It happens to the best of us, and we ultimately hope there is a second date.
But aside from nerves jeopardizing our chances of a second date, there are a few unspoken rules to keep in mind.
Redditor Couch_Licker asked:
"What should you NEVER do on a first date?"
You would think the following are no-brainers. Still, many people are guilty of doing this.
Past Relationships
"Only talk about your previous relationships."
– Nevlu
"She talked about him so much I started to miss the guy."
– 2x4x93
Exes
"Discuss any particular ex for a length of time. In my experience it's a big red flag that they're not over someone or carrying that baggage. And I mean everyone has baggage - it's normal. I have some and expect the people I've dated in the past to have some. But a first date should be about exploring each other and whether you like the person, are attracted to them, want to continue getting to know them. You can mention previous relationships but unless both parties have known each other during previous relationships - do not vent or over explain your exes."
When Your Device Is More Important
"Be on your phone the whole time."
"Put it on vibrate and don't look at it except when you go to the bathroom. I walked out on a date because she was constantly replying to messages. They did not take it well."
When things seem to be going well, and the feeling is mutual, avoid these.
Ease Off On Being Cocky
"Try too hard to impress the other person. Try to find out as much about the other person instead. Interest is sexy. Bragging is not."
Cutting To The Chase
"Propose."
"My husband proposed on our first date. I was squicked out and nearly ran away. Then, after three months, he told all his friends he wanted to have a baby with me... They still make fun of him for it. We ended up getting married after having our second son (married by Elvis in Vegas). We now have four sons and have been married for 8 years (together 11)."
"I still recommend not proposing on the first date. Haha."
Food-Sharing Maneuver
"Once had a dude grab some of my food off of my plate with his bare hands. He was trying to do a cutesy sharing food thing but it was a poached egg. He grabbed a poached egg with his bare hands right off of my plate. Please do not be like that guy."
Causing Injury
"Break her nose. My now husband hugged me the way Lenny petted rabbits. He was happy to finally meet me in person after online relationship, was a virgin, and thought harder hugs mean more love. They do not."
"He still apologizes when it's brought up, lol."
These Redditors were completely thrown by certain topics and unexpected cameos.
A Date And A Plus One
"invite your spouse. It's just so awkward."
– ickysam
"You think Im kidding but at least 10% of Tinder is two people looking to add someone else."
For A Later Discussion
"If you know the person you're dating is divorced, don't ask about it on the first date. Not a fun thing for them to talk about. You'll learn about it eventually if you end up going on more dates."
Revealing TMI
"Revealing that you're a flat earther. This serious happened to me. This guy I met online seems okay. We went on a date and he started asking 'those type of questions that make people fall in love with you'. Idk if you know what I'm talking about. If that didn't weird me out enough, he went on and claimed that we worked for NASA and they lied to everyone. The earth is flat and those images we saw of earth are CGI renders. The US never landed on the moon and conspiracy sh*ts like that. Needless to say there was no second date."
– pink0205
People on dating apps tend to feel more comfortable having conversations through messaging, but all that goes out the window when nerves take over on a first date.
The key takeaway is to not turn into someone else when you finally meet that person.
While that's easier said than done, just remember to breathe, act natural, and for goodness sake, don't talk about your exes and your used panty collection.
Bear hugs however remain debatable, as the Redditor who broke his date's nose wound up being the husband.
I once attended a friend's wedding, that was held in a pool hall. The maid of honor wore a dress that advertised Tommy Hilfiger. And the priest was drunk, as was the uncle who's "eloquent" speech went as such:
"So and So and so and so. Good luck. You're idiots. I give it less than a year!"
Packed Up
Tasmanian Devil Love GIF by Looney TunesGiphy"He ended up at the emergency room between the ceremony and the reception."
"He went out out the night night before with his sister and friends and got plastered. They had to hold a cold pack to the back of his neck to keep him vertical during the wedding photos. Marriage lasted 30 days until they had a fight, she left the house and he filled the U-Haul truck with everything but her clothes."
