No one wants to come off looking bad on a first date. Nerves may get the better of a person, and it's hard to get out of your own head, but at the end both parties should reasonably assume it's hard to open up to someone. Usually, they can give the other party a little slack if they mispronounced a word funny or knocked over their drink on the table.
...Then there's these nightmare tales.
Reddit user, turtlelevelslow, wanted people to dish on their dates when they asked:
What was the weirdest date you've ever been on?
But The Voice In My Head Says...
Giphy"Dated a woman who didn't tell me she needed meds because she was psychotic. In the middle of dinner (at a restaurant) she got quiet and distracted. I asked if she was feeling okay. Apparently one of the voices told her I was a horrible person and she pulled a steak knife on me."
"A customer was able to talk to her, and got her to put the knife down. The police were called, and she was arrested. I didn't press charges, and about a week later, she sent me a letter with proof that she's been in counseling for a long time, takes medication, and included a heart felt apology."
Not Weird Enough To Say "No"
"Went to a clothes shop with this guy to pick up something for my baby sister before heading to a coffee shop. This was the first time I had ever met him face-to-face as we had met online, despite living in the same student accommodation."
"We head down the escalators to the second floor to the pyjamas, lingerie and kid section and he runs over to the selection of bras, picks one up, puts it on over his shirt and jacket and asks me if I think it fits/suits him."
"I'm still with him a year and a half later."
Going All In On The Opening Hand
"This one was honestly crazy. Met this guy through tinder, seemed cute just had a weird face. Not my type because brown hair and brown eyes? FaceTimed a few times and he seemed super sweet. This was out of the ordinary because I usually am not attracted to over emotional guys unless they're extremely attractive. He was just normal but I was lonely after a recent breakup, went to the movies with him and swerved his kiss and he laughed sounding somewhat hurt? Like dude I just met you??? Then..... I noticed he's squeezing my hand a little, which I ignore but then he squeezes the SH-T out of my hand and I'm just trying not to freak out or trigger him, I laugh a little and he lets go. That was like the first red flag."
"Then I kissed him and he was a shitty kisser. No tingle no jazz nuthin. Then later on we head home and he seems sad and I keep asking if he's okay. He insists he's fine, then he calls me right after he drops me off and starts sobbing to me about how he's so scared to be hurt."
"First date. And this? I just said "yeah I'm gonna hurt your feelings if you date me, we're better off not talking"
"Dude still tries to hit me up to this day knowing I'm dating - my bestfriend of all people - like yeah no way buddy.... no waaaaay."
You Need To Start Making Better Choices
"Two come to mind."
"1. Dude picks me up, we go to the grocery-store, I pick up pickles, because I love pickles. Go to his place, I eat my pickles, he's just standing there, offers to watch a movie. I'm down. He has a projector in his bedroom and puts on damn machete movie and disappears 5 min in for about 30-45 minutes. I'm like "this dude is definitely somewhere sharpening his machetes and planning to kill me". I leave his place. We meet in the hallway and he's confused by me leaving, didn't hold a machete thankfully. Never met again."
"2. Date. Go to a coffee-shop. We sit down, I order a salad and a coffee, he orders a drink. I tried to hold a conversation, but he was just not interested. It was awkward as hell, so I was just silently sitting there with my damn salad. We leave, he offers to go watch a movie. Okay? He brings me to his place and just turns on a tv to a random channel. It was boring as hell. "Right dude, I'm outta here." He literally picked my up and carries me to a bedroom onto a bed. There are woman stuff everywhere around the room - clothes, makeup, parfume. I freak out, jump up, demanded to be dropped home. He then got the hint and drove me home."
"At this point I'm surprised I haven't beed kidnapped, raped and killed."
Wait For The End...
"A baseball player that sat next to me in one of my classes my freshman year of college was adamant about taking me out so I reluctantly said yes."
"He picked me up from my apartment, we drove in silence to a restaurant, despite me asking him questions that he didn't answer. Not one peep. Ate at the restaurant and yet he still didn't say one word the entire time, again despite me talking to him and him just giving me blank stares back. Drove in silence back to my apartment and he asked if he could use my bathroom so I said "sure".
