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40 Gloriously Unhinged Reasons People Got Up And Left Mid-Date
We've smiled through boring stories, laughed politely at unfunny jokes, and stared hopelessly into a glass of wine. Enduring a mediocre date is practically a rite of passage. But every now and then, something happens across that table that transcends "mediocre" and enters a category that leaves you running for the door.
An online community asked people to share the exact moment they walked out mid-date, and the thread is a car crash. Each one, worse than the next. These are not people who deserve a second drink. These are people who deserved a bill, a firm goodbye, and an immediate group chat debrief.
More info: Reddit
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#1
He was much older in person than he was in his pics and he told me I’d look hot in his daughter’s clothes. I excused myself to the bathroom and practically ran out the back door of the restaurant.
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#2
Not the middle, but the beginning. I show up at her apartment for our first date, and she's standing there with her mom and siblings. They all started coming towards my car. I cracked the window and asked what's up, and she said she thought it would be nice if I took them all out for supper. After some heated words back and forth, I drove away and left them standing there and went and had a very nice meal. The first date is supposed to be to get to know the other person. I learned all I needed to know about her in those two minutes. There wasn't a second date.
#3
Because he immediately started telling me on our first date how he was depressed and has problems in bedroom since he broke up with his last girlfriend.
If it feels like dating has gotten harder, that's because it actually has. The Institute for Family Studies recently confirmed what many single people have suspected for a while: we are officially in a dating recession. Young people are going on fewer dates, forming fewer relationships, and according to the data, only about one in three young adults actually feel confident in their dating skills.
The reasons are layered. Dating apps promised to make meeting people easier, and instead, somehow made it more exhausting, more disposable, and significantly more confusing. A generation that grew up communicating primarily through screens is now expected to perform charm and chemistry in real time, over a meal, with a stranger.
And when the rare date does get organized and put into motion, the pressure is enormous. Which makes it all the more spectacular when someone decides that the solution to first date nerves is to dig for gold mid-conversation and see what happens. Spoiler: this is not the solution.
#4
He was digging for gold mid convo, and scratching his arms like he needed a fix or something. I asked for my bill when he went to the bathroom. The server ALREADY HAD IT PRINTED, with the card reader, cause he had witnessed the train wreck from a distance.
#5
First real date with him, nice restaurant, fairly expensive, and I wanted to order the fettuccine because i was craving it, and a small caesar salad - the two cheapest choices on the menu, as it happened, but it was just what appealed to me at that moment. He kept insisting I order a very expensive steak instead, and that i was insulting him by ordering the least expensive thing, and I was making him look cheap to the waiter, and did I think he couldn’t afford this date, and he was getting increasingly aggressive about it so I stood up and left while he yelled at me. I wouldn’t ever order anything over the price midline on a date, because that’s kind of rude, but in this case I just happened to want a nice pasta and if I get what I want and he gets a smaller bill that feels like a win to me, not a time to berate me.
#6
I was on a work trip and I just wasn’t feeling it even a little bit. So I told her I needed to leave but that it was great to meet her and she said she also had to leave and we left. I walked around the block, and went back to the bar. And a couple minutes later she also walked back into the bar.
We shared an awkward look and laughed because neither of us were having a good time on our date and it was kinda nice to realize it was mutual.
And if the confidence crisis wasn't enough, there's the financial reality sitting right next to it at the table, splitting nothing. According to a Singles in America study, the average person spends $213 per month on dating. Active daters (the truly committed, God bless them) are spending over $300 a month.
That's a gym membership, a streaming subscription, a very decent skincare routine, and a round of drinks with your actual friends who ask you creepy questions. So we might all be a bit better off checking our priorities, and asking ourselves if dating “just for the sake of not being alone” is actually worth it.
Which puts the mid-date walkout in an entirely new light. When you've factored in the outfit, the transportation, the drink you ordered before things went sideways, and the emotional labor of being a person in public, leaving is a financial decision. Life is short, and $300 a month is a lot of money to spend on someone who can't remember to tell you that they are actually married.
#7
Drank 3/4 of a bottle of wine, then started ranting about his mother, sister, and ex-wife.
I told him he sounded bitter and I had a feeling he would be talking about me like that one day if I stayed.
In his defense, he actually agreed with me.
#8
He yelled at me for having started eating after he was an hour too late, not awnsering me on text or anything. Didnt think hed show up. .
#9
He told me, “ you look like one those girls that lets a man wait a couple dates before you let them have s*x.” We were talking about our careers. I went to “the bathroom” paid for half my bill and left.
Relationship expert Dr. Darcy has some first date advice that is so straightforward it's almost insulting. And yet, based on this thread, it is clearly necessary to say out loud. Be energetic. Don't be late. Put your phone down. Don't get drunk. Keep your childhood trauma to yourself for at least the first few dates, which is a sentence that should not need to be said, but here we are.