So Extra...
"I'M WITNESSING ONE FROM THE SIDELINES NOW!!!"
"My wife's brother just got married this past May. Bride's mother is a big DIY person and went a little nuts with extra flowers, table pieces, decorations, etc… Note I said extra, it was already decorated by the venue, she just took it upon herself to buy and add way more stuff."
"Anyway, a few weeks ago she sends my MIL (grooms mom) and email with receipts of all the extra stuff she bought ($7,000 worth!!! ) and asked that she pay half since it was technically set up in time for the rehearsal dinner for guests to enjoy. It's causing a huge rift between the newlyweds since the bride is taking her moms side."
All the Drama...
"My wife got invited to a client's daughter's wedding. The couple were both drama students. Many of the bridal party were drama students. The maid-of-honour's toast consisted of tearful declarations of unrequited love to the groom, along the lines of 'if it couldn't be me, I'm glad it's my best friend that's marrying you'. The best-man's speech was a lusty declaration of "if it doesn't work out, call me, babe... like the previous time you called me."
"Other toasts were similarly weird. A guy at the table I was seated at was a friend of the bride and said to me that he was 'this close' to standing up during the 'speak now or forever hold your peace' thing. I'm still not sure if the whole thing was a bunch of emotionally messed-up 20-year-olds, or one big piece of performance art."
7 months...
"I was maid of honour. Me, best man and the couple went into a separate little room to do the signing stuff. Bride excused herself to go the bathroom and the groom started making pretty mean remarks about her cooking (which she's passionate about) to the officiant."
"She came back, heard they were talking about cooking family meals together and gave him the warmest smile, thinking he had praised her. He scoffed awkwardly and changed the topic. That always stuck with me. He wasn't laughing WITH her but AT her, behind her back. They lasted 7 months."
But Before...
GIF by AminéGiphy"Wedding videographer here, I think my favorite moment was when I was sitting at the miscellaneous table with all the randoms and the girl next to me, the grooms ex, drunkenly admitted to sleeping with the groom a few months prior."
The joke was on the uncle. They lasted twenty years. They have four kids they can't afford, and are now remarried to people with police records. So what if they publicly share on Facebook their mutual hatred and and their regret of every wasted second of twenty years. They still lasted for a bit.
Hello?
adele hello GIFGiphy"I was at a wedding when a phone went off during the ceremony. In the middle of exchanging vows. It was the groom's. He took the call. They are divorced now. I believe it was a cousin calling, to ask if they were late for the wedding."
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The Witness
"I was at a wedding. I was a plus one for my date. The bride sat down drunk at our table and started talking to us. She then told me that she slept with her ex right before walking down the aisle. She screwed her ex in her wedding dress in the bridal suite. She then downed the last of my drink and went off to the dance floor. I was left speechless. I didn't know anyone but my date. Less than a year later the bride and groom were divorced."
"what did I do?"
"One of my friends got married, afterwards she looked at me, crying, and said "what did I do?" They were separated by the time the plane landed from their honeymoon. He was a good guy, she was a mess. The beta fish in the flower centerpieces lasted longer than the marriage."
- Boosully
See Ya...
"The bachelor party and the Bachelorette party were in Vegas at the same time. Across the hall from each other. The bride and groom got in a huge fight on the last night of the trip and when I was leaving I said "I'll see you guys at the wedding" to the groom and he replied "I'm not sure there's gonna be one." There was a wedding, but they were divorced within 18 months I believe."
Slow Dance
dirty dancing love GIF by Lionsgate Home EntertainmentGiphy"A fun light-hearted dance with the groom followed by a close and slow dance with her male best friend."
- codyish
Picture Takers
"As a wedding photographer I have been to more than my share of weddings.
- It was a REAL shotgun wedding. Dad didn't realize it would not stand up in court. Only time the groom was more excited to have photos than the bride.
- She wanted a limo, he thought a hearse would be better and kept doing Lurch impressions. From the Addams family.
