A long, long, looooonnng, time ago, I went on a date to see a movie. This was before smart phones were super common and neither of us really bothered to look into what the movie was about before we went. It was an Adam Sandler movie that came out after Punch Drunk Love (but way before he did anything like Uncut Gems), so we both went in with the expectation it would probably just be a light hearted comedy with maybe a few more serious moments sprinkled in.
We were already in a long term relationship and knew each other pretty well, so it wasn’t supposed to be a super romantic date or anything. It was more just lets hang out and spend a fun day together, so I made us some weed brownies and snuck them in to share so we could giggle and watch this funny movie together.
Here is the description of the movie we saw that day:
When seasoned comedian George Simmons learns of his terminal, inoperable health condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship causes him to take a relatively green performer under his wing as his opening act.
We’d already settled in and eaten the brownies, and they were just starting to kick in when we realized this wasn’t going to be as light hearted as we thought.
If you’ve ever ingested THC you might already know that some people can have a much more intense experience compared to what they’re used to having from just inhaling it. The person I was dating was one of those people, and eventually he realized he just couldn’t handle eating THC, but this date occured several years before he finally accepted that truth.
So, we sit through this movie, and I can’t really remember much of what happened other than the general theme of coming to terms with your own mortality. I don’t remember it being funny at all. I think there were jokes, but I don’t think we actually laughed the entire time except for the opening scene.
The movie finally ends and the credits start to roll. Everyone gets up around us and starts walking out, but when I stood up to leave he stopped me and asked if we could just wait until people cleared out a little more.
I said ok and we just sat there a while longer. The credits were still rolling, but we were the only people left in the theater and the ushers were standing at the back clearly waiting for us to hurry up and get out so they could sweep before the next movie.
He said something about not being able to go back through the lobby, and said he wanted to go out the door near the screen instead because it led directly outside to the parking lot.
We open the door, step out, and I guess it was kind of jarring for him to go from the dark theater directly into the extremely bright sunshine because he started having a panic attack before we could even reach the car.
I tried to calm him down, but he didn’t want to talk. We hadn’t eaten all day other than the weed brownies so I figured maybe he would feel better if he got some food, but I had also eaten a brownie and I didn’t want to drive too far.
Since we didn’t have smart phones I couldn’t look up what was in the area, but I remembered there was a Chinese buffet pretty close that I had been to once before. I figured that would be a nice quiet place for us to go so he could calm down.
Except when we got there, I guess a family was having a birthday party and it was absolutely packed. It felt more like a giant cafeteria and there were people at every single table talking really loud and celebrating. Then they started playing this same song over and over on a continuous loop like a weird horror movie:
Happy Birthday (Sheng Ri Kuai Le)
Like it would end and then just start up again like it was going to be playing for all eternity. It was so fucking bizarre I couldn’t help but start laughing because it was such a weird situation.
He was mumbling “oh my God,” over and over, but I thought he was just joking about it being so ridiculous. Then around the 5th time it started up again he was suddenly like “I have to go now!” and basically bolted out the door and back to the car.
We get back in the car, and he goes “I think I’m having a stroke. I need you to call 911!”
So, I tried to calm him down and tell him, Hey, you’re ok, you’re not having a stroke. I’m pretty sure you’re just having a panic attack. Let me just take you home so you can lay down for a while.
He kept begging me to call 911, so I started driving him back home. Then, while I was driving he pulled out his own phone and tried to call 911! and I had to wrestle it away from him with one hand while driving, and, then when I did manage to get it away he screamed at me “You bitch! I can’t believe you’re going to let me die because you don’t want to get in trouble!” 😵💫…
There was a good 5 mins or so of total silence where neither of us said anything. I get he was scared, but he’d never said anything like that to me before and I was pretty pissed.
Finally, I just told him if he wanted to go to the ER I would drive him, but if he called 911 and it turned out he was just having a panic attack, he could also end up in trouble.
