Oh the matters of the heart are just never going to be easy. Love seems to be a never ending mess. I've dated a lot and can attest that the percentage of bad to good is 70/30. And that may be generous math.
I've heard about people fighting on dates, setting fire to the restaurant, discovering hidden identities and dramas I thought only ever occurred on daytime television.
I use to believe the biggest fear about dating was that the other person may turn out to be a serial killer, but they at least tend to show you a respectable time before they strike.
Oof. Let's see who has been left scarred by the hunt.
Redditor u/givemeyourfreefood wanted everyone to share the stories that almost made them re-think searching for love, by asking:
What's the worst date you ever had?
I remember the worst date I ever had. My biggest regret is that I stayed for the entire thing. I should've left as soon as I realized this was not going well, which was basically at hello. But he was paying so I drank, a lot. I'll keep names and dates to myself to protect the innocent.
0/10
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Giphy
"Went to brewery, date said I had hairy arms and that meant I was horny, said "you look really awful in this light" and then tried to dig out of that hole by saying in his native language that was a term of endearment long term couples said to each other. 0/10 did not date again."
Lucky 13?
"My wife wanted to plan our 13th wedding anniversary. I was excited because usually, I plan it. She bought us some new disc golf discs and after a quick supper, we went to play. We hadn't played in forever. We were laughing and I had a great time. She served me with divorce papers and told me that the date was a test to see if she still had feelings for me. I also learned that she was having an affair that started well before our anniversary."
- rmorlock
Two Hours from Home
"Not necessarily a date but a person I was dating invited me to his parent's house for the afternoon. He wanted to introduce me to them and show me the house he grew up in. I thought it was super sweet and had no problems going. He was also in the middle of moving and needed to pick up a few things, so it really didn't seem that unusual."
"Yeah, we got there and it was awful. His entire family was there. They traveled from hours away too. This was not just meeting the parents, it was meeting the ENTIRE family. Even worse? At some point, this idiot told his parents that he had proposed. We had been dating TWO months. I spent the entire afternoon dumbfounded and just playing along."
"We were two hours from home and I had no cell service, no way to leave at all. We ended up spending the afternoon brainstorming wedding ideas and planning an Alaskan honeymoon that his parents planned to gift us. His brother even called to say congratulations! We drove back to his apartment in silence. When we got there, I got in my car and left, didn't even bother grabbing my stuff. Weirdest experience ever. I have no idea how he broke it to his parents that we weren't getting married."
You're Cut Off!
"Got set up on a blind date once between mutual friends. She shows up to the restaurant already a little tipsy, orders multiple appetizers and only takes like one or two bites from each one. Then she proceeds to order 3 or 4 more drinks and is visibly drunk at this point. She gets up and says she's going to the bathroom and staggers off. About 15-20 minutes go by so I try to call her several times but no answer."
"Finally I decide to pay the check and just leave. About 2 hours later I'm sitting at home and I get a call from an unknown number. It's the police department. She was picked up on a DUI on her way home after she ditched me and gave the cops my number to see if I could go bail her out!"
- mox44ah
Sorry?
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Giphy
"Well, I gave this answer on a different topic, but it ties in with this. We were out on a date, we had been seeing each other for a while, close to a year maybe. She gets a phone call. Suddenly she looks destroyed. Her fiancé had just died in a motorcycle accident."
What in the world? I mean how can we ever expect to pair off with the dating pool being inundated with liars and nut jobs? I'm going to delete my apps.
Girl, Bye.
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Giphy
"Had a girl openly flirt with the bartender in front of me. She says she wasn't. But handing him her own phone and asking for his contact info in front of her date seems like it to me."
Crazy!
"Came out from a movie, late at night, and date's Camaro was stolen. Apparently, he called his WIFE (that I did not know he had) and let her know where he was and what happened. She showed up and realized he was on a date! She started chasing ME around the parking lot telling me she was going to kill me. Saved by the cops who showed up just in time to take the auto theft report."
911 Operators Break Down The Strangest Call They've Ever Received | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Hey Mom
"Met a girl at a country bar one night in my 20s. We were both pretty drunk but hit it off pretty good. Ended up getting her number and we agreed we'd go on a real date. Fast forward to the date, she gets in my vehicle and... she looks almost identical to my mom. I was mortified. I was polite and we went for lunch where I found out she also had a boyfriend she "wasn't sure if she was into". Never talked to her again."
- SgtGo
Liars...
