Edward Henderson, Features Editor

Senior prom: The night mainstream media portrays as the best of an adolescent’s dating life. Unfortunately for me, perception and reality took separate limos to the event.

I had a lovely date for the evening. We didn’t know each other well, but she was cute. That was more than enough for a hopeless teenage romantic like me.

Finally, the epic day had arrived.

Standing outside her residence hall (our high school was a boarding school), I pictured her descending the stairs in slow motion to Sixpence None the Richer’s hit “Kiss Me” into my open arms. She looked amazing when she came outside, but she seemed taller than usual (a lot taller actually). At that age, I hadn’t mastered the science of estimating how much taller a girl would be in heels on a formal date yet. She was three solid inches taller me. We looked like a poor man’s Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman standing next to each other.

The lack of formality between us only made the awkwardness worse. She was silent most of the evening, only offering the obligatory “yes” and “no” short responses to all my attempts at conversation and we didn’t dance much.

When we made it back to campus, for some reason unbeknownst to me, I went in for a goodnight kiss. Her neck snapped back quicker than a philosoraptor’s. The walk back to my residence hall was the longest of my high school career.

Antonio Zaragoza, Editor in Chief

Years ago I was working at a clothing store at the mall. A very lovely, petite woman came into the shop. She began asking for advice on some new outfits and wanted to know my opinion. She was sweet and well-mannered. I liked her instantly.

She wore little tennis shoes with her ensemble and dressed conservatively compared to most fashionably conscious young women these days. Her hair was pulled back and she wore very little makeup. She left her number with a co-worker to give me.

The phone call took all but 20 seconds. I called her, she said “hi” and asked me out. Yes, I didn’t even get the chance to ask her anything, so I guess it worked out in my favor.

When I went to pick her up, my heart stopped and the first thought to cross my mind was to run away as fast as I could. The cute, friendly, conservative woman, whom I met only hours earlier transformed into a scarier version of a Spice Girl. She wore bright pink heels, a very short skirt, a tubetop and a fuzzy pink vest. Along with her pink eye shadow and glittered face, she had bleached her lovely brown hair platinum blonde and had added pink highlights.

I swallowed my pride and took her to eat sushi in what quickly became the shortest date I’ve ever had. After 33 minutes—yes I remember how long it was—I said I needed to take her back home because I had to work in the morning. She reluctantly agreed, popped open her phone and made other plans for the rest of the evening right in front of me.

Tara Millspaugh, News Editor

He was a wannabe bodybuilder. His bicep was bigger than my thigh. Despite his intimidating physique, I thought it was sweet he was getting his master’s degree in creative writing and poetry. Our first date was at his friend’s poetry reading.

I picked him up because he didn’t have a car. After we drove around and got lost for 15 minutes, we finally arrived at a house smelling of dead cat.

My date polished off four glasses of boxed wine. He and I exchanged a few words, but he found it much more engaging to talk to his buddies about rock music.

The night was winding down and there were only four of us left. The owner of the house, a handsome young poet, my date, and me…It was an awkward bunch.

My date was off talking to the host of the party as I struck up a conversation with the dashing young man who I wished I was on the date with instead. He offered to take me home and I would have taken him up on the offer if I hadn’t driven.

After two more glasses of wine, my date was finally ready to leave.

We drove home in silence. I pulled up in front of his apartment and said “bye”. He invited me upstairs and I respectfully declined.

The guy asked me for a kiss. As I said no, he pouted his lip, turned his head and begged for a kiss. I was tired and wanted to go home, so I gave him a quick kiss and drove away.

This is just one of my many bad date stories.

Ana Ceballos, Assistant News Editor

I remember it like it was yesterday, it was a Tuesday and I had no plans. This guy, who I will call Bob, insisted on “hanging out” so I gave him a chance. I invited him to my apartment to watch a movie.

Two hours later, Bob knocked on the door and the first thing he said to me was, “Lets do something spontaneous.” I looked back at the DVD sitting on the couch and felt sad for leaving it unwatched, but I ran to my room, grabbed my purse and was ready to go.

Bob took me to the trolley station, at 9 p.m. We got on the trolley, 40 awkward minutes passed by and aside from a nonexistent conversation, Bob refused to tell me where we were going.

