Dear Pandas, how's the dating scene treating you? Whether you're happily coupled up, blissfully single, or caught in some kind of situationship, we're sure you've got a story or two tucked up your sleeve about those wild and unpredictable encounters known as first dates. It's the 21st century, after all — a time when the quest for love, or just a decent evening out, has morphed into this rollercoaster ride of swipes, winks, emojis, likes, and an alarming amount of ghosting. And every so often, these romantic quests gift us with funny dating stories, where our dreams of romance crash with reality in the most hilarious ways.
Ever braved a Tinder date that made you question your sanity? Maybe your prospective partner took you to a circus for house cats for your first meeting. Or perhaps your funny date involved someone who, out of the blue, decided it was an amazing idea to bring his mom with him. Yeah, it happens. No, we're not making these up. These are real first date stories unearthed during our internet spelunking on Reddit, and we've got a whole load of these that are sure to entertain you as well!
In this world of dating fails and romantic Russian roulette, no matter how many frogs you've kissed or unimpressive pick-up lines you've had to endure, there's always room for a good belly laugh. So whether you're seeking reassurance that your funny first dates weren't quite the trainwreck you thought they were, or you're simply in need of a hearty chuckle, we've got you covered. We scoured through Reddit, and after much laughter and a few tears (from laughing too hard, of course), we're excited to present you with an epic collection of hilariously relatable dating tales. Each one is a beautiful, chaos-filled tribute to the unpredictable adventure that is modern dating — online dating stories making up a hefty chunk, of course!
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"For a cheap date night, I got an origami kit from Walmart. My date and I just sat on my living room floor, drinking and making fun of the awful origami animals we were creating. It was a blast."
"On one of our first dates, my boyfriend took us to an event called Acro-Cats. It’s like a traveling circus for house cats. The cats are pretty well trained but from the beginning, they make it clear that cats will be cats and do whatever the hell they want. It was pure chaos, and several cats were just wandering around the audience. It was so funny and awful but amazing."
Just googled it. Its as chaotic and wonderful as you can imagine
"I love the story of my parent's first date. The first time they met my mom spilled a beer on him, and then on their actual first date my dad was having trouble with the car so he got out to jump-start it while my mom was supposed to be turning the key to start the ignition, she somehow manages to put the car and neutral and the car rolls forward and hits my dad right in the shins.
She’s extremely apologetic but he just gets in the car and says 'You are so lucky I really like you because if you were anyone else I would have cussed you out like nothing else'. Married for 29 years."
"I once went on a date with someone who was deaf but wore hearing aids. He had a minor speech impediment. I have very poor hearing in one ear. We were in a fairly lively restaurant and both having a lovely time and a fun conversation until we realized we were both having two completely separate conversations.
We laughed about it and decided to go somewhere quiet for the rest of the evening where we found out we had more chemistry when we didn't understand what the other was saying. This was nearly 10 years ago now, I hope he's well."
I hope my future boyfriend (if I get one) will treat me like that! I’m also deaf but I have Cochlear Implants and going somewhere noisy is SO challenging to hear the other person. Like a restaurant, a classroom, etc. Sometimes I try to lip-read and other times I just nod and pretend I’m hearing everything they’re saying when in reality they might as well be mouthing at me. (I can lip-read a little bit, but I’m not good at it or anything.)
"I flirted with a cute bank teller for weeks before working up the nerve to ask her out. Didn't realize she was super religious, invited her to a Mexican restaurant, and ordered two margaritas. When she told me she doesn't drink I said that's ok. These are uhh... these are both for me!"
She told me I wasn't Christian enough for her and I agreed. And there I sat. Drinking two margaritas alone."
"I agreed" and drank two margaritas. You handled that situation like a champ 🏆
"We order a small snack for our coffee and as it's arriving at the table he pulls out his Nokia phone. Trying to make a lighthearted joke, so I said 'Man, that has got to be the oldest phone I've seen in a while'. I really dug it in, trying to break that friendly wall. Well. Turns out it's not a Nokia. It was his insulin pump."
"First date with my now husband. We met up in a city near me that he was unfamiliar with. We grabbed hot dogs at a local place and ended up staying and chatting for a very long time. When we finally left he asked what else there was to do and since it was late at this point I said 'Well, there are bars and stuff... and there’s a statue of a kid banging a turtle.' There was a long pause and he said 'Okay, where is this statue?'
On the drive, I was thinking why did I say this, this is going to be awkward. We got to the statue and just stood in front of it for a while and he said 'Well, I don’t know what I was expecting but yeah, he’s really banging that turtle.' We had our first kiss standing there after we finished laughing our heads off. When we got engaged we went to the places we visited on our first date for our engagement photos and yes, we took a couple in front of the statue."