"When I was in college many years ago, before the advancement of cell phones and social media, I was chatting with a girl I met on a BBS who lived on Long Island, NY. I was 18 at the time, but lied and said I was 22 because she said she was 25. We spent a few weeks emailing each other, as well as calling each other."
"We even exchanged pics. When we finally met up, things blew up. Turns out we both lied about our ages: She was really 33, and lied because she thought she looked younger. She admitted she sent a college photo to me. We still had dinner together, but it was awkward as hell. We never spoke again."
Doubles
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Giphy
"It was a double date. She was more interested talking to the other girl throughout the whole thing. Found out later from the other guy that his girl cheated on him with my date."
Post Divorce...
"First date after my divorce. She was nothing like her profile picture and just a horrible person. But that not the fun bit. She stalked me to my work van after the date and took down my phone number. On the way home she asked if I would come back and see her, said thanks but no thanks and have a nice life."
"In the proceeding days I received numerous texts and phone calls from her and had to have her number blocked by my phone provider. On new years day at 4am I receive a call... from her ex husband asking what was wrong with her? That she is a good person etc. etc. Turns out they went out on NYE and got crap faced together and decided to call me. I hung up only for them to keep calling me back. Ended up turning my phone off. Woke around 7."
"Turned my phone on and I had received 20+ voice recordings that were getting more and more threatening, on the last one I could hear them in a car saying they were coming over to get me. Spoke to my neighbour who gets up early and had gone for a run and he told me there were a couple being arrested around the corner from our place drunk as hell who had hit a light pole. Scary thing is I had my 2 daughters with me that night."
"You sound like my grandma"
"In college, I hit it off with a girl and agreed to go on a first date to a school hockey game. When I met her there, I realized I had forgotten my wallet, so I had to borrow $5 from her to pay for my ticket. Not a great start, and I could tell I had dug myself an early hole."
"Then, once we sat down, we realized that neither of us liked hockey at all. I have no idea why we agreed to meet there, but we were both totally uninterested in the game. So we started talking about other things we were into, and I mentioned that I liked board games."
"She said, "You sound like my grandma." At that point it was clear that neither of us were into this at all, but it was the first period of a hockey game that she had paid 10 whole dollars for, and neither of us felt right leaving. We sat there and stonily watched the rest of the game. Afterwards, we said, "Let's hang out sometime," and then never messaged each other again. Then, a few semesters later, my friend called me up all excited about a new girl he was dating."
"He wanted me to come to a get-together at his apartment and meet her. I walk in, and of course he's sitting on the couch with his arm around the very same hockey-hating girl. I immediately grabbed my wallet, handed her $5, and said, "Thank God! I've been looking for you for two years!" She laughed, and things went all right after that."
The Right Way
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Giphy
"I had a date send her drink back several times and eventually had our server bring out all of the ingredients in separate glasses so that she could mix it herself, the "right way." What's worse is we were both in the service industry at the time."
Corpses...
"It was with an undertaker's assistant. He'd circle every topic of conversation back to corpses."
Me: "So, do you know what you're gonna order?"
Him: "Well I was thinking the steak, but I had eaten steak when we got the river guy in, and now it makes me feel queasy."
"I ended up leaving after half an hour."
"looked disgusting"
"Met her at a bar. She ordered food but didn't eat it since it "looked disgusting" (it looked fine). So we left to go to a different restaurant and on the walk there, she kept ducking and glancing at the sky like she was being attacked by bats. She hardly said anything over then whole date, it was like pulling teeth to get her to talk about herself. At the second restaurant she took forever ordering and again didn't eat because the food looked disgusting. Emailing about the date afterwards, she admitted that she was high on "ice", which I guess is some kind of meth?"
Never go to Applebee"s!!
"Met a guy at a concert who asked me out to dinner the next weekend. Said we'd go to a restaurant halfway between his place and mine. Gives me the address which I printed out on Mapquest bc this was before GPS was normal on phones or in cars. I get there and it's an apartment building. Call him to say I think he gave me the wrong address and he said, nope! You're driving. Takes me to an Applebee's because they have the cheapest happy hour he said. We have one drink and he eats potato wedges by himself."
"When I drove him back, he asked me where my overnight bag was. I said I'm not staying the night and thanks for the beverage. He took my keys out of my ignition and told me to go upstairs. I told him if he doesn't give me my keys back, I will start screaming and call the cops. He threw them in the front seat as he got out telling me I'm missing out on hot tub time. I thankfully never saw him again."
thanks mom...
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Giphy
"He was over an hour late, no text or call, and when he finally showed up, his excuse was "sorry I'm late, my mom had to take a poop."
