Sex and the Single Fat Girl: Disastrous Dates
Columnist Peony Benoir clues us in: It's not us. It's them.
Awkward date courtesy of der jones
The reasons why we date are personal. Some of us are looking to settle down and start families. Some want to have fun and aren’t ready for that yet. Some just ditched a long-term relationship and want to live it up for a while without labels or strings attached. There’s nothing wrong with any of this; we should be dating for our needs and desires, not to check off boxes on an imaginary list of things everyone expects of us. I’ve dated for fun, for companionship, to learn about myself and other people, and in search of someone to settle down with. I’ve dated to prove to myself that men want me, that I’m not desperate, and that I have good choices. In every single one of those instances, I’ve had great dates and awful dates, and I’ve found that the good experiences soften the blow of the bad ones, and the bad ones motivate me to chase after something better (or they simply make epic “we can laugh about it now” tales later on).
We’ve all been on a bad date or ten. Or fifty. They’re often the first (and only) date we’ll ever have with someone, but sometimes they happen months into a relationship when something goes horribly wrong, leaving you questioning why you’re together. No matter when they strike, bad dates can be really discouraging – even the comically disastrous ones that make great war stories. Bad dates seem to be an unfortunate necessity, like any other pothole on the road to an otherwise exciting adventure. Even knowing this, bad dates often make me question why I’m dating in the first place and what on earth is wrong with me that kept me from seeing such an awful evening coming.
The thing that makes a bad date so especially disheartening is that there’s so much hope going into it — particularly on the first few dates with someone. Even if you try to keep yourself in check, remaining cool and collected like the sophisticated woman of the world that you are, you can’t help having some anticipatory daydreams. Lurid fantasies are sometimes rudely interrupted when he announces that he’s decided to reclaim his virginity. Just as visions of dream houses and beautiful children begin forming, he shares that he can’t bear to settle in one place for more than a year or two. Or maybe he’s just plain . . . off. I once went on a date with a charming grad student who told me he’d taken himself off of his psych meds and had decided to start his doctoral work in biochemical weapons research. There was not a second date.
Our attitudes toward ourselves as big girls can make a bad date sting that much more, too. Sometimes we worry a guy won’t like us because of our size, or if he does adore us, we turn around and question why he does. I’m certain that we make our size into a bigger deal in our heads than it is to most men, but getting passed over in the meat market of dating is a very real thing. On the other side of that coin, I’ve had guys who were a good match in terms of intelligence and interests, but turned out to be more into their big butt fetish than anything (or anyone) else. We all want to have our bodies appreciated, but none of us like being objectified because of our size or shape. It’s not easy for anyone when a new relationship fails because of body-related reasons. But in my experience, I’ve been wanted for my body more than I’ve been rejected for it, which seems to be true for my friends of all shapes and sizes, so keep any size-related self-doubt in perspective when pondering why a date took a wrong turn.
We all hate to have our hopes dashed or see our rosy pictures of a person turn out all wrong. I think that rude awakening is harder to deal with than the actual date itself. Dating is a little bit risky and scary; we have to rely on our intuition and people-reading skills to try and sort out whether or not our date meets our personal criteria, sparks any chemistry, or raises red flags. When everything looks good to go but turns out to be a wreck, a girl can’t help but question her judgment. Don’t linger in that place for long; your intuition isn’t broken and you aren’t a bad judge of character. There’s simply no way to know everything about someone in a few weeks or even months, and rough patches on the road to dating adventure are completely normal. If you do find yourself in the same bad relationship pattern over and over again, you may need to reassess your deal-makers and deal-breakers, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. These things will change over time and be refined with every relationship, and all we can do is learn from what happened and use it to our advantage going forward.
If you can learn to live with your dating mistakes and disasters, I think you’ll find that the ups and downs of dating will level off. Doing things for ourselves gives us confidence–in ourselves, in our desirability and worth, and in the decisions we make. Not dating because of a bad experience? It might be time to think about what you want out of a relationship right now and give it another go. Cast your net wide: there are wonderful men out there who will treat you well and adore you, even if you have to trip over a few trolls on your way to finding them.
Got a great bad date story you can laugh about now? Or a real heartbreaker you ultimately learned from? Share your bad date stories or your tips for getting over an evening gone horribly wrong in the comments.
Thankfully, I’ve never had a truly disastrous date, but two of my favorite bad ones come to mind. First there was a guy a few years ago who took the bus to meet me at a local Olive Garden for a late lunch. Prior to meeting in person, we had a few great phone conversations and really seemed to hit it off. That was not the case in person. He chewed with his mouth open, was rude to the waitress, and at the end of the meal, told me he was off to do some shopping at the adjacent mall… and left me sitting at the table. No love lost there, but it was pretty shocking to see someone with such poor manners! The kicker? The same guy has contacted me at least three times since (via different online dating sites) and I’ve had to remind him each time that we had, in fact, met before. Nice!
