Cougars, critics and The Ticking Clock: my 10 worst dates of all time

On principle, I was planning on refraining from a Valentine’s Day-themed post: there are enough people flogging the rose-covered dead horse without me clutching at its mane. Unfortunately, my resolve wilted like a cheap petrol station rose, leaving you with the cynically twisted rant you see before you.

Actually, it was more a case of succumbing to peer pressure than an issue of resolve. Chrystalyn, of The Future of Hope fame, challenged me to come up with a list of the most atrocious dates I’ve ever endured. It was harder than I thought. Some horror stories spring freely to mind, while others have been deeply repressed and will require gentle coaxing from a psychiatrist to pry loose.

I’m under no illusion that I’m by any means easy to tolerate, and I don’t purport to be the prized pig of the dating fair, but I really have dated some unique challenging crazy-as-fuck women in my time.

Author’s note: to my friends who read The Dissemination of Thought, you will notice one glaring omission from Lyndon’s Dating Hall of Fame. This is because the mighty omitted one may truly be a psychopath, not adverse to lighting fires. Big fires. Besides, she’s already well aware she’ll hold the coveted number one spot on the crazy ladder in perpetuity.

Are you comfy? Good. Grab another drink, open the chocolates you bought yourself and help me celebrate Valentine’s Day by counting down my top 10 horror dates.

You're going to need more than one glass to get through this post. Don't say I didn't warn you. Source: thewinectr.com

#10 – The Introducer

I don’t know what to say about this woman, other than to tell you that she invited me to a barbeque the day after our first date, an event at which she introduced me to everyone present – including her parents – as her boyfriend. She couldn’t seem to grasp why I kept correcting her, nor fathom why I lost her number.

#9 – The iPhone Freak

This charmer, circa 2010, truly was a puppet of the Apple juggernaut: she spent our entire date – all 50 minutes of it, give or take – texting and playing on Facebook. I could have slaughtered a goat or begun masturbating at the table and she wouldn’t have noticed.

On the two or three occasions she didn’t have her eyes glued to the phone, she was giving me 101 reasons why my BlackBerry was an inferior product to the apparent cure for cancer she held in her hand.

#8 – The Nympho

This is the woman who, after spending less than two hours face-to-face with me, attempted to mount me on the roof viewing area of a CityFerry. At about 2:30pm. On a weekday. When I advised her that I wasn’t overly interested in giving passing vessels and people on the riverbank a matinee performance, she informed me in a petulant tone that she didn’t need my help “to get off”. At this point, she sat in silence until we arrived at the next ferry terminal.

The CityFerry: The Nympho's preferred method of transport.

I wish this date was a figment of my imagination, but, sadly, it’s not; I couldn’t make this shit up if I had a bag of magic mushrooms and a bottle of absinthe.

#7 – “Is She Prettier Than Me?” Barbie

Our date lasted for about an hour. For sixty painful minutes, she asked me whether I thought every woman she saw was prettier than her. Just as I began consoling myself that it couldn’t get any worse, she locked eyes on a brunette in a particularly short skirt at the bar and unleashed her pièce de résistance: “If I wasn’t here, would you go and hit on her?”

If the doll lost the microphone and notebook, she could be “Is She Prettier Than Me?” Barbie's stunt double. Source: barbie-wallpapers.blogspot.com.au

#6 – The Restaurant Critic

Never, ever go on a first date to a restaurant that the guy or girl you’re taking out saw reviewed in a newspaper: it turns them into a gastronomic expert and critic of epic proportions.

When you're at the point of trying to brain yourself with one of these, your date has pretty well gone to shit. Source: mykikicake.com

During our date at a quaint Brisbane eatery, The Restaurant Critic criticised everything from the chairs to the temperature the water was served at. When she wasn’t castigating the lack of options on the menu, she was spewing forth mumbled comments about the quality of the service staff. Her entrée was sent back because the prawns, in her opinion, weren’t “of suitable quality”. She demanded that the waitress return her main meal to the kitchen, but I honestly can’t tell you why; by that stage, I’d stopped listening and was trying to work out how to beat myself to death with a buttered bread roll.

I’m pretty sure I ate spit that night. Or worse.

After The Restaurant Critic's ranting, I'm not confident that's all chocolate ice cream. Source: sodahead.com

#5 – The Drunk

It’s never a good start to a mid-afternoon date when the woman you are meeting – let’s call her Stephanie – is already blind drunk when you arrive at the pub. Quickly adjudging the date as a write-off and any future encounters as pipe dreams, I adopted an “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach. This was to be the afternoon of the plentiful vodka and the hurling date.

It's official: Being near me makes women drink. A lot. Source: secludedhabit.com

I was drinking fast – really fast – in an attempt to make Stephanie more bearable, but her hands were like blurs: she left me for dust in the shadows of her white wine and tequila bottles.

Author’s note: if your date has a predilection for 3:00pm tequila and you aren’t in Mexico, back slowly away, being careful not to make any sudden movements.