Cheaters
"I went to a new year's eve party with a guy I had been chatting with for months. When we get there his friends asks him where his girlfriend is, and they were not referring to me. I went out for a smoke at that point and he went after, saying she was boring and he was gonna break up with her. I didn't hang out with him for the rest of the night. I guess I should thank him because I hooked up with the party host instead and we've been together for 7 years."
- mayneffs
The Carnage...
"A guy approached me at a coffee shop and we ended up hitting it off and talking all night. About a week later we had our first "real date" at my place so I could cook him dinner. I lived in a small one bedroom apartment at the time and the bathroom door was right next to the kitchen."
"He excused himself before dinner and proceeded to take the loudest, and what I presumed to be, the most massive poop this universe has ever seen. The sounds of the toilet carnage still echo in my nightmares. I of course didn't mention that I heard the whole event and we went about our evening. After dinner we got into my bed so we could watch a movie."
"30 minutes into it, I needed to use the restroom, so I got out of the bed to reveal that I had unknowingly started my period and left a noticeable pool of blood where I was sitting. He helped me change the sheets. Anyway, we've been married a year now and he still takes the nastiest dumps known to mankind."
Hold Tight!
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Giphy
"She started talking about her life story from childhood to that day. Year by year... with every single traumatic story and emotions. That was our first ever date and she didn't even let me speak for that duration. I was like "oh okay she is now talking about high school 6 more years left, hold tight."
Ummm... I think I'm just going to stay single. That is a handful of crazy. Why can't people just be honest? I swear the search for love warps people's brains. Be careful out there people.
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For many childhood memories are overrun by living nightmares.
Yes, children are resilient, but that doesn't mean that the things we see as babes don't follow us forever.
The horrors of the world are no stranger to the young.
Redditor -2sweetcaramel- wanted to see who was willing to share about the worst things we've seen as kids, so they asked:
"What’s the creepiest thing you saw as a kid?"
Serious Danger
"Me and my best friend would explore the drainage tunnels under the Vegas area where we grew up. These were miles long and it was always really cool down there so it was a good way to escape the heat of our scorching hot summers. We went into this one that goes under the Fiesta casino and found a camp with a bunch of homeless people."
"Mind you we are like 11 years old lol. And we just kept going like it was nothing. It wasn’t scary then but when I look back at it we could have been in some serious danger. Our parents had no idea we did this or where we were and we had no cellphones. We could have been kidnapped and never have been found."
oofboof2020
Waiting for Food
"I was at a portillos once when I was 12 and I was waiting with my little brother at a booth while my parents got our food. This guy was standing with his tray kind of watching me then after a couple of minutes he started to walk over really fast not breaking eye contact with me."
"He was 2 feet from the table and my dad came out of nowhere and scared the s**t out of him. He looked so surprised and just said he wanted to see if I’d get scared or not. He left his tray full of food near the door and left. My folks reported him but we never went to that location again since we found a better one closer to home."
nowhereboy1964
Captain Hobo to the Rescue
"When I was a pretty young teen, my friends and I were horsing around in San Francisco and started hanging out to smoke with some homeless guys. Another homeless dude came up and began aggressively trying to shake us down for anything (money, smokes, a ride, drugs- all of it) and wouldn’t take no for an answer."
"We got in over our heads and could tell this guy was now riling the other 2 guys up and they were acting like they wanted to jump us. Some grandfather-looking old homeless man appeared out of nowhere and yelled at us to get the f**k out of here- nice kids like us don’t belong down here at this hour!!"
"Captain Hobo saved our lives that night. My parents sincerely thought we were at a mall all day lol."
FartAttack911
Survival
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"I was 7 and survived the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. Witnessed the wave rise way above the already massive palm trees (approx. 40ft?) and my family and I watched/heard the wave crash into the ground from a rooftop."
faithfulpoo
These Tsunami stories are just tragic.
On the Sand
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"We were a group of kids who went to swim in a local lake. And there was a dead body on the beach with their hands raised and their legs bent unnaturally that local police just took out of the same lake. I've never put my foot in these waters again."
oyloff
Be Clever
"I was walking to school and I was about 5 or 6 years old and some guy pulled up beside me in his car and asked if I would get in. He also offered me sweets to do so. I said no. The creepy bit was when he calmly said ‘clever boy’ to me, then drove off. I’ve never even told my parents or anyone else about this as it would most likely freak them out."
