Our Dating Disasters:
Dishing about the Best of the Worst
Wild Kingdom
I had just been dumped by the man I had convinced myself was the love of my life but I had to keep seeing him because we both were involved in the same interest (skydiving, but that’s another story).
I think I looked pretty pitiful on the drop zone although I kept trying to hide it.
A friend of his and mine (another skydiver) asked me out, saying I looked like I needed cheering up. This was just a friendly date, he said, nothing romantic. I did need cheering up, so I said yes.
I don’t remember much about that date, but after dinner he took me home and we sat on my couch talking. Then unexpectedly (I was pretty dense, I guess) he leaned in to kiss me. I froze but then he leaped back with a “YEOW!” My cat Gus, who had been hiding behind the curtains, had reached out and scratched his neck! I apologized all over the place but I think he was convinced that I had somehow trained Gus to attack him. (Train a cat?) He left.
This was the one and only time Gus ever scratched anyone. The next man I went out with (yet another skydiver) was the first person on whose lap Gus chose to sit, except mine.
We’ve been married 23 years.
Author of ANNA OF BYZANTIUM,
COLD IN SUMMER, and ON ETRUSCAN TIME
The first time I brought my college boyfriend home to meet my family, he looked out my window to see my beloved cat about to eat a cute little (live) chipmunk.
Hoping to stop my cat from acting out a graphic nature special, I ran outside. My dog ran out with me. So my boyfriend’s view out the window was now: a dog chasing me as I chased a cat chasing a (slightly maimed) chipmunk. Sort of a deranged nursery rhyme.
Very classy. But, oh, it gets better:
The cat caught the chipmunk. I caught the cat. And the dog bolted. She raced to the horse’s stall, chowed down on a pile of manure as if the clumps were potato chips, then leapt into the pond, swam across it, and ran away.
This all occurred within the first 15 minutes of my boyfriend’s visit. We drove to the neighbors’ house to retrieve a wet dog with manure breath and returned home to bury a chipmunk.
Several months later, my boyfriend (the same one, surprisingly enough) brought me home to meet his family. No cats, dogs, or chipmunks involved on this visit. Just raw fish.
After a lovely sushi dinner with his parents, I began to feel queasy. As soon as we reached his parents’ house, I made a dash to the bathroom and chugged some Pepto-Bismol.
And then I clogged the toilet. And then I was sick to my stomach. And then I flushed.
The second flush was NOT a good idea.
The bathroom flooded. Did I mention that just outside the bathroom was brand-new carpet? And that Pepto-Bismol is much, much more pink than that carpet was?
Yes, indeed, I am one classy girl.
But he married me anyway...
Which confirms the subtle wisdom of WAYNE’S WORLD: “If you blow chunks and [he] comes back, [he’s] yours. But if you spew and [he] bolts, then it was never meant to be.”
Author of INTO THE WILD
We met at a college friend’s house during a potluck dinner.
We talked for only a couple minutes, though, before I had to leave for another party. Had we talked longer, I might have detected that we were completely mismatched, and I would have known better than to accept his offer to go on a picnic the following week.
It was a 15-mile drive from my apartment to the farmers’ market, where we stopped to get picnic provisions. We had run out of conversation topics by mile 2.
When we arrived at the market, we decided to split up and select food on our own. When we rendezvoused after 10 minutes, he had with him a ham sandwich and bottled water.
I had a quarter-pound container of pasta salad, snack-sized bag of veggie chips, individually packaged slice of German chocolate cake, one peach, and bottled water.
As he stared disgustedly at the contents of my basket, I asked what was wrong.
He answered, totally seriously, “Why are you shopping for the week?”
I was really offended, but I feigned cheerfulness.
“Well, I love having a lot of variety on picnics, and I was fully intending that we share everything. Of course, anything we don’t eat one of us can bring home as leftovers. Anyway…it’s not that much food.”
He literally grunted in reply, and his somber expression remained plastered on his face as we plodded to the checkout area.
While we were waiting on line, it occurred to me that this guy was probably spending 15 dollars on gasoline alone that day to drive us to and from our picnic site, so I thought it was only fair if I paid for the food. When we reached the cashier, I flashed my date a big smile and took his basket from his hands, saying that it’d be my pleasure to treat him because he was paying for the gas. He didn’t answer.
When we got to the car a minute later, he said to me while starting up the ignition, “Notice how I didn’t offer to pay.”
I had no idea how to respond to that, so I didn’t.
After six more wordless miles, we reached the crowded parking lot and saw that there was only one empty picnic table left. He suggested I hop out now to secure the table and that he’d follow me with the food once he found a spot. I told him that was a great idea, which it was, and I exited his car.
Soon he arrived with our waters, his sandwich, and my pasta salad.
“Oh, where’s the other food?” I asked.
“There’s no way you’re going to eat all that.”
This guy was lucky I never had an eating disorder or any major food issues.
“Um, yeah, I was going to eat all that,” I said firmly but kindly. “In fact, I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday because I was saving myself for this picnic.”
Then I asked him for the car keys so I could get the rest of the food.
“No, I’ll get it,” he said dejectedly.