That seemed to sober him up a bit and he calmed down enough to let me just take him back home for a while. I laid on the bed still annoyed about the whole day and pretty pissed at him while he searched the internet on his desktop to figure out if he was actually having a stroke (btw we had taken the brownies like 3+ hrs earlier by this point).
Finally after looking things up and convincing himself he was indeed having something like a stroke, he said he still wanted to go to the ER. I was so fucking annoyed by this point but I just threw up my hands and said fine, whatever. This is fucking dumb. Lets go.
We don’t talk the whole way there, we get to the ER and just sit in this busy waiting room still not talking. Finally they call him back and I stay in the waiting room.
I sat there by myself for an hour or so just kind of rolling my eyes and thinking about how fucking ridiculous it was, and how it had ruined the whole day.
Finally, a chaplain came out into the waiting room and called my name. Then he asks if I’m there with my boyfriend… And for a moment I had my own mini panic attack of “Ohshitohshit did they send the chaplain to tell me he was actually having a stroke the whole fucking time?!”
It turns out that nope, the hospital was just understaffed that day, and he was sent to give me an update. It turns out he was totally fine. It was just a panic attack, and the next day he thanked me for not letting him call 911.
Anyway, that was my worst date that turned into a very shitty day and ended with a visit to the ER.
They invited me to a pool party. When I got there they were baptizing people in the pool. Yeah, stayed for the hot dogs though.
…you aren’t funny…
Tinder date, my train was late so late so we meet at the train station and walked to the bar. On the way I had a smoke and he told me in lengths how he quit smoking a while ago and how good it was. That’s when I realized he talks with a fake deep voice, sounded like he’s trying to imitate Batman…
At the bar he switched between small talk and his seemingly hot roommate, he’s definitely not interested in, otherwise they would have had sex already (obviously!).On the way back to the train station he wanted a cigarette from me.
Nothing bad, just weird flexes all over. The voice killed me…
I remember a story where op saw a video of her bf years ago and realized he was gradually making his voice deeper over the years to sound like batman today. Like some wierd long con. Wish I could remember the rest.
There’s a story I heard on smash reads Reddit about a woman whose bf was faking a deep gravelly voice for the two years they were together. She said his real voice sounded like a joke muppet voice…so she laughed when she first heard it, reconfirming his worst insecurities about his voice. Rough.
I was stuck in a shitty backpackers on top of a ski mountain with 3 random Russian dudes, swiping on tinder, when a man named Moses gave my a bag of shrooms for free. Moments after I ate them, a woman matched me on tinder and wanted ed to meet up. So I walked further up the mountain to a fancy lodge where this tinder date, I shit you not, introduced me to her family, who were clearly millionaires. There was a gala that I was absolutely not dressed for, and I spent about 30 minutes talking, eating canapes, and tripping motherfucking balls before realising I was too high and getting higher, so I just fucking bounced, went back to the hostel and did about a week’s worth of shits in 1 hour to the dismay of my angry soviet roommates.
Not a word of this story is made up.
I used to use this as an icebreaker, until I got a very uncomfortable response from a female colleague. Turns out that whilst men’s “worst dates” are usually weird or awkward, and tend to make for good light entertainment and a little window into their lives, women’s are way more likely to be sexual assault related… Made me wonder how many answers I had heard in the past were glossing over some trauma that didn’t need to be brought up in a social setting.
I now usually rely on the way more positive “what’s the next thing you’re looking forward to?”.
Back in college, a female friend hooked me up on a blind date with her friend. Hands down she was the cutest girl I’d been on a date with at that point in my life.
After some back and forth it ends up being a double date, which was no big deal. But it was with a random engaged couple I didn’t know. Which was fine. But they picked Macarroni Grill or Cheesecake Factory or similar restraunt on a Friday evening. It was like an hour and a half wait. The couple wanted to wait, there was a mall nearby, so the other couple went off by themselves shopping and left us alone.
