Awful First Dates

by Sarah Wexler

  SPARE ANY CHANGE?

  He was temping/freelancing, and I thought it was kind of admirable that he wasn't corporate. We made plans to grab dinner at a Mexican place. When we met up, he ordered a beer, and I got a margarita. We looked at the menu, and I asked what he was getting. He said, "Oh, I actually already ate, so I'm just having this beer." I was starving, so now I was forced to eat by myself in front of him, even though we had made plans to eat dinner. So I ate, and he watched me, looking hungry. The bill came and I said, "Just give me a few bucks for the beer, and I'll pay the rest." He proceeded to spill out a pile of pennies, nickels, and dimes all over the table, telling me he fished through the couch for change to pay for his big night out.

  NO-BUCKS AT STARBUCKS

  We made plans to go to a movie and then get coffee afterward. I offered to pay for the movie if he sprung for the coffee. We were supposed to meet at the movie theater, but he was twenty minutes late, so we missed the movie.

  I was pretty annoyed but tried to let it go as we walked to the coffee shop. As soon as I order my mocha, he pipes up, "Since you got out of paying for the movie, why don't you get the coffee?"

  ONE PLATE, ONE GIFT CARD

  When setting up our date, he repeated several times, "I'm going to pay for all this. I want it to be a real date." I pick him up, and we head to a Thai restaurant he picked in a seedy part of town. There are absolutely no customers except for us—strange for 7:30 p.m. on a Friday night. I have no idea why we drove all the way out here, seeing as there are a bunch of Thai restaurants closer in, but I soon realize why: he wants to have an art show in the gallery below the restaurant and didn't want to take the long bus ride to check it out, so he figured he'd just tack the visit on to the date. As we look at the menu, he comments about how expensive everything is—he orders a water and asks if we can share something (I again offer to go dutch, but he's still adamant about paying). We get our food, and when the server doesn't bring me a plate, I ask for one, to which my date says, "Let's just use one." I thought it was to be romantic, but it was actually so he could eat almost the entire thing himself. We head to the movies, where he complains about the price of tickets, the price of popcorn, the price of soda...and pays for the whole thing with a gift card he got for his birthday a few years ago! I gladly dropped him off after the movie and didn't return his text the next day that said, "Next time it's your turn."

  CREDIT CARDS ARE BAD...AND SO IS HE

  This guy asked me out to dinner, and we had great conversation, great beer, great food. Then the waitress drops off the check, and it sits at the table for probably ten minutes and he hasn't offered to pay, so I figure we're splitting it, which is fine. So I put down my half and hand the check to him. That's when he says he doesn't have any money (in our conversation, he'd mentioned he has two jobs). I say, "You're seriously doing this? That's a pretty ballsy move." He tells me, "Credit cards are evil." I ask if he has any cash then. He says no, and to prove this, he takes his wallet out of his pocket, counts out $23 in cash, says, "See? I don't have any money," and puts the cash back in his wallet.

  DOLLAR DOLLAR BILLS, Y’ALL

  He picked me up in an iridescent convertible and made sure to rev the engine a few times before coming to my door. On the way to the movie theater, he revved the engine at every red light, which was mortifying. He apologized, but not for that, saying, "Oh sorry, my eyebrows look a bit unruly. I didn't have them waxed this week." Then he paid for our tickets with a $100 bill because "that's the only bill worth carrying."

  IT’S ALL IN THE JEANS

  We went to a movie theater where you eat and watch a movie at the same time. When my date tried to pay, his card was declined, and neither of us had any cash. Since my date had been drinking, I had to miss the last fifteen minutes of the movie to drive his car to the closest ATM to get cash. Later, he admitted to a mutual friend that he'd maxed out his credit card buying designer jeans that morning.

  SHORT AND (NOT) SWEET

  Two friends had set me up with a very wealthy investment banker, who was about a foot shorter than me. I probably could've gotten over it, but he kept making cracks about how tall I was and calling me "an Amazon woman." When I said I needed to get home, he insisted on driving me to my car (he'd done valet, while I had self-parked in the massive garage), which seemed like an excuse to show off his Lexus SUV. I honestly couldn't remember where my car was, but he took my confusion as an act intended to get more time with him and kept trying to put his hand on my knee. Sitting in a humongous SUV has never felt so constricting—when I saw my car, I practically jumped out of his while it was still moving.

  HEY, BIG SPENDER

  When the bill came, he asked if we could split it. I had a $10 salad and water, while he'd had the lamb and several drinks. The restaurant didn't accept my credit card, so I had to leave the table to find an ATM. When I returned with the cash and rolled my eyes, he justified it by saying, "Well, I'm never going to see you again."

  MODERN FAMILY

  I was on a blind date with a high-school teacher. I asked him what his career goals were, and he said, "I hope to retire in ten years." I'm thinking that being able to retire at forty would be pretty impressive on a public-school teacher's salary. So I say, "That's great you've been saving up to retire early. Good for you!" To which he replied, "Nah, my parents are old, and they're loaded. I'm just waiting for them to kick it, so I inherit all that cash and don't have to work anymore."

