You probably swapped as many pretty awful first date horror stories with your friends as potential mates you’ve swiped left on Tinder. When it comes to horrible first dates, they’re no different than taxes or puberty: everyone hates them, but everyone’s gotta get through them. Thankfully, the very worst first dates often become hilarious stories in hindsight, though some remain, complete terrors, even years after the fact. Plus, many horrible first dates provide you excellent excuses to end a creepy-ass date before it goes too far. The people of Reddit shared their worst first dates and they definitely do not disappoint. You might have thought you had a date from Hell, but did you ever date somebody who claimed to know the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Didn’t think so.

“Eh?”
“He asks me out to dinner, but instead of a restaurant he pulls into an empty parking lot and pulls out his half flaccid dick. He looks at me with a shrug and goes ‘Eh!?’ I look him in the eye all stern like for a good minute before he zips up his pants and he drives me back home in complete silence. Only when we pull into my driveway he said ‘Your eyes are too big for your face…’ I just get out and start walking to my door, but he gets out too, I figure to apologize. But no, he tries to kiss me goodnight.”
“You Like Being Daddy’s Little Sl*t”

“So I matched with this dude who seemed nice, and we agree to meet up at a coffee shop. Talking is awkward, but from the get-go, he was giving me some neck-beardy vibes. Example: I complimented his American traditional style tattoo and his response was: ‘Huh I didn’t think girls would know anything about tattoos.’ Note that this was after me talking about the tattoos I have. He also tried to forcefully order for me, which I brushed off like ‘Lol no,’ figuring it was all whatever, he’s just nervous and trying to show off or some sh*t.

Everything was still going okay until he walked me to my car. We hugged, and he leaned in for a kiss. I think ‘Whatever, I don’t care, that’s fine.’ We were making out a little and I felt his hand moving up to my face, and I thought ‘Oh, okay, he’s just going to put his hand on the back of my neck or my chin or in my hair or whatever.

NOPE. I WAS WRONG. SO WRONG. This mother*cker decided it was a swell idea to start choking me. At this point, it would be pertinent to mention I’m a 5’8″ female of average size, and he was a 6’2″ stocky dude. I froze, because that’s my response to threatening situations, and he leaned over and whispered in my ear ‘Yeah, you like that? You like being daddy’s little sl*t.’ I was just sitting there waiting for him to let go of my neck because I am pinned against the car. I finally managed to stammer out a ‘Wuh-what’ and he proceeded to tighten his grip and repeat the question, to which my survival instincts are screaming “SAY WHAT YOU NEED TO” so I just managed to choke out ‘Yes sir’ and he let me go. I proceeded to get the f*ck out of there and chewed him out after the fact.”

Their Date “Knew” The Four Horseman Of The Apocalypse

“This was by far the most terrifying/hilarious date I had ever been on. Years ago, I was a junior in high school and he was in college. We had been texting casually for a few weeks. One weekend, he met my friend and me at a local concert. When it was over, the friend I got a ride from had to leave urgently, so this guy offered to drive me home. No big deal, I thought, I needed a ride. We went to dinner and it was very nice. Nothing weird nothing suspicious.

Then came the ride home. My house was about 45 minutes away through isolated freeways in the desert. (Accepting a ride was not my proudest moment, I admit) He talked the entire ride and it went from normal small talk to him saying that he has superpowers. He said that when he was in high school he went to an alternate dimension and couldn’t find his way back. The only way for him to find his way was to sell his soul to a merchant he found in this other dimension. When he got back to this dimension he had superpowers and could control people’s emotions. He then creepily leaned over and said ‘I can make you feel anything right now…’

He also said he knew the four horsemen of the apocalypse and that he was going to help me during the end of the world. At this point, I was convinced I was going to end up in a garbage bag on the side of the road. But I got home safe. Never talked to him again until he was my server at a restaurant years later and was extremely awkward.”

His Dead Cold Eyes

“A coworker who asked me out for a drink after work. He wasn’t really my usual type but always seemed sweet so I figured I’d give it a shot. We hit a bar, and all seems well until he apparently has one too many. He starts telling me stories about his past and how he was basically a knee-breaker/hitman for some crime organization out of Mexico. He gives me tons of details about methods and the going rates for XYZ. The stories get progressively worse and more graphic, but still, I’m not really believing any of this. I think he’s trying to (very weirdly) impress me.

He’s quiet for a minute, stares off into space, and then leans over to me and his eyes just go dead cold. He tells me that if someone paid him $5,000, he would cut off one of my hands. But since we’re friends, he would do it quick and clean at the wrist and put the hand on ice so I could possibly save it.

