50 (worst) dates

A good friend just texted me from a date. She said it wasn't going well and compared him to a guy I dated who was more in touch with his diva side than I was. At least she has good humor about it. It was a blind date her aunt set her up with while she was in town.

Another friend of mine has a creepy classmate in his 40s (almost double her age, if not) who asks her to study with him alone often. He leaves his match.com site up and looks to see if she notices it when they are in class in the computer lab. And last week, he asked her to go to a Rod Stewart concert with him an hour and a half away. When she expressed that she wasn't interested whatsoever, he emailed and said, "Sorry for your misinterpretation, but I wasn't asking you on a date." So now, he is not only a creeper, but he's a liar as well!

I think realistically it takes kissing a few frogs before we finally meet Prince Charming. Major, major props to the girl who knows what she wants and finds him on the first try! I told my friend that dates like these are kind of like job interviews: they are good experience for learning what you like and don't like and help you be more comfortable talking to people -- even if you don't get the job.

So why is it so much fun to commiserate/laugh/gossip about dates, good or bad? Is it an unwritten code between women, a sort of mutual necessary evil that bonds us? I have to admit it... I want to hear your stories! To be fair, I will share first. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I painfully crushed more than I painfully dated. Until JT, my dating relationships were limited to two months, at which point some unseen automatic switch was activated and I was suddenly aware that this guy was not for me to the point that my stomach acted up whenever he was around -- and it wasn't butterflies.

Just a little background before I take the plunge: I'm not sure if this qualifies as a date, but I'd had a huge crush on this guy for months, and it was the first time he asked me somewhere alone. He was a youth pastor at a church about 30 minutes away from our college, and he wanted to use my life-sized Chewbacca for a Wednesday night sermon illustration. (!!!!)

I got so nervous leading up to it that I was running to the bathroom every few minutes. This did not bode well, but I took some medicine and a nice nap and felt fine when I woke up. So he picked me up, loaded Chewbacca in the back of his car. And we never made it to the church. Just one exit away from the school, I practically begged him to pull over at a gas station and a friend came to pick me up. If I were the type of girl to get embarrassed, admitting bodily (mal)functions to a hardcore crush would definitely do it!

So how did my first date with my husband go? Well, for one, we broke all of the "rules." You know which rules I am talking about. We did not "talk," "date,"and then "go out/steady/in a relationship on Facebook." We went on our first date after we'd already decided to become exclusive. He came to my parents' house after running into each other at a concert and we decided we wanted to be together. Then he went out of town. And THEN we went on our first date: coffee, a movie, a bookstore. And GASP! We held hands -- and HORRORS! -- kissed on the first date. We "took it fast," according to some, and we're still as crazy for each other as ever! We followed the Lord's lead, and did what felt comfortable to us regardless of what people said.

Dating horrors, dating successes, awkward encounters with an old flame or a new crush? It's your turn to spill!