Are there many situations more stressful than a first date? Whether it’s a blind date, kindly set up by a friend or friend of friend who swears she knows someone perfect for you, or the first time meeting with someone you’ve only met online, it’s a scenario of nerves, excitement and high hopes for meeting someone that might just happen to be ‘the one’. Will the date be a time of great conversation, fabulous dress sense, and minds that think alike, or an event that is best forgotten? There’s a few common themes to bad first dates including illness, misadventure and strange personal quirks. Here are a few of our favourite tales, shared with us by friends and close associates:
Is there anything worse than a date organised by a relative?
“My Aunt once arranged a date for me when I was in Canada. Bill was a butcher with a porno mustache. He picked me up in a red pick-up truck and we drove 3 hours through the wilderness to some party in a barn where they literally were all wearing dungarees, cowboy boots, and gingham dresses. He was a nice guy but he spent 6 hours of travel telling me about butchering and that he had his equipment in the back of the pick-up.This made me feel a bit queasy – in the back of beyond with a butcher called Bill who has his equipment with him and you are left wondering if he might actually be a pick-axe slayer or if your remains were going to be found in decades to come by some hiker in a remote Canadian forest.”
Cupid thwarted by iced coffee
“I went on a coffee date in summer and had a big ice coffee despite never drinking coffee due to caffeine-sensitivity. The caffeine just happened to kick in after I returned from the bathroom and continued to show my date how to fold origami.
After I returned from the bathroom and continued to show my date how to fold origami. I got really shaky hands from coffee overdose which he noticed and then accused me of taking drugs while in the bathroom. I explained it to him, but he did not seem convinced and never contacted me again…”
What the waiter sees ends up on the internet
“I was working in a small restaurant with two floors. A woman and a man came in and I had a table for them upstairs. It looked like they had a first date because they were asking those “getting to know each other”-questions. After ordering food the woman had to go to the toilet, which is downstairs. As she walked to the stairs, the food arrived. She walked down, tripped and fell all the way down knocking her head on the ground. Two colleagues immediately rushed over to her to see how she was doing. She was unconscious and bleeding from her head so they called an ambulance.
I went to the man while he already started eating and told him his partner (didn’t know how to call her) fell down the stairs and that she was unconscious and that an ambulance was on the way. He walked to the stairs, looked down and walked back to his table to finish his food. Later the ambulance arrived and I asked him if he wanted to go with hem to the hospital and he said no while finishing her food as well. It was so awkward he just sat there for another 45 minutes eating, drinking, paid the bill and left. I still don’t know what kind of relationship they had and whether the woman is okay.”
Then, of course, there’s those who just can’t wait for the next big thing:
“Served a couple a few months ago. Every time I walked over, he would always be the one talking, and she would just be sitting there not having a good time. At the end, I asked if it was one bill or separate and she immediately piped up “SEPARATE”. I go and take his payment, and as I hand over the Debit machine to the girl, I see the guy take his phone out and start swiping through tinder”.
And you thought the mile high club was bad?
“I was on a date with a new guy and it was going okay until the guy told me he was into planes. That’s ok. I thought, it’s good to have interests at least. But then he starts telling me about how the first time he had sex with his ex-girlfriend, he had problems getting it up. Then he heard a plane fly overhead and that got him going…. Needless to say, there was no second date”.
Who needs a heart when there’s vodka?
Julie got set up with someone that looks great on paper until this happened:
“A colleague set me up on a blind date with a guy who I discovered was a heart surgeon. He kindly offered to be designated driver for the night so I was more than a bit disturbed when he started drinking and later told me that he always had a bottle of vodka in the car and his locker at the hospital for “emergencies”.
But rest assured, a disaster date can end in love
It’s great to know that all can be salvaged if the people are meant to be. My friend Johannes told me about a particular date that gives hope to all that are facing yet another date:
“I saw a film with a girl at the cinema. He went missing after a toilet break.I thought, ‘oh ok, maybe she’s just not that into me’. Turns out she had food poisoning. The film was Ben Hurr which we now call Ben Hurl. We got married despite that date and now live in Madrid with our two kids”.
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