Sunday, September 13, 2009

Bad dates of years past

I was commenting on someone else's blog about what exactly a dating 'horror story' is... I think her horror stories (the date only went on for an hour and a half! He only sprung for coffee!) are way too tame compared to some of mine.

Which reminded me. Last year I started a series of blog posts about past crazy dudes I have dated. I spent about 3 years single before I met my husband (apart from a couple of short 'relationships' here or there that never lasted longer than 2 months), and went on a lot of crazy dates in that time. But then I got engaged to B, and had other things to write about (a ton of wedding plans, for one) so I never really finished the series. And I don't think I ever will. But I think I can manage a few dating horror stories.

Here are my top three dating horror stories of all time:

The third worst date ever: The dude who, during the course of a 1 hour coffee shop first date, told me all about how he posted naked pornographic pictures of his ex girlfriend on the internet when she had a broken pelvis (i didn't ask why her pelvis was broken). I already posted about that story on my blog so you can read the details there if you care to.

The second worst date I've ever been on was the last guy I dated in 2005. Because of this guy I decided to take a year off from dating in 2006.

So this guy, he asked me out for a drink at a bar. We go to this bar, he pays for beer for both of us, and we have our drink and are enjoying each others company. Conversation is flowing nicely, and I thought things were going well. Then he says something like "Damn, I want to get us a second drink, but I only brought enough cash for one drink." and I said something like "Oh that's no problem, I can pay for a second round." And that's when the shit hit the fan.

This dude starts off angry and eventually starts YELLING in the very public bar, about how he was taught that women shouldn't pay for drinks, he just doesn't think that's right, and then starts going off on how feminists (or rather "Feminazis") are taking over the world, etc, etc. After about 10 minutes of this diatribe I got up and left.

Needless to say, there was no second date. Did I mention that last year at Thanksgiving my husband introduced me to his family as a "Professional feminist" since basically i am...I've published in two of the top feminist journals already, and all my research is on women and work. Yeah, that was never going to work.

I might also add that my husband self-identifies as a feminist, and every time he says something along those lines I get all gushy inside and love him even more for it. :)

Which leaves my best dating horror story of all time. Valentines day 2005. (Actually come to think of it, all 3 of these horror stories happened in 2005, which probably all contributed to my year off from dating in 2006).

Unlike the first two stories, this was not a first date. This was with a guy who I had been dating about 6 weeks. Things were going pretty well with this guy, although I had some reservations about him. For one, I was beginning to suspect he was an alcoholic. He had just a few too many stories about how he "drank 2 six packs of beer last night and passed out." Every date we went on involved alcohol in some way. In general I'm not much of a drinker- in fact, nowadays I hardly drink at all, and I can't even remember the last time I had something with alcohol in it (it was probably the champagne we had on our honeymoon 2 months ago). But I drank more in those 6 weeks of dating this dude than in any other 6 week period of my life.

Which brings me to valentines day 2005. We decided to stay in and watch a movie, and we got a pizza and he brought over some nice Italian wine. Only he brought over two bottles of wine, because he 'couldn't decide which one to bring.' So, we watch the movie, eat the pizza, and split the first bottle of wine. And then the second bottle of wine. At this point I was pretty much drunk, but he kept going. I had half empty bottles of jagermeister and vodka, left over from a new years party- he proceeded to finish BOTH of these off, on his own.

Then he dropped the bottle of vodka on the kitchen floor. Miraculously it didn't break- until he picked it up and dropped it AGAIN at which point it shattered all over the floor. So, I drunkenly started picking up the pieces of glass that were now everywhere. My date helped by drunkenly stepping on a giant piece of glass, which went straight into his foot. But I guess he was too drunk to feel it, because he didn't realize he was bleeding until about 10 minutes later, when he had already tracked blood all over my apartment (which was carpeted). At which point he drunkenly freaked out about it. He went to the bathroom, got the glass out and started washing off his foot in the bathtub (destroying my bathroom rug in the process- there was so much blood on it I had to throw it out afterwords). Meanwhile I tried to wipe up the blood stains in the living room- mind you, I was totally drunk this whole time, and wiping up blood is just not a fun thing to do even when you're sober.

