This is the unintended consequence of online dating: super awkward dates have increased by 10,000%.
This piece is based on an AskReddit thread. Link on the last page.
1. Classy reunion.
Had a friend in college named Joe. He disappeared overseas for a year after we graduated. I stayed here to study and teach. One day, I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize saying “Hey, it’s Joe from business school, want to catch up for a coffee?”
I hadn’t seen him in ages, so I said yes very enthusiastically. I walked into the coffeeshop at the right time, look around for Joe, and there’s Joe from business school. A different Joe from business school. A guy I barely knew.
I couldn’t walk out because he’d already seen me, so we chatted politely for an hour and we’ve never talked since.
brooke_girl
2. Hot date.
While I was rebounding from a 5-year relationship, I went on a sort-of date with this weird dude from my community college who kinda stalked me, but was pretty much harmless. We went to a wing joint, and he ordered two dozen wings with tons of crazy sauce.
Picture the spiciest thing you’ve ever eaten, and multiply that by 1,000. I sat and stared in horror as he began eating. He had tears, snot, and sweat rolling down his face and dripping onto the table. But (I guess) in some attempt to impress me, he finished every single wing.
He immediately excused himself to the bathroom and vomited everything up. He came back out crying, and took me home. He did pay for dinner though, which was nice. Once we got to my house, he tried to kiss me. Noooooope.
blueberryeyes24
3. Bear necessities.
It was 2001, so I was VHS & chilling at this girl’s dorm room.
It was my first time over there, and there was this giant bear on the bed. Like a ‘got the softball in the milk jug at the carnival first try’ bear. It occupied 50% of the surface area of her bed.
I say, “Whoa, how’d you score that bear?”
Her: “I don’t know…”
Me: “What?”
Her: “I don’t know.
Me: “You don’t know?”
Her: “Nope.”
Me: “Okay, look”
Me: “It’s okay if it’s from an ex. I don’t care if you stole it. I’ll believe almost anything you tell me at this point. But there is no way you’re going to tell me you don’t know where that giant bear is from.”
Her: “But I don’t know how I got it. Are you going to be able to let this go?”
Me: (looks at bear, bear stares back, eyes full of secrets) “I don’t think I can.”
I got out of there and never looked back.
bitterbillsfan
4. Three’s company.
This cute girl from class randomly walked into my dorm room. The door was normally open during the day. She was in the building visiting a friend and saw me playing guitar so she came in and started flirting. She asked me to meet her at a nearby bar that night at 10 so I agreed. I get there at 10 and she introduces me to her boyfriend. I finished my beer and made my escape. No idea what that was about. Glad I didnt stick around to find out.
wellman_va
5. You can check out any time you like.
Met a girl online, decided that we should meet for a date. (I’m female BTW – this sort of matters). I arrived in her strange hometown. I didn’t know my way around, so I relied on her to show me around. She took me to a youth LGBT group. I didn’t mind – it’s a bit odd, but I was newly “out.”
Turns out it was just a chance for this girl to show off that she did, in fact, have a date (they didn’t believe her apparently) and that I existed. It was really awkward. When the youth group leader came in, she stood up, grabbed my hand and said “later idiots” and we walked out.
We went to a bar for a drink, and then on for some food. It wasn’t going well. She was very full of herself, but I was new to all this, and in a town I didn’t know.
Once we’d eaten she said, “Oh I just need to see a mate who’s staying at a hotel” – fine. Only it turns out there was no friend. She’d booked a hotel room for us for the night! Yeah – I left pretty quickly after that. I may have been inexperienced, but I wasn’t about to be tricked into a night in a rough hotel with someone I didnt like.
shinyhappycat
6. Bleeding love.
Matched on Tinder with a guy who decided that a great story to tell in detail on our date was about the time he had such weird sex with a woman that she ended up in the hospital.
After he was done telling the story, he told me he was glad I told him I was super squeamish, because now he wouldn’t try to show me his “blood collection.” He also said he had been on well over 100 Tinder dates, and I had managed to land in his top 10.
Needless to say, I got out of there and never talked to him again.
