Date 1 Went on a Tinder date 3 weeks ago with a woman who I got along with great via text -- had plenty of common interests, good back and forth -- but was horrible in person. We planned to meet at a public park with a waterfall and walk around there. I was 20 minutes late due to construction traffic, which sucks, but I told her and gave her updates about it, and she was angry about that. She wasn't where we were supposed to meet when I arrived, and she snarkily informed me via Tinder chat she was about to leave in the next few minutes. I told her maybe she should use the phone number I gave her to call me (she hadn't given me hers) so we could actually coordinate in real time, and we finally found each other.
She was a huge complainer. She was wearing Skecher sneakers, but complained that she didn't know we'd be "hiking" and wasn't wearing the right shoes (it's a dry foot path -- we had to climb around a couple puddles). She complained about having to go up and down stairs (no particular medical complaint, she just apparently thinks stairs are too hard). It was dinner time, so after a walk around the falls we decided to go in search of food.
Walking towards the restaurant of her choice, she realizes that she left her wallet in her car in the opposite direction. I offered to pay -- we ended up going to a burger joint, no biggie -- and she got mad at me for offering to pay. We get to the burger joint, and apparently she is testing for food allergies, so heavily restricted in what she can eat (but of course, admits to cheating). She informs me she hates everything about what I ordered -- a spicy burger -- and gets a burger patty with egg on top. Her food came with lettuce on top, which also pissed her off: not for the allergy restriction, but because apparently the woman hates vegetables so much that even lettuce offends her. Who hates lettuce, honestly?
She accused me over the meal of not asking her enough questions, which was true but she hadn't been shy about talking about herself, so it didn't seem like a big offense. We walk back to the park and our cars. I cracked my knuckles in front of her, which set her off: she said it makes her puke, and very dramatically made a show of almost horking there and then. I apologized, since I didn't know, and her responds is that her friends don't do it around her, because they know better.
Ironically, she ended the date with a hug and told me I had her number. I found her to be too high maintenance -- I remember thinking on the date "well, I won't have to ask why you're single." Texted her a couple days later because I was curious to see if she really was interested, but she didn't respond. Not sad.
Date 2 Crazy date this week was a woman whom I'd talked to on OKCupid long ago, but never met. Matched on Tinder, talking only enough to answer her question of what concerts I'd been to lately, then she deleted me and apparently the whole app. She found me on OKCupid a couple days later, joking that she'd deleted both because she hated the bands I'd listed so much.
Long story short, she's very forward, I invite her out for drinks, we agree, and spend the rest of the week bantering until we meet up. While there, I chalk a lot of behavior up to her nerves and or banter, but she says things like how she really does hate the bands I listed, including calling Clutch emo (huh?) -- turns out later that she likes Radiohead, so I don't know why she'd be complaining even if that were right. As she gets more comfortable, there's more poking fun at me type banter, but she also brags about how at work she can say whatever she wants about people to their faces -- mean things she actually means -- because they think she's just a kidder. Venue change, more drinks, with some serious talk she admits she's been diagnosed twice with Borderline Personality Disorder, which we discuss because that concerns me...but for the most part, this isn't a horrible first date, and the biggest red flags I associate with that diagnosis don't seem to be showing up in conversation, so tentatively moving forward...there's making out, but she's not comfortable moving things back to either of our places, so she suggests karaoke -- we talked karaoke in the week before the date. We get there, and I'm trying to figure out who to sing -- no surprise, we've talked about how I never know what songs to pick -- and she insults the bands I'm talking about. Like, she really apparently does hate the bands I like, going off some crazy stereotypes, and goes on a 5 minute rant, asking why I'd like a band, then talking over me when I try to explain -- and this is a woman who admitted to spending between $1600-2000 to meet Britney Spears. This is a woman who can't judge, but is now ruining a good time raising her voice at me over a karaoke pick. I call her on this, and I'm pretty much done. I hope she can salvage this unexpected turn, but I can't think of how, and neither can she. I go to the bathroom to give myself a minute, and when I come back she has left our table. I text asking if she's in the bathroom or left, and she texts back that she left in embarrassment and is sorry. I text back that I'm speechless. We haven't spoken since. Since we'd relocated bars, and taken her car to do so, I have a nice 30 minute walk to reflect on how fucked up that date was.
Date 3 Amidst this, I have an acquaintance in a friend's group who has spent the last couple years expressing interest in me with "throw sticks and run away" playground tactics, and it's finally become something after she invited herself along to a sporting event two weeks ago. Drinks afterwards turned into makeouts, but also talking about how we couldn't date because reasons. A week full of flirty texting, and we have dinner and drinks to "talk" about it some more -- more makeouts...and talking about why we can't date, because other reasons. After a BBQ thrown by friends this weekend, now apparently those reasons don't matter anymore, we've slept together and she's interested in dating me. Hoping this won't be a mistake -- I'm feeling pretty full on my quota of crazy dating stories this month.
Blast from the Past Oh, and my crazy ex from 2012 saw my post on an Askreddit thread, asking what you'd say to your ex if they knew you'd read it. I said she had shitty tattoos, and in retaliation she told a judge I sexually assaulted her and threatened to rape her in 2013 (in case it needs to be said: I did not), getting a restraining order on me. So I spent Feb-April this year dealing with courts and evidence for that: remember kids, if you're going to arbitrarily pick a day to say that you met your ex randomly at a bar and he spent the night following you around and grabbing your ass without consent, make sure you didn't text him to ask if he'd be there, admit to Facebook stalking him to find out he'd be there, and flirt and sext with him every day for a week afterwards. Make sure you don't add superfluous fake allegations to your testimony that can be directly disproved with texts, and make sure that if you try to demonize someone by taking a texted quote out of context, make sure that adding context back in won't make him look like a really genuinely nice guy. Sad I couldn't show those text records in court: after a judge warned her he smelled bullshit, and she had an uphill battle proving her allegations, she dismissed the restraining order 2 days before the trial. I was really looking forward to seeing if she'd get charged with perjury. Yep, I met that crazy on OKCupid, too.