- Don't know what happened... Sat down with bride and groom, filling out the contract. Got the deposit. He stood up, said forget it, and walked out. 2 months later I get told the wedding is off, 3 months later she calls to rebook, different groom. Day of the wedding I am at the church... Got the final payment the week before... No one shows... No one, just me and the DJ." - TexasTiger70
"uh, yeah, okay, yeah I do"
"She told me two days before that she found her fiancé annoying and that she didn't like him and that he was AWFUL in bed. She was visibly, endlessly uncomfortable at the rehearsal wedding/dinner combo. Then she sobbed the ENTIRE morning, day-of."
"She ended up not getting any makeup done cause she wouldn't stop scream-sobbing and refused to get dressed, stalling the wedding ~35 minutes. She then said 45 minutes of "vows" that she had prepared (9 pages of things like inappropriate vows to friends and family, his parents and sisters, none of them her husband), and then ALMOST didn't say "I do."
"Managed to get a, "uh, yeah, okay, yeah I do" out of her almost a full 60 seconds after she was supposed to say anything. I could go on for HOURS, but it was the most painful and awkward wedding I've ever been to. I've got my money on 10 months. We're 1 month in."
- brbdead
"I promise to love you"
"I've got two:"
"One of my good friends got married and I'd never met her before the wedding because "she's just shy." On the wedding day, she was belligerently drunk before the ceremony even started and couldn't even get through the lines she was supposed to repeat (i.e. "I promise to love you"). She ended up slapping the groom, spilling champagne on her dress, and then crying under a table while he tried to comfort her. They lasted about 4 months."
"Another one was my wife's friend. She's a very conservative, religious white girl who married a black man. Most of her racist family didn't approve of the marriage and didn't show up. But she planned the whole marriage around race. Like a vanilla cake for her and a chocolate cake for him, the wedding colors were black and white, and even the meals were white meat for her side and dark meat for his. It was extremely uncomfortable as a guest. They lasted 2 years."
Maybe choose rum?
bride fail GIFGiphy"When the bride drank vodka out of a pint glass and spent a significant amount of time making out with another guy on the dance floor."
- csdirty
Insanity
"My uncle when he broke his neck trying to breakdance on his stag do, He went down the aisle in a wheelchair. She divorced shortly after. He can walk again now but because of his surgery he cannot turn his neck. One of my go to stories because it's freaking insane."
being happy... for me...
"My brother's ex-wife. Throughout the exchange of vows, she was looking at everyone but my brother, making sure all eyes were on her. Later, she instructed the photographer (a family friend who was cheap) to "mingle" and get shots of people "being happy."
"Within 10 minutes, she'd summoned the photographer back shouting, "Whose wedding is this?! I meant get shots of people being happy for me." They broke up when she cheated on him. Apparently, that marriage she was desperate for was only good while it brought her attention."
- Stormaen
School Love
leonardo dicaprio love GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"When they got married illegally in high school. Two 16 year olds from different states who had to lie on their certificate to get approved by the state. It was annulled when the father of the groom found out."
2 Left Feet
"Prior to my wedding I'd asked my husband to practice dancing with me because I'm uncoordinated, due to a disability. He blew me off and said we'd be fine. As we were dancing, he spoke in my ear, not even quietly. "What are you doing? What's wrong with you? You're embarrassing me!!" We lasted 2 years. Leaving was the best decision I ever made."
Knockout
anne hathaway weddings GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"When the groom ran up and punched the bride during the reception in some kind of drunken melee."
Marriage is way to expensive to be a mistake. So think it all through very carefully. And put your heart aside and lead with your mind when friends are warning you about red flags. If red flags start adding up... wave them high as you run, down the other end of the aisle.
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Love is crazy. I've finally come to that conclusion. And marriage, you take your life in your hands and just throw caution to the wind in hopes of survival with that step.
When love falls apart, things can get real messy, real fast. And I've always been stunned by people's behavior when love subsides.
