CSB Sunday Morning: Asking someone out for the first time [CSB]

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CSB Sunday Morning: Asking someone out for the first time (fark.com)

More: CSB, Saturday Night Live, Sport, wrestling team, New York Post, Ski jumping, community members, Central European coal, Entertainment

512 clicks;posted toMain »and Discussion »on 18 Jan 2026 at9:00 AM(13 hours ago) | share: Copy Link

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16 hours ago

It’s always hard to get courage to ask someone out. When a girl told me about a movie she wanted to see back in the good ol’ days of school I asked if we can see it in the theater. She said yes and we saw it afterwards.

cherryl taggart

15 hours ago

Being female from the Stone Age, I was the one getting asked, not doing the asking.

Be that as it may, after traditional dating and a traditional marriage both failed, I was forced to examine the reasons.

I got along with many people, I was employed with my own transportation, so those are assets. I had some physical assets inside every top I wore, long naturally blonde hair, and was over the average height of females. So far, so good.

On the liabilities side, my mother and father conspired to create ugly children, with smart ass attitudes. So, unless someone was really confident in their ability to talk smack or overlook bulldog faces, I’m apparently out of luck, in the companion department.

I was just beginning to recognize alcohol was my secret weapon. Get drunk, find Mr. Right Now, enjoy. So, Mr. Right now had been convinced that he couldn’t live without my mother’s cooking and liked having dependable transportation, so we were engaged. I had to retrieve one of his pals from the airport and said pal showed up with extra baggage in the form of another pal from school. Fine, squeeze in, and let’s get moving.

Twelve years later, the starter husband is gone, but the extra pal from the airport is still around. He’s finished his military commitment and decided GA was a soft landing spot. We kept in touch over the years, mainly Christmas cards and gossipy letters, discussing movies, music, or books to see. He’s been married, was cheated on, and got dumped while deployed. I got cheated on and did my own dumping to free myself. We would commiserate over the phone about our jobs, the lousy laundromat dryers, and whatever books, movies, or music wasn’t available.

One of the things I had experienced in my marriage was the complete responsibility of a home. I had to handle laundry, cooking, cleaning, bills, yard work, and auto maintenance. Never again, I was never, ever going to own that much hassle again.

Right up til I realized that if I didn’t reinvest the funds from the sale of my last house, I was going to owe capital gains taxes. So, I started hunting, while my pal was warning me away from his apartment, as being too sketchy. I found a 3 bedroom, 2 bath starter home for $80k.

Everything’s moving along, except I’m realizing that I’ll be living right on the financial cliff. One breakdown or appliance away from disaster. I need a roommate, so I listen to my pal talking about a crack in his ceiling that is getting bigger. Hey, suddenly inspiration strikes.

I tell him I want to grab a bite, so if he’ll drive, I’ll buy. He says ok and I pick his favorite place, a little Chinese restaurant that will feed us both for under $20. He drives up, I hop in, and tell him to head to the place. He gives me a weird look, but heads that way. Normally, he shows up, parks, and we take my car. We eat and I’m trying to figure out how to admit I’ve gone back on my word and bought another damn house. He’s eating and barely making eye contact. We’re almost silent and the meal is almost done, so I finally blurt out, “I bought a house. Wanna see it?”

He nods, looks happy again and we drive over. I’m telling him about the tax reasons for the change, but nothing else. We tour the place, and I point out all the niceties, like a full garage, no more smash and grabs, a sturdy roof, no more cracks showing daylight. And finally, I ask him if he’d help me by being my housemate. The rent will be lower than what he’s paying and all the kitchen appliances work, and no more laundromat misadventures.

He agrees on the spot, and about 6 weeks later, we’re all moved in. We’re hanging out and he says he needs to tell me something. Ok, what now? He asks if I remember the night I showed him the house and I said of course, why. He remembers it for a couple of reasons, mainly because I was acting so weird. It was summer and his car had no freon, so we rode with the windows down in muggy GA. I never eat Chinese in the summer, because there’s nothing on a Chinese menu that is cold. I’m barely talking while we eat, so he had deduced that I was letting him know that I had met someone and this was our last get together until me and my new man were settled in.

