Dating Horror Stories — An Anthropological Study of Modern Dating
A Novis Newsletter Halloween Special (even though in the current dating landscape, things are spooky year-round)
Trick or Treat? Navigating the current dating landscape can sometimes feel like a twisted version of the age-old Halloween tradition. Trading dating stories over drinks feels like sorting through a mixed bag of candy at the end of the night. Sure, there’s the occasional catch, lucking out and getting full-sized versions of your favourite candy bars, or in dating terms, the great guys that don’t make you feel crazy and make your friends say He’s so great! instead of the ever-diplomatic, I’m happy you’re happy. However, as anyone who has had to dig around the trenches swipe through the apps and put on a brave face heading out to the bars on the weekends will tell you, the discard pile ranges from Snickers (great candy, but not for me, I’m allergic to peanuts), to Raisinets (what kid wants these?) and Liquorice (gross, unless you were the kid sneaking bits of candle wax) all the way to a Kit Kat with a razor blade lurking inside (lethal, with the risk lying on you thinking it’s just an urban legend). In the spirit of the spooky season (and because I’m a sucker for a holiday special), I’ve reached out to friends and asked them to share their best (worst?) dating stories. If you’ve received Venmo requests after a date gone sour, asked yourself if your boyfriend secretly hated you, had a guy think clean STD results could be classified as foreplay, or found yourself as a getaway driver mid-date, feel free to commiserate in the comments! (After hearing all these stories, I’m starting to think getting ghosted is actually not that bad).
This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things I’m No Longer Accepting Drinks
Submitted by Jen*, Age 21
J: This was last year when I was single and on the apps a lot. I met up with this guy for drinks, we’d been talking for a while, he seemed pretty normal. We met up and it was fine but we didn’t really click. We didn’t have much chemistry and he was a little short, but a nice guy anyways, nothing happened that night. A few days later he texted me to make plans to see each other again and I told him that he was very nice but I wasn’t really feeling it. He sent me a Venmo request for the drinks he had bought me on our date.
JN: Did you pay him?!
J: Nope. I only had a couple of beers, and he insisted on paying! Blocked him and never spoke to him again. It was pretty rude.
Does Your Boyfriend Hate You? — Take This Quiz to Find Out
Submitted by Libby*, Age 21
L: This was a couple of years ago, my ex and I were already a little rocky. He was going through a phase where he got really obsessed with AI and machine learning and that was pretty much all he would talk about. And he would be really condescending and patronising with me
JN: Yep I know the type. They love a podcast.
L: Exactly. Well he came to visit me in Switzerland and we went on this three hour hike. We were having deep conversations and started talking about what we wanted out of life, and what we were interested in. I moved around a lot growing up and I’m really interested in learning about different cultures. I studied languages at university and I’m really passionate about travelling and seeing the world. He said that didn’t count, but apparently his interest in data science was totally valid. He was really into non-fiction and I didn’t really read a lot of that at the time and he basically accused me of not learning enough because I wasn’t reading enough for him. I explained that I learned through new experiences but he didn’t really get it. We broke up three weeks later. And then a week after the breakup we got back together and stayed together for another year. We’re done for good now.
JN: Wow sounds like my personal hell: being alone in the wilderness with a man who only reads non-fiction and dismisses all my interests.
L: Anyways, I went through the texts when we were rehashing all of it months later. When I brought it up to him and said remember that time you said I had no hobbies? He replied I never said that, I said you had no interests as if it’s any less horrible.
JN: He sounds diabolical. Glad he’s out of the picture. Hope things are shitty on his end.
He Was on a First-Name Basis With Every Nurse at the Sexual Health Clinic — But at Least He Was Honest?
Submitted by Gemma*, Age 211
G: This was a couple of years ago. I was working at a nightclub at the time, and I started casually dating/sleeping with one of my coworkers, Chad2. I knew we were casual and that he was seeing other people, but Chad would pull his phone out when we were in bed and start texting the other girls he was seeing right in front of me3. He’d talk to me like I was one of his buddies, locker room talk about all these other girls. I don’t know what I was thinking because I kept seeing him.