More often than not, it's like they become different people. Sometimes people are beset by tragedy and grief and sometimes people smile wide and move on. It's a coin toss.
But my favorite post-divorce personality has to be the sudden supervillain. Oh honey, watch out for them!
Redditor u/hyperyog wanted to hear all the tea from the divorcees out there by asking:
Divorced Redditors, what is the craziest thing you or your former spouse did after divorce?
I once had a friend who burned her ex's house down when he wasn't home. He had started seeing someone almost immediately, so she thought, lemme set their sparks. Yeah, she wasn't well. Whatever happened to just a quick goodbye?
Swiped
dean winters crying GIF by MayhemGiphy"She removed the retaining clips for my windshield wipers, but put the wipers back on the arms. First storm after I got my car back from her, driver side wiper flew off the car on Interstate 40. Good times."
Sicko!
"He wrote suicide notes and put them in my kids backpacks for them/me to find. Then he turned off his phone and went to a coworkers house to play crib and have drinks.. all the while knowing I would be freaking out searching for him thinking he was in danger or worse. Thankfully my kids didn't see the notes and didn't know what was going on. This was just one of the many, many crazy things he did. Two years out and he just recently stopped showing up at my work and driving by my house at night."
A Sad End
"Died of a drug overdose. To be fair, her drug addiction was the reason for the divorce, so maybe that isn't too crazy."
"That's so incredibly difficult to have gone through. I unfortunately know the depths of this kind of pain, and while I'm sure the circumstances surrounding it are different, the loss that still happened is a tragedy. My condolences."
Bye Girl
"Stalked me for 5 years. Would make fake social media profiles to try to follow me (which I would block endlessly) and would try to find where I worked so she could talk to me. This lady cheated on me with 7 different men 2 months after we were married. I kicked her a** to the curb and made her sign the court papers."
"When we had our day in court she cried in the judges office while I just wanted to get this crap done. After, my dad was with me and he threw 50 dollars at her and told her to "change your freaking last name." Good guy Pops. I haven't seen or heard from her in about 5 years, thank goodness."
- Letharos
Take it All!
skin care spinning GIF by Primal Life OrganicsGiphy"I had an ex-boyfriend go through my apartment and take back every gift he had given me that he could find. Then he went in my bedside table and took the condoms. And the vibrator he had given me."
See now, when I'm out... I'm out! I don't want to see you, hear from you or know you. I wish you well in life, but please live it far from me. Anyone agree? Clearly not the people here. Let's continue...
For the Boy
bicycling father and son GIF by NETFLIXGiphy"All I wanted was custody of my son, I gave her everything else except one of our cars. She fought me through 5 hearings, I won. She never came to see him again."
Dangerous Woman
"My ex cheated on me the week my mom died in the hospital. She spent a year and a half trying to get in touch with me. She would call my old work and make fake accounts trying to message me on FB. It was insane. She later sends a certified letter explaining she was sorry that she did what she did and that she aborted our child."
"Wanted me to meet her somewhere so she could apologize face to face. She already married some other guy that she had children with and was still trying to get in touch with me. I never understood her."
- orstius
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Be Gone
"After years of telling me she wanted a child, that she wanted to be a mom, that her life's dream was to be a stay at home mom, she got pregnant with the first guy she slept with while we were getting divorced and put the kid up for adoption even before it was born. This was a long-standing thing with her, she always wanted something (car, house, dog, cat, marriage, etc) and the second she got it she immediately hated it."
The "Actor"!
"Called me and pretended he had been hit by a car while we were talking. He even tried to voice the crowd that had gathered around his "body." God-awful acting, but pretty funny listening to him try to mimic a woman's voice. Points for trying to be inclusive, I guess."
"I think he was trying to get me to re-live my trauma of being on the phone with a friend who actually HAD been hit by a car while we were talking. Too bad he didn't realize that hearing the real thing is worlds different than hearing a dumba** try to act it out."