We both ended up laughing and decided that neither of us was cut out for dating. We’ll be married for over 30 years later this year, but our relationship goes back over 45 years.

Thus ends the saga of the one and only time I asked a guy out.

13 hours ago

Nice story. You sound like “a catch” as older people like me say.

TheSecondAmigo

13 hours ago

This was at the local Farmers’ Market in the Bay area. A cute woman was in charge of a stall where several vegan baked goods were sold. Being vegan, I’d frequent this stall every week and, over time, started conversing with this woman.

She was vegan as well we’d have nice long conversations and sometimes I’d go back a second time the same day to continue talking to her (she’d told me that I could come back later in the morning when they were not so busy).

This went on for several weeks and I was trying to summon the courage to ask her out for lunch at a nearby vegan restaurant (she lived in a different city and her family would drive different family members to the different cities in the Bay area). The problem was that, typically there would other customers at the stall and I didn’t have the courage to ask her in front of the others. And added to this was the fact that I was nervous.

Anyway, one time when I went to revisit the stall for the second time for the day, there was an older lady next to my friend. As I walked up to the stall, my friend said, “I want you to meet my mother” and introduced her mother to me.

Since I thought that I was on safe grounds, I then asked my friend if she’d have lunch with me sometime.

And she said, “I’d like to but I should let you know that I’m just 18 years old!”

And, seeing the shocked look on my face, she added, “But I want you to know that I’m not offended at all by you asking me.”

I was more than twice her age at that time. Interestingly, after that incident, I was able to converse with her more freely. I still remember how well she handled the situation, given her age at that time.

13 hours ago

I had a roommate in college who had limited success with ladies at the time. He probably wasn’t helped by being homely with poor fashion sense and almost no social skills. I heard from him by surprise email a few years ago. He said that he had figured women out finally. They’re “just after his money, so use them and dump them is his policy”. (his words) Surprisingly, he’s still single.

I hope he does have the money, ’cause I don’t know if he has much else to comfort himself. Kind of a sour, bitter guy. I suppose you’ll get that way after enough rejections.

Exhume me for National Pop Goes the Weasel Day

13 hours ago

Duck_of_Doom

13 hours ago

I usually do the asking. And get told no. 90% of the time. I am that physically repulsive. Yay me.

Last time I was asked out was in a Walgreens parking lot at like 8 pm by the guy parked next to me. He was sitting in his car when I went in and when I left. Couldn’t see him that well, and it must have been same for him because he thought I was in my 20s, dude said he was late 30s. I’m very much not in my 20s, but apparently I sound much younger. I’m not interested in a hookup with a guy from a Walgreens parking lot.

Condescending Ellipses

13 hours ago

Lamentably she said yes. Ffw to like 11 years later and I finally wiped the last of that mistake off the bottom of my shoes and have been content and happily single since

SurelyShirley

13 hours ago

Exhume me for National Pop Goes the Weasel Day: “How much”

13 hours ago

cherryl taggart: Being female from the Stone Age [CSB]

That was entirely too wholesome for FARK.

/50 DKP Minus.

12 hours ago

I asked Miss-Zak to be my girlfriend before I even asked her out on our first date.

She saw me before I knew who she was; we were both apparently on drama clubs from different middle schools. She was on her school’s crew, I was in my school’s cast. We ended up going to the same magnet school and being in the same circle of friends for the whole time. However, thanks to AIM, we spent nights chatting with each other, seemingly getting closer than friends as time went on. Could have asked her out to prom, but didn’t for a host of mental-health reasons that I’m not comfortable saying here. After prom and leading up to graduation and first day of college though, chats got longer, we started being in each other’s presence longer, even away from our circle of friends.