"I went on a date once with a guy that picked me up and swung me in a full circle upon seeing me. Set me down and patted the top of my head. Told me how excited he was to see how cute and little I was. I walked back to my car and left."
"A guy and I met at uni and we both bonded over liking running etc. We decided to go on a park run together, but I think he expected me to be slower than him or something because when I passed him he was so shocked he tripped. And then at the end when I went to go see him, he saw me and got all sulky and that 'I should have said I was a good runner'. We bonded over running in the first place though, what did he expect? I just found it way too funny that it was fine for me to like running, only when in his head I was slower than him."
"It was a first date. We went to a movie. He arrived twenty minutes and said that since we were short on time, I should grab the tickets while he got the food. He asked me what I wanted and I said a small popcorn and a coke. He took off to grab the food, and came back with an extra large popcorn and one extra large drink (I thought he must have decided we would share?). Once in the movie, he refused to share the popcorn or the drink (with the exception of one single piece of popcorn, which he told me would be enough). After the movie was over, he asked if we could go for a short walk. He barely spoke the entire time, and we walked for several kilometers; the whole time I was asking where the heck we were going, and he said that he was enjoying my company and wanted to keep wandering.
Finally, after over an hour of wandering aimlessly, he proudly announced that we had “reached his stop” - he has led me to a bus stop several kilometers from the theatre. He gave me a really sloppy cheek kiss, before literally hopping on the bus and leaving me there to walk back to my car alone… worst date of my life. He called the next day and left a message asking for a second date. Big nope."
"I went out with this beautiful girl I met in biology class in college. The first date went amazingly well. The second date was a blast. Great goodbye kiss. On the third date, we got on the topic of dealbreakers. As in, what’s the one thing that you cannot abide in someone you might otherwise be attracted to? She asked first. I said something like racism or puppy-kicking. She said she could never date a guy with a hairy back.
I’m Iranian.
The end."
My first intimate date with my husband I was alarmed to find random patches of hair. I thought he had the mange. It turned out that his kids informed him that women liked hairless bodies. He has ADD and failed to be thorough. After I stopped laughing, I informed him hairy was fine.
"The guy called me by the wrong name. Twice. A different wrong name each time."
They weren't the wrong names for the girlfriends he was referring to.
"The guy argued with me over my eye color. Not only are they my eyes, but I have an art degree, I at least know color."
I have natural very blond hair and had a guy argue with me over what color my hair was. Like, what?!
"I didn't know it was a date and bought my little sister to hang out with her too."
"Well it wasn't mine, but my sister. She was dating an EXTREMELY shy guy and she brought him home for the first time. Well, my dumb a*s went to go sit down, but it was a rolly chair so when I leaned on it it moved and I fell right on my a*s. My sister and I couldn't breathe from laughter, but this guy was so shy he couldn't laugh. He was bright red from trying so hard not to laugh which made it even funnier. It was the meeting the family for the first time date and I was stupid so that was pretty good."
"I once ended a decent date with a nice woman with 'See ya later man'. Literally right after kissing her."
That would lighten the atmosphere for me personally I think. I’d be freaking out over the kiss and that would actually help me relax a little. (I think it would, at least. I’ve never had my first kiss. Just knowing me, I know I’d be nervous and socially drained.)
"In high school, I thought it'd be romantic to take this girl I liked to get to-go sushi and eat it in the park. I didn't take into account that it would be dark by the time we got to the park. She accidentally ate the whole wasabi ball because it was too dark for her to tell it wasn't sushi."
Is she okay? Did you take her somewhere else!? I need to know? Did you get to marry her?
"I got set up on a blind date. We were texting for a bit before the date but this was before camera phones (I’m so old!), so we weren’t able to swap photos or anything, so I literally went into this date blind. He’d told me he was 6’ 2” so I was expecting a giant given that I’m 5’.
The man that rocked up was shorter than me but he accused me of lying about my height. It was the most surreal conversation I’ve ever had on a date, and we didn’t even see out the rest of the date because he said he couldn’t date a liar. I still chuckle about it now."
"My high school boyfriend took me to the mall to see his other girlfriend's high school band perform. We all went to different high schools, so we didn't know about each other. I was so upset at the time, but looking back, it's a hilarious story. What was he thinking? Who has two girlfriends, and decides to initiate a group hang-out session after her flute performance at the food court?!"
"Brought a girl out for sushi and unknowingly ordered baby octopus. Turns out octopuses are her favorite living thing."
"Guy I met on OkCupid brought his mom to the date.
It was so awkward, the funniest stuff ever.