Over the course of the evening a whole bunch of other fun things happened too:
a) He tried to pay me to let him smoke cigarettes in my apartment, even though the door to the outdoors was literally right outside my apartment door, and I lived on the first floor. He kept offering me more and more money until I finally convinced him to go outside.
b) I went with him when he went to smoke outside. It was pouring rain, but he didn't stay under the awning by the door. Instead he started running around the parking lot in the rain
c) then he started taking all his clothes off in the rain cause "he didn't like wet clothes." Outdoors. In public. In February.
d) THEN he started peeing against the wall of my apartment building...right next to the window of someone's basement apartment.
e) Also over the course of the night he revealed to me that when he was in Italy on a student exchange program about a year before this, he went on a 3 week coke binge
f) for which he was kicked out of his student exchange program
g) during which he spent $5000 on coke, all from credit card advances
h) and apparently the credit card companies were calling him every day and he had no way of paying them back so he was just avoiding their calls
i) also that night he told me he loved me for the first (and last) time. Awww...?

After he cut his foot, he spent the night moaning on the couch repeating over and over again "I'm dying, don't leave me" "I"m dying, I love you, don't leave me." I lived in a studio apartment at the time, so I got to hear him moaning until around 3am. I asked if he wanted to go to the hospital for his foot but he declined. In the morning he slunk away before I was really awake, and after he didn't call me back for 2 days (probably from the shame of revealing all his horrible secrets while simultaneously trashing my apartment) I broke up with him over instant messenger.

So kind readers, what are your craziest ever dating stories?

16 comments:

  1. Wow, those are particularly horrifying stories. Nothing I've experienced can compare.

    Closest was not a date, but hanging out with a guy friend who refused to let me pay for his ice cream (even to loan him money!) after he'd gone on for several minutes about how much he wanted said ice cream, and then discovered he had no money on him.

    WHY wouldn't he let me give/loan him the money? Because I'm a girl and he would never, EVER let a girl pay for him. It was morally unfeasible for him. Ugh.

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  2. Once I was on this date with a girl, and it was only the second time seeing her, and her friend sat between us on the couch the entire night...

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  3. I had a similar experience to your third-worst date: a coffee-shop date with a crazy Rush Limbaugh-type who lectured me about how unworthy the poor were of receiving any kind of help from the government. The nadir came when he said that black people spend all of their food stamps on cigarettes (or junk food, I can't remember) at the beginning of the month, so by the end of the month, they are eating dog food. That was my first J-Date date ever. Fun. 5+ years later, I met my husband on J-Date. So don't lose hope, single women!

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  4. I felt evil for doing so but I couldn't help but laugh at your last story. I'm sure if it would have happened to someone I knew, I'd want to seriously hurt the guy, but reading this on an anonymous blog allowed the humor to come out. The guy surely had some serious issues.

    I'm a guy and was raised to pay for dates, be a gentlemen (I even hold the door open... I get compliments from random bystanders for this one) and all the rest, but most girls I've been out with have insisted to pay from time to time, some more then others. I would NEVER make a scene and if she's quicker to the wallet then I am and still insists after some gentle coaxing, then I guess she's paying. No skin off my nose. It makes me feel a little funny, but I feel the same way when it's a dude and I quickly get over it.

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  5. Dating is a horror all on it's own, is it not?

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  6. Oh man. There was the guy who went to see "Ever After" with me, and he cried. No. He really cried. I'm serious. He cried.

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  7. great idea for a post AE. Hope you dont mind if I di a post of my own along these line on my site. But in the meantime, here is one of my funny date stories.

    A femae friend called me up to set me up on a blind date and after extolling the virtues of my prospective date for 30 mins, we set the date. Just before she hangs up, she tells me- oh by the way, you dont mind that she has a bit of a limp do you. What am I supposed to say. So I was like - no no of course not. I love limps. So I go to pick her up and needless to say, my friend was being very stingy when she decribed this girl's unfortunate disability. It was not a limp. She was practically dragging her foot behind her.

    Anyway, we set out in the car and arrive at our destination and I can't find any parking. I finnaly see a spot and pull into it, but then realize its a handicap spot. "

    So I say,

    "oh its a handicapped spot.... oh I guess I can park here because of you"

    What the f was I thinking. clearly my brain was on vacation. Aaaaaaakward.

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  8. I was set up on a date by a good friend. My date picked me up and immediately put in some tape into the tapedeck of his car of his band's Hebrew music CD. I mean barely before we were able to say help. He then took me to some bar with an awful cover band where he chain smoked and cried over his ex-girlfriend who had apparently gotten engaged that day (a year later my husband who was then my boyfriend was an usher at the wedding actually). He didn't understand why I wasn't interested in a second date! And, of course, I was pretty pissed off that my friend thought this was the match for me.

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  9. OK, I have another story. Back in college when I still affliated OJ, I had a friend who had been seriously flirting with some male friend of hers over the phone. The two of them wanted to meet for a one night trist. She was nervous though. I went with her underwear shopping and then she talked me into going with her so she wouldn't be alone in the house with the guy. So I go and leave them to have their fun. At some point he comes out with a towel around his waist after they took a shower and asked me if I wanted to join them. He was convinced that was the real reason I was there. Ok, maybe not so crazy, but when you are living in the OJ world, it doesn't get much crazier than that.

