Let's be honest: Almost all of us at some point or another have been on a date that, simply put, was just bad.
And yesterday, Reddit user u/givemeyourfreefood posed that very question to the Ask Reddit community: "What’s the worst date you ever had?"
The thread quickly went viral as thousands of people shared some of the awful things that happened to them during dates. Here are some of the top-voted and best responses:
1. "We came out from a movie — late at night — and my date's Camaro was stolen. Apparently, he called his WIFE (who 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."
2. "We were out on a date; we had been seeing each other for a while. She gets a phone call. Suddenly she looks destroyed — her fiancé had just died in a motorcycle accident."
3. "Got set up on a blind date once from 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 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 two 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!"
4. "I was brought up in Poland by Polish parents (university professors), went to a Polish school, Polish university, etc. Then I had a date with an American man whose grandmother was Polish. He grilled me on the language and criticized my pronunciation and corrected my grammar. This from a guy whose Polish vocabulary was maybe 100 words. He told me I spoke like a peasant."
5. "It was a double date. She was more interested in 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."
6. "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 then served me with divorce papers and told me that 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."
7. "It was a Tinder date. She looked nothing like her picture — not ugly, just completely different. She picked the worst restaurant in town, which I looked past because everyone has different taste. We came back to my house, but she decided she didn’t like my house, which I had just bought and was proud of. She immediately wanted to go to Home Depot to buy stuff to start remodeling. It was by far my worst and weirdest date. I hope she found a house to remodel."
8. "When I was in college — many years ago, before the advancement of cellphones and social media — I was chatting with a girl I met on a [bulletin board system] who lived in Long Island, New York. 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 of herself to me. We still had dinner together, but it was awkward as hell. We never spoke again."
9. "I preordered two drinks like normal. She shows up, she orders a ton of expensive items and drinks, while all the time she is on her phone. I think the bill was around $350, but I already paid my part, so I walked out through the back and ghosted."
10. "Go on a dinner date with a guy as a first date. Conversation is good and we go to his place. I make it clear we will not be having sex, he's fine with it, everything seems good. To preface this next part, I know I'm an attractive woman, but I have some crooked bottom teeth. Anyway, for some reason this man asks me what my biggest insecurity is. I say my teeth. He asks me to smile. I do. He says, 'Wow, yeah, they're pretty fucked up!' and that's all."
"I went home shortly after and never texted him again. Killed my self-esteem for a minute there."
11. "It was a blind date. She showed up in an outfit that would be sloppy even for the gym, and her third sentence to me was, 'God, I'm so horny! I haven't fucked in months and I want it so badly!' I never called her again."
12. "Showed up to a Tinder date where we agreed to meet, but she wasn’t there. Texted, and she replied back that 'they' were around the corner. Come to find she (a mid-20s divorced socialite) and her friend (a mid-40s man) had been drinking all day and were pretty shitfaced."
"I proceeded to join them at the table, where she proceeded to talk about the married guy at the next table over and kept walking by and dropping things so she could bend over in front of him. Then came some racist talk and some cocaine use (them, not me). And then they decided, mercifully, to ditch me because I was no fun."
13. "We went to dinner and he started chatting up the waitress — like interrupting me every time the waitress came over and talking to her for a few minutes instead. After a couple of times, I just pulled my phone out and started scrolling through Reddit. He complained when he noticed that I was on my phone and then lectured me about my generation (he was like six years older than me, IIRC)."
"Then he got mad when I wouldn't suck his dick in the parking lot. I ended up going back inside the restaurant and calling a friend to pick me up. Dude's car was still sitting there when I left."
—u/gengarsnightmares
14. "Met her for dinner. We seemed to hit it off well in the first few minutes, until I started feeling the worst pain ever in my side. Turns out I had a kidney stone. I unfortunately had to leave very quickly. She then blocked me via text when I abruptly left dinner, so she never got the message that I ended up in the hospital."
"I didn't see her for years until we ran into each other at a bar, me with a different girlfriend, her with her husband. I explained what had happened; she felt pretty bad, but hey, no long-lasting harm done. I bought her and her husband a drink, chatted for a few, and left them to finish their evening together."
15. "Was told we were going to dinner and then shopping. I drove to his town, one hour each way, cuz he didn't have a license. He directed me (didn't know my way around at all) to...Burger King. I ended up paying for dinner, too. Then we went to...Walmart — where his mom worked — so he could get a discount. Didn't buy anything."
"On the drive home, he started apologizing out of nowhere. I thought it was because of the bad date. Until the smell hit me. He passed gas and I had to legit pull over and roll the windows down a while."
16. "He brought his mom! I decided it wasn't going to work out for me, but I stayed because, I mean, I couldn't miss it. At least I can remember it as funny to some degree."
17. "Got set up on a blind date by some friends. The date was early September and we met in a restaurant in the city. It was a nice place, the kind where the waitstaff wear dress shirts, ties, etc. I was in a nice suit and tie; she showed up in jeans, flip-flops, and a hoodie. I jokingly said something along the lines of, 'I'm assuming they didn't tell you this place is sort of snooty?' She goes, 'They did. I didn't give a fuck.'"
"'I ain't shaving my legs and putting on some fancy dress for some guy who I don't even know if I want to even touch his dick, let alone if I'm willing to let him between my legs.' I just stared at her in disbelief.
"She then said, 'I mean, you seem nice and all. But I ain't in the mood to do all that work when I can just go home and do it myself.' I asked her to keep her voice down and she goes, 'WHY DO YOU WANT ME TO KEEP MY VOICE DOWN?! YOU AFRAID PEOPLE WILL HEAR ME TALKING ABOUT GOING HOME AND FUCKING MYSELF WITH MY VIBRATOR INSTEAD OF LETTING YOU COME BACK AND FUCK ME?!' I just stood up, walked over to the waiter, paid for the drink I had while waiting, apologized to them for her outbursts, and said, 'Blind date...I'm not sticking around' and left.
"I did hear from our mutual friends that she later got married to some guy, stabbed him on their anniversary a few years later, and is now in jail for attempted murder. They were like, 'Yeah, we always knew she was kinda crazy.' Ya fucking think?!"
And finally...
18. "Not necessarily a date, but a person I was dating invited me to his parents' 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 jackass told his parents that he had proposed. We had only been dating for 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 with. 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 can read the full thread of responses on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.