The full list is essentially just "be a functional adult in a social setting," and somehow it's revolutionary content. The "leave while it's still fun" note is particularly underrated advice. There is a sweet spot on every good date where everything is clicking, the conversation is flowing, and you're enjoying yourself, and the move is to end it there, on that high, rather than staying until things get weird.
The people in this thread did not get to experience that sweet spot. Their dates did not end while it was still fun. Their dates ended because someone opened their mouth and something genuinely unforgivable came out of it, in more ways than one.
#10
She never showed up.
Her friend flagged me down at the bar which was close to the entrance and said the girl I was there to meet was her friend and she was in the washroom. I recognized her from a couple of the pictures in her friends profile so it seemed reasonable.
So, I didn't think too much of it. It was a first date and I wouldn't fault her for being cautious.
So we chatted pleasantly for a while and a start to catch on that this girl here claiming to just be the friend seems to know a lot about the messages I've sent. Big fat clue number two, the girl i was here to meet was taking a really long time in the washroom.
So after about 15+ minutes of this I stop mid sentence and just flat out asked her if her friend was here at all.
No.
Was she ever going to be?
No.
Are you the person I've been chatting with and you just pretended to be her?
Yes.
Ok. I'm going to head out then, alright?
...but why? I thought we were really compatible.
Naw. You're nice but not really what I'm looking for. I think you can understand that, right?
...yes. *sniffles incoming*
Patted her on the shoulder and told her to have a nice night and then left her at the bar there.
The drive home I felt super conflicted about if I was the bad guy in this scenario but eventually my head cleared and realized, like Shaggy said, it wasn't me.
#11
Y'all may or may not like this one. Early 90's. We'd just finished our ice cream and we were on our way to the movies. It was mid afternoon and we're driving through a rural neighborhood. I see something injured in the road.
I pull the car over and find it's a wounded bunny. I grab a blanket from my trunk, scoop up the bunny, and run it up to the passenger side. I go to hand it to her and she vehemently protest. I told her we gotta help it. She suggest I put it on the side on the road and we continue to the movies.
I declined her offer and put it in my backseat. I tell her I gotta try to save the bunny. She gets angry that I'm blowing off the movie. I suggested she get out of my car. She thought I was bluffing. I wasn't bluffing.
I took the bunny to my family's vet. It survived. Never saw her again.
#12
I didnt know it was a date. A girl I knew, who was crazy but we were friends invited me to a party at her familys house. I got there and her parents seem really really happy to see me. It turned out she was telling them all about me being her new boyfriend, her parents knew me so they were super happy she wasnt dateing her normal crazy s****y guys. I figured it out when we all sat down for food and her parents started talking about what our kids would look like. I faked a phone call emergency and walked 7 miles home .
Here's some genuinely practical advice nobody asked for but everyone needs: stop booking dinner as a first date. More than four in five Americans agree that dinner is the hardest date to escape if things go south, and after reading this thread, the ability to escape quickly should be your number one logistical priority.
You are essentially trapping yourself at a table with a stranger for a minimum of ninety minutes, with no exit strategy, waiting for a bill that cannot arrive fast enough. It's a commitment you haven't earned yet. The survey of 2,000 actively dating Americans found that while 56% still default to dinner and a movie, this ties you down for hours.
Instead, choose a coffee date that has a built-in fifteen-minute window because you finish the cup, you check your watch, you have "a thing." A walk in the park can end the moment you reach any intersection. Even a gallery or a market gives you the natural cover of just drifting in a different direction. Choose wisely!
#13
Went on a blind date with a superintendent for new home builds. He proceeded to tell me how many times he had s*x in the bathtubs and everywhere else.
I excused myself and left.
#14
Done it twice in the past month. One becuase she defended Chris brown and said riana started it. Another because she told me she continued dating a guy after she found out he beat his prior girlfriend badly. Low intelligence is going to be a no from me.
#15
We were in a restaurant, when he rushed up because his wife was there! I didn’t know he was married!
But leaving a bad date is actually one of the most self-respecting things you can do. There is a version of you that would have stayed, smiled through it, ordered dessert you didn't want, and spent the next three days replaying the evening and wondering if you were being too harsh. That version of you has been through enough. You are allowed to leave. You are allowed to decide that your time is worth more than this.
The dating recession is real, the costs are high, and the confidence gap is alarming. But the solution has never been to lower your standards so dramatically that you're grateful for anyone who shows up on time and keeps their hands above the table. Dating is supposed to be the process of finding someone worth staying for.
Trust that instinct. Pick up your bag. Leave while the bread basket is still warm. You've got $300 a month to spend, and absolutely none of it should go to someone who made you question every life choice that led you to that table. In the words of our lord and savior Ariana Grande, "thank you, next!"
#16
Not me but a former friend. She developed a wicked headache, possibly a migraine & had to go home. The guy she was out with assumed it was an excuse to bail & never called her again.
This was back in the dark ages before caller ID & *69 existed, and she'd lost his number. So she wasn't able to see him again.