Then college happened. I’m pretty sure I still looked the same, but she didn’t look the same after 3 months of only chatting her up (we lived in different cities and I didn’t have a car yet) – maybe summer time AIM chats had drawn us closer than I thought, but she had on light makeup and she wasn’t wearing the usually loose clothing that she had in high school, so more of her body had come out. Sometimes love builds up, then it just hits all at once. Now that we were in college, we could spend more time together before she went home for the day, which also meant that she could also hang out in an apartment I was sharing with my sister and a friend of mine. Things were accelerating, our courting seemed to be accelerating, all that needed to happen was for one of us to make a move…

…then 9/11 happened. Granted we knew that neither of us were anywhere near NYC or DC, but we were so relieved to find each other after our respective classes were cancelled. Everything felt like it was standing still, and that’s how it was for the next few days as all kinds of authorities were on high alert for if anyone else was getting attacked (yes, even our little corner of Texas). Somewhere in the gloom of an upside-down world, I wanted to get closer to this girl that I’ve been chatting up for years, that I spent as much of our graduation ceremony together with even though our last names were on the opposite sides of the alphabet.

On September 19th, 2001, I plucked up the courage to ask her to be my girlfriend. Just as I was about to mortally chastise myself for what I’ve done considering that we have never been on a date yet, what the fark am I doing asking her to be my girlfriend, she accepted my proposal.

I’ll be honest, I’m not even sure if I remember what our first date was, but it must have worked out just fine – whatever happened in our first date, she was by girlfriend before then, she was my girlfriend afterwards. It’s a love that began late nights on AIM.

/this year on Sep. 19th, it will have been 25 years since that fateful day
//then in a few weeks will be our 16th wedding anniversary

12 hours ago

One day a woman I had a HUGE crush on asks me if I want to go to the Bahamas. With her and her friend.
TWO GIRLS in the BAHAMAS? Count me in.
I don’t remember anything that we did in the Bahamas because most of the time I was:

But after a few days we were back home and waving goodbye to each other. Nothing happened.
It was like “Three’s Company goes to the Bahamas”.

A few years later ANOTHER girl I had a lesser crush on ASKED ME IF I WANTED TO GO TO THE BAHAMAS WITH HER! This time, there was no additional “friend”. Just the two of us. I am all over this, let’s go!

But just like the last time, NOTHING HAPPENED. We even shared a hotel room. She seemed extremely disappointed with everything about the trip. Was it me? I don’t know. Was it her? Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe she just needed a chaperone and wanted to get away for some reason.
We went back to work and never spoke of it again.

A few years later I am at a party and I am chatting with this other group of women I work with and one of them just flat out asks me “Do You Want To Go To The Bahamas with Me?”

Sometimes I can’t keep the thoughts in my head from coming out of my mouth and I blurted out:
“Boy, I would have to be really drunk to do that”.

She starts crying and her friends all start yelling at me.

Cafe Threads

12 hours ago

Johnson: One day a woman I had a HUGE crush on asks me if I want to go to the Bahamas. With her and her friend.
TWO GIRLS in the BAHAMAS? Count me in.
I don’t remember anything that we did in the Bahamas because most of the time I was:

[Fark user image image 280×180]

But after a few days we were back home and waving goodbye to each other. Nothing happened.
It was like “Three’s Company goes to the Bahamas”.

[Fark user image image 280×180]

A few years later I am at a party and I am chatting with this other group of women I work with and one of them just flat out asks me “Do You Want To Go To The Bahamas with Me?”

Sometimes I can’t keep the thoughts in my head from coming out of my mouth and I blurted out:
“Boy, I would have to be really drunk to do that”.

She starts crying and her friends all start yelling at me.

I am a terrible, horrible person, because I can’t stop laughing after reading this. 🤣

12 hours ago

Thirty years ago I met the girl of my dreams and asked her out on a date.
One year later I asked her to marry me.

She aid no both times.

The Pope of Manwich Village

12 hours ago

Back in the late 80s, I had met this woman – my friend’s girlfriend at the time, actually. She and I didn’t hit it off initially, but over the ensuing years and failing relationships for both of us, fate kept pulling us together.

The big moment came after we’d become close friends. I was nervous and being uncharacteristically sincere, by telling her that I liked her-not in a dramatic, typical movie-romance way, but in a detailed, almost rambling way.

I listed the small, specific things about her that I loved: the way she ordered food, the way she got cold, the way she’d take three days to call me back. None of these are traditionally “romantic,” but that’s the point-I’m proving that I’ve been paying attention to her.

Then I asked her out almost as an afterthought, as if the date itself was secondary to my confession of love. My ask wasn’t framed as “Will you go out with me?” so much as “I want to spend time with you because you matter to me.” My vulnerability removed any performative masculinity or bravado. I risked embarrassment and rejection in exchange for honesty.

