Top Seven Worst Dates

"Whenever I date a guy, I think, is this the man that I want my children to spend their weekends with?" - Rita Rudner

Recently a friend suggested she set me up on a blind date.  The sentiment doesn't really scare me as it does most people.  Not because I'm brave.  Not because I'm especially open minded or a risk taker.  And certainly not because the prospect actually sounds fun.  No, blind dates don't scare me because I've already had so many laughable, cringe-worthy, 'did that really happen?!' dates in my life that nothing seems to phase me anymore.  In fact, if a date is going to be bad, it better be extremely bad so that I can at lest get a good anecdote out of it to amuse my friends.  So in honor of being back out on the market (I love this expression... makes me feel like a prize-winning pig), I thought I would air out my dirty dating laundry and share the top seven (I like an odd number) worst romantic rendezvous I've had the exquisitely painful pleasure to partake in.

1. During a dinner date with a basketball player I met at a nightclub in Sacramento (this should have been a warning sign, no?) the guy... and I kid you not... actually fell asleep at the table as I was talking.  I mean, he literally dropped his head beside his brick oven personal pizza and slipped into REM.  This same guy then attempted to call me every other night for the next two weeks wondering why I wouldn't go out with him again.  Must have hit his head quite hard on that table.
2. Here's the next scenario broken down into scenes, which is appropriate seeing as though it was a movie date.  Act I: Guy takes his retainer out at the dinner table and sets it in the middle of said table on a napkin.  My eyes remain fixated on the trail of saliva running from his mouth to the retainer as he tries to engage me in conversation.  Act II: In the middle of the movie guy realizes he left retainer on table and runs out, leaving me by myself at a particularly gruesome horror film.  Act III: Guy comes back upset, sweaty and smelling of garbage after having searched for retainer in the restaurant dumpster without luck.  He mumbles about the $500 he'll need to scrounge up to get a new one during the rest of the movie.  Needless to say, there was no Act IV.
3. My first date in LA was with a photographer I met on the plane ride over there.  He was quite a bit older but looked like Sting so I thought I'd take my chances.  Unfortunately, the entire date consisted of him ranting about his ex.  What sparked this diatribe?  I had asked him how he got the bloody cut across his face.  Turns out she went to town on his cheek with her car key.  I spent the rest of the night looking over my shoulder waiting for her to seize me by the hair and smash my face into my vegan meatloaf.
4. One guy actually had the nerve to call me an hour before our date and ask if his buddy who lived near me could pick me up and take me to my date's house.  This way, he wouldn't have to drive across town to get me himself.  His buddy who I'd never met.  His buddy who drove a pick-up.  I told him "sure", hung up and then called him back five minutes later complaining of a terrible stomach flu.  A stomach flue that lasted the three weeks it took for him to stop calling.
5. I made the mistake of inviting a new guy to my office Christmas party.  He showed up wasted (to calm him nerves, he said) and then proceeded to brag to my boss during a smoke break on the restaurant balcony the very intimate details of our first date.  Thankfully, my boss was a woman with a bad date list of her own.
6. A guy bit me.  I believe he thought it would be sexy.  Perhaps on some occasions.  But in the middle of a Mexican restaurant over a plate of enchiladas?  Not so much.
7. I was taken on a date to a very chichi restaurant.  The guy I was with insisted that we order the sweetbreads, promising me it was a vegetarian dish.  I ate them, of course, trying to look the part of 'classy lady'.  He said, and I quote, "those are just mushrooms inside."  Later I learned the guy had forced me to eat cow thymus and pancreas.  I still haven't forgiven that one.

So there you have it.  The worst of it.  Funny how the running theme seems to be dinner dates.  Perhaps I need to cut eating out of the dating equation entirely.  Nah.  Without the bad, how can you know what's good?  And without the horrendous dates I'm infamous for, who would my friends turn to to make their own horror dating stories seem timid by comparison?  So I guess it's fingers crossed for a terrible blind date in my near future...