Photo Courtesy of Eharmony
Story by Sam War/Contributing Writer
Dating is a word many people love to hate, especially on a day like Valentine’s Day.
We date to find love even as we’re skeptical of the outcome. We date because we are hopeful.
When the topic arises, people often cringe or shudder and that’s when you know you’re about to hear a bad date story. Today seemed the perfect time to spotlight some bad date stories of lovelorn students who were more than happy to share the times when Cupid did not have their backs.
This is totally natural, mind you. Sharing our bad dates helps us realize we aren’t the only people going out with possible serial killers, general narcissists and standard creeps.
(To protect the privacy of Cupid’s victims, only their first names were used.)
I sat across from Nate with his twinkling blue eyes and his smooth blonde hair pushed back, as he told me a classic story pre-social media story. He jumped back to 2005, when he was 12 years old. No social media, no cell phones, just some innocent kids living in Pennsylvania. Nate had a crush on Shana, and seized the perfect opportunity, he thought, to ask her out to the homecoming game. As we all know, middle school is never easy. At that stage, we are shy, nervous children who try to get our friends to do our bidding for us. That’s when Shana’s friend stepped up, went to Nate at lunch and said, “Shana thinks you’re hot, you should go to the homecoming game with her.” Nate, being a middle school boy, replied that he thought Shana was hot too and would love to go to the homecoming game with her.
That’s what happened, kind of. Shana and Nate went.
Separately.
With their own friends.
They never even talked. It was a bad date that never started.
Unfortunately, middle school is when the sweet, innocent dates and non-dates end and we hit adulthood. That’s when we enter the extremely funny and occasionally horrific bad date stories.
Dewayne is a happy, nice guy in his late 20’s, who immediately knew what story to tell. He once went to a woman’s home to pick her up for a first date (what a gentleman) and headed to an Italian restaurant. Everything was going well. They talked, ordered their food, and his date mentioned her ex-boyfriend, saying she still talked to him.
This was a deal breaker for Dewayne. He excused himself to go to the restroom and never came back. So she sat there, alone, at the restaurant, expecting her date to come back and give her a ride home, but he never returned.
After hearing stories from a male’s point of view, I searched out some women who had bad date stories to share. Kim is a proud Scorpio who told me she was dating a guy for a few months when she decided to stay over at his place, cook dinner and watch a movie together. She heard a knock on the door, but her guy showed no intent to answer it. When another knock happened, Kim offered to open it, but her date said it was just his friend and they would go away in a minute. Later, she found out that his friend was his live-in girlfriend. When I heard this story, my face registered my shock. Her response: “Girl, I have so many more to tell.”
Erin is a tall brunette with kind eyes. Among her bad date memories: one guy embarrassingly pulled out a breathalyzer in the restaurant to make sure he would still blow below the legal limit of intoxication if he was stopped.
Bad dates happen to all of us, at any age. If you’ve somehow successfully avoided bad dates, you are missing out on awkward experiences and cringey conversations, but you’re also missing out on great stories to tell. Plus, in the end our bad dates get us closer to what we want, or at least one would hope. Isn’t that a saying though? You’ve got to kiss a few (or a lot) of frogs before you find your Prince Charming.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Brandon Black, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com.
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