Ten minutes later I had polished off everything except half of my German chocolate slice. I was hungry enough to finish it, but I’d just run out of water and didn’t want to continue eating solids without something to wash it down with. As I predicted, he gave me a hard time about it.
“You see?” he said smugly. “You left all this cake.”
I explained to him my reasoning, but he didn’t seem satisfied.
I was shocked when this guy then proceeded to sidle up next to me and put his arm around my shoulder. Not two seconds passed before he turned his face away and started gagging.
“What’s wrong?” I asked alarmed. “You okay?”
“Your hair,” he choked. “It smells.”
(That morning I showered with Finesse, which never elicited any complaints before. And that evening following the date I tested my hair on my roommate, who always told me the brutal truth, and she said it smelled fine.)
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I pleaded, suddenly self-conscious. “Maybe we should just go.”
On the drive back, a pigeon slammed into his windshield and died instantly. As if I needed that sign from the dating gods.
When we arrived at my place, to my utter surprise he asked me out again. So I was put in the yucky position of delivering the “you’re a great guy but I’m not open to dating anyone right now” speech. It was easier than telling him that we were gastronomically irreconcilable, conversationally challenged, aromatically incompatible, and ornithologically doomed.
Author of ANATOMY OF A BOYFRIEND
McSteamy
I was a junior in high school and I had just recently gotten my license. I had been dating a classmate of mine for several months and we were excited to finally be able to drive some place on our own.
I begged my mom to borrow her Nissan Maxima wagon and she reluctantly relinquished the keys to me on the condition that I would drive to my girlfriend’s house, out to dinner, back to my girlfriend’s house, and directly home.
We went to dinner at TGIF, and after burgers and lying to the waitress that it was my birthday for the free piece of birthday cake, we headed out. On the way home, we had to pass through a park that was located in the next town. So, we did what most sensible teenagers would do, we parked the car.
Things got steamy and the windows got foggy.
All the while the same Duran Duran tape played over and over. That is, until I noticed the tempo slowing and the vocals slurring.
I looked up and realized the headlights were dimming as well. I turned the key in the ignition but aside from a single whine the engine would not turn over. We had killed the battery.
This is in the days before cells, so I was forced to knock on a nearby door. It was nearly midnight and the robed and hair-curlered woman who answered was not pleased. I told her I was driving past when the car died but I managed to roll it into the park parking lot. She allowed me to use the phone and I called my older brother.
I had to tell him what had happened so he would know to bring the jumper cables so I whispered it into the receiver. He agreed to come down on the condition that I mowed the lawn for the rest of the summer. What choice did I have? My mother’s car was dead and my girlfriend was already out past her midnight curfew. Quickly, I agreed.
On my way out the door to wait for my brother, the woman muttered, “Serves you right for screwing around all night out there.”
About a thousand comebacks flashed into my mind, but I stopped myself before any of them came out of my mouth.
She was right.
Author of BIG SLICK
When I was 17, my boyfriend Glen and I went to a drive-in movie. It was Labor Day weekend, and a sultry 90-something degrees in Houston.
Since Glen was the love of my life, our time was usually spent making out instead of watching the movie. This particular night was no exception. In the Houston heat, no breeze or air conditioning, we went at it with just the car windows down. Before long the high temp got to me. I started feeling light-headed and a bit nauseous. And right there, in the backseat of his car, I had a heat stroke. I don't know what was worse, the dehydration or the humiliation!
Glen went to the concession stand and got me a Coke, then drove me straight home. Still weak, he helped me stagger to the front door, then sped away.
But he did ask me out again...months later.
Author of the FORTUNE TELLERS CLUB series and GRANNY GERT AND THE BUNION BROTHERS
In my freshman year of high school, I was at the beach with my boyfriend and his friends, and I was wearing a new swimsuit. It was one of those strapless kinds and being flat-chested then (and um…still am) it didn't stay up very well.
I was sitting there, leaning back on my hands, admiring the ocean and enjoying the warm sun, when my boyfriend suddenly leaped up and yelled at his friends to go away.
I wondered what the fuss was about. I glanced down and sure enough, my swimsuit had creeped down, exposing my nonexistent chest!
HORRORS!
Needless to say, beach dates weren't my favorites after that.
And I learned to choose better swimsuits!
Author of CHINA: A KALEIDOSCOPE BOOK
When I was in school, I was dating a guy who worked for the fire department and knew all the access codes into the apartment complexes in town. So, for several weekends in a row, we sneaked into one particular complex and used their hot tub after-hours. We would laugh and talk and sing and revel in the fact that we, two crafty young people, had pulled one over on all those residents.
On our fourth night living the high life, man-of-my-dreams dared me to go skinny-dipping, and I (wanting to prove what a rebel a goody-goody honors student could be) accepted the challenge. As I mentioned before, we had been to this apartment complex several weekends in a row and were not shy about making our presence known.
And after putting up with us for several weekends, the residents of the apartment complex were no longer shy about calling the cops.
When the cops arrived and shone their flashlights in the hot tub, they found me, bobbing about in my birthday suit and doing my best to cover myself with layers of water. (It should be mentioned that man-of-my-dreams was dressed and found the situation entirely hilarious).
He and I were warned about trespassing, and I received an extra lecture that the hot tub was not a clothing optional locale.