Funny thing is, she developed increasingly bad emotional problems, but was in denial about this. So she never got treatment & became pretty toxic (hence her "former" status).
That dude has no idea that A) she actually liked him, or B) that he dodged a bullet regardless.
#17
This was decades ago but it was the only time I left a date mid way. He made homophobic remarks, I excused myself to go to the ladies room and kept on walking and took the subway home.
#18
He started talking to me as if I was a little kid. “Wow, you did that all by yourself?” He wasn’t being condescending on purpose I don’t think, but I got the feeling he felt I wasn’t competent and it was awkward.
#19
She started talking about her toxic ex, and she was rude to the waiter, that’s when I knew I had to leave.
#20
He got s*******d drunk and started insulting people sitting next to us at the bar. I got up and and left right then, apologizing to them on the way out.
#22
She started ordering pretty much every darn thing on the menu. I noped out of there quickly.
#23
He scratched his head and a snowfall of dandruff fluttered down onto our chili cheese fries.
#24
I left mid-stroke. Quite literally. Adult videos were on. He kept talking about the other women. Why I couldn’t look more like her. Be more thin. Be hotter. I’m not against adult content, hell I film myself but, ummm , this man was rude. I got up. Started dressing and he asked why I was leaving. I said find those girls you like. I’m obviously not one of them.
He had the audacity to try to hit me up about a month later. I blocked him.
#25
I went on a date with this absolutely gorgeous Ph.D. candidate
they were obviously awkward at first but, to be honest, that was an endearing plus
but then the rants and complaints about their Ph.D. program (I was in a doctoral program at the time too so collaborative misery)
but then the rants took a dark turn to complaining about unqualified candidates due to affirmative action and how the students of color annoyed them because they weren’t as smart
this was a person of color btw
I made the mistake of meeting them at a place with a tab/wait staff so had to flag someone down to pay for my drink so I could nope the f**k out quickly.
#26
I've never left in the middle of a date, but there were some where I definitely wanted to wrap things up quickly. OkCupid briefly rolled out an app called "Crazy Blind Date" (2013, apparently). It lived up to the name.
While I wasn't interested in seeing her again, I was trying to redirect the conversation away from her what is now known as trauma dumping and towards something more constructive, but she kept dragging the conversation back to her ADHD and her whatever else.
#27
I always rode it out to the end. But on a few it went from a date to a comedy show. They can be highly entertaining if you remove the idea its a date when things get weird.
#28
She looked for the most expensive thing on the meal and wanted to order it. At that point I told her we would split the bill 50/50. She gave me a lecture about "being a good guy" and chivalry, I got up and just walked out the door and left her there.
#29
Nonstop negged me. every time i’d say something, he’d try to find some way to insult me. i got up in the middle of him saying some b******t. THEN he started complimenting me as a way to get me to stay and tried to take me back to his place. he texted me after asking to see me again and i told him that i thought he was a p***k and he was shocked. he genuinely had no idea that he was being an a*s…or maybe he did idk.
#31
I've ended a date sooner than expected because the guy smelled bad. He seemed clean and even had some cologne on that was nice. His scent was just gross to me. Never encountered another person who's smell bothered me that much.
#33
It was at an age I just loved going to bars and meeting new people, so it wasn’t exactly a stereotypical date but I invited a hot guy I had met about a year ago to come with me to hang out. I was surprised about two things when he showed up. One, he had gained a crazy amount of weight but I’m not shallow so I still wanted to hang out. The second, was that he brought a friend. But again, we are going to a bar so the more the merrier! The problem was that his friend and him got belligerently drunk really fast and he tried to kiss me like right away and his friend wanted to fight people. I noped out of there so fast, didn’t even say goodbye.
#34
She saw her ex with someone else at the show we were at and decided swinging at him was a good idea.
#35
The woman said she goes to church to steal cases of pop.
#36
He calculated the calories and sodium in my meal and told me how long it would take to run it off.
Edited to add: this was a first date; I am slim, petite woman; this was wholly unprompted.
#37
We were taking a walk around a park. There was a language barrier, he very quickly misunderstood something I said and started getting verbally a*****e then started getting physically aggressive and followed me back to my car. I tried to explain what I actually meant but he was having none of it -- like a switch flipped and that was it. Pounded his fist on the hood as I started to drive away then proceeded to blow up my phone with messages calling me crazy, etc. That was the scariest encounter I've ever had but thankfully it was the middle of the day with enough people around.
#38
He told me he asked out my coworker first and she said no.
Lol, what a l****r. I told him I had to go and blocked him.
#39
Date was about 45 late picking me up for dinner. Negative and pompous from the get go. We’re waiting to be sat at the restaurant and he is just intolerable. So I just said I don’t want to do this, I’m not having a good time, I want to go home. And I did.
#40
Took me to the bank to withdraw money in front of me to flex with, then he smoked a lot of w**d in the car and took me to WENDY’S and didn’t pay…. said that’s gf privileges. IT WAS LIKE $5 LOL. Never talked to him again 💀.
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