Don't say you're saving condoms for dessert!

This thing JUST restarted - UGH!

These are from my copy of America's Dumbest Dates: Over 500 Tales of Fumbled Flirtations.

The Food of Love

"Stanley used his fork like a shovel. His face was an inch above his plate, and his fork moved back and forth between the two. His meal was gone before mine had cooled enough to taste." - Marianne, age 30.

"Carolyn stood at the door of the restaurant, and waited in the cold for me to open the door for her. She could not bring herself to open the door. She stood at the table and waited for me to pull out her chair. After she went to the ladies' room, she stood waiting for me to get up and seat her. This got old quickly." - Randy, age 31.

"Irene is a fanatic vegetarian. So I pretended I was, too. Now that we're dating, all I can eat when I'm with her is tofu, sprouts, and honey." - Sal, age 29.

"Janie weighs maybe a hundred pounds. She's about five foot two. I have never, and I mean never, seen somebody eat as much as she did. Before dinner, she said she could eat her own weight in red meat, and I believed her. I kept hoping the meal would arrive. I didn't like the way she was looking at me." - Mel, age 40.

"Arnold took ten minutes to sample the wine. He sniffed it, held his breath, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Then he sipped it and rolled it around on his tongue with his eyes closed. He twisted his mouth, splashed it around from cheek to cheek like mouthwash. His face looked like he was in pain. Finally, he swallowed, and still with his eyes closed, he nodded. The waiter filled my glass. By the time Arnold had opened his eyes, I'd drained it." - Chloe, age 28.

"Anna gave me a sip of her Black Russian. From her mouth. I wasn't expecting it and pulled away; it dribbled down her face, all over her dress, my shirt, the tablecloth." - Eric, age 25.

"It's our first date. Bernard takes me to an expensive restaurant, and as I'm sipping my soup, he takes out two condoms, lays them beside his plate, and says he's saving them for dessert." - Bridget, age 48.

"I have never seen anyone eat so slowly as Monica. I took her to lunch. It took her an hour and a half to finish a bowl of soup. By the time she finished her sandwich, my butt had gone numb from sitting, and I was hungry for dinner." - Al, age 32.

"A herd of goats died to make her dining room table. She bragged that it was laminated goat skin. On this table of death, she served blood-red filet. And she bragged that the huge mirror on the wall was framed in whale bones. I felt like I was in a house of horrors." - Bert, age 47.

"Vanessa offered to cook for me and proceeded to fight, I mean physically FIGHT with her appliances. She burned a finger on the toaster oven, and told it that it was in big trouble and pulled out the plug. When the vegetable drawer got stuck, she battled with it - tugged, pushed, slammed, arguing with it the whole time. If I hadn't stepped in, she'd have trashed it. Maybe she was nervous about dinner, but she TALKED to her dishwasher and scolded her stove when the flame was too high, as if she had no concept of inanimate objects." - Kevin, age 23.

"Pam suggested that we "share" dessert, a piece of apple pie à la mode. I managed to dive in once, while she was chewing, and I got a taste of ice cream with a little bit of crust. But the way she attacked that plate, I was afraid to try for more. Truly, her fork was a weapon. It was dangerous to get between Pam and her pie." - Dennis, age 42.

"I was fixed up with Latrice. I took her to dinner. All she would eat was a small green salad with oil and vinegar. Not a large green salad, a small one. Not a piece of bread. I felt guilty ordering a regular meal. I offered her a piece of my filet, some of my potato. She sat and watched me eat, nibbled an occasional shredded radish. It was like feasting in front of a poster child for some famine relief organization." - Jimmy, age 32.

"Mitch ordered one entree because they were big and we could share." - Camille, age 30.

"As we dined, Lori rubbed my leg under the table, playing footsie. We drank champagne. She ran her tongue across her lips and told me how the bubbles made her lips tingle. I leaned across to see for myself and knocked over the champagne bucket. The entire thing - ice, bottle, champagne - all clattered to the floor. Heads turned, people stared. So much for THE MOMENT." - Matt, age 23.

"Alexis talked with her mouth full. When she was animated, bits of food flew from her lips and landed all over the table." - Greg, age 33.

"I was dating Daniel and ending a year-long relationship with Greg. Daniel's family was coming to town. He wanted me to meet them, so I offered to cook dinner. Unfortunately, their flight was delayed. Daniel came over to tell me, but I was out grocery shopping, so he left a note in my mailbox. I'd already picked up the mail, so I never got the note. I made dinner. Nobody showed up. I was furious. I called Greg and made a date for the next night. I couldn't believe Daniel had stood me up. The next night, Sunday, while I was entertaining Greg, who knocks at the door expecting dinner? Daniel, his mother, and his father. Apparently, his note said they were coming in late Saturday night and asked me to change the dinner date to Sunday... and also to call him if it wasn't okay. I invited them in and offered them some of our wine. It was awful." - Debra, age 23.