Needless to say, I don’t go near hot tubs anymore...and he hasn’t been the man-of-my-dreams for many years.
Author of ESCAPE FROM ARYLON,
CURSE OF ARASTOLD, and ONAJ’S HORN
My mother had always sworn I wouldn't be allowed to "car date" until I was sixteen, but shortly after my fifteenth birthday, I got a call from a boy who would be a senior – and captain of the football team – when school began in the fall. Of course, I said, "Yes, yes! I'd love to go out with you!"
He arrived, met the folks, and we left. About a half-hour into the date, I was so bored I could've screamed. He wasn't a dolt, but we had NADA in common. I guess that wasn't a problem for him, because before another hour had gone by (and the sun was completely over the yardarm), we were parked behind the shop building of the old high school (an extremely dark and deserted area).
I knew immediately why he would be football captain – he was faster than Joe Namath and had hands that could (and would) hang onto ANYTHING, no matter how small.
It was like fighting off an octopus.
Finally, after I'd practically jumped out the open car window to get away from him, I said, "If you don't take your hands off me, my mother will KILL you. Dead." And the moment the words were out of my mouth, I knew it was true!
He must have believed me, because he released me and drove me home. Even in the midst of my relief, though, I worried that he would talk about me and that I'd never have another date in my life.
As it turned out, I think he was so shocked a girl had rebuffed him, I became a challenge, like the Rubik's Cube of girls that he had to solve before he left high school.
He asked me out again and again for the rest of the school year, and I said, "I don't think so!" every time!
Still he persisted. It was a blessing when he went off to college, far, far away.
I suspect he wanted to avoid admitting to his friends that I'd threatened him with my 5'2" tall mother — who weighed all of 100 pounds — and that he'd been scared enough to believe me.
Author of THE LEGEND OF ZOEY.
View Candie's LiveJournal.
When I was 12, I was madly in love with Mike, the 13-year-old boy who lived across the street from me.
Our parents were friends and when they visited back and forth, we’d go along and hang out together, watching TV and eating popcorn. Mike actually had “girlfriends” from time to time whereas I was too shy to even speak to most boys.
One evening, when our parents were all in the dining room at my house, Mike and were sitting on the couch in the living room and suddenly his arm reached up and went around my shoulders.
This was what I’d dreamed of for months!
But apparently my body and my brain were not on the same wavelength because I immediately shifted away from him and he removed his arm.
Neither of us said a word about it and I castigated myself for years for being such an idiot.
Mike and his family moved away in high school, but one night, after my freshman year in college, Mike showed up at the door. He’d come back to town to see his old house again and asked me to go for a ride with him. Of course I did.
We talked about old friends and high school, but, finally, sitting in his car in front of my house, Mike asked me why I’d pulled away from him that night on the couch when we were so young.
I couldn’t believe that he remembered it too, that it had been a big deal for him as well as me.
But did I whisper, “Biggest mistake of my life,” and turn to kiss him?
Nope. Some things never change.
I blushed and stammered and said goodbye much too quickly. He drove away and I never saw him again.
Author of HARD LOVE, PARROTFISH, SANDPIPER, and BLIND FAITH
Oooops
My worst date was a blind one where I met the guy for dinner and a movie. He was nice-looking, and I had a perfectly fine time... even though we happened to have no chemistry together whatsoever.
Thinking it would be cruel to just never call him again, I wrote him a note saying how nice I thought he was, but that, well, we just didn't seem to click.
I mailed the letter, returned home... only to have him immediately call me and ask me out on another date. Apparently I had felt no chemistry but, uh, he had. Now I felt terrible about that note that he hadn't yet received, so I babbled something incredibly stupid about the note, quickly adding that it didn't matter, that I'd go out again with him if he wanted.
Needless to say, he declined.
But of course the story didn't end. I had just taken a job at one of those mail box service places. And who was one of the renters? Yup. I saw him every day for the next three months (until I quit) as he came to collect my mail. He pretended like he didn't know who I was, which was absolutely fine with me!
What's the lesson to all this? Well, those people who say they just want their dates to be honest, that they want them to SAY that they won't be calling if they're not thinking about calling? They're lying. Little white lies exist for a reason, folks. "Oh, I'm sorry! I have to wash my hair that night. Maybe some other time!"
Yup, that really means, "I'm just not that into you." And, really, wouldn't you rather hear that pleasant fiction than the cold harsh truth?
Author of SPLIT SCREEN: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Zombies and Bride of the Soul-Sucking Zombies; GRAND & HUMBLE; THE ORDER OF THE POISON OAK; THE LAST-CHANCE TEXACO; and GEOGRAPHY CLUB.
I was 22 and had a new boyfriend. We’d been going out for five months.
For our first Valentine’s day, I got him an antique alarm clock — he had a collection — and it took me quite a lot of shopping to find it.
I wrapped it carefully, wrote a romantic card, and gave it to him when he arrived at my house to take me out.
He said he had something for me, but I had to leave the room for a minute. So I did, and when I came back, he told me to look under my pillow.
There, unwrapped, without a card, was
a heavily used
office
telephone
made of faux wood.
It was a piece of junk. From his office supply room.
The disaster part was I continued to date him.
