A television show led Steve and I to declare that Sabrina would not date until she was 21.  This led to a conversation about first dates.  Do you remember your first real date where your date came to pick you up and took you out (or vice versa)?  Mine was awful.  I was 15.  He was an hour late.  It was snowing.  We drove 20 miles to go to the movies.  He hadn’t checked what was playing or when.  It was over an hour until the next movie started so he suggested we walk across the street to the mall.  Did I mention it was snowing?  Hard?  And I was wearing cute little flats (I still remember them – they were my favorite shoes) and a cute but not particularly warm coat.  We trudged across the street and the up the cement barrier to the parking lot of the mall.  We finally arrive at the doors to find the mall was closed.  We made our way back to the theater and saw the worst movie ever.  Once the movie ended, he wanted to eat.  I wanted to go home – partially because it was late and snowing hard and partially because I was 15 and didn’t want to eat pizza in front of my date.  We stopped at pizza hut, I drank pop.  He scarfed down pizza.  Conversation was stilted and awkward.  We didn’t have a good time.  But when he called me for a second date, I said okay.  I really want to try to instill more self confidence in our daughter so she can be a better date (he was a moron but I wasn’t a prize either expressing very little opinion on anything beyond “whatever you want to do is fine”) and then turn down a second date if the first one was a dud.

Dating did improve with time.  But there were other honorable mentions:

Sorry guy – spent the entire date apologizing.  At the end of the date, he apologized for wasting my time because I was out of his league.  Nice guy.  I might have been interested if he had a spine.

Nervous guy – I made this guy a nervous wreck.  We went out a few times and he never quit fidgeting.

Penis picture guy – After we went out a few times, he professed his love for me and emailed me a couple of photos of his penis to “get my attention”.  Ummm, yeah.  Creepy and not impressive enough to be showing off.

I’m-looking-for-a-nanny guy – On our first date, less than an hour in, this guy starts telling me how he wants to find a mom for his 10 year old autistic son because he is on the road a lot. He also point blank asked me if I could have children.  (“I’ve never tried but I assume all the equipment works.” Oops…I thought it did at the time.)  He ended our date by saying he felt we had a special connection.  Yeah.  Not so much.

Angry Dutch guy – wanted to aggressively argue politics (with bad circular logic on his part) through the entire date with all lulls in the conversation filled by talk of the marathon he was training for while he shoveled pasta in his mouth.  He also suggested we split the check.  Dutch starts being tacky for a first date as soon as you are out of college and have a real job.  He was 32.  I would rather have paid for the entire check myself than watch him try and split it up.

Bitter guy – spent the entire date talking about his ex and their custody battle

There are others…I’m sure some of you have some good bad date stories too.  Please share.