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  10. All right. I don't usually do this sort of thing and probably it wasn't really the worst date I was ever on but it was bad.
    I went out with this guy who confessed that he had been madly in love with me in high school. Okay. Fine. And we had supper and then went to this bar where there was music playing and I wanted to dance. There was music. There was dancing. I wanted to join in. And he said, "No. There are people here who I work with and if they see me dancing they won't respect me. I'll take you to New York to dance in the best clubs but I can't dance here, tonight."
    Needless to say, I did not give him the chance to take me to New York.
    When a girl has to dance, a girl has to dance. Or at least this girl.
    amen

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  11. I went out on a date where the guy gave me a fake name (I found out later, after the date), told me he was a Rabbi, had his masters and Phd (found out later he wasn't Jewish, never went to college), was an independently wealthy business owner (he didn't have two nickels to rub together), etc. Also found out later that he was an ex-con who had served time on felony charges. Met him on Frumster. Oh, and he was about 75 lbs. heavier than his picture (which he looked nothing like). Surprising though, it wasn't such a bad date. Most of his psychotic behavior was masked well.

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  12. tikun olam> that is pretty crazy. I can't imagine how awkward I'd feel if that happened to me.

    And also, you should have never, ever allowed yourself to get talked into escorting a girl (or guy) somewhere so they can get their rocks off while you sit in the front room.

    That's just bad taste.

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  13. webgirl- my first ever boyfriend, after we broke up, told a bunch of people that he got a 1450 on his SATs and was going to NYU on a full scholarship. Later he said he "gave up his scholarship because they wanted him to take a french class" so he switched to a different college. THEN we found out he had never gone to NYU at all and had just been going into the city every day and wandering around! (And most certainly did not get a 1450 on his SATs).

    Also my best friend in high school/college always had fake boyfriends who 'went to a different college' (but every time she had a real boyfriend she showed him off everywhere). Once I was hanging with her and this gay dude and she was trying to tell this dude that she had had sex with her ex who turned out to be gay...only I was friends with her when she was dating this ex and I remember her always complaining about how he would never do more than kiss her. I called her out on it and she got really mad that i was so "judgmental" and never talked to me again after that.

    it's weird, but every once in a while I run into people who turn out to be pathological liars of this sort.

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  14. AE, I posted a lot on my blog about pathological liars, especially in the dating scene. I have to say, the world of identity lying is one I can't relate to. I think it's crazy. My husband and I are such straight shooters. It's part of the reason I didn't figure out that this guy wasn't who he said he was. I mean, who says they have semicha when they don't? Who says they have a Phd when they don't? I don't get why your friend lied about her bfs, but I'm guessing it just stems from insecurity.

    The great advantage to frum dating is that there is no fooling around, certainly not in the beginning. So while I feel like this psycho put one over on me, at least he didn't take advantage of me that way.

    God save us all from the wackjobs.

    -WG

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  15. oh it definitely stemmed from insecurity. She also told a lot of people she 'used to be rich' before her parents got divorced, which as far as I could tell was also a lie. On the one hand I feel bad for her that she was so insecure about her life she had to make things up, but on the other hand I think she's a psycho and should stay far far away from me. :)

    I have a hard time catching these things too, since I don't really lie ever. In fact, I'm a terrible liar and probably way too open about my life with most people. :)

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  16. Well, I was on my first date with this young woman, and at the end of the date, I pulled out my credit card to pay, and she insisted that she pay half. I replied that no, I was paying, and she insisted that no, she was going to pay half. So, I wasn't going to argue, and I let her pay half.

    But then, she realized that she didn't have exact change to pay for her half. She asked if she could just underpay me slightly. I thought for a moment, and replied that actually, I had no cash at the moment, and was in debt to a few guys (we're talking a debt of $20 or $30, nothing serious). Therefore, I said, any cash she gave me was not really my cash, but rather belonged to the friends to whom I owed money (the Talmud says to repay a debt as soon as you have the means, and I intended to do just that). Thus, I said, I'd appreciate it if she could plesae get exact change to pay for her half which she had promised to pay.

    She obliged, but after the date she sent me a text message telling me that she was rather confused how, within the span of a minute, I could go from offering to pay for the entire bill, to nitpicking over a dollar.

    But I guess this wasn't too bad of me, because we went on two more dates and racked up at least ten or so hours of phone conversations, in the span of about one week.

    She ended up breaking up with me, but on very good terms, and we're still good friends. (She's married now.)

    So that's my worst dating story.

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