Absent Elemental is the pen name for the author of the
blog Short Stories and
Sustenance. His work primarily focuses on dark fiction, social
taboos, and his love for rocky road ice cream. You can find him on Twitter
@blkholesun.
Note: The following post is based on actual events. Names
have been changed to protect the stupid.
I've always considered dating to be a rather awkward
concept. In many cases, you end up in a poorly lit restaurant/bar/coffee shop,
awkwardly staring at a person you've barely met while they talk about how their
dog is the best thing in the entire world, or how their church group is going
to covert numerous savage (read: non-Christian) islanders to the way of God on
their next missionary trip. It's an experience that I don't see the appeal to.
Frankly, it's those very types of experiences that drew me
to online dating. The major advantage to online dating is that most sites
require prospective dating partners to create a profile answering questions so
that you can learn more about that person before you ever meet them. About six
years ago, I made my first online dating profile, and went on numerous dates
with people I met online over the course of the next three years. While many
were forgettable and some were decent, there were also some horror stories I
went through. I'll share two of the most
ridiculous today.
One of the most common first dates for working adults is a
lunch date. A couple of weeks after first talking to a girl, Mary, she and I
decided to go out on a date. Both of us worked long hours, so Mary and I
thought that a quick lunch at a faster restaurant would be in our best
interests. We met up at a Subway near her work, ordered our food and sat beside
each other in a booth.
Two or three minutes into our meal, she poked my arm with
her finger. In my book, this constituted a direct attempt to flirt with me, so
I returned the favor, lightly poking her arm just below the shoulder. Within
seconds of my finger retreated from her shirt, she swung wildly with a vicious
right hook, slugging me with all her might directly on the jaw. I jumped out of
my seat in the booth, stunned at what had just happened.
“The fuck was that for?” I asked.
“I wanted to see what it would feel like for a girl to hit a
guy for once,” she said, laughing hysterically every third or fourth word.
Needless to say, I left within seconds of the ordeal,
leaving a once-bitten sandwich behind for her to deal with. I drove home and
picked up McDonald's on the way, marking the lone time in my life that I've
ever preferred McDonald's fries to the alternative.
While that may well have been the most infuriating date I
ever went on thanks to online dating, it certainly wasn't the most
embarrassing. That honor is (and likely forever) will be held by a date I had
with a girl named Amy. Amy and I had talked online for nearly six months before
we decided to have our first in person date. All things considered, she fit a
lot of the qualities I was looking for in a woman. Considering how well we got
along while talking online, I was cautiously optimistic about the date.
Amy and I had decided it'd be a fun first date to go
putt-putt golfing before we went out to dinner. When I arrived at the putt-putt
course, it became painfully apparent to me that the date with Amy wouldn't go
well. Amy's pictures showed her as a young, attractive woman around my age, and
all of that was technically still true when I arrived at the date. That said,
apparently the pictures she'd used online were of someone else, as it wasn't
until I arrived at the date that I realized that “Amy” was actually my boss,
Miranda. Despite her insistence that she thought the date was still a good
idea, I quickly got back in my car and left.
What's the most embarrassing dating story you have? Has
anyone had an overwhelmingly good experience with a date you met online?