Her reaction to my proposal? She smiled, and then launched into an exaggerated, unmistakable performance of a fake orgasm-right there at the table-“YES! YES! OH, YES!” – showing how easy it is to convincingly fake one in public while showing someone how well a date with her is likely to end. A sassy older woman at the table next to us said “I’ll have what she’s having.”

12 hours ago

That would have had to be my senior prom. I wasn’t really an ask chicks out kind of dude but my friend was recruited by one of our party crew to take his sister and then she insisted I take her best friend. They introduced us in the lunch room and since it seemed pre-arranged I was like ‘nice to meet ya do you want to go to the prom with me’ and she said sure. I ended up in a white tux with lavender accessories and her gown wasn’t memorable. I think there’s still a VHS tape floating around with me pinning on the corsage and whisking her off in my dad’s ’76 Celica.

12 hours ago

Went to an all boys high school. So as I was in New York and doing subway to and from school, never really met any girls. I was also FAT!!! But doctor put me on a weight loss program. By the time summer came around I was in pretty good shape but had no experience with women. We spent our summers out west in small town (I also worked on a ranch). Sooo-a girl from this town asked ME to do stuff with her. Movies, etc. And I learned from other people in town that she was considered the prettiest girl in town and the “best catch”. That stunned me. We had a great summer together. Helped overcome my shyness around women. Was a lucky break from a guy who had nothing when summer started. We never got beyond summer with our relationship. So I’ll always remember her as a good person, pretty girl and fun times. As the phrase goes: “happiness is not something you experience, it’s something you remember”. I think it was said by Oscar Levant

Groupon boob job

12 hours ago

Today’s topic made me realize that the only time I ever asked anyone out was when I was 15 years old. I hadn’t thought about it previously, so this post might have some elements of a therapeutic monologue rather than proper story telling. Even at 52 I have realizations about my life which surprise me, and this was one. Of all the romantic relationships I have ever been in, none of them were the result of me making any sort of move or proposition. They just happened, and I just went along with them.

I was raised in a very strict religious household (Catholic.) My mother was particularly vocal about women being evil temptresses, modern dating was disgusting, and proudly declared many times to my brother and I during our early teens that she and my dad were virgins when they got married. My dad usually remained silent during those times, double face palming with his head in his hands. One of the results of the relentless pressing Catholic guilt and constant lecturing about the evils of women and my complete lack of any social exposure to them, was that in my early teens when all my friends were ogling girls and engaging in ham-handed efforts to flirt, I wasn’t. It simply didn’t even enter my conscious thought. It didn’t help that I was sent to an all-boys Catholic high school. I did have a crush on a girl in middle-school, but that experience only led to parent-created negative associations and learned behaviors reinforcing the existing issues. It was the subject of another full-length narrative in a past Sunday morning CSB, too long to recount here.

By the time I was starting junior year I was only 15. I was generally a year to a year-and-a-half younger than my peers in school which only added to the problems. That’s a huge difference in that period of life. Regardless, my biological drivers managed to break through the imposed behaviorism, though not in the same way as I imagine they did for everyone else. For me, something was telling me from a social perspective I should be attempting to date, that it was expected, so I proceeded to go through the motions. It sounds so odd to say that. But I am realizing now that’s pretty much all it was. I went to a school dance (the all-boys school would import women from the all-girls sister school across town) and just wandered around until I saw a girl who looked as awkward and out of place as I did. I asked her to dance, she said yes, and I got her number at the end of the evening. I called her later, asked her to go to a movie and she said yes. For the next couple months we made small talk on the phone on Tuesdays and Thursdays (I was only allowed to speak with her on the corded phone in the middle of the kitchen with my mother sitting at the table monitoring everything.) We went to a movie on Friday or Saturday (my older brother drove us.) We made out a couple times, just kissing. And that was pretty much it. After about 2 months I didn’t see any point in it continuing. I had done what I was socially expected to do and I just… stopped calling her. She called me a few times and I just didn’t say much and I think she got the message. I feel terribly about it now, but I don’t think I was capable of much more back then.