OstneyPiz
Bad Jokes
"Dad's side of the family pranked me by burying a fake body on our back property and had me dig it up to find valuables. Was only allowed to use a lantern for light. They stuffed old clothes with chicken bones. Sheetrock mud where the head was... Random fake jewelry as the treasures... I was like maybe 10 or 11.. I remember digging up the boot first and started gagging because it became real at that point."
Alegan239
YOU
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Giphy
"Woke up to find my little brother staring at me in the dark, asking, Are you really you?"
PrettyLola2004
Siblings can really be a bunch of creepers.
No one should talk to others in the dark though.
Not all pet owners have the same relationship with their pets.
While anyone who decides to become a pet owner, or pet parent as some say, love their pets equally, some never ever let them leave their side.
Taking their pet with them to work, running errands, even on vacations.
Many pet parents even allow their pets to share their bed with them when going to sleep.
For others though, this is where a line is finally drawn.
Redditor Piggythelavasurfer was curious to hear whether pet owners allowed their pets to share their bed with them, as well as the reasons why they do/don't, leading them to ask:
"Do you let your pet sleep in your bed? Why/why not?"
The Tiny Issue Of Water...
"Absolutely not."
"I have fish."- Senior-Meal3649
Everyone Gets Lonely Eventually...
"I adopted an eleven year old cat the day before Halloween."
"She has mostly lived in my closet since I got her, and she hasn’t been too interested in coming out."
"Last night, she came out of my closet and jumped up on my bed, and crawled under my covers and curled up by my feet to sleep."
"I was so happy!"- YellowBeastJeep
The Comforting Reminder That You're Not Alone...
"I recently lost my Greyhound but I used to let him sleep on my bed with me."
"The company was nice and he was no trouble to have on my bed."- HoodedMenace3
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What Do You Mean Allow?
"I have no choice."
"She is a cat, cats do whatever they want."- Small_cat1412
"He lets me sleep in my bed."- Poorly-Drawn-Beagle
Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way
"I carry my old boy upstairs to bed every night."- worst_in_show
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Who Needs An Alarm Clock?
"I let my two cats sleep with me."
"They're so full of love and just want cuddles all the time."
"And so do I."
"We've all developed a lil routine."
"Get to bed, oldest sleeps on my feet to keep them warm, youngest lies in my arm while I lie on my side (she the little spoon), then when I snooze my alarm for work in the morning the youngest paws at my face and meeps loudly to wake me up."- GhostofaFlea_
Whose Bed Is It Anyway?
"Yes."
"They're also kind enough to let me squeeze into whatever space they've left for me."
"Although I do get a few dirty looks off them."- Therealkaylor
"I found this tiny kitten screaming her head off under a car."
"Would not come out."
"Got some food and some water in dishes."
"I stood by the tire so she couldn't see my feet."
"She got curious about the food and water and started gobbling it down."
"I thought she would bolt when I squatted down."
"She was too busy eating."
"I grabbed her by the nape of the neck and all four legs went straight out and she tried to scratch me to death."
"I got her in the door and tossed her toward the couch."
"She ricocheted off the couch as if she was a ping pong off a table and I lost sight of her."
"I put out food and water and a sandbox and did not see that kitten for three days."
"On the third day, I came home and she was on my bed pillow."
"I thought she would bolt when I came near, but she didn't."
"I wanted to sleep so I tried to scoot her little butt off my pillow."
"She would not go."
"I put my head down to sleep and that is the way it was from then on."
"She ran the roost."- Logical_Cherry_7588
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Sleeping Is A Prerequisite...
"No, he's a cat and he cannot keep still during the night."
"He walks across the headboard, opens the closet doors, jumps into the windows and rustles the blinds, etc."
"If he would sleep he could stay, but alas, he's a ramblin' man."- Spong_Durnflungle
Saying No Just Isn't An Option...
"'Let'."
"Lol."
"It's a cat's world and I'm happy to be on her good side."- milaren
Felines Only!
"The cat does, the dog doesn't and the horse certainly does not either."- Xcrowzz
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Giphy
Is That My Hair On That Pillow?
"My dog is perfect."
"She comes up, cuddles til we start to fall asleep, then gets down to sleep on her bed so she doesn't get too hot."
"Jumps back up in the early morning for wake up cuddles."
"The hair everywhere is the only downside but she is so cozy, what can you do."- HoodieWinchester
It is easy to understand how some people are able to fall asleep more easily knowing their friend and protector is there, in bed, with them.
Though we can't blame others who don't want to run the risk of being scratched or bitten in the middle of the night either...