There are bad dates and then there are bad dates.
There’s a no good time, and there’s the stuff of legend. These stories on Reddit are most definitely the latter.
Enjoy the cringe, my romantic friends.
1. The reconnaissance mission
Met a girl online, everything seemed okay and the conversations were good so a few days later we decided to meet for coffee and go for dinner later.
I show up to the cafe about 45 minutes early and order a coffee, intending to read for a bit. While I’m reading I notice an older fellow staring and taking far too much interest in me before leaving. Odd, but okay. Continue to read until about 10 till meet up when I text the girl that I’m already at the cafe.
Shortly after, the odd older fellow comes back in one entrance, and this sets off my Spidey sense so I’m making my way to the other entrance when my date catches my arm to say hi. I tell her we should step out for a minute, getting a bad vibe from this guy, she asks which one, so I describe him.
It’s her god damn dad, doing advanced recon for her dates at 24 years old. I was a bit sketched out at that, but thought maybe she had some bad dating history that possibly made sense. I meet her dad, he says they wanted to make sure I was who I said I was and to enjoy the date. He leaves and she says being an only child has its downsides. Makes enough sense, we get coffee and chat for a bit, walk in a nearby park and decide where to go for dinner. We get to my car and she asks if I could take her home to grab a jacket before dinner, no big deal.
We arrive at her place (lives with parents) and I talk to her mom and dad while the date grabs a jacket. They seem nice, but overbearing parents. Date calls me back to her room to meet her cat, and the entire time I’m meeting her cat, the parents are hawking nearby obviously eavesdropping and it’s obvious the date is dragging her feet for some reason. I said something about getting out to dinner before the rush and her parents who “happened” to be walking by ask where we were going before they start a dialog on local restaurants, which pivots to ordering delivery/carryout and how we should just do dinner together at their place.
I told them no offense, but I’d greatly prefer to dine in someplace relaxed and get to know their daughter. They seem really resistant to this, I’m agitated, and ask if this is how her dates normally go. They said “no, normally we don’t let her go out with men, but you passed the background check and your messages to her made you seem nice like you’d have dinner with us”
I was flabbergasted, they ran a background check on me, read our exchanges online as well as the advanced recon, and expected me to have dinner with 2 additional people I hardly knew when I was expecting a date. I told them that will absolutely not work for me, and that they are being extremely over the top with their expectations and precautions. I left.
Later received a torrent of text messages and calls to the general sentiment of you were supposed to be better than this. I don’t respond for a day before telling her/them this is not normal or healthy, I refuse to be any part of it and will be blocking their number and filing restraining orders if I find them lurking around.
– Predditor_drone
2. The undertaker
It was with an undertaker’s assistant. He’d circle every topic of conversation back to corpses.
Me: “So, do you know what you’re gonna order?”
Him: “Well I was thinking the steak, but I had eaten steak when we got the river guy in, and now it makes me feel queasy.”
I ended up leaving after half an hour.
– CrazySnekGirl
3. Making the climb
Matched with a cute girl, she likes to climb, we have good chat, great. Let’s go and do some top rope and hang out. But she doesn’t have a car, so I need to pick her up, 30min off route. I’m not thrilled but whatever.
Meet her and, well, it’s not her. Or it is her from the profile, but maybe from 5-8 years and a kid ago? I’m tempted to call it off but I’m too much of a softie, and she says she made cookies. I love cookies. We head off to the small local cliff.
We arrive, walk the ten minute approach, the conversation is still fine but I’m wary now. I resolve to just have a nice time and have some fun, and just learn from the experience. She’s perfectly nice but I’m seeing red flags.
At the crag she says she borrowed her friend’s shoes and isn’t sure they’ll fit. Same with the harness. Uh oh.
Well they do fit, yay!, so I rig the anchor and we start climbing on a nice 5.6 (easy) for a warm up. Except that she can’t climb. Fine, okay, whatever. We’re still chatting as she works on the off-ground move, and then just bursts into tears.
Turns out that it’s HER SISTER’S DATING PROFILE and that’s who she borrowed the stuff from, and that HER HUSBAND DOESN’T KNOW SHE’S ON DATING APPS. I find all of this out amid tears and so does everyone else there who can overheat it.
Some very awkward talk therapy later, I drop her back at her house (is it her house? Is it her neighbour’s house so that hubby doesn’t see?) and she leaves me the cookies as an apology.
And they were store bought.
– Kilbourne
4. The other woman
I went to a new years eve party with a guy I had been chatting with for months. When we get there his friends asks him where his girlfriend is, and they were not referring to me. I went out for a smoke at that point and he went after, saying she was boring and he was gonna break up with her.
I didn’t hang out with him for the rest of the night.
I guess I should thank him because I hooked up with the party host instead and we’ve been together for 7 years.
– mayneffs
5. Just a heads up
I told my date before we went out that I was divorced, just as a heads up.
She pried for more information and I tell her my wife had an affair.
She starts joking about it then asks to see a picture of my ex and the guy she left me for.
