up.
And he never paid me back for the concert ticket either.
….. worst date?…. wow….. that is a hard one to remember….. I suspect that it was the time that I realized that the girl I was about to lay was a virgin…… and it was just the wrong place at the wrong time…… so I backed off and told her to wait for her True Love instead…….
…. it was not that bad then….. but looking back on it now, it strikes me as a horrible situation for both of us to have been in….. 18-20 years old, the Gulf War just starting……. even though we were both spun up at the time, I suspect we both did the right thing by backing off….
…. sometimes it is better to back off, I guess….