I meet a woman online and agree to go for a date. I go to the bar and don’t recognise her straight away as she is double the size I was mentally expecting and her hair a different colour and style altogether.

We chat, we drink, and we eventually find a table to grab something to eat. We chat some more and get on, but everything she tells me about herself just makes me question myself a little more and more. I think I’m going crazy or mixing her up with someone else.

When she goes to the toilet, I check the dating app. No, I was right; she posted completely different information about herself, the photos are of her but from what looks like a long time ago, and she mentioned wildly different tastes in books, films, hobbies, food, etc. I think maybe she has just not updated it in a while, but then again, a lot of it is relevant, new music, etc.

She comes back and we start chatting again.

Woman: “What was it you do for a living again?”

Me: “Oh, I work in a school. Did you say you worked in a bank?”

Woman: “No, I work in a supermarket. Not sure where you got bank from.” *Laughs*

I got it from her profile.

Me: “Oh, my mistake, then, sorry. Oh, I’m going on a muddy runner in a couple of weeks. They are still accepting applicants if you want to join me.”

Woman: “What’s that?”

Again, her profile states she has done three.

Me: “You know, running, mud, obstacles… It should be fun.”

Woman: *Laughs* “Do I look like I would be interested in those?”

Me: “I’m not sure. Everything on your profile seems to say something different.”

Woman: “Oh, everyone lies a little on those.”

Me: “Sure, but not everything about them. It’s like talking to a different person. Listen. I’ve enjoyed myself, I have. But I’m finding it a bit weird that I’m meeting someone who presents such a false image of themselves.”

Woman: *Suddenly angry* “Fine! Whatever! Leave, then. Pay at the bar.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but trust is important to me, especially these days. And I don’t feel like I know who you are.”

She ignored me. I guess I understand. I paid my half of the bill at the bar and went home. It wasn’t long before I got a stream of offensive messages, first trying to justify herself, and then yelling at me for not paying for her, too.

I took a break from online dating for a while, only to come back and see her profile, completely new, and again completely fictional. I hope she finds herself before she finds someone else.

I’m sitting in a nice cafe at a small table close to the window. I’m sipping a drink when a woman lumps herself down at my table opposite me.

Woman: “Before we start, what you need to know about me is that I’m a Virgo, and I don’t care if you don’t ‘believe’ in astrology, because it’s important to me. Okay? And I won’t change for anyone. I’m me, and I won’t lose weight. I won’t stop shopping. I won’t go on one of your little runs, okay?”

Before I can answer, the waiter interrupts with my food.

Woman: “What the h***?! You ordered without me. I was, what—” *looks at her watch* “—fifteen minutes late? I said I don’t like being held to a schedule.” 

Me: “Lady, I don’t know you.”

Woman: “Oh, don’t like what you see? Too fat for you now? Well, I’m sorry we can’t all be super skinny models.”

Me: “I don’t know you. I don’t know why you sat down. I was trying to eat alone. I’m guessing your date didn’t want to wait for you.”

She erupts and starts to wail on about how men are terrible, for some reason still aimed fully at me. She ends up taking food off my plate and throwing it to the floor. She stomps out, leaving me utterly bemused.

Waiter: “Are you okay, sir?”

Me: “Yes, I think so. Can I have my meals replaced?”

Waiter: “Of course, free of charge. I am so sorry you had to go through that.”

As I wait, a guy across the room gives me a half-smile with a sort of apologetic shrug. I mime asking if it was his date and he nods. He eventually comes over, apologises, and explains that they met online and there wouldn’t be a second date.

The funny thing was that, apart from the same hair colour, we looked nothing alike.

This is a story I heard from my senior about his boot camp sectionmate. One guy, having heard all sorts of horror stories about Potong Jalan, was desperate to avoid it. He somehow managed to get himself FIVE girlfriends, with the idea that, and I quote:

Sectionmate: “Even if one or two break up with me, I’ll still have three. No way after service I won’t have a girlfriend.”

I know, right? What a scumbag.

His plan flopped from the get-go, because all five girlfriends insisted on sending him off on his enlistment date, and when they all turned up, they realized he was five-timing them.

After the shouting match, [Sectionmate] went to his knees and begged.

Sectionmate: *Tearfully* “Please let me have all five of you.”

His harem wasn’t amused. Cue mass dumping.

Apparently, [Sectionmate] cried himself to sleep for his first week of boot camp. His platoon was all too busy laughing their guts out to console him. Even the officers were amused.

Related:
Time To Bite The Bullet, Part 3
Time To Bite The Bullet, Part 2
Time To Bite The Bullet

A few years ago, I tried online dating. I started talking to a guy who portrayed himself as being fairly wealthy, with pictures of sports cars, beach houses, and mountain resorts filling his profile page. I tried asking him a few times in our online chats how his family earned their apparent wealth, but I never got a straight answer from him.

After chatting through the site for a few weeks, we agreed to go out to dinner. Our server was super friendly and entertaining, and every bite of food was delicious. When the servers asked if we’d be paying together or separate, I tried to say separate, but my date interrupted and insisted that he would pay for everything. I initially protested, but I remembered all the signs of wealth from his dating profile and gave in and let him pay.

When he filled out the payment slip, I noticed that he only added about a 3% tip; he just rounded up to the next whole dollar and called it good.

Me: “Hey, you should leave more of a tip. She was awesome tonight, and our food was great.”

Guy: “Nah, that’s plenty. Come on, let’s head out.”

I ended up leaving a $20 bill on the table while my date was walking out. We went our separate ways after leaving the restaurant, and after stewing over it for a few days, I decided to message him on the dating site to tell him that I didn’t think things were going to work out between us.

Guy: “Why not? I really like talking to you, and we had fun on our date, didn’t we?”

Me: “Yeah, it was fun, but honestly, you leaving such a small tip kind of stood out in a bad way. I worked as a waitress in high school and college, and if I got that small a tip on such a great meal, I would have felt terrible.”

Guy: “Look, I’ll be honest. I was kind of short on cash that night, so I couldn’t afford a bigger tip. I wasn’t trying to stiff her or anything. I would have left more if I knew it would be that big a deal for you.”

Me: “If you were short on cash, I could have paid for my own meal. I let you pay because you insisted on it, and you have all those pictures on here showing fancy cars and vacations, so I thought you had plenty of money.”

Guy: “Those are all photoshopped. I couldn’t get any girls when I had regular pictures, so I had to do something to get dates. And I know what you’re going to say, but we had so much fun talking and everything. Just give me a chance to show you who I am, and I know we can make this work.”

Me: “Okay, now we’re definitely done. Bye, [Guy].”

I blocked him immediately and ended up deleting my account on that site a few weeks later. I started questioning every guy’s profile that I saw and couldn’t get over the idea that they might all be lying just to get a date.

I make plans to go to a movie with a girl I met on a dating app. I pick her up because she doesn’t have money for gas and begin driving to the theater at the nearby mall.

Girl: “I’m really hungry; I haven’t eaten all day.”

I’ve had dinner already since it is a late movie and we didn’t plan to have dinner. But…

Me: “Okay, where do you want to go?”

We are right next to a few restaurants, the closest being a casual dining chain.

Me: “How about [Restaurant]?”

Girl: “Okay, sure.”

We get in and I look to order an appetizer for myself and tell her to get whatever she wants. She scoffs and starts laughing lightly. I ask her what’s funny.

Girl: “I can’t believe you took me to a [Restaurant] on our first date.”

Absolutely dead serious.

My blood instantly boiled. I sat there making small talk while she ate. I paid the bill and we got back in the car. I drive her home immediately and she was so confused as to why I cut the date short.