So, for the next hour or so I tried my hardest to engage in conversation with this girl. I’ve lost count of how many first dates I’ve been on. My small talk/get to know you banter is solid. But it was no match for her lack of social skills and one word answers.
I tried everything and ran dry WELL before the couple finished shopping and we actually started the meal. We sat on a bench and I’d break the awkward silence with the occational: “So, see any good tv/movies lately?” Only to get a “Not really” back. Or “What sort of hobbies do you have?” “None really”.
She didn’t come off as disinterested or bored. It felt like she wanted to be there, but if we were a ven diagram the only overlap would have been our mutual friend.
It was the most painful 3 hr date of my life.
Dude I had a very similar experience. I got literally nothing from her for 2 hours, and then when the date was over I just left and said well goodbye.
Later got a series of messages from her friend asking me why I was so rude and disinterested.
It’s like bitch, I must have spoken 200,000 words that date, and the chick spoke 200.
Like what am I supposed to do, just talk in your ear for the whole relationship or like what’s going to happen here… fuck this.
Oh absolutely. I spoke with the mutual friend after and she was being all coy asking me if I was going to ask the girl out on a second date. Hard Pass.
She looked a little sad, I think the date girl had a nice time and was willing to go out again, but I explained my perspective from the date, and the mutual friend reluctantly understood.
Mutual friend never explained why the date girl acted like that. If it was just shy nerves, I probably would have given her another chance, but that’s probably just how she is.
princess entitlement. she’s mad you didn’t salivate all over her for just existing. probably said you were ‘low effort’ for not taking her to a more expensive place too.
I just told her friend that I could have taken a mannequin on a date and it would have been just as interactive.
Of course, that was like pouring water on a fish for all the effect it registered.
I’ve met people like this. They literally… do nothing. They seem to aspire to be empty inside and outside.
And they think people who have interest/hobbies/friends are ‘weird’.
Same. I cant stand boring people! Like you think theyd be depressed at how boring they are
I mean, it very likely is depression.
Im more talking about the people who are content doing nothing but watching tv all day, they appear happy, but dont really do anything.
Thats probably just how normal people are though. I feel like the day is wasted if thats all I do (unless im just relaxing from work, thats a little different. But at some point I cant relax any more)
Oh that does remind me of an experience. I can normally make people laugh when I crank up the charm but o boy this person was not having it. Just hated to be alive and wanted to run away to a third world country to teach yoga or something. Normally you would pass on a second date but for a 10/10 hotness scale I had to know if it was a bad day or something. So we met up one more time at a comedy club. Dead face whole time not a single laugh. Meanwhile abs hurt from all the laughing. Then got a we dont have chemistry text later 🤣.
I was in college. During a volleyball game at an away school, one of the girls on the other team came up to me to ask about my serve. (I did this weird side-arm thing rather than overhead.) She was cute and nice, so I asked her if she would like to exchange info. We talked more, and I eventually asked her out. I brought her to a nice place for dinner. She ordered a steak, then proceeded to pick the whole thing up with her bare hands and raw dog the steak. I was instantly turned off. I told her I wasn’t feeling well and ran to the bathroom. I found the waiter and paid for everything, then I went back to the table, told her I was sick and needed to go home, but I paid for everything so please enjoy the meal. She called the next day and wanted to meet up again. I told her I’d hang, but only as a friend and I didn’t want to take things further. She threatened to kill herself, so I called emergency services, and let them handle that. Still the biggest bullet I ever dodged.
Had actually been dating this girl for about a month. It was 4th or 5th date and she wanted to go play pool. Which was fine with me as at the time I loved to play pool and had my own cue. So I took her to one of my favorite pool places where we could rent a table by the hour.
We had been there about an hour and stopped to get some food. The place had a bar with food and TV’s all over the place.
We sat down and started eating and talking. Nothing serious, just chatting between bites.