At one stage, after heading back to the bar for the 46th time, Stephanie simply disappeared. After 10 or 15 minutes, I was beginning to think she’d left, but then noticed that her handbag was still on one of the stools under the table. She eventually returned, looking like she’d survived the Apocalypse, and proceeded to tell me in graphic detail about how poorly the bathroom had fared in its encounter with her projectile vomiting. With that information shared, she picked up her handbag, muttered what I assume was an incoherent farewell and wandered off.

#4 – The Threesome

This adventure wasn’t as exciting or salacious as it sounds: my date, Andrea, brought a friend with her, but everyone was clothed and in full public view at all times.

Dating threesomes: not as fun as they sound. Source: health-fitness.com.au

When Andrea confessed that she had been too shy to meet me for drinks on her own, I really didn’t care: lots of women bring a human comfort blanket on a date, don’t they? After we’d finished a few bottles of wine and I realised that the blonde, bespectacled offsider was planning on joining us for dinner, the nuisance factor went up tenfold, but I didn’t say anything. After all, the conversation was great, and I was slowly getting used to the awkward way in which they kept looking at each other after I’d finished speaking, as if comparing telepathic notes about my suitability as a boyfriend.

Skip forward to the restaurant, and the arrival of the bill. It was at this point I became cognisant of the fact that Andrea was expecting me to pay for her and Free Meal Sally. I had no issue with footing the bill for Andrea, my date, but there was no fucking way I was paying for the hors d’oeuvre-scoffing parasite attached to her left hip. After I’d suggested to them that they needed to formulate a Plan B, they suggested that I was a bigger asshole than Hitler, walked to the counter to pay for their meals, and then disappeared into the night.

#3 – The Old Photo Girl

After chatting online for a few weeks and exchanging numerous photographs, The Old Photo Girl and I decided to meet for a drink. When she arrived, I didn’t recognise her, because all of the photos she’d sent me had apparently been taken prior to her finding an extra 40 or 50 kilograms and developing a fondness for appalling DIY hair colouring. Once lumbering greetings had been exchanged, the conversation went like this:

Me: “You don’t look anything like your photos.”
The Old Photo Girl (TOPG): “Yeah, I know, they were about 3 years old. I’ve changed a lot since then.”
Me: “No shit.”
TOPG: “You don’t want to have a drink now, do you?”
Me: “Not really. I prefer people who are honest. And besides, your hair—“
TOPG: “Fuck you then! If you can’t accept the real me, go to hell!”

The Old Photo Girl's hair was scarier. Source: thepwnzone.wordpress.com

That’s where the date ended. She stormed out. On a positive note, I got a free beer and a few laughs out of the bar manager, who had witnessed the debacle in its 4 minute entirety.

#2 – The Super Cougar

This predator used her own kittens as bait. Literally. The Super Cougar was a horny, 40-something-year-old woman who displayed pictures of one of her 20-something-year-old daughters on the online dating profile that said she was 26. I’ll give you a minute to absorb how fucked up that is.

When she approached me in the coffee shop, I had no idea who she was. She quickly confessed to the “misleading”* photos and age, and justified it by saying that she loved younger guys “like the ones her daughters date”, but that these guys were put off by her age. As I finished my latte, I suggested that they were more likely disinterested because she was a concupiscent, lying sociopath who would more likely than not eat them after copulating. She didn’t find this explanation plausible or funny, and left.

* Author’s note: this is The Super Cougar’s word, not mine.

#1 – The Ticking Clock

No, it’s not the name of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. The Ticking Clock is the moniker I’ve bestowed upon the damsel who grabs the number one spot with both psychotic hands. Her real name was Melanie, but that doesn’t sound anywhere near as ominous and disturbing as her allocated pseudonym.

Upon arriving at the designated meeting place, I found The Ticking Clock two-thirds of the way through a bottle of red, which, given that I was 15 minutes early, wasn’t a good sign. When I sat down with my drink, we began talking and laughing, but she clearly had something on her mind. She asked me what my short-term plans were. I told her and, disappointed with the predictability of her questioning, fired the same query back at her. Her short-term plan was simple: she wanted to fall pregnant within the next three months, in order to have a baby before her 40th birthday. Girls, if you ever want to render a guy speechless twenty minutes into a first date, tell him you want to be pregnant inside 90 days.

I couldn’t fathom her candour, or the matter-of-fact way in which she probed for what could only be described as family history details. She admitted that most of the guys she dated freaked out when she laid her plan on the beer-soaked table (wow, really?) and asked what I thought. I told her, skolled the last three mouthfuls of beer, wished her the best of luck and got the fuck out of Crazy Town.

I couldn't find a trophy for The Ticking Clock, so this will have to suffice. Source: bubblesale.blogspot.com.au

So there you have it. My 10 worst dates of all time. How do yours compare? Cakes McCain, you should be able to beat at least a few of these.

To those The Dissemination of Thought readers who missed out on getting shot in the ass by the little guy with the nappy, please accept the flowers below as my Valentine’s Day cliché to you all.

My Valentine's Day gift to you. Can't you just feel the love? Source: giftoninternet.com