Money Blues
"I was sending 600 dollars a month to support my daughter because she's the only thing I give a sh!t about. My ex texts me and tells me I need to be sending 1200 a month because she's broke and can't pay her bills and I should feel guilty about it. She left me for another guy while I was on deployment I told her to go screw herself--call my lawyer."
Pop Off
Tom Hanks Drinking GIF by The Good FilmsGiphy"Took the sodas from the fridge as he walked out the door. Dumfounded."
"character witness"
"My ex stole a car and did 18 months in state prison. Based on what I was able to find online at the time, he approached a car dealership and showed interest in buying a vehicle. They allowed him to take it home for a 24 hour demo. He never returned it."
"They reported it stolen after they attempted multiple times to contact him to return it. They then contacted the state police who put a BOLO out. They found him driving the vehicle on the other side of the state where he thought he wouldn't be found. I found out when I got an unexpected phone call from the sheriff's office."
"I asked why they were calling me about this. They said my ex I told them I would vouch for him as a "character witness." I told the officer over the phone that my ex was a lying sack of crap and shouldn't be trusted. The officer laughed, thanked me for my time and hung up."
- NeonBird
He's Awful
"Completely ignored our three children for the last ten years while living with a woman and her three children. Did I mention, our oldest is HIS from a previous relationship, who I was awarded custody of, and he is her only living biological parent?!"
- nicunta
Pooped!
"Mom's friend was getting divorced, wife was staying in the house, but left so the husband could gather his things, without her there, as he moved out. While packing, he gave the dog a laxative and locked her in the master bedroom. Poor girl had explosive Malamute diarrhea EVERYWHERE."
"She was so upset about her accidents that she tried to dig through the door. That dog was such a good girl, it broke my heart. Luckily, the wife kept the dog and the husband was convicted of animal abuse charges, which helped the wife keep custody of the kids."
Good Dude
Ron Swanson GIF by Parks and RecreationGiphy"Here's a more wholesome and true one. He had Sunday dinners with my mom for many years after our divorce. He never had a real mom (long story), so I didn't mind sharing mine as long as I didn't have to be there."
Where to Begin?
"Laundry list- but my favourite was his sister sent a Facebook message to all of his contacts the day of our separation (including my family). Before we announced anything, her message stated everyone should immediately delete me and if I said anything about why we separated I was lying and not to listen. Basically this created a lot of curious questions and a lot of laughs."
- kriso921
When on Reddit!!
"She would stalk my Reddit account and angrily text me if she didn't like my posts talking about her cheating on me. I came home from seeing my grandmother on her death bed and found she had cheated. She also texted me accusing me of sabotaging her attempts to get a job that requires a security clearance. Apparently it was my fault and not the fact she had already been denied a security clearance for mental instability."
Mom used Me
"My mom went out and got braces put on my teeth, that I didn't really need, knowing my dad would have to pay half for them and wanting to cause him financial heartache. She then proceeded to not take me to the Ortho for the routine care because he wasn't paying his half."
"And I ended up having to pull the braces off my own teeth at age 14 because they were falling off on their own. Ended up rotting several of my adult molars too. It's cost me thousands of dollars and serious self-conscious issues over my smile/lack of teeth as an adult."
- Bmorehon
Burned
Angela Bassett Burn GIFGiphy"My ex-wife told me I could leave my stuff in our house while I found somewhere else to stay. I assumed this was a good-will effort to keep things as amicable as possible between us. When I went to get my stuff she had burned it all. So that was rough."
EVIL VILLAIN!
"My divorce was pretty amicable… but a previous boyfriend took one of each pair of my patterned socks so I had no matching pairs."
"This is what i would do to my wife if we were ever on the outs. Maybe mail one back every few weeks or something."
See, I blame Alanis Morissette and her "Jagged Little Pill" album. All I'm going to say is... the secret song. I think she gave people ideas. (I love that song) Y'all, seek therapy if you can't shake people. When it's done, let it be done.
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