"I bought Sondra lunch, and she lost a tooth in her hoagie. It shattered or something. Not a pretty sight." - Ben, age 41.

"Greg took me to dinner, and then cited the amount and types of fat and cholesterol in my prime rib. He was like a walking list of nutritional information. To him, food was a plateful of chemical components - fiber, fat, minerals, complex and simple carbohydrates, It got so I didn't even want to touch my meal, much less swallow it." - Melanie, age 39.

"George started at me all through dinner - so intensely that it was scary. He was so FOCUSED. Then, all of a sudden, splat - he plopped forward, smack into his enchiladas. I thought, "Oh my gosh, he's dead!" And he was - dead drunk. When the waiter sat him up, there were refried beans hanging from his nose and his glasses were still in the enchiladas." - Faye, age 27.

"I cut the pasta. I didn't roll it. You'd have thought I'd smashed his car." - Geri, age 28.

"She couldn't stop talking, even when she was pouring coffee. She was looking at me, gabbing, altogether missed the mug, and managed to pour my coffee all over me. I thought the skin would peel right off my thighs." - Jordan, age 28.

"Maria would not talk directly to the waiter. She told me what she wanted, and expected me to tell him. "I'll have lentil soup." "She'll have lentil soup." "And the duckling." "And the duckling." "No, change the soup to house salad." It was ridiculous. I felt like a parrot. Or like I was playing that kids' game, passing the message down the line." - Jerome, age 31.

"I asked David in for coffee. Little did I know he'd lecture me about the inferiority of instant. The decadence of decaf. We're talking serious coffee snob, here. To him, my coffee was a character flaw." - Samantha, age 23.

"All during dinner, Randy talked about his heart surgery. Details of the process, the anesthesia, the recovery. Right there at the table, he opened his shirt to show me the scar. At least it wasn't hemorrhoid surgery." - Marie, age 39.

"Jasmine ordered a steak. Somehow, she managed to cut it so fiercely that it went flying off her plate, across the table, and onto the floor. Just as a couple was being escorted to their table. The woman tripped on the steak and went down screaming. Everyone in the restaurant was staring. Jasmine wasn't the least bit rattled. She wanted a new steak and said the old one was tough." - Tyrone, age 34.

"I ordered veal and all though dinner, he couldn't stop talking about how I was eating a dead animal. How my dinner used to have a face." - Marge, age 31.

"Constance ordered in French in French restaurants, and in Italian in Italian restaurants. When we went for Mexican food, she ordered in Spanish. And none of the waiters, in any of these restaurants, could understand a word she said." - Harris, age 33.

"He chewed out the waiter for bringing his steak too well done. Asked him if was hard of hearing or just stupid. Demanded "compensation" from the manager, in the form of free drinks, and then he didn't leave a tip." - Joan, age 43.

"We'd had a long, romantic dinner and a couple bottles of wine. When we got to my car, I asked Laura if she wanted to go back to my place. She nodded and leaned against the car, a dreamy look on her face, and looked up at me. I leaned over to kiss her and, just as I did, she slid - no, it was more of a plop - down between my arms right onto the ground. Her head rested on my hubcap. She was sound asleep. Passed out. Snoring. I had to drag her to the car door, lift her into the seat, and deposit her at her apartment. She didn't wake up the whole time." - Lowell, age 30.

"Whitney thought the people at the next table were eavesdropping, so she said outrageous things just to shock them. She told me not to chicken out, that no one would ever suspect us. We had to kill the creep, like we'd talked about. When they got really silent and leaned toward us, trying to hear more, she began talking pig Latin. "Omebody-say as-hay ig-bay ose-nay." " - Dave, age 31.

"On our first date, for brunch, he licked a strawberry and said he'd love to suck my toes." - Shelley, age 29.

"Avery called me every night for two weeks, asking me to have dinner with him. Finally, I went. He took me to McDonalds. As he chowed down on his Quarter Pounder, he asked me if I could get him fixed up with my sister." - Gwen, age 23.

"To impress David, I invited him to dinner at my sorority house. Tables were set up all over, since everyone had dates. As I carried our tray through the foyer, I looked up and smiled at David, slipped on a piece of ice, and fell on my butt, my legs spread in opposite directions. Lamb chops flew across the room. Applesauce splattered the wall. Corn was everywhere. David was impressed." - Janie, age 30.

"He spent our whole dinner talking on his portable phone. His office, his broker, his client, his four-year-old son, his ex-wife. I entertained myself by ordering more food and drinks. Had two desserts. Finally, sitting across the table, I called him from MY portable. He laughed and said he'd get back to me." - Angie, age 33.