When I got to his apartment, I was surprised at how enormous it was, especially considering that we worked at the same place, and I still needed my parents to pay my rent. While we were lying in bed, we started to talk. I brought up cocaine, and how I thought it was a waste of money. He casually mentioned that he used to deal it in a small college town out west until the cops came after him and he ran out of places to hide. After that he moved back home. I think the phrase he used was: "They knew who I was, they didn't know where I was, though."

After I asked some direct questions and got vague, evasive answers, I concluded (correctly) that he was still dealing and suddenly comprehension dawned: the large apartment, the expensive car, the tattoos: DRUG DEALER! Then I realized there was, probably at the very least, one gun in the apartment. Now, my escapades with guys are quite legendary where I come from, but this was more slumming than I bargained for. The thing is though, even though after I left his apartment I still had to see him at work, and he confronted me, quite weepily, about how much I hurt his feelings when I gave him a vague excuse for not returning his phone calls. He was the weepiest coke dealer I've ever met. — s.e.d.

***

Most people would take meeting at a mental hospital as warning enough, but, as a patient there myself, I had no room to judge.

A week after we were released, Danielle picked me up for dinner and a party. At her house Danielle gave a tour — a much-needed icebreaker since we had little in common outside of the hospital. "Those two are thrown away," she mentioned pointing to a knife rack missing two knives. "One was from when I attempted suicide and the other from when my mom attempted."

The mother-daughter suicide knives was freaky, even by mental patient standards, but the remainder of the tour went without incident so I put it out of mind for the moment.

There was a knock at the door — her ex. He let himself in past Danielle. "What are you kids up to?"

"We're going out to dinner, together." Danielle responded.

"Great! I haven't eaten. How about the three of us grab a bite? I'll drive."

Being on enemy grounds without any escape, and unsure that Danielle would agree if I stood up for her, I let her decide our plan. As Danielle's ex chauffeured us around in the back of his Civic, I gave her looks. She responded by turning over her hands in the traditional "I don't know what to do" symbol.

Her ex received a call.

"Hey, whatcha you up to? Me? I'm going to dinner with my girlfriend and her friend."

I shot Danielle a look. "What?!?!?" I mouthed.

"He's not my boyfriend," she whispered, "I swear." Then turning to her ex, "I'm not your girlfriend!"

"Sure you are, baby, whatcha talking about?"

Amazing.

During dinner, Danielle and I ate in awkward silence while her "boyfriend" carried on as if nothing was awry. I had to admire his persistence.

At the party Danielle's ex introduced me as her friend so there would be no confusion. He even offered to be the designated driver to take me home. Had I taken him up on the offer I might have actually enjoyed some of the evening, but I figured I would rather stay sober than risk being stranded with these nuts.

Eventually, Danielle and her ex began arguing outside. I sat inside with six drunk/high strangers.

"This happens all the time" the girl to my right remarked, waving her cigarette in their direction. "They'll be at it all night."

"He's kicking my car!" Danielle screamed, bursting through the door. I didn't care what he did to her car as long as it remained drivable.

While Danielle complained, her ex stole her keys and took off with her jeep. I laid back, resigned to the reality I might never escape.

An hour of bad TV later, Danielle returned. "He" was gone and we could enjoy the party. Eleven p.m. Too late for me, I lied. I wasn't sticking around to see what else might happen.

We kissed goodnight. She promised to call. I smiled politely. — Nicholas Fernandez

***

My evening with evolution man

During my semester in Spain, a classmate took it upon herself to fix me up with one of her boyfriend's friends, reasoning that dating a native would help my infantile Spanish. She had the man in question and her boyfriend over at her host parents' for drinks and I arrived late and half in the bag after futilely trying to talk her out of this arrangement. He gave me the customary kisses and I sat beside him, looking over exactly what she'd set me up with. The man had hair everywhere and the protruding bottom lip that I can only say placed him somewhere on the far left of the evolutionary chart. After five minutes of painfully slow small talk (he knew no English) and several whiskey and waters, he was trying to take my bra off as what I swear was a furry tongue scratched the roof of my mouth. My classmate had already taken off with her boyfriend, despite my pleading glances, so I cut him off. I used the best of my broken Spanish to ask what the hell was going, but it didn't register as his hands wound up in my pants. I escaped, going to get another drink and phoning my friends for advice as to how to get out of the situation tactfully. I wanted to tell him something to the effect of "I will never be drunk enough to willingly sleep with you," but we were having some problems with the translation. Moments later I had a plan, but returned to find him unzipping his pants. At this point I simply shouted out 'goodnight' to my classmate and fled as he tried to kiss me goodnight.

***

My Date With A Sucker-Punch by RockWriterGuy

This story comes from when I was in college at a small private school in the Midwest. I swear I'm not making it up.

I met this girl in Model UN club. She was an Indian international student who'd grown up in Singapore, sweet and shy and, ahem, quite "well-proportioned." I asked her out to dinner and was very surprised when she said yes. (Surprised, that is, given I'm kind of a geek — as if you couldn't tell from the phrase "I met this girl in Model UN club.")

Neither of us had a car. But it wasn't that far from campus to downtown, and the evening was nice, so walking wasn't a problem. This also meant that we had time to talk and get to know one another. We hadn't left the bounds of campus before this sweet, shy thing told me she had boyfriends in Singapore and Canada — and was promised to marry to a guy back in India. Sheesh — so much for the delicate flower of my fantasies. Eventually, she somehow got on to the topic of how violent American society is. I assured her that life in America wasn't like Hollywood made it out to be — that small towns, like the one we were in, were really safe.

As we reached downtown, a couple of townies started yelling at us from across the street. See, as small as this town was, the college was tiny — and, thus, wasn't big enough to turn the surrounding community into a "college town." It was still pretty hick — and the hicks hated us college students, what with our expensive book-learnin' and disinclination toward meth use. Normally I'd ignore it, but they started shouting racist slurs at my date. I was going to take it up with them, but she said to let it go. And I did ... after flying them the one-fingered salute. One of them ran over and shoved me. I shoved back. After a couple rounds of this, my date said something and I turned briefly. The guy took the opportunity to sucker-punch me in the jaw and run away.

Yes, this all happened about five minutes after I'd assured her America wasn't actually that violent.

We finally got to the restaurant and were seated. The waitress brought our menus. We studied them like there was going to be a test, since it was a lot easier than talking. The waitress returned — but, before we could order, she suddenly burst into tears and ran out of the restaurant. I still don't know why. My date and I just stared at each other for a moment — then we cracked up. Because what else could you do by that point?

After I took her home, we hardly exchanged more than two words ever again. She eventually hooked up with a Pakistani guy, so maybe our date furthered the cause of world peace a little. Then again, probably not.