Author of THE BOYFRIEND LIST, FLY ON THE WALL, THE BOY BOOK, and DRAMARAMA
My boyfriend lost interest and told me he wanted to just be friends. We still saw each other often at a dance group and I held out hope he'd change his mind. I thought if he saw me with someone else he might get jealous and realize that we should still be together. But the problem was...I didn't have another guy.
So I invented one. I arranged phone calls when my ex-beau was over, sent myself a Valentine's gift and showed off love letters and romantic cards. My fake guy sounded so good, I wished he were real.
But instead of being jealous, my ex-beau wanted to meet the guy and was happy for me. This was not what I wanted...so in a fit of self-pity and romantic angst, I confessed that Mr. Perfect was totally fiction. My ex-beau was so angry about my lying and felt like a fool for believing me that this totally split us up.
I was heartbroken for a few months. Then I found a new boyfriend and went back to being"just friends" with my ex-beau.
Author of INTO THE MIRROR and THE SEER psychic mysteries: 1. DON'T DIE, DRAGONFLY; 2. LAST DANCE; 3. WITCH BALL; 4. SWORD PLAY; 5. FATAL CHARM.
The main disaster in my teens was that I never had enough dates! I was pretty shy in high school, and recall one girl who I had an enormous crush on in history class. I'd worked up the courage to ask her out over the Thanksgiving weekend (as I recall); of course, she had a boyfriend. Alas. It would then take me a few more weeks to "re-muster" with someone else.
In college, I took a trip to Mexico with two friends, one of whom — the blondest of us — was the most fluent in Spanish. During a longish stay in Mazatlan, he managed to strike up a brief romance with a local girl, and got us all, Norte Americanos that we were, invited to the local high school dance, far away from the strip of tourist hotels on the beach.
That was fun, but the main hampers there were my limited Spanish (I figured out"do you want to dance?" but had few phrases after that!), and the fact that, at least then, all the abuelitas (grandmas!) were invited to come sit around the dance floor and nod purposefully, and sometimes grimly — i.e., cooling any unauthorized ardor that was in danger of breaking out on the spot...
Consequently, the two of us less conversant in the local tongue wound up by ourselves back at the hotel! An argument for greater multi-lingual fluency...
Author of the DANGER BOY time-travel series,
the latest of which is CITY OF RUINS
I was in the 11th grade. Rich was in the 12th.
I'd stare at him in the lunchroom, day after day. He was so beautiful, with green eyes and long, dark hair. He stared at me, too.
For nine long months.
Two shy people who drummed up all the initiative they had and could only manage eye contact from a safe distance. Fortunately, we had a mutual friend named Chuck.
It was early June and Rich would soon graduate. We were in danger of never staring again. So he got Chuck to ask if it was okay to give out my phone number.
It was.
After nine months of ogling, we went out for a whopping two weeks. The first date, he picked me up and said he wasn't sure what to do, so he drove a few blocks away, parked, and we sat in his car and talked. Gotta love a man with a plan. But we had something in common—the same birthday. That was about all we had in common.
My biggest problem with him? He used the word"ain't" and that really turned me off. I guess it was the budding author in me, but the more he said"ain't, " the more I thought, "Nuh-uh."
Author of STUCK DOWN.
It would have to be the time this guy picked me up in one of those big-boat Mercedes (not that there's anything wrong with that) and told me he needed to stop at home for a few minutes before we went out. He was extremely tall and somewhat gangly, in a tres expensive and much-too-big suit that hung on him like it was about to fall off a hanger.
We drove up to a very suburban ranch house and parked the car. He got out, ran up the steps, and disappeared into the house.
Um, hello?
Am I simply supposed to obediently follow?
I waited a few seconds and he appeared in the doorway, impatiently waving at me to come in. Okaaay. I walked up to the door, peered into the darkness, and saw nothing but a blue blur coming from the next room.
"Come in already!" he shouted.
Oh yeah, this one's a keeper.
I found him pacing in front of the TV, which was set to some financial channel. He was muttering at the numbers scrawling across the screen. Without a glance at me, or even an offer of a glass of water, he motioned for me to sit on the couch. Oh, this was going to be fun. I waited there for about 10 minutes, or 10 hours — who could tell? — while he walked from room to room, muttering, stopping to yell a variety of expletives at the TV, and all the while changing his clothes in stages. First he came back without the tie, then a different shirt, and so on. I kept trying to interject small talk here and there, but he was having none of it. He only had eyes for the ticker tape.
I finally got up and said I was going to use the phone in the kitchen. I called a girlfriend who showed up shortly thereafter — bless her heart.
"Goodbye!" I said, heading for the door.
Amazingly, that got his attention.
"Where are you going? I thought I'd order Chinese and we'd hang out, " he said.
"I don't think so. Buh-bye!"
It was the shortest date of my life, but has been burned into my memory as the excruciatingly longest.
Author of A BAD BOY CAN BE GOOD FOR A GIRL, AMELIA EARHART, ELIZABETH LEADS THE WAY, ALMOST ASTRONAUTS, and UP CLOSE: ELLA FITZGERALD.
View
Tanya's LiveJournal.
I feel like something of a fraud for writing about a dating disaster when I myself have never actually been on a solo date with anyone other than the man I met at sixteen and ended up marrying.
