Have you ever had an extremely, and I mean awful date? The kind of date that makes you want to hide in your room for the rest of the day because you’re embarrassed about the events that unfolded?
Personally, I can tell you my worst date was with my high school boyfriend, who decided to tell me on our Valentine’s Day date that he was breaking up with me.
With the brownies and cookies wrapped in heart-shaped boxes that I had made him in my hand, I sat outside my house crying away because I was too embarrassed to tell my parents what happened.
And yes, I cried and simultaneously ate the baked goodies. It’s called multitasking, all right?
Whether it was the adolescent moments or present-day dates, people can just be awful sometimes, or random unseen events can unfold that make the dating experience such an awkward affair.
Wanting to know your worst dates, The Rider reached out to several students and professors asking what theirs were.
Kinesiology junior Ariel Ayala had misadventures in the bathroom on her date.
“As soon as the movie started, I had to go to the restroom. I had a pickle, and I guess it was a bad pickle,” Ayala said. “I was in the restroom half the time, for at least a good 30, 40 minutes. I felt so embarrassed and I didn’t want to go back in. The guy even texted asking, ‘What’s wrong?’ and where I was at. I had to make up some excuse that I was getting something to eat.”
Computer science freshman David Damken was unluckier on his date than Ayala.
“I went to pick up this girl, and I left the car keys inside the car,” Damken said. “So, her dad actually helped me unlock the car, and it was raining the whole time. It was pretty bad.”
Similar to Damken, electrical engineering senior Christian Garcia found himself with keys in the ignition but no tires, and an angry father.
“It was me, and at the time, my ex-girlfriend, and I went to go pick her up, but this was when we first met each other,” Garcia said. “I went to go pick her up. We went to go eat. Everything was fine, and as I was driving home, both my back tires blew out. I was a freshman, sophomore, and I didn’t really know how to change tires at the time.
“So, her parents didn’t know we were on a date, and I live in Brownsville. I came to pick her up all the way in McAllen. It was either call my parents all the way from Brownsville, or call her parents. We ended up calling her dad, and he came. He got really mad at me, and instead of helping me out, he just picked her up and left. I had to figure out my own way.”
There’s nothing like an angry dad, and being stranded on the highway alone to push you into survival mode.
Management senior Dahlia Garcia claimed her worst date was with her ex-boyfriend, who seemed to always be mysteriously missing money.
“He would always ‘somehow’ forget his wallet, or always be ‘somehow’ broke,” Garcia said. “I would end up having to pay. So, now we’re over, and that’s it.”
Yikes, sorry Garcia, but on a positive note, it’s better than almost dying in front of your date due to your own mistake of forgetting a floatie.
Finance sophomore Daniel Navarro forgot an essential item on his date at Schlitterbahn that led to some seriously weird moments.
“I went to Schlitterbahn once with this girl. We went into that new indoor part of it,” Navarro said. “I went in without a tube. I ended up trying to resurface, but I kept hitting a woman’s butt, so she was blocking me. That was one awkward moment from that date, and then another time, I went in, I got stuck underneath a group of people in floaties and I almost choked myself to death.”
The lesson to be learned? Floatie first, folks.
Kinesiology freshman Kadar Rios’ worst date was a “Grease” moment gone bad.
“Back in high school, my junior year, we went to the WesMer Drive-in Theater in Mercedes, and it was dark,” Rios said. “S— got intimate. Next thing you know, we got caught by a family that was driving in. We got kicked out of the theater.”
Ah, young love.
What isn’t so romantically comical, though, is when you start to ramble on your date and all of a sudden you don’t even know what words are coming out of your mouth.
Computer science graduate student Andrew Chen knows exactly how that feels.
“I went to Santa Fe Steakhouse. It was Valentine’s Day, actually,” Chen said. “It was a while back, like four years back. I think, I may have called my date, I may have said something suggestive. I ended up calling her a little bit fat?
“I didn’t, it came off that way. I don’t know. It was, like, as a joke, but she ended up being mad at me for the rest of the date. It wasn’t until she saw the check that she lightened up a little bit. It was a very expensive date.”
Speaking of paying for the date, what is the rule there?
Is it 50/50? Do you split the check? Does he pay? Does she pay? In 2018, what’s the protocol for who is getting the check?
Biology sophomore Arnelle Canalez went into her date with the traditional mindset.
“First of all, I didn’t know if he was going to pay for my food or not, but I didn’t have money with me. But since we were going on a date, I was expecting that he was going to pay for my food,” Canalez said. “But, then he ended up not paying for my food, but I made him pay for my food, so that, too, he kept throwing in my face.
“I was like, ‘No. I want to go.’ I literally went to the restroom, not to use the restroom, but I was, like, ‘Who could I call to pick me up?’ I wanted to leave!”
In the ’70s, it was definitely convention for the male to pay for a date.
Theatre Associate Professor David Carren would agree with you on the rules of convention at the time.
“When I went out on a date with this young lady, I took her to, I was a member of the Writers Guild screenings where we went to see a movie for free,” Carren said. “So, I could afford the movie because it was the Writers Guild Theater and it was free. Then, we went to this restaurant afterwards, and I should’ve warned her I was broke. I literally had no money.
“I had nothing. She ordered a meal, and she said, ‘Aren’t you ordering?’ and I said, ‘No, I don’t have any money.’ ‘Well, how are you going to pay for mine?’ ‘Well, I don’t know, I don’t have any money.’ [Laughs] So, she stalked out of the place, and got in her car. I had to stand behind the car to keep her from driving away because my jacket was in the car. She threw the jacket out of the window at me, and then drove away without running me over.”
Talk about a nightmare.
Have you ever had one of those? A hellish date? Assistant Professor Marisa Palacios Knox has.
“My worst date was with a man who tried to get me to take LSD, because he said it would allow me to contact my dead mother. And that was my worst date,” said Knox, who teaches in the Literatures and Cultural Studies department. “I did not take the LSD.”
Lastly, there’s the forced date.
You know which one I’m talking about. The one you go on because you either want to “give it a chance,” or because your friend set it up.
In Associate Professor Marci McMahon’s case, her forced date was with her best friend’s boyfriend.
“All right, so one of my worst dates was going to prom with my best friend’s boyfriend, because she wanted him to go to prom but she couldn’t go for whatever reason. I don’t remember,” said McMahon, who also teaches in the Literatures and Cultural Studies department. “I think her mom got sick and she had to take care of her mother and go out of town. So, I was the designated ‘loyal friend’ that could go to prom with her boyfriend. This was at Holy Cross Catholic High School in San Antonio; he was a student at Holy Cross Catholic High School.
“So, we went to prom. It was really awkward. I barely knew him. We went to the Olive Garden. We had a really awkward conversation. He asked me what insect I thought he looked like, and I don’t remember what I answered but he said I looked like a cricket!”
Dates are a mess, guys, but glass half full, life wouldn’t be the same without those awkward, confusing, messy and painful times.