I never asked anyone else out again. It really wasn’t until senior year of college that I had mostly “normalized” and come to understand the effects of my repressed and traumatic childhood, and realized that I genuinely wanted to be in a relationship finally. But with no experience socializing with women or figuring things out in my formative years, here I was at 20 years old: a virgin armed only with a TV / Hollywood romanticized perception of how these things worked.

A woman I worked with in the college library asked if I was interested in trying out for a role in the theater club’s show. I said yes, went with her for that, we both got parts, started hanging out, finally lost my virginity, and then next thing I know she’s introducing me to people as her boyfriend. After 6 months I broke up when she introduced me to relatives as her “fiance.” There was no ring, proposal, or anything of the sort.

A month after that I received an email on (an incredible novelty in Spring of 1995) from another student account asking if I was seeing anyone. I thought it was a prank but it turned out to be genuine; it was a woman I had a class with who knew I worked in the library. She asked me to join her for lunch. We were together for the next 5 years, got engaged, and then very suddenly one day she called off the wedding and broke it all off.

It all ends happily. I have been with my wife for 22 years now, married for 19. We met on Yahoo personals. She responded to my post, we chatted on AOL instant messenger, and mutually agreed to meet for lunch in person. There was never anything official about asking out, or putting a label on things. We both just knew. I did buy a ring and ask her to marry me. It wasn’t something I felt I had to do, it was something I really wanted to do. And for the first time in my romantic life, something I was completely sure about.

11 hours ago

In 1979, I transferred to Southern Illinois University and moved into a coed dorm next to a beautiful lake. There I would see mrs edmo around, a tall, lean brunette who always seemed to be smiling. I’d find time to stop by her room and say hi. She still makes fun of me for somehow always showing up to sit with her in the cafeteria or walk to the library together. She thought it was cute. It’s probably called stalking these days.

I had dated a lot in high school yet not at all in nearly three years of college. But this girl, she definitely caught my eye, and with help and inspiration from my roommate we devised a simple plan to ask her out by kidnapping her Papa Smurf.

I talked her roommate into letting me borrow Papa Smurf and took him back to our room. There, we taped his mouth shut and then strung him up on the inside of a cabinet door above the closet, then closed the door tightly to make sure he kept quiet

I began snipping letters from the student newspaper, then hastily pasted together my demand. The note was slipped under her door while she was out.

Not long after, a hard knock at the door announced the note had been received. She entered the room demanding him back, no questions asked.. She wouldn’t even consider a date until she made sure he was okay. So the cabinet door was opened to reveal the bound and gagged Smurf.

“Ahh!,” she screamed, “My Smurf.”

Negotiations commenced and eventually, after a “no” on my desired night because she was busy, we did go out.

It’s 43 1/2 years later and we’re still together. Yes, the thrill is gone, and neither of us looks as pretty as we did then, but we still go on dates, all without me having to commit felony kidnapping.

Meat’s dream

11 hours ago

Condescending Ellipses: Lamentably she said yes. Ffw to like 11 years later and I finally wiped the last of that mistake off the bottom of my shoes and have been content and happily single since

It’s funny how we pay just as dearly for our “successes” as we do for our failures sometimes. As Garth Brooks said, sometimes we should be thankful for unanswered prayers.

11 hours ago

I had a friend who was a pickup artist. He was very successful at reaching his goal of bedding women whenever he wanted. I thought he was obnoxious and shallow but he was legendary and I was not. One evening, we were at a bar and he was, as Stinky Trump would say, moving like a biatch on some cutie. I was enviously watching him and decided I should give that a try. I went to the bar and nonchalantly pulled into an opening next a nice looking woman who didn’t seem to be attached. We chatted comfortably for a few minutes and I asked if I could call her. She said that would be nice and wrote her number on a napkin. I called next day and an operator at the Police Department answered the phone.

The Smails Kid

11 hours ago

[Fark user image image 280×180]

But after a few days we were back home and waving goodbye to each other. Nothing happened.
It was like “Three’s Company goes to the Bahamas”.

[Fark user image image 280×180]

A few years later I am at a party and I am chatting with this other group of women I work with and one of them just flat out asks me “Do You Want To Go To The Bahamas with Me?”