We arrived at the last stop, on Fifth Avenue. and found a bar with a pool table. He got in even though he wasn’t 21, but I was. So I bought myself a martini as he waited to play pool. Bob loved small talk, but he was not good at it. It seemed like he was trying to play the bad guy card, which was even more annoying.

I finished my drink and the only joke he made was about me drinking an appletini. By 11 p.m. we had missed the last trolley and ended up having to take a cab, which I ended up paying for because Bob only had $10 on him. When the cab dropped me off, he asked for a kiss and I laughed. Even though the date was a nightmare, that last appletini was well-deserved.

Ryan Schuler, Sports Editor

As a born and raised San Diegan, I made sure to keep up with high school friends who attended college in the area. One night my freshman year of college, I was hanging out with old friends at a house party near the University of San Diego, where I met a lovely Southern girl from Louisiana named Sarah Mary (I’m not kidding), who was a freshman at USD. I was attracted to her accent and her innocent smile, so I worked up the courage to ask her out.

What a mistake! We started off at dinner at a seafood restaurant in Coronado, which she didn’t enjoy because she said the seafood tasted weird compared to back home. Strike one.

Afterward, we headed to a Padres game because she said she had never been to a professional sports game. Apparently, she didn’t know the Padres played baseball because upon arriving, she announced she hated baseball. What a joy the next three hours were. Strike two.

Mercifully, we headed for home. So much for a quiet girl from the South. When she wasn’t complaining about the night or how there were too many parties at USD (yeah right), she was chatting my ear off about Southern stuff I had no idea about. Strike three! Dear Lord, I hope the South never rises again.

Paige Nelson, Photo Editor

I can say with 100 percent certainty that there is nothing worse than trying to escape a bad blind date.

A couple months ago, I became a casualty to the dating scene when I agreed to go out with a seemingly normal guy I met online.

Every characteristic and achievement listed in his dating profile checked off on my list of standards, not to mention he looked good in his pictures.

After talking for a couple of weeks, we finally made plans to meet for dinner at one of my favorite local sushi restaurants.

Listen up my friends. The date is doomed to go down in flames from the beginning if you go into it with high expectations.

I felt my heart sink when I spotted him outside of the restaurant wearing high-water pants and a fedora planted on top of his Farrah Fawcett hairdo.

As if the awkward, crooked hug wasn’t enough, every attempt I made to start an intriguing conversation was thwarted by his one-word simpleton answers.

After making some small talk about the weather, followed by more silence, he asked me what my favorite color was.

Words cannot begin to describe how agonizingly painful it was to sit there across the table from a stranger for an entire hour. His only redeeming quality was his superb taste in sushi.

I get nervous in uncomfortable situations, so I did what any girl would do and made a run for the bathroom to call my friend for help. She advised me to leave without saying a word and I almost did. It was solely my conscience that made me return to the table to pay for my part of the bill.

After dinner, we both said we would keep in touch, knowing fully well it would be the last time we spoke.

I never saw him again after that first blind date, but the scar he imprinted in my memory will stay with me forever.

J. Hutton Marshall, Managing Editor

I went on a date with a die-hard Republican. It was 2008 in Dallas. She was a thin, well-spoken blonde who went to a private, all-girls Catholic school. We had nothing in common, but she was cute and seemed interested in me. For my shallow, 18-year-old self, that was enough to go on.

I pulled up to her semi-barricaded mansion to pick her up. It was one of those big, Victorian places where the front lawn is the size of a football field. I went inside and met her parents. Her dad tried to stare holes into my face and almost amputated my hand via handshake death grip.

As we drove off, she told me she nearly got arrested for being drunk in public the prior weekend, but her family friend, a U.S. Republican congressman, saved her from justice and drove her home. I Googled him later and found he had been rated by a Washington publication as the eighth most corrupt politician in Congress.

We went to the rooftop pool of a corporate building downtown where her friends were having some kind of barbecue. We drank Stella Artois a rare delicacy in my high school days and talked about what our parents did for a living. She and her friends told me about their previous night, where they drove around neighborhoods stealing “Obama For President” signs and throwing them away until they got caught by the cops and were forced to put them all back.

Afterward, we went back to her place and snuck in to the clubhouse, which doubled as a theater. Someone had shot some stuffed animals on the wall of the clubhouse. The night ended with us making out beneath a large, stuffed moose head, while we listened to the gunshots and explosions of “The Bourne Identity” playing on the giant screen nearby.