Three Weird Dates With Three Weird People

In the past few years, I went on dozens of first dates. Most of the times, the women I met were nice, decent and easy-going, and we had a good time together.

But on some occasions… Well, the only good thing that came out of those dates was a funny story to tell. Here are three of them for your entertainment.

1. Manon, Paris, 2013

This date happened before dating apps were a thing. To be honest, I don’t even remember how and where I met Manon. But I remember we agreed to have our first date at Parc de Vincennes, a huge park in Paris, where we both lived at the time.

It was a hot summer day. By hot, I mean too hot to bear standing in the sun for long. So we sat in the shade of a tree and did what the French love to do, every time the sun shines: have a picnic.

After we ate, we went for a walk in the park. For some reason, Manon had brought a jumper, despite the high temperatures. But it was too hot to wear it, so she tied it around her waist.

The conversation was good enough to keep us distracted from what was going on around us. Until about an hour later, when she realized she had lost her jumper. We tried to walk back on the same tracks we had been on. But Parc de Vincennes is huge and we hadn’t been paying much attention to where we had walked during the past hour. So we walked, and walked, and walked… We walked the whole damn park and couldn’t find anything.

I imagine by then someone had found the jumper and either kept it for themselves or returned it somewhere . Although the park did not have a lost and found office…

Remember I said it was a hot day? Way too hot to walk around in circles in search of a jumper that was long gone. After an hour of searching, I was getting tired. But I wasn’t going to let her search alone, so I kept going, waiting (and hoping!) for her to eventually give up.

After 2.5 hours, I couldn’t take it anymore. None of it had been my fault, but I was so desperate to get out of the situation that I proposed a deal. I told her I would give her half the money of a jumper, so she could buy a new one, if we stopped searching. She immediately accepted it.

I reached to my wallet, gave Manon 20 euros, and we called it a date.

That was the first and only time we ever saw each other. We exchanged some messages after but never met in person again. I wonder if she actually bought another jumper with the money I gave her…

2. Diana, Warsaw, 2019

I had been living in the Polish capital for about a year and I knew some basic Polish, but it was far from enough to have a fluid conversation. One day, I matched with Diana on Tinder. She was Polish and spoke a little bit of English.

Well, a tiny bit.

When you message, you don’t realize the struggle as much. Google translator helps immensely and you start believing you will be fine speaking in person.

So we set up a date at a coffee shop. I managed to say hello in Polish and she replied in English. And it all went awkward from there, as we had to check on Google translator the meaning of every other word said between us.

It wasn’t even a case of “shut up and kiss me”. It was more of a fiasco that left us both frustrated and wanting to get out of it as quickly as possible.

3. Sveta, Prague, 2021

In the summer of 2021, I spent a few days alone in Prague. I did what I usually do when visiting a city on my own: I opened Tinder and found a local to tell me more about the city.

We agreed to meet at a bar that evening. 5 minutes later, I realized she was not exactly a local, but rather a Russian girl who had been living in the city for the past couple of years. That was not an issue anyway. She was nice, the conversation went super well, and we shared a lot of opinions on hot topics, and a major love for travel. There was no sexual chemistry but the evening was very pleasant.

When we got up to leave, she offered to walk with me. Ok, maybe we were going in the same direction.

We continued the chat as we walked, and that’s when she casually dropped it…

“I will move soon and in the new house I will have a bamboo room”

“A bamboo room? — I asked, a bit confused.

It turned out she was going to move just so she could have a room with a ceiling made up of bamboo sticks to hang people there, in ropes. It’s called shibari, and apparently it’s a thing, but I had never heard about it.

She reached for her phone and showed me her Instagram profile. Dozens of photos of people tied up in ropes or hanging from ceilings. Or both.

I was slightly disturbed. I looked from her phone screen up to the sky above us. And I wondered how on Earth had I ended up there, on the streets of Prague, with a stranger, and afraid she would hang me from her bamboo ceiling.

I asked her some questions about it, showed respect and said I had zero curiosity in trying it myself. I wanted to leave, but she kept walking with me.

“I will go that way” — I said.

“Me too”.

We walked a bit more, her presence was starting to be uncomfortable. I repeated:

“I will go that way” and added “It was nice to meet you”.

We said goodbye and I rushed to my AirBnB, watching over my shoulder. I made it home safely, and we never talked again.

Before You Leave

Now, count with me: how many weird girls were there in these stories?

Four. I am weird too. I bet my dates got home and told their friends about me with not so pleasant words. That is fine. I am not always weird and awkward, but sometimes I happen to be. Or I happen to be in situations that make me seem weird and awkward.

These girls were not weird either, we just happened to share some weird moments together. But isn’t that the fun of casual dating?

P.S. — All the names were changed to keep the privacy of the people involved.

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Previously Published on medium

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