[deleted]
7. Too many cooks.
I was a waitress and I had a table of two guys. One was very cute and flirting with me and we exchanged numbers. He asked me out and I said yes. I didn’t really go out much and he didn’t tell me where we were going or what we were doing. Me being young and dumb at the time thought that would be exciting.
So he drives me a pretty good way from my house and we go to an elementary school. I was really confused. Apparently he was a basketball coach and they had a game that night.
At this point I noticed I had no reception on my phone and I really wanted to leave. But I thought maybe we were going somewhere fun afterward so I gave up trying to call someone to rescue me. I sat and watched this game right next to this dude’s mom. Yeah this was going well.
Finally the game ended. We went to get in the car and his friend from the restaurant gets in the front seat making me sit in the back. I am super uncomfortable with this and I ask what’s going on. They tell me they want to “share” me. Nope. Take me home now.
I got lucky. They moped and took me home. I was terrified. That was horrible.
OminousPumpkin
8. The converter.
I have had three separate dates, with three separate women who all turned out to be Christian evangelicals trying to convert me.
b8le
9. The Legitimate Businessmen’s Club.
We had just moved to a new area, and we stumbled into a tiny Italian place.
Inside, we were met with emptiness and silence. We both immediately thought the store was closed. But then we heard a heavy thud.
A womans voice barked “I’ll be right with you!”
She appeared, and greeted us. She looked puzzled, but motioned us to follow her to a booth right by the entrance.
She then disappeared into the back, and we heard a muffled conversation between our hostess and a man. I asked my date if she wanted to split, but she insisted we stay until we figured out what exactly was going on.
Suddenly, a square-shaped balding man burst through the kitchen door with two glasses of water for us. In a very deep voice he explained that it was his birthday, and we would eat what he felt like making us. We whole-heartedly agreed.
We waited around thirty minutes, and he again returned with three large bowls of spaghetti and meat sauce. He placed two bowls in front of us, and one next to me for himself. He sat with us and ate. We made light and awkward conversation with him throughout, and he kept asking us ‘jokingly’ if we were cops.
He decided we were good people, and didn’t change us for the meal. We wished him a happy birthday, he hugged us, and we went on our way. Easily the best spaghetti I’ve ever had in my life. The restaurant, unfortunately, no longer exists. Also it was definitely a mob front.
i7xx
10. Cop out.
Got set up on a date with this pretty awkward guy. He picked me up in his car (which was sort of cool considering we were in high school). But oh my god he was a nervous driver. So nervous in fact that he accidentally ran a red light, lost his mind and ducked into a residential area to sit at the end of a cul-de-sac freaking out, thinking the cops were coming.
I tried to explain that if a cop had seen him we’d have already have been pulled over, but this dude was too panicked to listen. I don’t remember anything else about the date, just that. It was uneventful and I never really talked to him again because we had nothing in common.
Amecha
11. Tinder’s keepers.
We met on Tinder, hadn’t talked for too long but I thought what the hell? I need to get out more. The first thing he said was, “Oh wow, you’re so pretty!”
Two drinks in, we’re having an awkward conversation, and he’s buying me double G&Ts instead of the singles I’m asking for. Mid-sentence, he grabs my face and says, “Sorry – I just need to get this out of the way.”
Then he forcefully sticks his tongue down my throat. I didn’t really know what to do because I didn’t want to cause a scene.
I said I needed to look up the time for the last train. He said, “No, it’s fine you can stay at my place!” He begs, saying he’ll sleep on the couch, he just wants to get to know me better. I said no. He huffs, very briefly, and then cheers up and tells me he’ll look up the train time for me “like a gentleman.”
He says it’s at 1 AM. I said that’s late, is he sure? He gets all tense and says, “What? Don’t you believe me!?” I smiled and said, “Of course not.” I excused myself to the toilet and checked the times on my phone. (The last train was actually at 12: 15. Lovely.)
I went back to my seat, told him Im getting an uber, goodbye. He tried to beg me to stay, loudly and embarrassingly, so others could hear (hoping I’d get so embarrassed I’d go home with him I guess?) and even pretended it was his birthday and yelled to the bar that he was protecting me by taking me home because “taxi drivers can be rapists.”
I told him that I was going home; he loudly asked for a hug and tried to grab my boobs.