  DRUNK AND BROKE

  We met at a lovely Italian restaurant, where he proceeded to drink a bottle of wine by himself and make awkward conversation about video games and his old frat brothers. When the check came, he said he was short on cash, and he couldn't cover his half. It was the end of the month, he said, and he'd already spent his paycheck on rent, beer, and pay-per-view boxing matches

  Awful First Dates: Hollywood Dispatch

  "I made a picnic up on a mountain for a girl, with tables and chairs and three courses. It took me a full day to carry it all up there. But then she never showed, and the wind and rain blew in. The whole night was a washout."

  —Bear Grylls, host of Man vs. Wild

  Chapter 2

  MR. “IT’S FIVE O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE"

  We get it. Meeting a new person and potentially getting a chance to make out with him is high-stakes, nervous-making stuff. After all, Jerry Seinfeld once described a date as "pressure and tension. What is a date, really, but a job interview that lasts all night? The only difference between a date and a job interview is that in not many job interviews is there a chance you'll end up naked at the end of it." Everyone knows that for a date, just as for a job interview, you should show up highlighting your best self: looking good, smelling good, and most certainly not already drunk. But there's obviously a reason alcohol is nicknamed liquid courage—it can make you feel less self-conscious, less nervous, and a lot more confident and sexy (even though you'll actually come off as the exact opposite with a third margarita dribbling down your chin).

  Drinking greases the wheels of a first date, easing conversation and helping you be a little less aware of the fact that your every move may be evaluated and judged. After all, sharing a bottle of wine over dinner or ordering a few drinks at a bar while you get to know each other is practically a first-date ritual. It's delicious, calming, and fun—and you can tell a lot about your date by whether he orders a fruity drink full of fruit garnishes and umbrellas, whatever beer's on tap, or a Four Loko.

  The downside is when you drink too much on a date, since there's really no hangover as strong as waking up with his name tattooed on your ass. Or when your date drinks too much, to the point where in a moment he swerves from "fun and tipsy" to "starting a bar fight with a biker gang." Or when he gets so drunk that he then calls you by the wrong name. Or asks you to bail him out of jail. Or page his AA sponsor. Or even worse—when he throws up on your new shoes.

  SOMEBODY CALL AA

  My date immediately asked our waiter for two shots of
tequila and a beer. I said, "Oh, thanks, but I don't really take shots," but he explained they were both for him. He slammed them and asked for another one, "to sip at." Forty-five minutes later, he'd "sipped" another three shots and a steady stream of beers. Then, when I said I needed to head home, he offered to drive me.

  VOMITRON

  We met at a bar, and after a few hours of heavy drinking, he came home with me. We started to make out, and he called me "Melissa"—not even close to my name. Then he stood up and ran to the bathroom but didn't make it, projectile vomiting all over the hallway and into my closet and shoes (with my orthotics in them). When I went to clean it up, he tried to undress me, and I pushed him away (the smell of vomit is not really a turn-on). So he then passed out in my bed, woke up after he had peed all over my sheets, and snuck out. Luckily, he left his cell phone by accident, which I used to call his friends and tell them what he'd done.

  OFF THE WAGON

  In our first conversation, he mentioned he didn't drink alcohol (fine with me). We made a date to go to the race track, and when we met there, he was holding a six-pack. Within fifteen minutes, he had already drained four bottles. We ran into his friend at the track, and they proceeded to have a drinking contest of chugging rum and Cokes. He was so blitzed that I decided to just leave and catch a train home myself. As he walked me to the train station, he stopped to urinate on a car; then, as I went to get on the train, he started to wail that if I actually tried to leave, he would throw himself on the track (I left anyway). I got a call from him five hours later.. .because he was in jail for public intoxication and wanted me to come bail him out.

  DR. PUSHOVER

  On the phone, he'd said he wasn't really a drinker. But while I had two glasses of wine at dinner, he knocked back four red wines and four more glasses of Johnny Walker on the rocks. Um, not a drinker? Okay, maybe he was nervous. As he stumbled to the door and asked me to do things to him I wouldn't do on a first date (and probably not ever), I commented that for a nondrinker, he certainly seemed to drink quite a bit. He got really angry and yelled, "I was only drinking because you were and you seemed to expect me to!" Peer pressure is for high-school kids. The weirdest part is that he works as a doctor in a rehab center.

  NO FRIGGIN’ PROBLEM HERE

  When we meet up to go to a hockey game, he smells like booze and reveals he has chugged a six-pack because "the beers in the arena are so expensive." He is drunk and won't shut up. At the game, I'm thirsty and mention I'd like a beer. [crickets] Since he doesn't offer, I say I'll get myself one and him one ($8 a pop, he has a point), and he says "Oh yeah, that'd be great!" He gets drunker and won't shut up. I learn intimate details of ex-girlfriends and his grandmother's incontinence. He also regales me with a tale of a work event where he got "a bit tipsy" and was told to leave, because he may have a drinking problem. He informs me, in breath laden with Bud Light, "I don't have a friggin' problem. I'm a friggin' young guy. I just friggin' like to have friggin' fun."