There was one near miss, though, that just about broke my heart.
The year was 1984; I had just turned 14.
I was a freshman in high school and had a giant crush on a senior—let's call him Joe M.
Joe M. wasn't just any cute high school boy. To my freshman eyes, Joe M. was a man—tall, muscular, with curly blonde hair, and the kind of leather jacket worn by grownup people with money.
He and I were both in the school musical and had very small parts that afforded us hours and hours of time spent just hanging out. I confessed my crush to some junior girls in my drama class who knew him. They got totally caught up in the idea of a Joe M. and Sara Z. match-up and set about to make something happen.
Meanwhile, here's an example of the kind of humiliating scene that took place between us all the time: Joe M. practicing his Spanish homework and turning to me to say something I couldn't understand, then translating it:
"Would you like to come to my grandmother's house for dinner?"
Me (totally beside myself):"Sure! I mean, yeah! When?"
Him (laughing):"No, no, that's just a random sentence from my Spanish book."
Oh. Anyway, the junior girls somehow convinced Joe to ask me to the winter dance. The winter dance! Me and a senior! The date of the dance became the equivalent of my wedding day. My life revolved around that day. I got my parents on board with permission, planned my outfit, and imagined how it would be to slow-dance with Joe.
The day of the dance, guess who doesn't show up to school? Yeah, that's right. Joe M.
In second or third period I get called to the principal's office. My mother is on the phone. She has just had a call from Joe's mother to let us know that Joe is home sick. With mono. He can't take me to the dance, and he's so sorry. Of course at this point, I'm so insecure and all along I've hardly believed that he really wanted to take me so I figure he's faking to get out of it. I end up going to the dance anyway, and it's fun, whatever.
Monday morning Joe still isn't at school, and he's out for the next month. (To this day part of me still thinks it was an elaborate ruse to get out of taking me to the dance.)
Later there is a make-up date involving me and Joe M. going to the Nutcracker ballet with my older sister along to chaperone—which would have been fine had Joe not turned all his attention to my sister. It just wasn't the same—it wasn't like I could get Joe to slow dance with me at the ballet, after all.
He ended up dating a different freshman that year and I moved on to my first boyfriend, Allen H., who never actually took me on a date, but that's a whole different story!
Author of STORY OF A GIRL.
One of my worst high school dating disasters involved a case of mistaken identity.
It happened when a guy I really liked called me — I nearly had a heart attack! — we were kind of friendly at school, but I never expected he liked me and I sure never told anyone I had a crush on him.
So, I'm on the phone, trying to act cool and not like my heart's racing like a hummingbird's, and I'm trying to listen to what he's telling me, but I'm so nervous all I hear is"Do you think…going out...concert...blah blah blah…"
And finally I say, "Sure! I'd love to!" and he says, "No, not you! Laurie!"
He was calling to ask me if I thought my friend Laurie would be interested in going out with him.
Like a putz, I switch gears and start mumbling, "Uh, I guess so, do you want me to ask her about it, or tell her to call you, or something?"
Of course, today, I'd laugh merrily and say, "How the heck should I know? Call her yourself! And what kind of moron calls a girl so he can ask out another girl?"
That's what I'd say today.
Author of SEX KITTENS AND HORN DAWGS FALL IN LOVE and WHY I LET MY HAIR GROW OUT.
Leading the Blind
I used to get shocked by guys asking me out. I would say “yes” almost automatically. Sometimes I even knew the guy liked me and that the moment of date-asking was inevitable, but when the moment arrived I’d be struck frozen and I’d say “yes.” I’m sure it was a combination of the charged atmosphere and my not wanting to hurt the guy that caused the problem. Now I wonder what I was thinking — I mean, I was just one girl — there are millions of us out there, right? So why was I worried that my refusal would be the same as sawing them in half with a common dinner knife? Anyway, this made for some bad dates.
The one that I think of as the worst, and which happened because I couldn’t say “no,” was this creepy guy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He had a smirky smile. He thought he was intelligent (and he may have been, but he let me know it). He kept his hands in his pockets, pushing his shoulders up around his ears all evening, and this creeped me out. He seemed to think I was soft, weak, needing someone to guide her through this mystery called life and, baby, he was the man. You see my point. But I like to finish things once I start them, so I stuck the evening out.
The date was uneventful (creepy and boring, yes, but uneventful) until he convinced me to climb the Abraham Lincoln statue on Babcock Hill (I think this is how it’s spelled) on the University of Wisconsin campus. Once again, I don’t know why I agreed, but I did it. My suspicion is that this was the first thing all evening that actually sounded fun. It was fun — until we ended up sitting across from one another, each of us on one of Old Abe’s giant knees. Then I realized this wasn’t such a good idea. I could smell the mints pepperminting his consonants as the guy explained that we were to close our eyes and rub Abe’s nose for a wish. The bronze on Abe’s nose was actually rubbed shiny. Still, there was no way I was going to close my eyes…
As I was thinking this, the guy leaned in.
Oh please no!
I dodged and nearly fell off Abe’s lap which was a good ten feet from the ground.
I caught myself. Then I hoisted myself off the side of Abe’s pressed bronze slacks, and scrambled down his pedestal to the grass below.