Whapwhaaap
12. Milk dud.
Internet date; at a bar; first time meeting the guy. He tells me over a bowl of eggplant chips that he’s so good in bed that the last woman he boned spontaneously lactated from the mind-blowing pleasure.
Leducoch0lia
13. Short temper.
This guy I met online was half an hour late for the date. The first thing he said to me was: “You’re too tall. You’re taller than me.” I’m 5’5, and I was wearing flats.
We chatted for a bit about our jobs and school and whatever. I check the time, and realize I have to catch my bus back home. He says “Okay, I’m coming with you.”
“Uh, no.”
“Well, I guess you can come back to my place. My roommate is there though.”
“I’m not coming home with you.”
“I bought you a drink! You owe me! …Whatever. You’re not even that hot.”
He just stalks off in the opposite direction. Then, amazingly, I get a message from him later.
“Look, Im sorry. Youre a great girl and I enjoyed our time together. But this just isn’t going to work out.”
Um, yeah. I thought that was obvious.
I came across this dude on another dating site later. His profile was a picture of his abs; his secondary pic was him ‘sexting’ with a girl. “So you know I can satisfy the ladies.”
Good luck with that pal.
sometimesidrawfish
14. What you see is what you get.
I met a guy from OKCupid. The first time we met up in a public place and just had a casual chat. It wasn’t a horrible date, but it wasn’t very memorable either. I decided to give him another try because it could have just been nerves. The second date he invited me over to his place… I knew he lived with his parents, but I kind of assumed they’d be away.
They weren’t away. They kept coming into the living room and giving us iced tea and chips while he played XBox in his track pants (no shirt) and I sat there awkwardly watching. He didn’t really speak much to me. By the way, we were both in our 30s.
animalcollectivity
15. Viewer discretion is advised.
Went out with a customer from my work (I was a bartender, so I got hit on quite a bit, but this was the first time I’d actually gone out with someone). He took me to a bar near his apartment. The place was really dive-y and a little too hipster for my taste, but whatever. We were having a great time talking and enjoying some drinks, when I suddenly notice the TVs behind the bar. Instead of playing sports or the news, they’re playing old porn movies. I brought it to his attention, and he kinda just shrugged it off and said it was normal for this place.
14UR3N
16. Thief of love.
I went to the movies to watch Inception with a girl I met online. Once we got there we started walking inside and I realized I didn’t have my phone in my pocket. I said I must have left it in the car and started to walk back to get it. She was trying to get me to leave it and saying we would miss the film but the phone was only about a week old so I was really paranoid about it. We checked the car for about 10 minutes but we couldn’t find it. A couple were parked next to us so I asked them to ring my number because I couldn’t find it. It started to ring and it was obviously coming from my dates handbag.
She threw the phone back and literally ran away.
sprout272
17. Private time.
I dated a man who was a private eye. When I showed up to the date he had left me a note in the table that said, “Catch me if you can.” I never found him.
Mama_Noodles
18. Along came a spider.
The first time I ever used Tinder was also my worst experience with Tinder. The date itself was fine – a little stiff – but fine. Typical questions like what are you studying, where did you grow up, etc. We ate dinner and I didn’t plan on meeting up with him again.
The next day I got a text from him saying, “Hey.” I text him back. He asks me what’s up, I say not a whole lot what’s up with you…
End up getting a HUGE paragraph back talking about his creative process for writing a specific type of erotic story where women crush rats and tarantulas between their breasts. WHAT THE HELL?
officialswitchfoot
19. Party pooper.
I went home with a guy I had been seeing and when we got there his roommate was curled in a ball on the couch looking pretty shaken. We asked him what was wrong and it took him awhile to get it out, but he finally told us what happened:
He took a girl home from the bar and they started drunkenly tearing each other’s clothes off as soon as they got through his bedroom door. She said she was self-conscious though so she wanted the lights off. He switched them off and they started fooling around. She starts going down on him when all of a sudden, the guy notices this horrible smell. He mentions it but she tells him to just ignore it, he’s probably imagining things. Finally the smell is too much so he switches the lights on. That’s when he sees it.
