Worst Online Dating Experiences

Have YOU ever had a truly horrible online dating experience? I mean, truly, truly horrible – not just your average bad experience where you meet up with someone who’s slightly weird or million miles from what you expected from their profile pictures and description?

I believe we’ve all been there and here I’d just like to mention my two memorable experiences from my early twenties when I met with Neil, a nice and kind Welshman who still lived with his mother (who, by the way, had knitted me a scarf for our first date and expected me to a Sunday roast lunch…) and Dean, a somewhat creepy lorry driver who couldn’t stop drooling and ogling at me as we were sitting in the pub (so finally I had to lie to him that I was getting engaged – and even that didn’t stop him – so my friend had to give me one of those fake phone calls where I had to be summoned urgently to hospital because a friend had been in a ‘car accident’).

But never mind. I believe all of us, chronic online daters, have been on one of those dates, yet it very rarely happens that we get a bunch of total loonies in a row. I mean only loonies and nothing but!

Image by asgw via Flickr

But yet, this is what seems to have happened to Julie from the Scottish newspaper The Herald. You can read about her experience here and you can get a summary of her ‘nauseating’ experience of two years of online dating from here.

While we don’t want to belittle or doubt Julie’s experience it still seems slightly dubious that all THIS would happen to just one person out there. She must either have incredible bad luck in the world of online love or some kind of magnetic pull that only attracts unsuitables. Or maybe she does what journalists do best – exaggerate. Because how likely is it that she – and of all people, a journalist! – would stumble upon example after example of truly horrible dates in a row? I mean, there are nice people out there, aren’t we all living proof of all that?

Image by Ben124 at Flickr

What do you think? Out of all the experiences you’ve had out there, how many would you consider truly horrendous and how many fall in the category of ‘actually it was quite nice’? Have you ever had a serious relationship from an online romance? Marriage, maybe even kids? How many ‘pervs’ and creepy dates have you encountered? Let us know what your experiences are. I mean, if the online dating world is truly as horrible as Julie lets us believe, maybe we should shut up shop right here and now!

Tags: dating hell, Humour

About the Author

Aet Suvari has been reviewing and writing about the world of online dating since 2008 and the launch of Online Dating Help. A stickler for promoting ethical practices within the UK dating industry she champions the sites that get it right while highlighting those holding it back. You can follow her on Google+