The next is probably my favorite. I met this guy on eHarmony. We also got along really well and I was very excited to meet him, especially after he had flowers sent to me at work. Well, the meeting was a let-down. there was no eye contact, as he spoke directly to my chest the entire night, had thick white spittle collecting in the corners of his mouth, and spat chewed food into his napkin while we were eating – only to immediately put said chewed food back in his mouth without missing a beat. Needless to say there was not a second date.
I had a blind-internet-date who I met at a restaurant. He said he was 5’9″ (I’m 5’10″) a college professor (he wore basketball clothes), and when I met him in the parking lot, he tried to pull off my shirt. And there were kids playing in the park opposite. I said I left my cigarettes in the car and I split. He had the gall to send me an e-mail asking me “what happened?” DUH!!
I quit dating for a while after that in fear that my body would end up in an unmarked grave out in the Mojave (I was living in LA at the time). Then I met my husband. On a blind-internet date. LMAO
http://allthatsparkles.typepad.com
Those are some baaaaad dates! Lack of hygiene and common sense always boggle the mind. Almost as much as the guys’ confusion over not getting more dates!
Y’all made me think of my favorite bad date of all time — the cop who hated everyone. Not only had he gained so much weight that he was unrecognizable from his pictures, but he used interrogation techniques on me over dinner. He insisted that I’m a secretary (I’m not). He explained that Hispanics have “hot blood, so they can’t help but kill people. I keep a gun in every room of the house since some moved in next door. You’re cool with that, right?” Blacks, Asians, gays, and over-educated women were next. He tried to kiss me, and I literally ran about ten feet away in the parking lot. He called me at 7:00 AM the next day to ask whose house we were having sex at first. I stopped answering his calls after that.
I’ve met all the best (and worst) guys online. And every single time my mom says something about them being perverts and stalkers because it’s the internet. Then I point out that she’s on the internet…
The Four Dates of the Apocalypse, my not-so-affectionate term for a series of four men with whom I had a string of bad dates. The first one passed out at my house from drink, and ended up ‘relieving’ himself in a very unpleasant manner while sleeping on my feather bed (yeah, that feather bed went into the trash the next day). The next guy was driving us to a restaurant for dinner when a truck clipped the side of his car and he ended up ‘relieving’ himself in his pants in the process, then fleeing the scene because he was afraid of getting arrested. The third bloke told me off for asking him to take his dirty dishes into the kitchen (after they’d been sitting on my table for an hour or so), complaining I was behaving just like his mom.
The last Date of the Apocalypse is my favourite war story. An old boyfriend contacted me after about 15 years and, after a year of phone conversations, I flew out to visit him. The first date we talked about all sorts of things, during which I told him I’m strictly monogamous and didn’t go in for threesomes. The second date started out fine: I hung out with him and his friends, and afterwards he, his neighbor, and I went out for drinks. Then his ‘best friend’, whom he’d been wanting me to meet, showed up. This best friend was a girl, and she spent most of the evening ignoring me. The four of us then went back to my date’s flat, where I sat talking with his friend while my date rubbed my back. When I turned around to tell him how nice that felt, all I saw was a pair of naked breasts. His ‘best friend’ was topless, straddling his lap, and rubbing herself on him. He looked at me, grinned mischievously while still rubbing my back, and then resumed staring at her breasts. Stunned, I turned back around and asked the neighbor if he’d mind me crashing at his place because there was no way I was going to stay at my date’s place after that spectacle. So, I stayed elsewhere, and the next day my date was angry with me. I told him off, and left. And then… one year later I received an email from my date, saying how hurt he was by my behaviour!
Let’s just say I was not terribly keen on dating after the Four Dates of the Apocalypse.
Wow girls, there are definitely some real charmers out there eh? haha
My worst date would have to be an afternoon coffee date with someone I had chatted with online. We got there and he began charming me by telling me that he was probably going back to jail because he planned on beating up his boss for not giving him his paycheck. The fun continued when he defended all of hitlers “good work and excellent choices”, he discussed a past girlfriend who hid her std from him but he said he would still take the train to sleep with her if she invited him and there were other crude examples like that but I might get in trouble for saying them haha. After he screamed at the coffee server for not making his order correctly I made up an excuse to leave and of course he wanted to walk me home. When we got to my street he tried to hug me and said I was “ridiculously tall”(im 5’8) and to top off the glorious afternoon he clearly had not showered before coming to meet me, and I could tell because he smelled just like pig barn he worked at.
Yep, I definitely had to hold back a little laughter when he asked why I wouldn’t go out with him again