Dating Disasters

I’ve been single for a few years now, and dating, which used to be an exciting prospect, is now dreaded and disturbing to me. Take the last four guys I had dates with (two of which were first and last dates). They all had very different personalities, yet they all were very much alike. Before I get into that, here’s a brief summary of the initial interaction:

We meet in a bar for a drink. The conversation starts out nice enough with the expected typical topics: Where do you live? What do you do for work? Favorite pastime? Any kids? And then the obvious follow-up, “So, have you been married? Tell me about your relationship.” I like to skim right over that one. No need to disclose too much on the first date (or in my case, no need to send the poor guy running for the door).

So I say, “Oh, you know. Great guy…just didn’t work out.” But when the tables are turned and I’m asking him the relationship question I get all the gory details about what an awful, terrible person she was. I hear how she drank too much, had anger management issues, or she cheated on the poor poor guy…(who never ever did anything wrong, and was always 100% dedicated to his girl…uh huh). This can go on for a full hour to the point where I’ll be on my sixth glass of wine, steam piping out of my ears, and I’m eyeballing the cute guy at the end of the bar.

No wonder she left him, this guy’s an egotistical jerk! And what is this, a therapy session? I’m not ready to start analyzing you until the third date, so if you need a therapist, I know a great one in Plymouth I can refer you to. In the meantime, how about another drink??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, then of course, it crosses my mind, if all of these guys are bashing their exes, what is mine saying to his new girlfriend about me?????? I can just hear now, “she seemed like such a nice woman, but I think she’s an undiagnosed schizophrenic, a real screwball…” Oh, Great!!!

When it comes to bad dates, it turns out I haven’t had the worst of them. My friend, who shall remain anonymous for the time being, gets the gold in the dating disaster category. She’s met most of them on Match.com, the virtual meat market where guys troll for lonely women (not a big fan of Match)….But, my friend hangs in there, perhaps for entertainment purposes alone. And soon, she’ll be sharing her stories with our WinkSOUTH readers!

Watch for our new series, Miss-Match, coming soon!

And if you have some horror stories of your own, post a snippet of them here on the blog to get the discussion rolling! Is it really that bad out there?

Or, write your own article to be shared with everyone on Miss-Match! (Names will be changed to protect the innocent)!

-Steph