Then she drops this: “You’re one of the weirdest guys I’ve ever met.”
Somewhat shocked I asked why… Her response was that I wasn’t watching the football game playing on all the TV’s.
I took a moment and looked around and sure enough most, if not all the guys in the room were glued to the TV… I looked at the game playing, saw a football game, shrugged and stated that I’ve never been much of a sports fan.
That ended the relationship. We talked a couple more times after that, but we never went on another date. She called me about a month later complaining that some guy she met in a bar won’t return her phone calls. That was the last time I ever spoke to her.
I still don’t watch football, baseball, soccer or basketball. I’m a skydiver, why would I care about some game that only requires one ball?
this feels like she was mad at you for not being able to complain about you ignoring her and watching the game.
you paid attention to her and treated her right and she didn’t like that. I’ve been there before.
I’ll just say it… She was nuts. The sex was OK, but not good enough to deal with crazy. Fortunately, she was not the smartest and the games she attempted to play were all things I had seen before and she had the subtly of a brick. So it was pretty easy to avoid her traps. That probably lead to what happened that night. I wasn’t fulfilling her supply needs and wanted to find an easier target. At least it has made for a good story 22 years later.
Also, It all worked out in the end. About 6 months after the above happened I met the future Mrs. CanopyFlyer. We’ve been married 20 years now and have two kids.
Just for kicks, after posting above I looked up Pool girl on Facebook, she has a fairly unique name. She lives in Boston now, the event above took place in Cincinnati and she is apparently still single 22 years later. At least her profile does not show anyone but her. She is 4 years younger than me so that puts her at 51 single and no family.
I get people not wanting kids. I didn’t until I met Mrs. Canopyflyer so no shade on Pool girl on that, but I cannot imagine still being alone at my age. With that said, I do have a friend that is my age that lost her husband to a heart attack this year. That’s been pretty devastating and I feel so badly for her.
Hockey has zero balls, 24 sharp pieces of metal moving around at 20-25mph, and a hard chunk of rubber moving at speeds of up to 100mph.
But I get your point.
I have two kids.
Oldest is a figure/ synchronized figure skater
Youngest is a hockey player.
Believe me, hockey is a LOT more civilized than figure skating and especially Synchro.
Even before you were talking about football and baseball I could tell you were US American by going on 5 (five!!) dates before having kissed or fucked lol
Long time ago. Went on this date from a dating website. She seemed cool online. We talked about cooking, hiking, and gaming.
Within minutes of meeting up she got put out a really weird vibe. She tried to change our plans from meeting at a bar for a drink to some expensive dinner place. I said no, lets just get to know each other first. She got angry, but stayed. Kept telling me how weird I was but she thought I was cute anyway. OK. We ended up going to another bar after like 20m, that was basically the same as the one we were in but she thought it was nicer or something. OK.
After sitting down at the second bar, and ordering a drink, she gets serious and stares me in the eye real hard and goes 'What is wrong with you? Why aren’t you in love with me yet? I’m trying so hard and you must be messed up in the head to not be totally in love with me by now. Every guy I meet loves me within minutes of meeting me." I just laughed my ass off at this absurd outburst. She got so angry, like gripped the table and starting ranting on and on about how men suck, how stupid I am, how amazing and hot she is, how pissed off she was because I should be eating out of her hand.
Anyway, I let her rant for awhile, maybe half an hour? She basically started talking to herself and like trying to convince me to bone her, and also going on about how she was some yoga teacher and had mental superpowers or something totally ridiculous. I finished my drink and dropped cash on the table and told her what a wonderful time I had, and I’d never like to see her again. She was completely mind-fucked by that and went totally silent. In her delusion land apparently no guy could ever not want her.
She sent me a bunch of really weird texts later and I ignored them. I’ve never met such a totally delusional weirdo before or since. Ever since that date I refuse to date anyone to references Burning Man as something they like doing.