Poop. All over her and all over the bed. She grabbed all her clothes and ran out of the apartment crying without saying a word and, presumably, still covered in poop.
joceapotamus
20. Promises, promises.
Meet a guy online. He asks me to dinner at a tapas place, I agree because I’m bored and he seems nice enough; we’d been texting for a couple weeks and it seemed chill. I get there and he’s late to meet me. Looks nothing like his profile (about 100 lbs heavier, bad skin, and is just dressed really sloppily) but I told myself not to be shallow.
We are looking over the menu (which was fantastic) and I suggest a few things I’d like to eat and he begins saying he doesn’t eat sweet potatoes, aioli, capers, salmon, radish, arugula, kale, balsamic vinegar, etc.–basically all ingredients except for bread, meat, and cheese.
We get our food and he is the messiest eater I’ve seen in my life, getting crumbs and food bits all over his shirt and the whole table. He also kept insisting I try his food, but I’m pescatarian and lactose intolerant so I declined, at which he began berating me and my food choices and being a “picky eater”.
They clear our table for dessert and he then gets down on one knee and tries to give me a promise ring because he “felt a special bond with me and wanted to pledge his life to me” after having met online a few weeks before. Yeah, no thanks. Politely as I could, I declined, to which he started calling me expletives in the middle of the restaurant and then ugly crying and stormed out. So I had to pay for the terrible date HE asked ME on because I didn’t want to accept a pre-engagement ring.
Smittenkitten97
21. Pigheaded.
Met a girl online, talked it up, and while she seemed a bit immature, thought heck, why not? She casually mentioned she really liked pigs. What she meant to say was she was obsessed with pigs. OBSESSED.
She came in a giant T-shirt that had a sparkly pink pig on it. Earrings? Pig earrings. Bracelets? Yep, pig bracelets. She had this headband on with a little pig on it. Her shoes? Yep, pigs on the front of the toes! But best of all? She had a GIANT (or at least it seemed giant) pink purse with the face of a pig on it.
You could not stop seeing it once you did. And I’m sure everyone else in this classy restaurant saw it too. I felt overdressed with her but under-dressed with every other couple there. It was beyond embarrassing. That was the fastest damn dinner I’ve ever had at a sit-down place.
calvinbastello
22. You gotta get with my friends.
Asked a girl out for coffee at a local coffee shop. She says yes, seems excited.
Show up at the agreed upon time only to see that she’s brought a bunch of her friends. Okay, whatever, I guess this isn’t a date now.
Despite the weird situation, I have fun. Then I get a text from my brother that he’s going to be nearby and could pick me up in his car. Tell the girls that I need to get going. They stop talking and just stare at me. Nervously, I explain that my brother will be there soon. They don’t say anything. I hear my brother honk his horn outside the coffee shop and awkwardly slip out of my seat and head to the car, saying goodbye to the still silent and staring girls.
Then, a week or so later, I get a call from the girl I has asked out. She’s furious that I stood her up, apparently. Confused, I apologize and explain that the whole thing was really weird. She starts to laugh at me and informs me that I’m actually on speaker phone and all her friends (the ones from the coffee shop) are there. They all laugh and make fun of me for being confused and apologizing.
I just hung up and never spoke to them again. I never figured out what their angle was. Prior to the “date” me and the one girl got along well and she definitely seemed to be attracted to me.
ModelMakerPro
23. Punch-drunk.
This has happened twice to me. I’ll be talking to a girl, and then I’ll ask her out, specifically using the wording “We should go get a beer sometime. They’ll agree, and we’ll go to a bar with a great selection of beer, and I’ll order one, and at this moment they’ll tell me they don’t drink alcohol.
Like, why wouldn’t you have said it before? We’d have gone to a coffee place or an ice cream place or something, because now I feel stupid getting drunk while you’re drinking peach juice.
clee-saan
24. Don’t cry for me.
So this guy who is a big nerd asks me out on a date and I said sure because he was cute and I kinda liked him. I had been to his house before so after we go to a decent dinner we go back to his place to watch TV. I should have known better, but I just assumed this guy was really poor like me and couldn’t afford to do more. So we get there and none of his family is home, and as soon as we walk in he is leading me to his bedroom not even smiling, with a really solemn look on his face.