So he told me that his best friend was his mother and that they spent a lot of time together. At first, I thought 'Awww that's sweet!' and he talked about her nonstop, her work, her hobbies, and the things she did, he even shared her picture with me which I thought was kinda funky, we agreed to meet at a cafe in town, he hopped out of his mom's car and she waved and drove off, like 20 seconds later she shows back up and pulls up a seat, turns out she was parking the car to come to join us.
The entire date was just her talking about her work and showing me old photos of when she used to play baseball, they sat really close together and kept hugging and kissing each other's cheek, it was so freaking awkward."
It's a very good thing that you learned this on your first date. Some people would try to hide it, then spring it on you later.
"We were in a fairly empty lounge. There was a TV on with either Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien's monologue. Instead of either chuckling along or ignoring it like normal people do, he decided to dissect each joke and why they are not funny and people shouldn't be laughing at them. He then proudly said he does it at parties and comedy shows too.
People often sarcastically say someone must be fun at parties. I have never met anyone actually admitting to it."
Ah, but how does he pronounce "dissect"? That would tell you the really important thing about him.
"He insisted to take me out on a date, and so for dinner, he suggested a sushi place about 30 mins away from our area (we both live on the same side of the city). When it was time to pay, he 'forgot' his card. Alright sure, no problem, I’ll pay. I don’t mind. But for the first time ever, I did not have my card either. LOL. We then told the servers that we’ll be back to pay (I left my license with them).
So he drove all the way back to our area, drove past his house, and drove straight to my house. So I can get my wallet… I assume. So I did.
Anyways we of course drove all the way back to the restaurant so I can pay the bill. So yeah, I left it at that and never bothered to contact him back again. LOL."
I'm so confused. I will pay for a woman if we have been hitting it off and having a good time but if i can tell she is disinterested then yea, we can split like adults that way we both aren't financially in debt to one another
"I was meeting a guy in person for the first time after chatting online for about 3 months. After the first glance, he said 'You’re uglier in real life. Your photos are stunning though'. I wasn’t offended at all - it was too funny."
I'm glad OP has a good sense of humor, because I would have said You're attitude is ugly and this date is not going to happen with me.
"I was having a great night with this guy and at the end of the night he walked me to my car. He wanted to sit in the car with me, which I found odd but whatever. Then he pulls me onto his lap to make out, which felt odd as an adult but again. Whatever.
Now the following day he calls me informing me that since we stayed up so late last night, and he had to work so early the next day, he wore the same jeans from our date to work that morning. What he did not realize, and to my absolute horror, I had started my period while sitting on him in the car. He did not notice until his colleagues pointed out the stain on his pants.
Welcome to my horror story of a life."
100% this never happened. What car were you driving that had a bench seat in the front and was unobstructed by a console/arm rest where he could "pull you into his lap"? Certainly no modern car which is going to have 2 bucket seats, gear shift, etc. You can always tell a stupid lie because they don't think it through.
"I had been dating this guy in college for a while, and I noticed he never liked any condiments on his food and wasn’t very creative with any flavors. We went out for pizza, and half of the pizza had pepperoni, mushrooms, and onions, while his half was regular pepperoni.
The next time I see him, he gives me a kiss at the door, and immediately I was like 'Ewww' at his breath. He goes, 'I never realized how good onions are, I read that you can eat an onion like an apple, so I tried it! It’s actually pretty good!'
We didn’t last much longer than that. It was so awkward with his newfound onion obsession. And then I felt bad that I’m technically the one that opened that can of worms."
Onions are indeed delicious, but use mouthwash and brush your teeth before you kiss someone. Or at least a breath freshener.
"22-year-old guy is eating chicken tenders by cutting them with a steak knife and using a fork and I kind of make a joke about that being weird because it’s finger food. I say this while I’m eating my potato soup by picking out the chunky pieces with my hand. I ATE SOUP WITH MY HAND AND THOUGHT HE WAS THE WEIRD ONE.
Of course, this realization didn’t come until I was retelling the story to my roommate. He still tried to take me on a third date but I declined and told him I wasn’t interested in him. He took my lack of speaking to him as an invitation to show up at my job looking for me randomly for about a month then he gave up."
The only thing weird about it is that he wanted another date with you.
"It has to be a dinner date where the guy asks what I like on pizza. I laughed and said, 'I wish I didn't, but I really enjoy eating meat. I like chicken, pepperoni, bacon, and anything else you can think of on a pizza. I know it's not very sophisticated, but damn.' Dude leaves 'Oh, that's cool. Actually, I'm a vegetarian'. I just burst out laughing because I knew it was going to be an awkward 40 minutes."