That was the end of the date. I think I owe this guy a thanks for helping me to say “no” to guys in the future. I did not have this problem as a sophomore.
Author of THAT GIRL LUCY MOON and THE DIRTY COWBOY
Not long after my first marriage broke up, the sister of my best friend asked if I would be interested in a blind date with a friend of hers. Never having been on a blind date, I said, sure.
Babs turned out to be about fifteen years older than I, and extremely clean. I believe she had prepared herself for our encounter by bathing in rubbing alcohol. I have no doubt that after we parted, she did the same.
In the interval between alcohol baths, she and I and the friend’s sister and her man went out to dinner somewhere, where I got to learn that Babs was just divorced from her doctor husband, the mother of six kids, and was now interested in anything “zenny.”
This did not include ballet, in which I had just developed an interest, having just seen THE TURNING POINT. Indeed, it seemed not to include anything but her vague notion that zen was some kind of touchyfeely cosmic mush that didn’t require any effort on her part.
Most of the rest of the evening has been blotted out, apart from some ridicule I got from the sister’s fellow for being interested in ballet. Seems he thought that was unmanly.
Anyway, I eventually got to take Babs home, gave her a peck on the cheek, chiefly to see if my guess about the rubbing alcohol had been correct, and we parted with mutual lies about seeing each other again.
Author of THE JANUS GATE:
AN ENCOUNTER WITH JOHN SINGER SARGENT
My brother, my well-meaning brother, Duffy, set me up with a jock in the summer of 1984. It was the only blind date of my life, come to think of it. I was twenty-two.
I was crazy-in-love with an indifferent theatre director, who'd recently put on a lousy production of HAMLET, and was suffering for his art/reviews/life, but he suffered with a wry sense of humor sprinkled with literary quotes.
He was perfect, but I was only someone to pass the time with — and barely that. He was in love with a ballerina, and I was more of peasant-stock. But the ballerina had gone off with someone else, so there we were...
Enter the jock. (And I know there are jocks, athletes, who read and are incredibly smart. He just wasn't one of them.)
I was living in Knoxville and the jock drove up from Georgia for our date, which meant he arrived at nine in the morning. He may have said, "hey" or"howdy," but he couldn't have said anything that would have won me over. He was very tall and handsome enough, but the day yawned interminably.
He looked at my books and said, "Man, you read a lot."
He didn't like theatre. I had been to England on exchange and he said, "You like Brits?"
He wanted a UT Vols sweatshirt, Go Big Orange, so we went to the student store.
Then I don't know what we did...it's a big blank.
Did we see RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? It's possible.
I know we drank beer in the afternoon at some fifty-cent beer place — The Tap Room on the Strip? It was awful watered-down beer and way too much anyway. And the whole time, I kept thinking, "I'm going to kill my brother."
Finally, by nightfall, I couldn't take any more sustained small-talk. He got in his car and drove off, and then by a miracle, my beautiful, inaccessible theatre director dropped by to say hello. We were talking and I was describing the whole awful day, and there was a knock on the door.
The jock was back:"I really can't drive. I need to crash here for the night."
The theatre director took one look at the imposing frame and fled.
The jock passed out on the couch.
I called my brother and asked, "What were you thinking?"
I was full of despair. My theatre director was gone like some ninny phantom, and there was a jock snoring on my couch.
I studied the book titles on the shelves and discovered an author I'd never heard of before named Flannery O'Connor. The title was A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND. I thought, well, how true. I'll read that one. I went to bed with Flannery O'Connor and that story, and the whole world fell away. I read it again and again, and to this day, I've never stopped reading her stories.
The jock left in the morning.
The theatre director married his ballerina.
I fell in love with Southern writers. I even drove to Milledgeville, Georgia, to see where Flannery O'Connor lived and wrote. I met someone that same summer who was neither a jock nor an indifferent theatre director.
We've been married for twenty years. We named our first child Flannery.
Author of GENTLE'S HOLLER and LOUISIANA'S SONG.
View Kerry's LiveJournal.
Then there was the blind date who emailed me his picture.
I thought, hey, he's pretty cute. Looks young for his age (which he had said was around 30), but cute! Sort of like Ralph Macchio in the KARATE KID.
So I take an hour-long train ride to meet him.
I scan the room, but don't see him.
Then a bald guy in his 40s comes up to me and says he's the guy I'm looking for. I politely tell him he's got the wrong girl. He whips out the picture he had sent me, and it turns out it was cropped from his Battle of the Bands picture in high school.
Yes, the Battle of the Bands.
He said he thought he still looked pretty similar.
He did not.
Not that I care about looks so much, but sending a picture that is 20 years younger is not the best way to begin a trusting relationship.
After a depressing train ride home, in which I lamented ever finding love, there was a HUGE bug on my wall. Usually I'm a live-and-let-live person when it comes to four-(or more)-legged creatures, but this one was like something out of a nightmare. It seemed to mock my lack of a man to kill it.
I'll never forget that date, or that bug. (Ironically, my husband is the worst bug-killer in the world.)