JN: I mean we all agreed he was terrible, but you said he was amazing in bed.
G: Oh yeah, that. Well anyways, he was getting a full STD screening once a week, he’d show me his results every time I saw him before we slept together.
JN: All things considered, I think that’s actually pretty responsible considering he was sleeping with half of London, I’m surprised he never caught anything. I remember at one point we started joking he’d cracked the code to getting around the exorbitant rent prices in the city, he’d just sleep around from house to house.
Wannabe Bonnie and Clyde — The Summer I Became an Accessory to [Multiple?] Crimes
Submitted by Cordelia*, Age 17
I feel the need to preface that this friend was obsessed with the Bad Boy genre on Wattpad4 and once told me she wished she could date the heir to a criminal empire when we were fourteen. This story is still wild (and I’ve had to exclude 80% of the illicit details), but if it were to happen to anyone I know, it makes sense that it would be her.
C: This all happened the summer after I finished High School. I met this guy at a dinner with some family friends. My parents were friends with his parents and we started hanging out. For context, this was a time when I was really losing my shit5. All I did was drink, I was super depressed. I meet Pietro* and I think we’re becoming friends, he asks me to come to the beach and meet his friends. He didn’t have a car at the time, so I picked him and his friends up. They were chill, a little sketchy but I was into that. The plan was to drink at the beach, we were meeting more people there and I assumed they had already secured the drinks (we were all underage at the time). He tells me to stop at Walgreens and Pietro and his friends head inside as I wait in the car. They rush back into the car and tell me to drive. As I’m leaving the parking lot, they start pulling cans out of their backpacks. I look at Pietro flabbergasted, did you guys… steal? I asked already half knowing the answer, You made me an accessory to a crime?! He starts to explain himself, well yeah that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. At this point we just head to the beach and I got pretty trashed. Anyways, this becomes a regular occurrence, whenever we hang out, he tells me to stop somewhere and wait in the car, and at this point I already knew what he was doing. This was a weird time in my life, I didn’t really care about anything. Oh my god I totally forgot, you know what else we did Julia?! We used to go to my favourite gas station, and he would buy vapes in bulk, and I was like whatever, stock up. But then we would drive into these residential neighbourhoods and little middle schoolers come out, like eleven and twelve years old, and he starts selling these vapes to these kids at exorbitant prices, like twenty bucks for a vape. At this point I’m thinking what the fuck am I doing here. Anyways I guess he had some entrepreneurial spirit, I think he made a lot of money like that over the summer. I also found out that one of his friends who I used to hang out with was arrested for Grand Theft Auto. Like who are these people?! That was the last relationship I ever had actually, he lied a lot, it kind of did it for me. I clearly can’t pick them so I guess it’s better to stay away.
JN: This was five years ago. I wonder what he’s up to now?
C: He got into a motorcycle accident last I heard, I’m not sure if they’re going to have to amputate this leg. He was a good guy deep down, though. I hope his friends are doing well, I really liked them.
*All names have been changed
If you’re single, keep these stories in mind whilst you’re scrolling past all the pictures of couples in matching costumes, and if you’re in a relationship, remember to be grateful your significant other isn’t swindling middle schoolers. I’m always conducting serious research for Substack pieces (aka putting up polls on my Instagram stories, if you want to contribute to the next one, follow me here). And if you have any dating horror stories of your own, please share in the comments or send them my way! Happy (early) Halloween!
I’m starting to think this is a cursed age for relationships
author’s note: his real name is actually douchier, believe it or not
author’s note: call me old-fashioned, but I think it’s polite to wait at least an hour after being inside someone to text someone else and schedule a hookup
iykyk
author’s note: calling this a rebellious period in her life would be the understatement of the century
And if you made it all the way to the footnotes, I hope you had fun!
Oh my gosh these stories are crazy!! It is very spooky out there! Ugh!