I start believing him then. I tell him I’m feeling sick and have to go home. I stayed ‘friendly’ with him at work until he eventually got fired for stealing from the bar – I was very concerned about the ramifications of no longer being on his good side.

I still don’t know if I believe his stories about being a hired killer, but I do believe that he fantasized about it deeply enough to scare the sh*t out of me. I’ve never been happier to see someone disappear.”

MJ In The House

“It was with a guy I worked with. He picked me up from my desk dressed up like Michael Jackson, including tape around his fingers and a surgical mask on his face. He was a plump, 5’6″ white guy with blond hair, making it somehow even weirder that he was trying to look like Michael Jackson.”

He Wanted Violence

“This one guy complained about how he resented that nobody would let him talk to them about the dark side of life, including violence. I mentioned that I have a hard time watching violence against animals on TV. (I meant reality TV shows that show stories of animals who have been abused.) His face perked up, and he asked which TV show had violence against animals. There was an eagerness in how he asked which creeped me the f*ck out. I left quickly.”

Seriously, Dude?

“I went to the cinema and I felt very uncomfortable with my date, so said I wanted to leave. He then proceeds to say, ‘Let me guess, nerves, overprotective parent, wanting to leave, have you been raped before?’ The date ended right there.”

Illuminati

“I have one that’s more ‘weird’ than it was terrible. It’s a doozy. When I was 19, I was working at a shop in a less-traveled part of downtown. It was wintertime, and my hometown is dead in the winter, so there was very little foot traffic. I was working alone on a Saturday night.

A cute backpacker guy came into the shop. At the time, I considered myself to have hippie leanings, so he was just my type (yeah, I had one long skirt and wore jewelry I bought from street vendors. That’s as far as that went. Totally pretentious and naive).

We got to chatting, and he said he’d just gotten into town and was looking for suggestions on ‘fun things to do.’ I directed him to the nearest nightclubs on the next block, and he left while I went about my business. He came back sometime later to tell me that the clubs weren’t really his scene, and invited me to hang out with him at his grandparents’ place, which was on lakefront property. I agreed to it, like an idiot, all excited and flattered that this hot scruffy guy had asked me ‘out,’ thinking it was romantic or some sh*t.

Well, I went there after I closed the shop down at 10 PM. I got to the address he had given me, and it looked like a nice enough place but there were no grandparents to be seen. I wondered briefly if he had just broken in to some random property, but he seemed familiar with a few key things. I stayed, and he made me Kraft Dinner, which was pretty cool.

Then, we sat inside and he began talking about all the occult/Illuminati symbols on the American dollar bill, that everything in the U.S. is a giant conspiracy run by them, etc., etc. At this point, I was feeling uncomfortable. He told me about some experience he had in Tofino (a small, hippie-ish town on Vancouver Island) where he was on the beach and apparently saw hippies come out of the forest, draw a big circle in the sand, and then dance and chant around it in the moon/candlelight (honestly, this one could have been true). He told me about some spooky supernatural experiences he had in Stanley Park in Vancouver that also cemented his belief in ghosts. Then – the kicker – he told me he could see auras. So far, all of this could be just some hippie/free-spirit guy talking about his beliefs, yes? But he said that he believed that he was descended from the wizard Merlin since Merlin had a grey aura and so did he. He believed he was a wizard and had some kind of powers and that’s why all these weird things kept happening to him.

I had to go.

I told him I had to work early. Then, I get outside and it was the first snowstorm of the year – hooray! I could barely get my car up the driveway but finally did (no way was I going back inside or considering staying the night). At the time, I thought he was weird but was more worried about driving in the snow or waking up my parents after being out so late. He texted me once or twice after that, but I kept telling him I was busy.

I should have known better. Way better. That was so, so dangerous. Nobody knew where I was, so I was extremely lucky that he was harmless. When I tell the story to friends, they laugh about my date with a wizard, but I shudder to think of how dumb I was – it’s more about that than about some kooky dude.”

Lick It Right Up

“When I was a senior in high school, I went out with this guy after school. We grabbed some smoothies, smoked a blunt, and were planning on doing the boop, until he picked a zit when he thought I wasn’t looking, and while his face bled he LICKED HIS FINGER. I thought I was going to puke”

Straight-Up Stabbed

“Got straight-up stabbed.’ Friends set me up on a blind date and swore I’d ‘totally love her.’ She was weird at the beginning of the date and just kept getting weirder – clingy and possessive, even though we’d just met, etc.