"Guy comes out of my bathroom about 20 min later and sits on my couch. I tried to get him to leave for about 2 hours saying "I have to be up really early in the morning so I need to go to sleep". Finally he got up to leave and laid the sloppiest kiss on me in the doorway. Took all of my makeup off of the lower half of my face. He said goodbye and left."
"Here's the kicker: I walked into my bathroom to wash my face and THIS DUDE took a massive sh-t in my toilet and didn't even attempt to flush. Not clogged or anything, he just didn't flush. Needless to say he switched seats in class after that night and we never spoke again."
How Do You Say No?
"Went to my boyfriend's family reunion."
"It was a oyster buffet."
"I'm allergic to oysters."
An Expert Player
Tinder date- the guy turned up and looked completely different to his picture. He had a mullet because he cut his own hair. Divulged within 5 mins that he was circumcised and that he could "play the vagina" quite well.... #nsfw #catfish"
Don't Shame The Claw!
"Went to the movies with a boy from school. We saw a horror movie, and he did NOT know how to act. Firstly, when my mom dropped me off, he griped to her about how he was "emo" and how his entire family hated him. Should've been a red flag, but I was already there. Afterwards, in the arcade, he spent all of the $40 in his wallet on game credits then insulted me when I asked to play the claw machines. More awkward than weird, but still, thought it belonged."
...How Do You Even Get Anything Done?
"I went on a date with a girl to a bar and grill."
"The girl just got set free from a bad relationship. The bartender was her uncle, the server was her sister, and her fresh ex-boyfriend was there on a date with another guy."
Maybe We Can Talk About Me? Unselfishly?
"Another one: I went on a date with this girl from tinder. She "super liked" me and messaged first, so I was really happy to have someone interested. I asked if she'd like to go for a walk some time and she said she'd love to."
"So we get to walking and like 5 minutes in, she asks if I have roommates. I said yes, I live with 5 people and tell her about a few of them. "Theres Max, Matt, Mark,..." "Wait, Mark Smith? I know him! What's he been up to..."
"So we start chatting about my roommate and she knows a lot about him. His family, the sports he plays, his girlfriend. Every time I try to move the conversation somewhere else, she brings it back to Mark. She's not even pretending to be into me anymore, she's just fangirling out over my roommate. "I just love him, his hair is always so shiny and he smells so nice!". She spends the full 2 hours talking about him and asking all sorts of questions. I didn't really know what to do, so I just boredly keep answering."
"When we get back to our cars, she shifts gears again. "Hey, so I had a really great time. Want to go back to your place to have some fun?". She's really creeping me out at this point, so I tell her I have homework to do and maybe later."
"I get back and tell Mark about the date and he knows exactly who she is. He picks up his phone and immediately calls the police. They show up at the house find the girl outside in the back yard and arrest her for violating a restraining order or something."
"It turned our she was super unstable and had stalked my roommate since they went on one date almost a year prior. She recognized from photos she had of him and used me to find out where he lived."
Perhaps The Whole Boat Thing Should've Been A Red Flag?
"Third date with a guy from hinge. Started of completely normal- went to a pub for a few drinks. Pub closes. Guy invites me back to his."
"We get back to his and have a few more drinks, he then asks if I'd like to smoke a joint. Hadn't smoked for a few years but thought "hey it'll be fine". End up feeling very sick and unable to move. Guy doesn't have a bucket or bowl so brings over the entire kitchen bin and places it next to me. He then suggests we watch a movie."
"Guy puts on American Psycho and I sit there for the next two hours paralysed and paranoid completely convinced he's going to murder me."
"Also he lived on a boat."
So...Horses?
"I went on a 4 hour date with a woman who rides horses for a living."
"The entire 4 hours she told me everything I could possibly want to know about horses and then some."
"I learned so much about horses that I done forgot most the sh-t she told me."