Sometimes I can’t keep the thoughts in my head from coming out of my mouth and I blurted out:
“Boy, I would have to be really drunk to do that”.

She starts crying and her friends all start yelling at me.

Three two trips to the Bahamas and you didn’t even get a Biatchin’ Camaro out of the deal.

11 hours ago

We went on a date. It was ok. A week later i got a message from both her and the future mrs.4335. Girl i went on a date with wanted me to buy beer since she wasn’t yet 21. Future Mrs.4335 wanted me to come over and just hang out.

I decided i just wanted to relax and hang out. So i spent the evening with future mrs.4335. We played chess and watched a movie (which really ended up being a makeout fest).

This was fall of ’96. After both of us going through a lot together, with her even dumping me in ’97 and us getting back together a year and a half later, this year we’ll have been married 25 years.

Halfabee64

11 hours ago

My wife was hired shortly after I was, and we became fast friends at work. She was in a relationship, and I was a lanky, lonely kid, 700 miles from home. I tried to meet women doing things I liked doing in hopes of finding someone with shared interests, but I wasn’t making any progress. After a few months, she revealed that she was convinced her boyfriend was cheating and treating her like a friend with benefits, and I decided to make my move. I asked her out to a fancy Italian restaurant on Valentine’s Day and she accepted. Before I know it, she’s playing footsies under the table and we ended up making out on her mother’s living room floor, where she was staying temporarily.

Now I never do anything half-assed, so I went for broke to seal the deal. Being a huge Blue Oyster Cult fan, I had heard of the Château Frontenac since I was a kid, so I decided to find out what it was like for myself. This was over 40 years ago, so there was no Internet to research and book travel. I told her to pack for a long weekend (Presidents Day), and we winged it. I wouldn’t tell her where we were going, and a few hours later when we came to the Canadian border, she was getting nervous, confused and a little pissed that I wouldn’t tell her where we were going.

We drove on and eventually we’re driving through Quebec City. Like her, I have no idea what to expect, but I was not disappointed. We arrived in the shadow of a stone edifice and turned through a massive stone arch into a courtyard. I stopped at the front door and a doorman dressed in a maroon velvet uniform with gold epaulets, ermine cuffs and collar, and white gloves steps forward, opens her door and reaches in with his white gloved hand. She looks at the offered hand and then looks at me and asks, “What’s this?” I laughed and said, “It’s a hand. Take it.” She takes his hand, and he leads her to the front door and opens it for her. I leave the car for the valet and join her.

The hotel was virtually empty, and I asked for a nice room with a view. We got a giant circular room, high in a turret overlooking Old Quebec City and the frozen St. Laurence River (see below). It turns out, I dodged a bullet, as the previous week was Quebec City’s Ice Festival and we wouldn’t have found a room in the city. Being high on a Canadian bluff in February, the weather was brutal with a wind chill of -40F, and we had to walk backwards into the wind when exposed to it.

In the lee of the windy bluff, down in Old Quebec City, it was still below 0F, and we dodged from shop to shop as fast as we could until we came upon a little cafe that was right out of The Three Musketeers: blown glass window panes with circular swirls in the middle, stone walls, a low timber-beamed ceiling, heavy wooden furniture, and a diminishing fire in a massive fireplace. The waitress didn’t speak English, and we didn’t speak French, but we got the gist that the kitchen was closed between lunch and dinner. She raises a finger and says, “Ah, un instant s’il vous plaît.” and heads into the kitchen. She comes back with a large wooden cutting board in her hands and a bottle of white wine under her arm. On the cutting board was a loaf of rustic bread, a knife, slices of cheese, and an apple sliced and arranged in the shape of a swan. {CRACK watches home run sail over the fence}. A gentleman doesn’t discuss such things, but a line from The Eagles’ Witchy Woman comes to mind when I look back on the rest of the weekend.

10 hours ago

pissnmoan: I had a friend who was a pickup artist. He was very successful at reaching his goal of bedding women whenever he wanted. I thought he was obnoxious and shallow but he was legendary and I was not. One evening, we were at a bar and he was, as Stinky Trump would say, moving like a biatch on some cutie. I was enviously watching him and decided I should give that a try. I went to the bar and nonchalantly pulled into an opening next a nice looking woman who didn’t seem to be attached. We chatted comfortably for a few minutes and I asked if I could call her. She said that would be nice and wrote her number on a napkin. I called next day and an operator at the Police Department answered the phone.

