Worst date EVAH. (Long)
Jennifer (name changed) was a cute, elfin 16-year-old whom I'd been admiring at school for a while. I was 17 and horny, and had the use of my dad's Mini. So I asked her out on a date, and to my delight, she agreed. I secured the use of the car, and drove her to the local city. We went to the cinema, then for a couple of drinks, then I took her to my friends' house (to show her off). It seemed to be going OK, and we were getting on fine, but the couple of times I tried to take her hand, she withdrew it.

In the car on the way home she started rambling about stuff that didn't make too much sense, and then told me she could "help me with my problem". I asked her what she meant, but she didn't give me a straight answer.

Then I hit a cyclist.

It was dark and pouring with rain, and the cyclist had been coming round a roundabout with no lights. Luckily I had stopped before entering the roundabout, so I was only doing about three miles per hour when I hit her, but still she rolled spectacularly up the bonnet onto the windscreen, then back off again onto the ground. I jumped out of the car and the cyclist's friend ran up to me, smacking me round the head and calling me a "fucking bastard". I ignored this and helped the cyclist up. I offered to take her to hospital but she declined. The bike seemed to be OK. I gave her my number, apologising profusely. The whole time Jennifer was sitting there in the passenger seat with big bug eyes.

We set off for home again, but after a couple of minutes I was hit by delayed shock. I apologised to Jennifer and pulled over into a pub car park, whereupon I burst into tears. She put her arm round me (the only physical contact I ever got from her). Unfortunately, this was at kicking-out time, and a huge group of chavs came out of the pub, saw us in the Mini, and braying with laughter proceeded to pick it up by the wheel arches and bounce it around the car park.

My tears now turned to fear and anger, so I turned the engine and lights back on and revved the engine furiously, and eventually they let go, and we carried on back to her place. I dropped her off with nary a peck on the cheek.

She declared her lesbianism a couple of days later.

A few weeks after that she got off with a (male) mate of mine at a party. It was his loss, though: even though they didn't shag, she turned up a few days later at his parents' house at 3am, in bare feet, to tell him she was bearing his child. She started going through a genuine phantom pregnancy, and then disappeared. She was eventually picked up by the cops walking barefoot down the fast lane of the motorway, on her way to London to tell the government what she thought of them. She was sectioned.

I ended up having to pay for the repair for a dent in the bonnet of the Mini, buy the cyclist a new bike, compensate her for days off work, a taxi to the hospital, and a medical bill for a bruised finger.

I try to suppress the thought that it was the trauma of our date that pushed Jennifer over the edge, but it does occasionally haunt me. And I never got any.

Edited to add: on further recollection, I think I may have further compounded her mental problems when, after she refused to see me, I recorded myself singing a seriously awful David Brent style lovelorn adolescent song I had written ("I never should have touched you/'Coz you have the Midas touch"), and posting the tape through her letterbox. Oh the shame.
(bingbong, Mon 25 Oct 2004, 11:52, Reply)