And She Was Never Seen Nor Heard From Again
"Was going to go to a bar with a girl I met on tinder. She showed up 15 minutes late, which wasn't that big of a deal. Got out of her car, crossed the street, and then awkwardly shook my hand. Told me she forgot her ID at home, apologized, and then left. :/"
Polan-splaining?
"Dated a man who corrected my Polish, because his grandmother was Polish and she told him how to pronounce some words."
"Mind you, I was brought up in Poland, went to school and college there, read a zillion books, saw a zillion Polish movies etc. But this guy was very condescending about my pronunciation of the few words he learnt from his grandma."
Actually Sounds Fun
Giphy"This chick suggested we go to this experimental art exhibit thing. It had a giant ball pit for adults (among other things). Pretty interesting to have two 30-somethings in a ball pit for a date."
Wow...
"My first dating app date. Starts off pretty good, we barely put in our dinner order and her phone starts blowing up. Her ex was drunk and causing a scene outside her apt. Her ex kept calling, then her roommate started and then the landlord calls threatening to call the police. We get our food to go and I take her back to her apt. Long story short, both her and her ex are crying messes, she goes inside, leaves me outside with crying drunk ex who starts telling me all about how he messed their relationship. Dude is way too drunk to drive, I end up driving him to his apt, Uber back to my car, realize my date took all the food with her. The joys of dating!"
Maybe it's better to be single? Or is that just us?
Do you have similar stories to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.
Companies are typically in business for profit, and very few have the goal of keeping the customer's interests in mind.
But some corporations go even further to get more out of their customer in exchange for their "quality services" and as a result, the line between general business and scam becomes blurred.
Redditor jwwin asked:
"What is a predatory business that shouldn't be legal, but is?"
Students paying an exorbitant amount in tuition in order to seek higher learning should be warned there are additional expenses to cover for.
A Textbook Example
"College textbooks, they will release an 'updated' edition every semester but the information doesn't change. And then after you spent a fortune on the books the places that buy textbooks will give you like 5% of what you paid for the book."
– teethalarm
A "Double Whammy"
"Former Prof here. I talked with a book rep about this once and learned a lot. It is a bit complicated but worth understanding. Book publishers rely on large quantity sales to make any money on a book because the cost of production is so high up front (author, editors, printing, etc.). So, for a book to be profitable, it has to sell a lot of copies to spread the cost of production across all the books. A paperback in the fiction section might sell 100,000 or more. A textbook might sell as few as 1,000. So, the publisher needs everyone to buy the book to break even."
"Now add colleges into the mix. Somewhere in the 1980s (give or take), colleges saw publishers selling books and making larger profits on them than the college bookstore was making per book. So they got the bright idea to start buying used texts and reselling them. Before that, a text would come out and 97% (making the number up but it was close to that) of the students would buy the book in year one, 85% in year two, 75% in year three, 60% in year four and 50% in year five. A $50 dollar book would cost $25 to make (again, making the numbers up), sell to the bookstore for $40 ($15 publisher profit), and be sold to the student for $50 ($10 bookstore profit). Across the five years, the producer would make a profit."
"Then, college bookstores began offering students $25 for a used book and selling it for $40 ($15 profit - $5 higher than that of a new book). Students would then prefer the $40 used book over the $50 new book. But that cut the publisher's sales from 97% to 50% in the first year. Because they could not sell as many books they had to do two things: (1) raise the initial price of the text to cover the production cost in 1-2 years rather than 4-5 years, and (2) cut the cycle down from 4-5 years to 1-2 years to ensure that they got sales of the book. That is a double whammy. Texts that used to cost $50 now cost $300 or more. And they have a new version out every 18 months or so. Students refuse to pay that price and that cuts the sales numbers even further forcing the price up again. And, with new editions out so frequently, it is harder to sell them back to the bookstore."
"That's why you see so many 'course packs' now - where a professor will pick a few pages from a book to give to the students. I went from having nearly every student purchasing a text in my early career to having zero students with a text late in my career. Your professor probably dislikes the state of affairs as much as you do. I cut down what books I would select because I could not justify students paying that much for what they were getting. I would also recommend students look for older editions on Amazon and the like which got me in trouble with my administration because I was not supporting the bookstore. But, it was difficult to teach from a text that no one had or had access to. The University's desire to generate revenue from texts truly was killing the chicken because it was not producing enough eggs."
