I Wonder What My Worst Date Ever Was...

I am so that girl with all of the bad dating stories. I was single for most of my twenties and I had all of the dates. I had the blind dates, I had the set-ups by friends, I had the guys-I-met-online dates. After all of these bad dates, I was starting to think that there were no more normal guys out there, that there were no more good guys left out there, and that I would end up the single lady with a lot of cats. I do have one worst date that truly takes the cake, but I thought I would also share with you some of the little tidbits from my other truly bad dates.

There was the guy who I met online that had an adorable picture. His profile seemed to paint him as a nice enough guy. We talked via e-mail for a few weeks before I agreed to meet him for an early after-work drink. When I walked into the bar, I did not even recognize him. His pictures were certainly not of him and when he turned around to greet me, he had no neck. It looked like his head had been plopped on top of his shoulders like a bowling ball. It was so distracting that I drank my martini in record time, made small talk and then bolted. I felt bad because he was a nice guy, but the fact that he had posted pictures of himself that were not real was a big red flag.

You would think that no-neck guy would have been my last stop on internet dating. Apparently I was still thinking that the man for me was out there via the world of eHarmony. (Which he was, by the way! Hi, Superman!) Anyway, I meet this guy at a restaurant for dinner. He was an ex-marine, well-dressed, and quite polite upon first impression. However. As we sat down to our table and ordered drinks, he proceeded to lecture me on how many calories were in the drink I had requested. Then, as we were brought a bread basket, he proceeded to tell me how many carbs, fat grams, calories, etc. were in every piece of bread. As I placed my order for dinner, he then ordered the exact same thing I did (a salad, some pasta, and some chicken) but without the dressing, marinara sauce, and spices. As I was about halfway through my meal, he asked if I was ready to have it boxed up since eating the entire plate-full would be eating 8,456,743 calories. It was all I could do to not smack this guy. I mean, I get wanting to be healthy and wanting to eat nutritiously. However, I do not think it is okay to start lecturing people ON A FIRST DATE about what they are eating and how you are judging them for doing so. The funny part was that this guy called me for months after that first date trying to get me to go out with him again. I never spoke to him again and I vowed that every time he called I would eat a Twinkie just to spite him. Hey, it made me feel better at least!

Yet another bad date was with the brother of a co-worker. His name was Keith and Keith was clearly an alcoholic. We met for dinner and were told that our table was not ready yet. We sat at the bar and in the fifteen minutes we waited, Keith had four drinks. FOUR. During our meal, he had another six drinks and a bottle of wine. After dinner, I tried to persuade him to skip dessert and to call a cab. He refused and started yelling at me so that the people around us could hear. I had a friend who worked at the restaurant at the time and she helped me extract myself from the situation. Apparently, after I left, Keith stayed and had several more drinks and finally was instructed to leave with the help of a cabbie. On his way home, he called my cell phone about ten times leaving emotional messages about how I was the greatest person he had ever met and could we please go out again this weekend? Uh, no.

I could go on for days about these bad dates. One last bad date experience before the creme de la creme. I met this guy for lunch on a Saturday. He picked me up since he was a friend of a friend and I trusted their opinion. Oh, how wrong I was! We had a nice enough lunch that was basically all of his co-workers and us. What a lovely surprise that was! During lunch the guy proceeds to tell all of them that we have been dating for a while and that he had just been hiding me from them. -sigh- After lunch, I was expecting him to just drop me off. No. Instead he drove me around town for three hours just rambling and rambling. I was sending SOS messages to my friend at this point via text message, but because I did not know where we would end up, I could not tell her where to come and get me. It was a little scary! After the driving around and my begging to just be taken home, we pull into my parking lot and he informs me that he got us tickets to a concert that night. This was at about 5:00p and the show did not start until 9! He proceeded to sit in my apartment until 8 and we went to the show. During the show, he began proclaiming his undying love for me and at one point started to get down on his knee. No joke! I pulled him back up and told him that things were moving WAY too fast for me and that I needed to go home immediately. He took me home and the entire trip was spent with him asking questions about why he was not good enough. Had he not tried hard enough? Was he not good looking enough? Was he not successful enough? Was he not well-dressed enough? Oh. My. God. It was endless. He tried to kiss me when he dropped me off and I turned my head so that all he got was my cheek. This guy called for a solid year after that one date to try and get me to go back out with him. Relentless much? Needless to say, we did not end up together.

I got set up by my mom on several occasions and she did pretty well on most of the match-ups. However, one of the match-ups was an absolute disaster. This is the date that goes down in history as my worst ever. Ever. I was to meet the guy at a restaurant near my apartment. It was a later dinner due to my ridiculous work schedule at the time. He was already at the restaurant waiting for me when I arrived and as soon as I saw him, all I could think about was his shocking resemblance to Howdy Doody. This guy stuttered and stammered all through the meal about how pretty I was, how much he liked my outfit, and about how I was way out of his league. After I had made it fairly clear that we were not compatible by pointing out a few things that we did not have in common, he started going on and on about his ex-girlfriend. How he was totally in love with her, how she had left him, and how he couldn't live without her. He ever cried at the table. Cried! I almost felt sorry for the poor guy. But there was something just not right about him. Just off. Just creepy. Every girl knows what I am talking about. I just felt as if I gave him my home phone number (this was back in the day when I still had an actual home phone!) that he would start stalking me and would eventually tie me up in my closet or something while he sniffed my clothes. Cree-py. I ate in record time, ten minutes, and dashed out the door. I found out a few years later that Howdy Doody married the ex-girlfriend he was so in love with. Good for him. And good for me too!

I always like to think that all of these bad dates just helped me realize when a good date came along, but I really could have done without all of this weirdness and drama! I do have great stories though.