h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In reference to lanza's post elsewhere about the many, many disastrous dates she's had: do you think it is better to have many, many disastrous dates than to have no dates at all?



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Have you ever been on a blind date? How was it? How did it come about? Was it good? A disaster?
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Have you ever been stood up? Have you ever stood someone else up?
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How long is the right time to wait for a 'date' to turn up before going home with your tail between your legs, metaphorically speaking? They might just be fashionably late, after all.
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Do online dating services make things easier? Or do they just add to the general complexity and anxiety of the whole thing?
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Is there something to be said for arranged marriages?

If I go through the above questions I find I can't reply to a single one due to lack of experience or not understanding the question (what is 'to be stood up'?). But that's not necessarily a bad thing - or is it?

Being 'stood up' means that your date doesn't arrive, and you are left standing around feeling foolish and unloved. It hasn't happened to me yet...


I just can't decide between between various really awful dates - the one that springs to mind was when I found out that the chap in question had a completely different conception of being 'single' to the one usually understood by the majority of us.

He thought he was separated from his wife because they slept apart - but wait for it, in the same marital bed as ever, but with a gap between them. did I ever get out of there fast

Shall I go on, or is that enough?

Go on, spill the beans.

I dated someone else for a week or so, then not 'getting' why I was having funny looks from his friends and relations, discovered

1) he still kept his ex-wife's wedding dress hanging up in the guest bedroom
2) a photograph of his ex-wife who looked the spitting image of me.....



!!!!!

Bad dates are defintely better than no dates at all.... They can be quite a err laugh to think about afterwards
Quite supprized in looking through the questions to both realise that I've never stood anyone up, and never been stood up... Though I did once kind of 'blank out' someone who I'd been on a first date with, but then just 'let tlhem drop', and ceased communication and, thinking about it, I've had the same in reverse... a kind of electronic standing up, by not responding to E-Mails and texts?

After my divorce, I went out with a chap for about 2 weeks. I dropped him like a hot brick when he suggested I should get my ex-hubby to take custody of my girls!

that beats any of my examples!

I dont think I've ever been stood up. But then I've usually spent time around the person I'm having a specific date with beforehand.

Mind, I think I've only had about two dates max in my entire life and I think only one of those was an actual 'shall we go on a date?' situation...

I've never had a "shall we go on a date?" date - but then, the whole concept of "dating" isn't really usual here, more another thing the American movies have introduced, like Halloween. We tend to go out in groups more.

Well, in my experience, if you go out in groups, you sometimes hit it off with someone you meet while out and eventually you might decide to go and do something a bit more intimate (i.e. without the rest of the group or with other couples only for instance).

Isn't that normal? And does it count as a date?

This wasn't actually a date, well, not for me anyway.

My friend Helen and I had just broken up with our boyfriends, so we thought we would go to the cinema and sob through Dr Zhivago. A workmate of her's [Janet] asked if she could come along too.

On the Saturday afternoon, Helen and I were in the queue, when Janet turned up, with her boyfriend in tow!

We thought 'Great. Just what you need. A pair of snoggers in the middle of a weepy film!'

*giggles* I really shouldn't laugh, but I can't help it after all these years...

Just after we got to our seats, the 'boyfriend' asked Janet to come have a private word with him, so they moved back into the aisle. A few minutes later, they came back, with her sitting the other side of Helen, and him sitting the other side of me. Helen began to giggle and whispered

'He's just her told they are finished.'
I said, 'Cheeky sod. He should sit on his own.'
Helen said, 'No! He wants to go out with you!'

Janet howled through the film. The boyfriend was ignored.. and Helen and I giggled all the way through!

I've never yet been able to watch Dr Zhivago without grinning!

I might add, we were all only 15 at the time

I was wondering

Bless, how is Janet now?

I've no idea. I moved away from the town a few months later, and coming back 13 years later people have moved on.

I did keep in touch with Helen until she moved to Wales about 12 years ago.

The only 'real' date I ever went on ended up with me and the other person geeking out completely over the film we saw together and becoming good friends. But that was it

Oh, horror! I almost forgot!

I once had to take my 8 year old sister on a date to the cinema, because Mum and Dad were both working in the pub

That is not a thing to do

Reading through the replies so far, and especially seeing:

>>We tend to go out in groups more<<

I am relieved that it's not just me then. I wondered whether this might be an age thing or so, but Mala is only half as old as me.

I think the one-on-one dating thing is specific to certain people... Perhaps those who dont tend to go out in groups as a normal part of their social life?