We have a barista who works for us who is admittedly very handsome. He’s in his early twenties and gets a lot of attention whenever he’s on shift from a lot of customers, guys and girls. He’s a great worker and a very nice guy, and he’s so clueless about the flirting that it’s actually adorable.

He’s serving a woman about his age.

Customer: “I’d like a mocha for me, please, and a…” *reading from a phone* “…[expensive complicated] drink? Did I say that right? I don’t know what that is.”

Barista: “Yes, that’s right! Not for you, I assume?”

Customer: “Oh! It’s for my date! I wanted to surprise them when they got here.”

Barista: “That’s great! If that’s everything, that will be [price].”

She buys and collects the drinks and settles down at a table in the corner. We go about our work and notice almost half an hour later that the woman is still alone at the table, looking at her phone, drinks now cold, and with watery eyes. It looks like she’s been stood up.

Barista: “Can I take a quick break?”

Me: “Yeah, you’re overdue for one anyway.”

He clocks out but still makes two drinks, the same as what the woman ordered. I see him go over to the table, replace the cold drinks with some hot ones, and then sit down and talk to the woman. She ends up crying, they talk a little more, and they end up sharing the hot drinks together over fifteen minutes or so. They hug, and then he comes back to continue his shift.

Me: “What was that?”

Barista: “I couldn’t stand seeing her alone and sad like that, so I offered her replacement drinks and some company if she wanted it. Some jerk stood her up and she didn’t deserve that.”

Me: “That was so nice of you! I hope she’s okay.”

Barista: “Me, too.”

The next day, our manager shows me a glowing review of our store online about how the barista saved someone’s day and reiterating what happened.

Manager: “Who was this?”

Me: “The review starts with ‘to the handsome barista.’ Who do you think?”

Manager: “Okay, we’re never letting him go!” 

The woman came back in several times to thank our barista. She ended up having a real date in the coffee place in the end with someone who was NOT a jerk. It was not with our barista — he recently told us he is asexual — but they’ve remained good friends!

My coworker is a gay transman. He’s very open about being trans. We are dating; romance isn’t forbidden by company policy, even if it’s officially discouraged. We’re sitting in the breakroom and a mouse runs across the floor. He lets out a little shriek.

Me: *Laughing* “Oh, my God, you’re such a girl.”

He laughs, too, and we finish lunch and go back to work.

The next morning, he pulls me aside.

Coworker: “Just a heads-up: Human Resources will probably be talking to you today. I think I smoothed things over, but someone told them you called me a girl the other day.”

Luckily, I wasn’t called into HR, but we did figure out who tattled on us and tried to avoid being in the breakroom when he was.

Way back before Internet dating sites and the Internet itself, there were newspapers and, in many, sections in the classified ads for the lovelorn.

Back in the 1970s when I was ten, we had a neighbour who had moved his family from Saskatchewan to “farm” his ten-acre spread. Staying true to his roots, he subscribed to a prairie farmers’ paper and would pass on copies to my parents because he thought they’d be interested.

They were not. But one time, my mum was reading through a copy and came upon this brief gem in the “Relationships Wanted” section of the classified ads. Paraphrased as best as memory serves, it read:

Ad: “Fifty-four-year-old farmer seeking widowed woman with farm of [some number of acres] looking for matrimony. Must have good outbuildings.”

That was it. My mum and I always had the same twisted sense of humour, and we joked about old prairie farm types looking a woman over and saying, “Well, look at the outbuildings on that one!” We figured that after a hard Saskatchewan winter, this was what passed for a romantic overture when planting season was nigh.

The way my mum and dad got together was like something out of a cheesy romance movie. Mum was eighteen and Dad was nineteen when they met at a house for a party. At the time, my mum had a boyfriend, but after talking to her, my dad could not get her out of his head. He then spent a month searching for her, only knowing her first name. He found her boyfriend, who was now her ex, but he told my dad that he had no idea who he was talking about.

At the beginning of the next month, my dad was out on a date at a pizza parlor… where he saw my mum on a date, as well. They all decided to sit together. Halfway through, my mum’s date ditched her, so my dad decided to take both girls home. He dropped off his date first so he could talk to my mum for a little longer.

They came to a stoplight, and the radio was playing a song called “Little Arrows”, which is about Cupid shooting arrows at random people so they’ll fall in love. My dad leaned over the steering wheel and looked up at the sky.

Mum: “Um… what are you doing?”

Dad: “Lookin’ for arrows.”

Mum tells me that she knew right then that this was the man she would marry. Two weeks later, Dad proposed. They were together for almost thirty years before Dad passed away.

When I was in seventh grade, I had my first “boyfriend”, i.e. we left notes in each other’s lockers and almost held hands once. We went on a date to the movies, and my mom was the chaperone. I was excited because she was going to let us sit separately from her in the theater and I might finally get my first kiss — every twelve-year-old girl’s dream, right?

As we were standing in line for snacks, I heard someone call my name and looked up to see my stepdad, my two stepsisters, my younger sister, and two of her friends entering the theater acting like they had no idea we’d be there. They sat a few rows below us and spent almost the entire movie giggling and staring at us. I was mortified, and my poor date, an extremely shy boy under normal circumstances, looked like he wanted to just disappear.

Nevertheless, we managed to enjoy the movie, and I was certain we were going to kiss. About three-quarters through the movie, however, [Date] suddenly jumped out of his seat and ran from the theater, and I didn’t see him again for the rest of the night. 

It wasn’t until years later that I found out what happened. [Date] got up to go to the bathroom, and once there, he saw a loose tooth was about ready to come out. He wiggled it until it fell out, along with a bit of blood. He was afraid of blood, and the very sight of it made him vomit and pass out. My stepdad grew concerned about how long he was taking, so he went to the bathroom and found [Date] dizzy and semi-conscious. He tried to call the kid’s mom (this was before cell phones were ubiquitous, and service was unreliable), and all the poor boy managed to get out was, “Mom, I’m bleeding—” before the call dropped. Thus ensued a panicked few minutes in which [Date]’s mom drove to the theater and my parents met her and everything got sorted out, while the rest of us sat clueless in the theater.

We “dated” for a few more months before fizzling out. [Date]’s mom works at town hall, and I see her once a year when I go to renew my car’s registration. She brings up this story every time.

[Date] is now married with a baby on the way, and I’m happily gay, so the worst date ever did not traumatize us too severely.