They Love Me Not: Worst Blind Date Stories

Come February, it's almost impossible to escape stories of love and romance. Valentine's candy is crowding store shelves, engagement ring commercials are playing constantly, and it seem the whole world has hearts in their eyes. Or at least, that's what they want you to think.

I was having dinner with a few friends recently, and we noticed a couple sitting at an adjacent table who were obviously on a blind date. Naturally, we watched them, as though we were curious patrons at the zoo of sex and dating. It seemed like it was going pretty well--she was laughing at his jokes, he was taking an interest in learning more about her career, they ordered two rounds of drinks and shared an appetizer. My friend dismally commented that she'd never had a blind date go that well. My other friends chimed in. They, too, had an arsenal of horror stories which greatly outweighed their hope for ever meeting that special someone. It got me thinking--are there truly good blind date stories? Or are they all various degrees of awful?

I polled my group of friends and the results were both hilarious and clear: blind dates are actually terrible. So let's take a few minutes and laugh at some of my favorites from their shame archive.

Name: Lavelle
Age: 34
Location of trauma: Applebee's

"I met Zoe on a dating site and I honestly didn't think she was my type. Her background was in academia, and I'm not much of a reader, so I wasn't sure we'd have much to talk about. But after three days of IMing, my mind was changed. She was woke--politically savvy, into rescue animals, and had a silly sense of humor. I agreed to meet her for drinks near her work, which happened to be an Applebee's in a strip mall. She texted me ten minutes before our arranged time to let me know she was running late--no big deal, stuff happens, right? She said she'd be there in fifteen minutes, so I sat down and ordered a drink. Twenty minutes later, she texts again to tell me she's stuck in traffic and it'll be ten more minutes. At this point, the bartender noticed I was frustrated and brought me some chips and salsa on the house. We started talking and it turned out he'd gone to high school with my brother, so we were laughing about some old times. About fifteen minutes later, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and see Zoe standing there, hands on her hips, looking heated. No hello, no so sorry I'm forty minutes late, no--she just lays into me, accusing me of hitting on the bartender. Well, I don't date men, and even if I did, this person was literally a stranger who saw me talking with a member of waitstaff in a restaurant, which is completely normal behavior, unlike yelling at your blind date. I tried to explain and stood up to greet her, but she put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Just sit your ass down. I did not come all the way over here to watch you disrespect me in public. Never call me again." Then she swiped the chips off the bar, knocking them to the ground. She flounced out. The bartender and I looked at each other and then busted up laughing. She texted me a couple days later to apologize, but I wasn't interested."

Name: John Paul
Age: 31
Location of trauma: Starbucks

"I'd seen Laurel on my friends Facebook. Her comments were always completely hysterical, and she had a basically endless collection of amazing cat gifs. We'd chatted a few times in comments threads but beyond that, I didn't know her. We friended one another and as I began to browse her page, I noticed we had a ton of common interests. We both worked in publishing, we both posted a ton of food pics, and we'd both been to the Grand Canyon over the previous summer. She made a couple of posts talking about being single, so when I asked her out for coffee, I figured at the least I'd make a cool friend. I asked her to check out this great bar near by her office, but she insisted we go to a Starbucks that was literally twenty minutes away. I wasn't sure why she wanted to go to this particular Starbucks when they're everywhere, but I let her set the boundaries and assumed it had to do with her personal safety or comfort. Ho-boy, was I wrong. The date itself started off okay. She was really funny in person, but she seemed incredibly nervous. She kept fidgeting in her seat, she was distracted by whatever crossed her line of sight, and just generally didn't seem present. I told myself she wasn't into me, but then she slid her chair next to me and started flirting pretty hard. At one point, she pulled out her phone and showed me these pictures from a party she was at dressed in a really revealing costume. I was becoming slightly uncomfortable, and just as I was about to suggest we call it a night, this barista storms over to the table and smacks his apron down on it. This guy is livid. He starts quietly, but intensely, asking her what the BEEP she's doing, how dare she come to his work, who does she think she is. I am trapped between the table and the wall, so I can't even discretely sneak away like I want to. Turns out, he was her ex-husband of nine years, who she had just served with divorce papers the previous week. I had to sit there and listen to them fight with each other for almost twenty minutes before they finally noticed me and let me get out. I unfriended her immediately."