Author of JEREMY FINK AND THE MEANING OF LIFE,
LEAP DAY, and A MANGO-SHAPED SPACE
Food Fight
Seven signs that your date will be a disaster, taken from the sad-but-true dating files of Laura Bowers:
1. Your date shows up wearing fingerless leather driving gloves . . . while driving a used Ford Escort.
2. Your date also reeks of Drakkar cologne and you wonder if it’s rude to lower the window for fresh air.
3. Your date then takes you to a restaurant and has the following conversation while reading the menu:
HIM: “Mm, lobster. Have you ever had lobster before?
ME: “No, but I’ve—”
HIM: “Then you should order the lobster.”
ME: “That’s okay, really.”
HIM: “No, I mean it, order the lobster. Don’t worry about the price!”
ME: “But I really don’t want the lobster.”
HIM: “What? But you said you never had lobster before, so really, try the lobster.”
ME: “Seriously, I—“
HIM: “Waitress, she’ll have the lobster.”
4. Your date then takes off those fingerless driving gloves. Finally.
5. Your date drones on and on about his college plans, monster keggers he’s constantly invited to, and his Escort while you eat the expensive lobster that you really didn’t want.
6. Your date gropes you in the front seat of his Escort while wearing fingerless driving gloves, as though he expects a little something in return for buying you the expensive lobster that is now churning in your stomach.
7. Your (ex)date calls you out of the blue one month later, demanding payment for that expensive lobster that you really didn’t want to begin with and only churned in your stomach while fighting off his grope attempts. His reason? He needs money for college. And another pair of driving gloves, perhaps?
Author of BEAUTY SHOP FOR RENT
Visit Laura's LiveJournal.
My first date with a particular boy was on his prom night. He rented a baby-blue tuxedo with black velvet lapels (it was the late 1970s, what can I say?), and he took me to a fancy restaurant.
While making polite conversation during the appetizer, he tried to spear a cherry tomato from his salad against the side of his salad bowl. Pushing against the side of the bowl nearest him caused it to flip and his entire salad, drenched with dressing, plopped into the lap of that powder-blue tuxedo.
So our prom pictures include a big oily dark spot on his tux…in a
place you’d rather not see one.
Author of Newbery Honor Winner RULES
I was 19. A sophomore in college. And flat broke.
I had seven dollars to last me until my next paycheck, which was 10 days away. In my kitchen I had a carton of eggs and a box of oatmeal. My parents were as broke as I was, so there was no sense in asking them for money.
Then Dave from my English class asked me out.
I didn’t know him well at all, and he wasn’t really my type, but all I could think of was “free food.” I said yes.
He took me to Skippers. I had had visions of white tablecloths and candlelight, or at least some place that served huge steaks and baked potatoes as big as my head. Not fast food fish. It was Tuesday, and the only choice on the menu was “all you can eat” for $5.99. At least I would be able to eat a lot.
You know where this is going, right?
Dave and I got in line with our red plastic trays. Then Dave paid for himself and pushed his tray down the line. And after a horrible moment, I took out six of my last seven dollars and paid for myself.
After dinner, Dave took me home. And seemed to think he was entitled to something.
I shut the door in his face.
And ate oatmeal and eggs for the next 10 days.
No wonder I was so skinny in college.
Author of SHOCK POINT
I was once at fast food restaurant with this guy I knew. I didn't consider it a date because we split the tab, and besides, we were"just friends." He was acting weird, all nervous and jittery and I couldn't understand why.
As we were talking, he raised a drink to his lips, only he forgot there was a straw in it, and the straw lodged in his nose. I began to laugh. And when he put the cup down, the straw remained in his left nostril, which I thought was hysterical.
He was mortified because he wanted to be more than friends, and was sure he had blown it.
I ended up marrying him.
Author of SO TOTALLY EMILY EBERS, STANFORD WONG FLUNKS BIG-TIME, and MILLICENT MIN, GIRL GENIUS.
Rolling, Rolling, Rolling
My date was so awful I don’t even remember the guy’s name.
I do, however, remember him specifically asking that I never write about him. Oh, well!
We met at a party at the Nantucket Film Festival one summer and then went out on a date back in New York. It was pretty awful—he wore white linen pants on a tour of an abandoned subway tunnel that we took; he said he thought we were drawn to each other because we were both “unusual”-looking—but for some reason I agreed to a second date.
He turned up for that one with a mixed tape for me, and then pouted a bit that I hadn’t thought to bring him anything. All the while, he was calling me “honey.” I asked him to stop and he said, “Oh, honey, I call everyone honey.”
At one point I complained that my linen dress was already supremely wrinkled and he said, “Oh, honey, if you’re going to wear linen, you’re going to have to give yourself over to the wrinkles!” At that point, I started to wonder whether he was gay.
We went to see a band—he started to get supremely, obnoxiously clingy—then went for drinks afterwards. I had apparently started trying to shut things down because at one point he was just staring at me and I said, “What?” and he said, “I’m trying to figure out how to unzip you, so I can get to the real you.”
At which point I hinted that the real me thought that maybe this might be our last date. He stared and stared for a while and I said, “Why are you just staring at me?” and he said, “I’m taking a mental portrait of you in case I never see you again.”
Unfortunately, we lived on the same subway line. So I watched him mope the whole way home and then, when I was getting off at my stop, I said, “Don’t be sad,” and he said, “If you’re not sad about this, then I’m not sure I ever wanted to know you to begin with.”
