Valentine’s Confessions: our worst dates

Posted on 13 February, 2018

Roses are red, violets are blue, some dates just suck and we’ve had them too. 

As the international day of flowers and dinner dates approaches, the HerCanberra team thought it would be a laugh to look back on those times things didn’t go too smoothly.

We present, our worst dates ever (anonymously, of course).

The one where you realise there’s a reason he’s single…

“I knew it was going to be all downhill when one of the first things he said was, ‘Did you Google me? I Googled you,’ followed soon after by ‘I was with my ex for two years, I couldn’t change her at all in those 730 days’. He also figured out that he knew a friend of a friend of mine in Sydney, and proceeded to tell me that us Sydney girls were too assertive/strong-minded (it was clearly not something he thought was positive).”

The one where you realise you’d rather be single…

“My worst date was when we went out and neither of us realised the place we were going to was actually closed and that all the nicer places around it ended up being closed as well. So we ended up going to a pub where really bad karaoke was on and he told me how much he hated the date. We then drove to a different bar that was suggested that also ended up being closed so I ended the date right then and there—a mere hour after the date had started. I went home and watched Game of Thrones with wine in bed alone and I couldn’t be happier about the way the date had ended.”

The one with the age gap…

“When I was 24, I went on a date with a guy who revealed to me that he was 18. Like, freshly 18. And he told me right after we’d bought tickets to a movie, so I had to sit there with him. I was mortified.”

The one that’s socially awkward…

“After [the] date he proceeds to put his helmet, knee pads and elbow pads on at the table! I then had to walk out of the restaurant with him while he was wearing this.”

The one that was all about him…

“When I was 18, this very handsome guy took me out on a date. He drove me to the mall. We randomly wandered around the shops while he talked about his model ex-girlfriends and tried on Nikes and dominated the conversation. He then asked to take me on a nightclub boat that night with his friends that take ecstasy and offered to steal me an outfit from his friend that worked at Supre, cause what I was wearing wasn’t hot enough. When he dropped me home I declined the nightclub and I think it was the first time he’d ever had a girl say no to him. He looked so confused.”

The one that didn’t understand the rules of dating…

“I was once taken on a date where he took the NUMBER OF THE WAITRESS WHEN SHE OFFERED IT! He told me in the car he didn’t want to be rude. He basically picked up, on a date with me.”

The one where you’d rather swipe left…

“My girlfriend and I went to one of the Desperate and Dateless balls held in Canberra in the late 90s. We ditched the guys as soon as we got there! Pre Tinder so you had no idea what they were like until you arrived…”

The one who’s not quite ready to let go…

“I recently went on a tinder date with someone who admitted to me he cut his ex-girlfriend out of his Tinder profile picture. He then proceeded to show me the un-cropped photo to prove he wasn’t lying. Obviously, a sure-fire way to win a girl’s heart…”