I excused myself to hit the restroom (the joys of beer) and she hauled to the back and stabbed me in the arm with her knife, claiming I was ‘totally running off on her to make out with the cute waitress.’

I got three stitches, she got an extensive psych hold.

There was no second date.”

Oh, Mario

“On a first date: ‘My great-grandfather’s name is Mario, my grandfather’s name is Mario, my dad’s Mario, I’m Mario, and if you don’t mind, I’ll be naming our child Mario.'”

Fingers Off

“He picked me up at my house and had flowers and a bottle of wine, which for me was way too formal and awkward (I was 18 and he was 27). Then we went to the movies and he would not stop trying to finger me. I finally got so fed up about that I had him drive me home mid-movie .”

Private Time But Not In Private

“The guy kept touching himself. He also ran across the street and didn’t wait for me.”

Just A Little Casual Racism

“‘You’re definitely Chinese. How are you not Chinese?!’

I’m 100% Irish and no matter how many times I stressed this, he would not give up.”

A Parting Gift

“Picked up girl.

Drove to dinner, nice place.

Asks if it’s cool if she smokes.

She pulls out a blunt.

I get pissed off.

She blows smoke in my face.

I kick her out.

She stuck a bloody tampon to my car.”

Meet The Parents

“Dude I matched with online. I was really bored and I like to drive.

He lived about 45 minutes away, but it was up in Big Bear which is really pretty, and did I mention I was bored? He said his truck was broken so I said what the hell, I’ll drive up.

I finally found the place and he meets me outside. He doesn’t have a plan, just says we can go out to the marina by the lake and look at the stars. Ok, I’m hungry, but whatever. Well, the part of the marina we went to was not pretty. It was the backside, the creepy side with construction going on and no one around. I was freaking out a bit but had my knife on me and thought to myself not everyone is bad.

We looked at the stars, talk a bit, and then went back to his place. We walked in the door and his freaking parents were standing at the back door in their underwear looking at raccoons on the back patio. He even introduced me to them and I shook his dad’s hand while he was in nothing but his boxers!

I am too polite of a person and can’t believe it, but I actually went up to the dude’s room. Then he fell asleep on me and I snuck out.

The next day he wouldn’t stop calling me and sending me dick picks at work.”

A Point And A Wink

“I went on a date with a guy I had met online. He wanted to meet for drinks, so I went to the pub and waited. He showed up 20 minutes late on his bicycle, proceeded to come into the bar and down two pints after giving me a point and a wink. I overheard him tell the waitress to “put it on his tab” and then he came over to the table with another beer.

He proceeded to tell me about his two boys (no mention of them in our previous conversation) and how his mom wanted to take them all to Disney World. He told her that would be too expensive, so he left his boys at home and he and his mom went to Disney World instead. Then he proceeded to tell me that he rode his bike everywhere because after his sixth DUI, “those dumb cops” took his license away. He mocked me for drinking water, then in his next breath told me that he could really see falling in love with me. In 20 minutes, I got about ten words out, and most of them were me telling him I had to go.

I later found out that he worked for a friend’s father, and that he was married.”

Mystery Dating

“Got a call from a friend of a friend who I thought I’d met once before asking if I wanted to go out tomorrow (Saturday) night. Sure. I went out to her place about 40 mins away. I realized upon arrival that I didn’t actually know her name. We had dinner, talked, made out a bit, talked about going out again, made out some more, called it a night at around 1 am. I tried several ways to get her to reveal her name, to no avail. I dropped her off at her place, drove home, went to bed.

I realized the following morning that she had never spoken my name either, not on the phone or in person. I further realized that I didn’t have her phone number and called the mutual friend to ask for her number. A mutual friend had no idea who I was talking about. I gave him the address of the girl. He said he didn’t know anyone from that town and the address wasn’t familiar.

Never heard from her again.”

The Cats Out Of The Bag

“Date was dinner and a movie with a girl. We got the movie time wrong so went to dinner first. After ordering she starts looking at her phone a lot and has this weird look on her face. I ask what’s wrong she says her cat has gone missing. She goes outside to make a phone call and comes back 5 minutes later saying we have to go.

I get our food boxed and pay the bill. I drive her back to her dorm and she runs inside with no goodbye. I shrug it off and go eat my boxed cold dinner. Later that night I check Facebook and see her on a date with another guy. I send her a message asking how her cat is.”

Takeout To Take Her Out

“The girl asked if I could buy her something for takeout, mainly because her boyfriend only lets her see other people if he can get a meal out of it when she gets back home.”