*I once had a Tinder date that resulted in me being his registered companion for free flights for a year. I once had three online dates in one night (the third was by accident). There was the time a standup comedian recognized me from Tinder and worked it into his comedy sketch (embarrassing but hilarious).
*One time on a first date a guy read me poetry he had written and looked at me expectantly, so I said, “That’s really nice,” and he said, “Yeah, I wrote that for a former girlfriend, she loved it.” And then I sat on a barstool and it collapsed underneath me.
*A few years ago, when I was on eHarmony, I was matched up with a gentleman who happened to be a plastic surgeon. That fact didn’t give me a very positive first impression (I imagined a superficial man with a big ego and unrealistic expectations about women), but one of my goals going into online dating was to keep an open mind. There’s a chance he doesn’t spend all day doing breast augmentations, I thought. Maybe he also fixes cleft palates with Doctors Without Borders.
After a few email exchanges, we arranged to meet for lunch. I arrived early, and as I was looking out onto the parking lot, I saw a Hummer drive up. Please don’t be him, I thought. An attractive man in scrubs got out. It was him.
He was in fact a cosmetic surgeon. Doing breast work and tummy tucks were his specialty; he even pointed me toward his website to check out the before-and-after pictures. He was proud of his work. Then, I guess because we were on the subject, he looked at me and said, “Yeah, I know yours are real. They’re nice.” I think I gave him a hesitant ‘thank you,’ after an uncomfortable silence. It was awkward from beginning to end. And that was the end.