I just kinda laughed and told him I don’t want to have sex. I was expecting maybe he would act like that wasn’t his intent, or he would be mad, but he just straight up started crying. The rest of the night was spent talking about how terrible high school is and how much pressure he felt to lose his virginity. Then we watched Mystery Science Theatre.
VALluv
25. Not all bad dates end badly.
Second date. Went zorbing. Anyone who doesn’t know what it is, you get strapped in to a giant inflatable ball and rolled down a hill. It was awful, the ball wasn’t inflated properly so every rotation you hit the floor it hurt, it was wet so there was water inside the ball and we had to jump out at the bottom of the hill into a puddle so wet sock galore.
The whole experience was horrible. Gave us something to talk about though, been together nearly 4 years.
TheCharityOfMe
26. That’s actually really sweet.
First date I ever went on in grade 8. A nice mousy girl asked me out. I nervously said yes and she said she would organize everything. Come that Saturday her mother picked me up without her daughter drove me to her house where she (the daughter) had prepared dinner for me.
She went all the way, entree, main, desert and non alcoholic wine. Top that all off with her father walking in every ten minutes to “get another drink”. Super awkward, but I stayed with her all through high school.
ubiEbruis
27. Fluid exchange student.
Senior year in high school, I dated a girl from Germany who was visiting relatives who were our neighbors in the USA (her aunt an uncle – themselves originally from Germany – who prevailed upon my parents to get me to take her out).
Problem was that although she was exceptionally pretty and seemed nice, she didn’t speak English – and I didn’t speak German.
Surprisingly, that didn’t stop us from having fun by expressing many thoughts with our hands and facial expressions. She taught me a few interesting German words and “dating customs,” and I imparted a few of my own before she took off for her return trip home.
Back2Bach
28. Give the boy a hand.
Went on a date with a girl who ended up being much weirder than I thought. If I started walking away from her she’d grab my arm crazy tight and pull me closer. There was a few minutes where I actually climbed a tree to get away for a moment. I’m talking like no branches, straight up, sitting on a branch stump, tree.
There was a point where I went to move away from her as she was getting awkwardly close and she dug her wrist into my arm and actually cut me with her nails.
Thinking back, I really should have just left earlier, but I was 16 and clueless so for some reason I stayed.
Anyway, I ended up being backed into a tree and jerked off for a while. Didn’t really want to stop her. If she cuts me up when I move away from her, I can’t imagine what she’d do with my junk in her hand. It was a weird day for me.
420ZeusNoScope
29. Crikey.
I’m Australian. My profile said I was Australian. First thing that comes out of my dates mouth, “I hate Australians”. Didn’t last long.
Uplo
30. X marks the Box.
It was with a guy who had recently been broken up with. We were already friends so we went to his house to watch a movie/play video games. Right off the bat he lays on the couch goes on his phone, I have nowhere to sit and end up on the floor. He then opens his exes facebook page and proceeds to show me pictures of her. When he was done doing that he fell asleep. I had didn’t have a car at the time so I called a ride and played his Xbox while I waited.
Did not have a second date.
[deleted]
31. That sounds awful.
32. You’re not even safe in public.
Met a girl on Tinder. She seemed very nice and somehow we had a good bit in common, other than she was religious while I am not. She never brought it up in conversation so I didnt think much of it.
Decided to meet her at a Starbucks halfway between our homes. She was nice, but seemed nervous. Thought it was the first date nerves or something. Probably about 15 minutes into talking, another dude who was sitting a few tables near us comes to sit down right next to her. He pulls out a pamphlet with the words Jesus and Are you lost? written across the top.
I’m super confused at this point. I tell the guy “No thanks” and that we didn’t have time to hear about it. SHE then begins to tell me that this was her friend and that they wanted to talk to me about where I was in life and how Jesus can help. I think she mentioned something about how today’s youth is being corrupted by online dating and how we’re straying from God’s light.
Realized then that I was in a religious intervention. I was pretty freaked out. I think all I said was something to the effect of “This is messed up,” then stood up and left. She texted me later to tell me that she was there for me when I was ready to hear God’s word.
cssensing87
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