dating horror story

Another Dating Horror Story: The Johnny Carson Show Suit

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“Johnny Carson Tonight Show 1965” by NBC Television. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

My most recent post, a dating horror story, received a lot of views, and comments from my Facebook friends. I decided to stay on this topic for one more post just for kicks –not because I am perfect. I’m sure I’ve had my share of dating gaffes, although I can’t recall any. Probably because I have blocked them out of my mind to maintain my shaky self-confidence. (Smile.)

This dating story happened many years ago when I was in college. Johnny Carson was the King of Late Night Television and Stephen Hawking had just published “A Brief History of Time.” You may not think these things are related, but they are — at least in the mind of my college student date.

Our first dinner was winding down and my date told me he had read Stephen Hawking’s book. It inspired him to develop his own theory of time, which he assured me was even better than Hawking’s. In fact, it was so good that my date was sure he would be invited as a guest on the Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. He even knew what suit he would wear on the show – a brown one, I believe.

Of course, the dear boy was just trying to impress me. (I don’t think he was even a science major.) However, bravado is one thing, and grandiose delusions are another. We did not go on another date.

As far as I know, nobody else has bested Mr. Hawking’s theory of time. But it was nice that my date knew just what to wear if he ever became famous. We should all be so prepared!

We Only Shoot the Things We Love

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A male wood duck. Image credit: “Brautente 2008-03-21 065” by BS Thurner Hof – Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons.

Dating horror stories – so miserable at the time but so fun to reminisce about after the dust has settled. And so fun to read. Here’s my contribution.

I met a man and, after a few weeks, visited his house for the first time. His place as well-cared for and impressive – until I got to the den. The walls were covered with taxidermied ducks. Now, I’m okay with hunting. I realize that meat needs to come from somewhere, and that hunting is sort of a dying art. But I soon discovered my date was hunting for a whole ‘nother reason.

His reason came to light when I couldn’t help but comment on the wood duck he had among his collection. Now, male wood ducks are like the Mr. Universe of the duck world. As you can see from the photo, they’re beautiful. They’re also rather rare in these parts. They nest in large holes in trees on the water. They don’t hurt anybody. And as faithful readers of my blog know, I have a thing for birds.

I made some sort of comment like – “Oh, and you’ve got a wood duck. They’re so beautiful….”

“That’s why I shot it,” he said.

Immediately, an irrational part of my woman dater’s brain thought: If this is what he does to things he finds beautiful, what will he do to things he loves? Heat-seeking missiles, maybe bombs? It reminded me of a quote from the poem by Oscar Wilde (“The Ballad of Reading Gaol”), “For each man kills the thing he loves…”

Of course, I know that there’s a big difference between killing a duck and killing a human, but try telling that to my primitive brain.

That relationship didn’t go very far.