Nothing fancy. Date one after a couple weeks of talking. I made it clear I wasn’t down for physical shenanigans yet. After a drink he got a tiny bit handsy. Second drink, he moved to my side of the table and tried to get very handsy. I paid my half, said I was ready to leave without becoming confrontational. He clearly thought my boundaries had changed with a couple of weak drinks. On the walk to the car, he continuously tried to bully me into kissing him (absolutely not) and then tried to shove me in his car after pressuring me into a hug goodbye. I bit him on the titty and drove home like a maniac.
Went to the biggest theater in the country, fancy place, fancy people. Girl tried to open a puffy bag of popcorn by smashing it between her hands (like you’d do in a barf bag prank). Loud bang. Popcorn everywhere.
I didn’t really hold it against her, but she felt so bad about the embarrassment she hated the sight of me forever from them on (we had common friends so we kept meeting many years after).
Drove a significant distance to pick her up.
Our planned outing date turned into “come hang out at my place”
Come hang out at my place turned into “oh I’m actually at my mom’s house RN but she’s on vacation and I’m just house sitting”
“I’m just house sitting” turned into “I’m 26 not the 38 I stated in my profile, and my mom is here but don’t worry”
That turned into mom sending her text messages asking what the fuck this weird old guy is doing in her house.
That turned into me leaving under a cloud of complete embarrassment.
What a fucking dumb cunt.
at least it wasn’t her cop dad that was home?
I’m 26 not the 38 I stated in my profile
What a weird age to lie about!
Maybe she likes older guys but not the kind that are looking for younger women.
I would normally say that at least she’s after guys that aren’t creepy by default, but I feel that more applies to guys chasing ladies under 21, not someone who’s in their mid-late 20’s
Yeah you actually nailed it. It’s a very similar process of women who are fat, but they do not want fat fetish guys, they just want guys who will accept or like them without that underlying, highly specific lust.
The truth is I have sex with a lot of younger women. But not that level of age gap. And lots of younger women love older dudes for many reasons. Most are just able to say it out loud without playing all these crazy games.
I think what happened was she was expecting mom to go out with her cousin or something for a movie, and she could get a quick bang but mommy stayed home unexpectedly, and she thought she could still get the bone and nobody would be the wiser.
That’s the kind of clueless, selfish thinking a ~25 year old woman does. Which is why I date 30+ usually. Women (men included) are still idiots until the brain development stops. I kinda clued in that I was lied to about the age when I got there, but you can never really be sure. I mean, I look at least 10 years younger than my age/cohort.
You guys go on dates?
I had talked to that girl in a karaoke bar once and we swapped numbers. Had forgotten about her but half a year later she texted me if I was in for a date the same evening. Should have been a red flag already since this is weird, but I was curious… and horny. Date: after 10 minutes of small talk and funny banter she told me that her boyfriend is at home and does not know she’s on a date. No idea why she told me. Was she waiting for some approval? Anyway I was flabbergasted but didn’t decide to call it off right away (I should have but again, I was curious … and horny, even though a little less so now). First hesitated and a few bars and drinks later I decided it’s her responsability not mine and we had some fun later that night and never came back to it until a few weeks later she texted me a whole ‘novel’ full of reproaches, as if I we had had a long relationship and I had broken up on her or so. Absolute weirdo. Friendly reminder to always always ALWAYS wear a condom (I did).
This time I went to see friends downtown, some I knew more than others. We hung around for a bit, then went to the place of a chick I didn’t know well. Then after a short while everybody left and I was alone with the chick. Clueless virgin me didn’t know what to do with himself. It felt awkwars. We talked a bit, then I left. It must have taken me a full day and night to realize it was a set-up date. Of course later on the chick wouldn’t have anything to do with me…
Those are the kind of ridiculous mind games that are actually very stressful for a man.
There is such a thing as being mature and open about your wants, needs, desires.
