by Blair Mahoney

Created on: July 14, 2008   Last Updated: February 27, 2010

In my dating life, a few dating horror stories really stand out; in fact, they're becoming legend in my family. And honestly, I'm not looking for bad stories on the dating front, far from it in fact. It's amazing to me how my bad dates rank when compared to others' stories, so much so my stories don't seem believable. Yet they are. Since the majority of my bad date events are the result of family members setting me up on blind dates, or of blind dates set up through meeting through the Internet, I caution all to be careful if you ever go on a blind or Internet-set date. Beware, blind date goers.

My legendary horror story takes place two and one half years ago when my brother helps set me up with a woman he meets in his local church. First, the woman and I exchange a few emails, leading to a few phone calls between her and I. On the phone, I sense a high degree of intensity in her voice, though I must admit to being slightly energetic myself. So I wrongly interpret her intensity as a good thing. After asking my brother about her, he says, "yeah she's a little intense". My brother is very terse in his replies, yet I don't fully grasp this quite yet. To me, I see it as a good sign, sort of like, "she must be really alive." (There's my hidden optimist, setting me up for a big fall.) Her and I talk some more, since I live in one city and she lives another about 300 miles away. My biggest mistake comes when I suggest we meet slightly ahead of schedule, since we originally planned on meeting when she travels to my city to visit her parents over Christmas. Big m-i-s-t-a-k-e.

We set up a time and place to meet in her city, on a weekday. Since I'm a pilot, I just jumpseat on one of my airline's flights to her city in the morning after I finish flying a 4-day trip. And I'm exhausted from all the work I just completed. Second mistake: flying out to see a woman with high intensity when I'm t-i-r-e-d.

After taking the train into the city, I find the restaurant we're scheduled to meet at. She's late, exactly 24 minutes late. Since I'm very time-oriented, her lateness perturbs me. Finally, she shows up, giving me a cockamamied story of not knowing where this restaurant is. (Um, it is her city, so I find it hard to believe she doesn't know where this well-known restaurant is.) I take her lateness as a sign she's not into this date. As we sit down, she immediately launches into questions about myself, my family, and my career. There is no transition into this: it is an immediate

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