Then she called her affair partner cute.
Oh and she spent the other part of the date calling me fat.
– MayorCobblepot
6. The whole story
She started talking about her life story from childhood to that day. Year by year.. with every single traumatic story and emotions.
That was our first ever date and she didn’t even let me speak for that duration.
I was like “oh okay she is now talking about highschool 6 more years left, hold tight”
– Paranoides
7. The blind (drunk) date
Got set up on a blind date once between mutual friends. She shows up to the restaurant already a little tipsy, orders multiple appetizers and only takes like one or two bites from each one.
Then she proceeds to order 3 or 4 more drinks and is visibly drunk at this point. She gets up and says she’s going to the bathroom and staggers off.
About 15-20 minutes go by so I try to call her several times but no answer. Finally I decide to pay the check and just leave.
About 2 hours later I’m sitting at home and I get a call from an unknown number. It’s the police department. She was picked up on a DUI on her way home after she ditched me and gave the cops my number to see if I could go bail her out!
– mox44ah
8. Nothing but the tooth
I went on a date with a guy who picked me up and said he just had to swing by his work before we went to the restaurant. No problem. He works in a dental office as an assistant, so he invites me into his work, the office is clearly closed and no-one is there, and all the lights are off. Okay a bit weird but maybe he just forgot something really important that can’t wait until tomorrow morning to pick up?
Nope, he’s going to the medicine cabinets and taking out a few bottles of ketamine.
Okay. I’m now an accessory to theft of dental anaesthesia.
There was no second date.
– DreyaNova
9. The chat up
We went to dinner and he started chatting up the waitress. Like interrupting me every time the waitress came over and talking to her for a few minutes instead.
After a couple times I just pulled my phone out and started scrolling through reddit and he complained when he noticed I was on my phone. Cue a lecture about my generation. (he was like 6 years older than me, iirc)
Then he got mad when I wouldn’t suck his d**k in the parking lot. I ended up going back inside the restaurant and calling a friend to pick me up. Dudes car was still sitting there when I left. F**k you Jason.
– gengarsnightmares
10. “They”
Showed up to a tinder date where we agreed but she wasn’t there. Texted and she said “they” were around the corner. Come to find her(mid 20s divorced socialite) and her friend (mid 40s sales man) had been drinking all day and were proper s**t faced.
Proceeded to join them at the table where she proceeded to talk about the married guy at the next table and kept walking by and dropping things so she could bend over in front of him.
Then some racist talk and some cocaine use (them not me). And then they decided, mercifully to ditch me because I was no fun.
– IncrediblyShinyShart
11. The theft
Came out from a movie, late at night, and date’s Camaro was stolen. Apparently, he called his WIFE (that I did not know he had) and let her know where he was and what happened.
She showed up and realized he was on a date!
She started chasing ME around the parking lot telling me she was going to kill me. Saved by the cops who showed up just in time to take the auto theft report.
– KCCHAMPIONSFANMOM
12. The big quiz
I was brought up in Poland by Polish parents (university professors) , went to a Polish school, Polish university etc.
Then I had a date with an American man whose grandmother was Polish. He grilled me on the language and criticized my pronunciation and corrected my grammar.
This from a guy whose Polish vocabulary was maybe 100 words.
He told me I speak like a peasant.
– fantazja1
13. Very pricey
Was on a first date. Went to the bathroom, asked the guy to watch my coat. Came back and my coat was gone. It had my cellphone, wallet and keys in it.
Guy was too busy chatting up the bartender, hadn’t even seen the guy take it.
We had to uber back to his house so he could get his truck and drive me home. Had to wake my roommates up to let me in, had no ID, cash or way of contacting anyone for days.
Ended up tracking down the guy who stole it but only got back my phone, he threw out my wallet, keys (with fob on it) and coat.
Guy I was on the date with never contacted me again! Most expensive worst first date ever!
– confusedthrwawayxx
14. Sucks to suck
I had a date with a guy who spent the entire date whining about how much ‘this’ or ‘that’ sucked. Everything sucked. The food, the wait staff, the movie, the fact that I took my own garbage to the garbage can after the movie, and most of all, the night shift computer people he saw who hung around the outside of their office, smoking (he complained about their high salaries).
I pointed out that I was one of those computer people (no, I didn’t mention how much I made), and that was the LAST date I ever went on with him.
I never talked to him again.
– Ladyjaneinmd
15. The lies will find you
When I was in college many years ago, before the advancement of cell phones and social media, I was chatting with a girl I met on a BBS who lived on Long Island, NY. I was 18 at the time, but lied and said I was 22 because she said she was 25.
We spent a few weeks emailing each other, as well as calling each other. We even exchanged pics.
When we finally met up, things blew up. Turns out we both lied about our ages: She was really 33, and lied because she thought she looked younger. She admitted she sent a college photo to me.
We still had dinner together, but it was awkward as he**. We never spoke again.
– 4EVRGamer
Just remember: there never has to be a second date.
What’s your worst date story?
Tell us in the comments.