"So look for an older edition on Chegg, Amazon, or the like and match it up with what your professor is teaching from the new edition. You are right, it probably has not changed. Be careful for the problems at the end of the chapter - that is often where the changes are."
– BewnieBound
These businesses parade as services but they are notorious for taking more than what you're willing to pay for.
For A Future Owner
"Rent to Own (furniture, appliances, TVs, video game systems, etc.) The mark up on the interest over time ends up costing 4 times the purchase - or more."
– PartyAlarmed3796
"Well the trick is to not pay (seems to be what a lot of people do)."
– Expensive_Ad2695
"Which is why those places are so expensive and why they're actually kinda necessary for some people."
"They're taking a pretty big risk on people with no credit, and if a person with shi*ty credit needs a refrigerator or other necessary appliance, there's usually nobody else willing to work with them. Also, most of them report to credit agencies so you can build your credit through them."
"I'm not a fan by any means and I hate that people are buying video game systems and couches through them, but I still think they're filling a need."
– Pitiful-Pension-6535
Money Sucker
"Payday loan companies – they're like financial vampires, sucking the life out of people with high-interest rates."
– neonliolia
"And yet most of them are owned by major banks... hmmmm."
"Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank, JP Morgan/Chase collectively all own the largest payday lender companies."
– Bramtyre
"In Canada, there is an effort to turn Canada Post into a kind of bank that offers basic banking services to the most vulnerable. Not sure what happened to that, but it was an alternative to check cashing and payday loan rackets."
– hobbitlover
Greedy Event Vendor
"Ticket Master."
– LTVOLT
"Agreed. We went to a preseason hockey game the other week. Tickets were $5 each but there was around $8 of Ticketmaster fees for each one and you had to use their app to get in the door because the barcodes change like every 30 seconds or something. It's ridiculous."
– darfus1895
Where can citizens turn to receive genuine care without drying up their financial resources?
Big Pharma
"Health Insurance and over priced perscription drugs."
"Wife is type 1 diabetic. Her pump is over $1000 a month WITH 50% coverage. $177 for just the sensor pack. We have the best coverage we can afford."
– Dukeboys_
"US pays the middle man for health care coverage. The middle man and the health care provider come up with "health packages" you can buy into, just in case you get sick. It's just sick how they funnel money from the middle class into this."
– dcoolidge
"Healthcare insurance industry. They can straight up reject claims you should be covered for and make you jump through near endless hoops to get them to pay for the service that is part of your plan."
– ColdHardPocketChange
All Out To Get Ya
"Homeopathic 'medicine' sellers."
"Psychics"
"Domain search engine registration scams (fake emails or physical mail that shows up saying 'your domain search registration is about to expire' and look exactly like warnings that your domain name is about to expire)"
"Fake homeowner warranty/car warranty scams loaded with so many limitations and exclusions they’ll basically never pay out."
"Multilevel marketing systems like Amway."
– 4wqrewtety
Losing Sight Of Kids' Well-Being
"From my experience working in group homes for youth are awful. The owners only want money and the more kids in care the more money."
– OddReputation3765
Going Nowhere Fast
"Car insurance."
"You get penalized for using it. Even just once in some cases."
– Effective_Sundae_839
"1000% agree. I was rear ended by a hit and run driver while i was stopped at a stop sign. Literally came to a stop for 3 seconds max and got destroyed. Car insurance wanted to give me 4k and shut me up. It’s called the nuisance fee. I eventually lawyered up and got 25k out of it. But like wtf. B*tch that’s what we PAY FOR, following renewal of my policy it increased hundreds of dollars a month and that was even after i switched to a different company. 'A claim is a claim regardless who is at fault.'”
– HitBackZach
Businesses taking advantage of their customers should be a crime, yet here we are.
What companies can you think of that legally continue to look after their own profitable interests above providing a decent service?
