Dates From Hell

As a woman who has been out on many, many disasterous dates, I thought that I would post one disasterous date on here every day. Please let me know about your disasterous dates ;-)

Date Number One : Ya'll shouldn't date a redneck.

Let me set the scene for you. I'm eighteen years old, in college full time doing Performing Arts and working evenings at my local convenience store. There's only two young girls that work there, and I am the youngest, also the vainest, it comes with the territory of being a performing tart, you become a little shallow, and a lot vain.

I get along well with everyone at work, but there are only four people I am very close to, Ed, the Assistant Manager, he's in a band, and totally cool, he's into my other friend Tasha they've been going out for a while, and Tasha is one of my best friends who has a fiery temper to go with her natural red hair, I'm a non-natural red-head and have been since I was fourteen.
Then there's Ju, my best friend, she's older than me by about ten years, she's a goth and just the most hilarious, sarcastic person I have ever met.
That's the background for you, now on to the story.
Tasha and I are working on the till, it's always fun, Tash makes me laugh and the customers are locals who expect our banter and often join in.
We're laughing at some joke or other when in walks the local 'lads' a group of five or so guys my age, this time there's someone new with them, a tall, dark, handsome, muscular someone.

"Tasha how fit is he?" I hiss over to my friend and she smirks knowing that this guy was exactly my type and she looks at me expectantly, then I hear his voice and Oh. My. God. He's an American - ding, ding, ding, My fantasy guy has arrived.
I've always been confident and immediately started flirting with him, I found out his name was Jeff, he was over from Atlanta Georgia and had the sexiest Southern Drawl ever.

Our flirtation continued for a few weeks before my best friend Ju stepped in, she knew Jeff, saw him often and decided to give us a push in the right direction, laying the groundwork for me, letting Jeff know that I was interested.
I was working with Ju one night when he came in and chatted to me, he asked if he could take me home when my shift was over. I agreed.
He drove me the short distance to my house and we chatted for a while, but I discovered that I could actually be shy, and I cut the chat short.

Jeff however was not deterred and instead he phoned me and text me all the time, and one day he showed up at my college. As a performing tart I relished in showing off my new handsome American boyfriend to my jealous friends.
We decided on a first date, a proper date.
We decided to meet at a quiet intimate pub, I arrived first, dressed to the nines, my friend happened to be in the same pub so I sat with her for a while until Jeff arrived, with three of his friends in tow.

I didn't understand why our first date had to be with three of his friends but I went along with it, as I'm laid back about most things in life.

His friends are idiots. They sit around the table making inane chit-chat, talking for hours about topics that were of no interest to me.

Jeff takes my hand across the table and gently strokes my skin and looks into my eyes and I finally get the chance at a decent conversation.
Eventually we somehow get onto the conversation piece of adoption.
"I definitely want to adopt." I say eagerly, it's something that I feel passionate about.
"What? Really?" Jeff asks looking shocked.
"Yeah, it's a dream of mine." I answer.
"No, I want our kids to be mine." Jeff stated. I just looked at him Our Kids?
I decided to let that slip go, thinking it was just a slip of the tongue.
"You should come and stay with me in Georgia, we have the best mall in the world, I'll buy you everything." Jeff says passionately and I gently pull my hand back.

It's our first date, he's brought three of his friends along, he's mentioned us having kids together, now he wants me to stay in America with him.
"It's getting late I should be getting home." I state.
"I'll drive you." Jeff replies and we all leave.
On the way back to his car a guy wolf-whistles at me. Jeff turns around and starts screaming abuse at him.
I hate violence and was scared of the situation escalating. "Please stop." I beg.
"I can take that fucker." He spits and his friends laugh, I want to crawl into a hole.

After that disastrous, horrific date I am starting to rethink the whole idea of going out with this guy, but I decide to give him one last chance, I'm eighteen years old and slightly smitten with him, we arrange a date but I have to cancel as my nan isn't well and I'm going to hers. I send him a quick text message...
Hey, sorry can't do tonight, nan is sick, can we go out tomorrow instead? xxx
Not five minutes later I get this reply:
Who the fuck is this?!
I realise that Jeff doesn't have his phone and assume one of his moronic friends is texting me.
It's Jeff's girlfriend.
Again almost immediately my phone goes and my stomach drops.
No. I'm Jeff's fucking girlfriend!!

I hate cheating, hate it. And I was so confused as to what was going on, and how wrong I could be about someone.

The next day I walked into work, we were closed to the public for a re-fit and we were just sorting out shelves, I told Tash and Ju the whole sordid story and they were appropriately horrified, I have always been independent and a bit of a bad-ass when my feelings are hurt, so I just shrugged it off and continued working.
There was a knock on the window, and Jeff's moronic friends were standing by the window waving at me to come out, asking me to talk to Jeff, that he needed to see me.

I just sneered at them and told them no. Apparently Jeff cried that night 'cause I wouldn't see him and his bad-boy status went right out of the window.

I later found out that Jeff was staying with an older woman, he was going out with her and staying for free in her house, she paid for his flights, food, let him borrow her car, she was a real mug. She'd bought the phone he used to text me, apparently she threw it at his head. She didn't kick him out, she let him continue to stay with her. I took it as a lesson learned - Ya'll should never date a redneck.

As a by-line my best friend Donovan comes from Atlanta Georgia, he's wonderful and I would date him, not all rednecks are bad ;-)