  A REAL CATCH

  I met a guy online, and we had a great dinner. But as the night progressed, he kept drinking to the point of becoming obnoxious. When I drove him home, he insisted on smoking a cigar in my car and farted loudly several times, laughing hysterically. I obviously didn't contact him and didn't hear from him either, until a week later, when he texted me that he was getting back together with his ex, but would still be interested in hooking up if things didn't work out with her.

  NO SEX, ON THE BEACH OR ELSEWHERE

  We met at a Mexican restaurant because I like to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. I ordered a Corona, and he ordered a Sex on the Beach. Seriously. The bartender said he didn't know how to make a Sex on the Beach, and pointed out that this was a Mexican restaurant that specialized in margaritas, but the guy wouldn't quit. "But you have a bottle of vodka right there," he said. "You just add cranberry juice and orange juice to that." He was basically throwing a hissy fit. The bartender apologized and said that they didn't have cranberry juice or orange juice, and would he like a beer. My date then said he would go to the drugstore next door and buy Ocean Spray juices if the bartender would mix it for him. I had no idea why he was so fixated on this particular drink, but while he went to the store, I snuck out and ran the other direction.

  SAFETY FIRST

  I had been talking to this guy online for a while, and he seemed really into me. I was spending the weekend house- sitting for a friend who lived near him, so I suggested that we meet up for coffee or a drink, but told him that first I had to run back to my place to get something I'd forgotten. He offered to pick me up and take me there, which I thought was nice of him. On the drive there, he was weaving in and out of his lane and speeding, and when I made a nervous comment, he confessed that he'd had a "few beers" before he arrived. By the time we got back, the coffee shop we'd intended on going to was closed, so I suggested that we go instead to the restaurant/bar across the street. He then said, "You have a way home, right? Because I'm going to want to drink more and I'll be taking a cab." At this point,

  I said that perhaps he should just drop me off. He did, and then was upset that I wouldn't invite him up or give him a kiss good night.

  CAN’T YOU HEAR ME CALLING?

  I went out with a guy who seemed fun and cute. He drank three glasses of whiskey in the first hour (I gave up on keeping up with him after the second one) and went on to tell me a story about drunk-dialing his ex. "I think a girl should be flattered when she's drunk-dialed," he said. "It's like, 'Look, I'm drunk and I'm thinking about being with you.'"

  I thought that was weird, but we also didn't have great chemistry, so I didn't mind when we parted ways early. Later that night I woke up to my phone ringing—guess who was drunk-dialing me at 2 a.m.?

  REDHEADS HAVE MORE FUN

  We met online and arranged to meet at a bar. I waited for thirty minutes, only for him to show up drunk. Not tipsy, but dump-his-martini-all-over-me-in-the-first-five-minutes drunk. He then kept grabbing at me and told me close to forty times that he liked redheads, while petting my hair. When I went to leave, he proceeded to tell the bartender, the host, and anyone on the street—as I ran to catch a cab—that I was a bitch for bailing on him. Then several months later, I was out for my birthday with my sister (she's also a redhead). She points out this guy who she'd briefly dated but ultimately turned out to be a jerk (I had heard the horror stories and never knew who the mystery idiot was) and, of course, it was the same guy.

  GETTING THEIR MONEY’S WORTH

  I met a guy online and decided to meet up for dinner (which I would buy) and drinks (which he would buy). He was an hour and a half late, but he kept calling to let me know he was on his way. When he showed up, he looked nothing like the picture he sent me...and eventually revealed that the picture was over seven years old, from when he was 100 pounds lighter. Foolishly, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and stick it out.

  He picked the most expensive restaurant on the street, since I was paying. I ordered a $13 main dish and a glass of wine. He ordered a $28 seafood platter and a bottle of wine. After mediocre conversation, I decided to leave, but then had a better idea: I needed to even things out by getting absolutely plastered on his dime. So we went to a bar where I proceeded to order the most expensive martinis on the menu. Before long I was hammered. Unfortunately, my genius plan backfired because I ended up taking him home for the worst one-night stand in history.

  SID IN SEARCH OF HIS NANCY

  I drive to his place to pick him up for a movie, and it turns out to be a tiny trailer in the middle of nowhere. He suggests we stay in and watch his favorite movie, a documentary about G. G. Allin, some punk-rock singer who used to cut himself onstage and roll in poop (and sometimes eat it). While we were watching, my date got drunk and raved about how he's just like G. G. Allin and why he's his idol. He also kept offering to pull out his ouija board. Once he passed out, I nudged him to say I was leaving. I was halfway home when the guy starts sending me angry texts, saying I was so
rude for leaving. I hope he and the ghost of G. G. are very happy together.

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF EXCESSIVE DRINKING

  We went out to dinner one night in August. He was sweating despite the air conditioning, and he immediately asked the waiter to bring over water, which he gulped down in seconds. (I figured he was hot because it was, you know, August.) But he just kept drinking—he needed his glass refilled six times before our food even arrived; after that, I lost count. He was super twitchy, which I first thought was nerves. But as he went to the bathroom three times during dinner (and came back more jittery each time), I started to think he wasn't dehydrated—he was on coke.