I had a friend like that in my 20s and he was older, maybe in his 30s. He looked like a cross between Face from the A-Team and the Doom guy. He was so adept at picking up chicks that he just went for the challenges. We were eating lunch at a restaurant and there was a family seated nearby. He walked up to their table and asked out a blonde in a green shirt. They dated for a few months and we just referred to her as ‘Greenie’. Another time at a bar there’s a couple at a two-top on a first date. The dude went to the bathroom and my friend goes and sits in his seat for like thirty seconds. He ended up with that chick for a few months.

He was also magnanimous with his powers. We worked together and early in our friendship we went to a work function. My car was parked in a hotel parking garage and on the way back we got in the elevator with two girls…one was fat and the other unremarkable. He got us invited up to their room and played wingman with fattie so I could score with the other one. I was like what just happened.

rideaurocks

10 hours ago

No good stories, but I could’ve taught Bon Scott a thing or two about getting shot down in flames. I have bad timing

10 hours ago

I wasn’t God’s gift to anyone. Short, average face, heavyset. No prospects.

But I asked lots of women out. I figured if they said no, I wasn’t damaged in any way. I didn’t have a lot of self confidence so they couldn’t harm me at that level.

But I got a decent amount of dates based on my volume of requests. Had fun. Avoided train wrecks. Didn’t form strong attachments as I was pretty certain I didn’t want, need or deserve a commitment. I liked living on my own and making my own choices and dealing with my own crap as I saw fit.

But I met the woman. She made me feel insecure and inadequate. I’m still not clear how the math worked out in my head, but I just knew she was worth the chase.

This was ’99. The internet was a thing, but still early days. I was working for an ISP because I knew I wanted to be in that wave. I mentioned the girl to my coworkers. I had written 5 emails to ask her out, but had not sent any because they weren’t good enough. So I sent my 5 drafts to the other guys and we crowdsourced editing them down to a “best of” version. She had been thinking of our meet cute, and was impressed that I waited 4 days to ask and by the message because she didn’t know how much I had sweated it before sending.

Her narrative is that she fed me that night and, and like a stray dog, I never left. But 25 years later and with 5 grandkids so far, and I’m starting to think it may work out.

luckyeddie

10 hours ago

Nothing CSB about it really.

Last week, I CSB’ed my ‘getting sacked’ story in the ‘not getting sacked’ CSB (4 weeks at FW Woolworth having my shift changed every week to the ‘full 6 days’ shift, taking the Saturday off and then getting fired on the following Monday). This was in 1971.

I went down to local Labour Exchange, landed an interview at a local laboratory and started the next day.

There was a gird – redhead – who worked in the same laboratory (pharmaceutical R&D for Riker, eventually 3M). She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen her before. She was just introduced as ‘Sue’. That first day, she caught the same bus home that I caught, and got off in the same village, but 4 stops before I did. We didn’t really

The next morning, she sat with me and we finally struck up a proper conversation. The penny dropped. I played football (proper football, not armoured hand-egg) with one of her brothers and cricket with her other brother. Her parents were occasional visitors to my parents’ pub, usually at the weekend.

The following weekend, Sue came to the pub with them, so neither really asked the other one out. It just happened. A few hiccups along the way, but we just sort-of amalgamated. Soul-mates in the classic Homer-Marge manner.

Last March, we celebrated our Golden Wedding Anniversary.

thealgorerhythm

10 hours ago

I never had a problem asking girls and later women out. No idea why. I’ve always been nerdy with all of the attendant childhood bullying issues that came with growing up a GenX nerd. I guess I had nothing to lose. I’ve never thought about it before but my success rate was definitely better than 50%. Now that I’ve been married for 20 years the bigger issue is turning down the occasional woman who notices me and doesn’t care about the ring which is kinda creepy.