I got off. Hopefully he’s forgotten my name, too!
Author of THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
My worst dating disaster was when I was 15 or so and going to my first prom with an upperclassman who already had his driver's license.
When he pulled into the driveway, he was not driving the expected sedan or station wagon.
Instead he was driving a motorcycle.
Last-minute car trouble had necessitated the vehicle switch, so what else could he do?
He gave me my corsage, we took photos, I slipped on a pair of jeans under my floor-length prom dress and off we went.
Since I really didn't care for the hairdo my mom's beauty salon operator had given me, I wasn't worried about messing it up during the open-air drive to the high school gym—which was a remote possibility anyway, due to the extreme teasing and stiff hairspray that was the height of style in those days.
Author of LULLABYE LITTLE ONE, SIXTEEN RUNAWAY PUMPKINS, PILLOW PUP, and TEN MONKEY JAMBOREE, and many, many others.
I had just turned 18 and was driving around in a 1949 "hot" Ford coupe that broke down periodically. I always took it to be fixed at the local car repair shop because of the cute fellow that I had a bad crush on. I grew up in an all-boy neighborhood and knew the ins and outs of a car's motor so I could talk to him easily.
I had heard through the high school girls' gossip group that he was very picky about dating and there wasn't really any good gossip about even that. Looking back on the situation, he was a bit narcissistic, constantly admiring himself in the front windows of the shop and slicking back his hair with a comb that he kept handy in his front pocket.
So I was shocked when I had gone in to get my tires changed and he asked me out on a date.
"Sure, " I answered nonchalantly, as though I had been expecting it."Where are we going?"
"A bunch of the guys are headed to the local bowling lanes tomorrow night, " he said, patting a few loose hairs back in place with the palm of his hand."We always meet there on Fridays with our dates. You know how to bowl, don't you?"
"No prob, " I answered, holding my breath and biting my tongue. Bowling had to be the farthest thing from my mind. I was picturing a nice dark movie theatre, his arm around my shoulder, sharing a bag of popcorn with possibly some necking in-between.
I had no idea whatsoever how to bowl.
It took me about a half hour to get ready that night between changing a dozen times and fussing with my hair. He was right on time picking me up and we headed out. The bowling lot was packed with cars and when we walked in, there was a loud group shout out.
"Hey, Ronnie! Over here! Over here!" and we were mobbed. Everything seemed to go well. I was introduced around with Ronnie strutting like a peacock. I don't know a thing about bowling now anymore than I did that night. But I could easily tell Ronnie was designated King of the Bowling Alley. He was so popular.
I don't remember much else from that night other then it was suddenly my turn. Ronnie was hovering over me and acting as though we"were an item." I remember picking up the ball, holding it in front of me and saying a few quick prayers about hopefully not hurting myself as he stood behind me shouting encouraging words.
Like in a dream, I stepped ahead, raising the ball in my hands when it suddenly seemed to take on a mind of its own. It unexpectedly flew from my hand behind me before I was ready to let it go. It hit Ronnie in the leg and bounced onto his foot.
I remember a lot of screaming and lots of cuss words I had never heard before. Someone drove him to the hospital where I later heard he survived with three broken toes.
I don't remember much else other than it took me a long time to find another car mechanic and I never heard from Ronnie again.
I cringe even today when I pass a bowling alley.
—Joan Elste
Author of TRUE BLUE.
It was the 1980s and I met him at a disco. (Mistake 1.)
But I knew “of” him—had heard his name, knew where he’d gone to school, etc. So it wasn’t exactly a LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR situation. (For people unfamiliar with that classic flick, Diane Keaton played a club chick who eventually took home a killer, aka, Richard Gere. No happy ending.)
But when he picked me up and proceeded to drive miles away from civilization, I started to get a tad worried. I lived on my own, and nobody even knew who I was with. Keep in mind this was way before cells.
I became convinced I was going to die.
When I asked where we were going, he just threw me this sidelong look, smiled, and said, “To a friend’s house.”
Which I took to mean, “I’m going to take you to a deserted cabin and hack you into a million little pieces.”
Have I mentioned there was something not quite right about his eyes?
“Where does your friend live?” I asked, trying (unsuccessfully) to make my voice sound normal.
“Oh, he has this really big, beautiful house in the country,” he said vaguely.
Which I took to mean, “I’m going to take you to my friend’s big, beautiful, deserted country house and hack you into a million little pieces.”
But whaddya know, the big, beautiful country house wasn’t deserted. It was actually inhabited by a young married couple and a baby. (A cult, I thought at first. Especially when my date kept saying, “He’s a genius. Can’t you tell?” Truthfully, I couldn’t. He was just a really wealthy jerk. And his wife defined the word bimbo.)
Thoroughly unimpressed by my date and his friends, and totally pissed off at how he had played with me (he had to know the whole driving-on-deserted-sideroads thing was a freakout), I pretty much ran out of the car at night’s end, without even saying goodnight.
And I vowed not to go out with any more guys I met at discos.
And I didn’t. Until I met…
Author of I WAS A TEENAGE POPSICLE and BEYOND COOL
