Bad dates are good material.

A friend set me up on a date with a man who, like me, was supposedly into healthy eating and fitness. We planned to get dinner, but he explained he was a “fruitarian” (he only eats fruit!), and he was very emaciated so that made sense. I was thinking, where are we going to eat dinner, a fruit stand? Anyway, we went to a Chinese restaurant where he ordered about four fried dishes and inhaled them. He said once in a while he diverged from the fruit thing. I was having a truly terrible time, and I asked him to take me to my mother’s house. On the way there, he asked me if I’d give him a massage when I got there. I told him I wasn’t feeling very well and left him at the door and walked upstairs.  Instead of leaving, this guy started a conversation with my mother and asked her to give him a massage. So there I was trapped on the second floor while my mother gave this fruitarian guy a massage in the living room.

I met a guy through my brother, and our first date was to a small diner. While waiting to be seated, he looked through a rack of gag cards and found one with an old, beat up car on the front, and the words “Sh*t Box From Hell.” I didn’t think it was that funny, but okay. We were seated by the window, and every time a car would drive by on the street, he would jump up, point at it and scream, “Sh*t Box From Hell. Ha, ha!” This happened even if we were in the middle of a conversation.

It was a family restaurant, and I tried quietly and politely to tell him people were not happy with his langauage and volume. He never got the message. In more ways than one, since I avoided his calls, only to find him waiting at my house after work one day; I had to call the cops to make him leave.

The next day I came home from work to find all of my house’s rear house windows broken. Now I guess my house is a “Sh*t Box From Hell.”

The date went well and we were back at her place, making out. Things were progressing rather well, when she suddenly stopped me and said that before we did anything more she had to confess that she has untreated bipolar disorder, and how on her “highs” she goes on crazy shopping sprees, and has racked up tens of thousands of dollars of debt at times. Okay. And in order to deal with this debt, sometimes she sleeps with men for money. I wasn’t sure whether she was revealing this information because she expected money from me if we did it, but either way, I was out of there.

After the date, he walked with me towards the train. We passed by a restaurant with a lovely little couple in the window eating their dinner when my date says “Hey, have you ever mooned anyone?” At this point, I was like I’M OUTTA HERE! and started briskly walking/jogging to the train. He proceeded to moon the couple, as if it was totally normal behavior, and then caught up to me. He was laughing like an unstable psycho. Before I could tell him to kindly get lost, he stood before me, and completely dropped trou. Just lettin’ it alllll hang out. In the dead of winter. In the middle of one of the most crowded areas of NYC. On a Friday night. All right there, presenting himself like a proud peacock. And so I ran. Fast. In heels through the snow. The next morning he texted me that he had a really amazing time and could not wait to see me again.

He said he only had 10 dollars to spend, so we “would have to split a beer.” Then he wanted to slow dance but he kept stepping on my feet. When we went to sit back down, he missed the whole chair and fell down, and I knew he wasn’t drunk because he’d had HALF a beer.

We walked almost four miles in 20-degree weather, searching for a Taco Bell he kept insisting was only another few blocks. For our 99-cent tacos, we went dutch. Also, he kept telling me how he was restraining himself from using his smartphone.

I met him online and liked him, but I knew something was off when I heard his suggestions for our first date: sky driving, going away to the mountains for the weekend, going for a helicopter ride, etc. I suggested we grab a bite downtown. When he picked me up, I got into his car and all he said to me was, “So, your place or mine? We can go to mine but I think my Mom might still be up.” (He was 29.) I left early and he text me the next morning saying that I needed to “be more attentive to his needs.”

I met this guy at a zombie event that my friend took me to, and he asked for my number I. Three days after we started talking, he asked me to the movies. He said it wasn’t a date and that we should both invite friends; I agreed. I ended up not being able to go. Yesterday, I went to another zombie party, and everyone there kept referring to me as his girlfriend! He’d told everyone we were exclusive.

I met a guy who I had some mutual friends with, and he invited me over to his house, saying they were going to join us. At his place, he started going on about these crazy “adventures” that he’d been on that sounded like something out of an action movie. When I asked him what on earth he was talking about, he told me he was referring to things that his “character” had done in that “Vampire the Masquerade” role playing card game. Keep in mind the guy was 34 years old! He then went to his bedroom and came out with all these cards, t-shirts and costumes that he and his friends would wear while acting out the game. Not just role playing, but getting in capes with fake swords and the whole thing. I just sat there wondering when our friends would show up. He took his “collection” back into the bedroom, and when he returned to the living room, he was naked except for the cape! He then confessed that our friends were not coming at all and he’d lied to get me there. I grabbed my purse and jacket and ran for the door. He chased after me, cape flying out behind him, yelling, “Can’t we just hook up?! You came all the way over here, why not?! Please?!!?”

He called at the time he was supposed to pick me up to say he would be late. An hour and a half later, he showed up, but by then we had missed the movie we were going to see. So he says he knows this great little restaurant, which turns out to be a dingy bar in the basement of a hotel. We ordered (bad) food that arrived on dirty plates, and while we were eating, he explained that he used to be on anti-depressants but that it gave him erectile dysfunction. (Depressed or impotent…way to sell yourself, dude.)