That's so odd, i never get this. Who cares what someone else enjoys when it comes to food choices. Girl we would be on date 2 that night, I'm a carnivore.
"His mom picked me up. She didn’t stay at the restaurant with us but until that moment I had no clue he didn’t have a license."
"We were trying to decide where we wanted to eat and I suggested Panda Express. She hesitated before saying no. Then I suggested Asian Buffet, but once again no. I got bold and said Benihana. She told me to take her home. She told me later she thought I was being racist because she was half-Chinese. I didn't even notice. I only saw her black dad and assumed her mom was Hispanic or something. I ended up getting KFC."
"It was a first date. I suggested a cute place to get some coffee. When we arrived, it turned out to be completely full. No matter, there was another nice place nearby. He rejected it because it was 'too far away'. I was stunned because it was just down the street. We could see it from where we were standing. Less than a one minute walk.
We went to a cafe even closer. The date itself was not that bad, but it became clear that we were not a good match. When we asked for the bill, he immediately insisted we split. I prefer that too, but the total was only 4.20 euros (about 5$, we had one soft drink each). It seemed a bit silly to me to split that, so I happily offered to pay for both of us and handed the server a 5-euro bill. What was funny to me was that while I was paying, he came up from behind and gave me a 2 euro coin, proudly saying 'That should cover it!' Lol."
I once went on a date where the guy offered to pay for my hot chocolate (4-5 euros for both of us, he didn't even round up to leave a tip). For multiple reasons I wasn't interested in a second date and I got some angry texts, because I robbed him of his money.
"Double date with my roommate in our apartment. Both dates were guys we knew from class but had never gone out with before. My date showed up already drunk and proceeded to get drunker. We all watched 'A Knight's Tale' and 10 minutes in he lay down (we were sitting on a couch), put his head in my lap, and kept mumbling "It's just so anachronistic" over and over throughout the rest of the movie. My roommate and her date were laughing at us."
"I asked a guy to exchange numbers and he gave me his e-mail."
"One time I had forgotten a Tinder dude's name and we had already talked about people looking at their phones while on dates. I was feeling anxious like for some reason I'd have to say his name so I managed to steer the conversation towards handwriting and signatures. So we both signed a napkin. Then I couldn't read the dude's signature so I said 'Wait, how do you spell your name?' And then he spelled out his extremely common name to me."
"A guy asked to observe my beer-pouring skills once when I was in my 20s. The way he watched me do it and smiled with approval was one of the creepiest yet funniest things I've ever seen. Think Grinch-scheming face."
"There’s this cute little coffee shop in my town that I absolutely love to go to. I’ve known for a while that it’s run by a Jewish cult called the Twelve Tribes (they’ve tried to recruit me and invite me to their sabbaths and stuff). I invited a guy I met in college there on a date.
He was nice, and it went well. I eventually told him about this, and he started telling me what tribe he was from (I guess it’s a biblical thing? Idk, I practice witchcraft and have most of my life). He then started talking to the barista about it VERY intently and getting information about the sabbath and stuff. As we were leaving he was very insistent that we go to one together.
I don't know, I think I may have gotten this man into a cult or he was already part of it. Not sure, didn’t go on another date."
"Our to dinner, he’s wearing white jeans (early ’90s) and doesn’t realize he’s stuck the whole side of his hand in bbq sauce. Rubs his hand down his leg and he’s got this huge greasy stain running down. Excuses himself to go to the bathroom to try to clean it, smeared it more plus it looks like he’s peed his pants. Brings me home, leans in for the kiss and hits some center console button for the rear hatch of his car, sets off an alarm, and can’t get it to stop. At that point, he tucked his tail and went home. Never heard from him again."
I must come from a completely different planet that has a different idea of what funny means because the MAJORITY of these stories aren't funny at ALL. They are creepy.
I met a wonderful women one night. We went to local restaurant and talk and eat for over 8 hours. She said had a good time. Then I never heard from her for over two months. Then one day at the local bar talking with this young lady. All of sudden I hear a women screaming: that my man. The she turns and just cold c***s the women. Grabs me between my legs. Thus belongs to me and no one else. Been married over thirty years now.
I must come from a completely different planet that has a different idea of what funny means because the MAJORITY of these stories aren't funny at ALL. They are creepy.
I met a wonderful women one night. We went to local restaurant and talk and eat for over 8 hours. She said had a good time. Then I never heard from her for over two months. Then one day at the local bar talking with this young lady. All of sudden I hear a women screaming: that my man. The she turns and just cold c***s the women. Grabs me between my legs. Thus belongs to me and no one else. Been married over thirty years now.