Halfabee64

10 hours ago

I was a senior in high school and upon returning from Christmas break, there were two new students behind me in chemistry class; one of them, a cute buxom blonde: a little pear-shaped, but I was a lonely 6′-4″ 135 lb lanky geek, so who am I to judge. As I got to know her, I realized that neither of us had a class during the last period, so I offered to drive her home every day, rather than her wait for a long bus ride.

I’m really into music, and we would discuss music a lot as we listened to my mix tapes on the way home. I really liked her and wanted to take things to the next level, but feared that our drives home would get awkward if she said no. One day, I had an epiphany: what if the music said what I was afraid to say? I started mixing in songs that expressed my feelings into the tapes. Nothing that would be too obvious and grab her attention, as we were always conversing about the lyrics. Then one day I went for broke: a deliberate series of songs, building to a crescendo of honesty about how I felt about her.

I wish I could remember the entire sequence, but the last two songs are etched into my brain: Death Valley Nights by Blue Oyster Cult and What’s on my Mind by Kansas. I won’t go into too much detail on the former, but the final refrain from the haunting Death Valley Nights, which in itself, is one giant musical crescendo is,

Ohhh, Babe!

What I need is a kiss from you babe
Before it’s hangover time.
What I need is some love from you babe
Before the stampede arrives.

{fading out}
I need you!

What’s on My Mind would be either MY crescendo or coup de grace, as it revealed my plot with laser focused lyrics that left no doubt as to what I was up to, starting with the second verse.

Well, I found you, or maybe I found myself
And I think we knew it all of the time
We fit together just like a lock and a key
And we open up each other’s minds

Yeah, I was laughing, cause there was no room to cry
There was too much growing to do
We had a good time, and it ain’t over yet, cause I know
You’ve got me going
Will you pardon me my feelings are showing?
I’m only sayin’

You came from nowhere, and you just jumped in my life
And I know it never will be the same
You made me love you, now I’m home once again
No, I never want to leave you no more

‘Cause I returned to the better half of myself
And there is nowhere else that I’d rather be
You filled an empty; you fixed up my broken heart

Yes, I know you’ve got me going, yeah
Pardon me, my feelings are showing
I’m only saying what’s on my mind

{fading out}
(I’m only saying)
What’s on my mind
(I’m only saying)
What’s on my mind
(I’m only saying)
What’s on my mind
(I’m only saying)

The song ends, and she turns and punches me in the shoulder: hard. “OW! What was that for?” She replies, “You know damn well what that was for! You bastard! You brainwashed me!” {Well, did it work?} We drove home in silence with the windows down and when we got to her house, she got out of the car without a word, walked behind the car, and before I could put the car back in gear, she leans in my window, kisses me on the cheek and walks away without a word. I put the car in gear, grinned and sped home {She’s mine!}

numfarvera

10 hours ago

shabu: I wasn’t God’s gift to anyone. Short, average face, heavyset. No prospects.

But I asked lots of women out. I figured if they said no, I wasn’t damaged in any way. I didn’t have a lot of self confidence so they couldn’t harm me at that level.

But I met the woman. She made me feel insecure and inadequate. I’m still not clear how the math worked out in my head, but I just knew she was worth the chase.

Her narrative is that she fed me that night and, and like a stray dog, I never left. But 25 years later and with 5 grandkids so far, and I’m starting to think it may work out.

Really need a heart button for this one. Last line just made me saw “Awwwwww”.

I May Be Crazy But…

10 hours ago

I’ve asked a fair number of women out. I usually tried to make sure I was decently groomed, dressed in better than my usual holey undershirts, that sort of thing – it seemed like a good strategy. Until the woman who would agree to marry me.

She’d moved into town right out of college about a month before (we were both in grad school) and she needed furniture. But she didn’t have a way to get it from IKEA to her apartment, which is where my beat up truck and I came in.

So I help her get furniture and carry it all up to her apartment for her. In summer. In Houston.

It’s all in her apartment and we’re done and I’m dripping sweat so much that I’m standing on the little linoleum patch in front of the door so I don’t get her cheap apartment carpet wet. And for some reason I blurt out “Do you want to go to dinner with me?”

I heard what I said and immediately started to backtrack. “You know, if you want to. I mean, uh, not because I helped with the furniture. But just if you want to. I want to. I mean, if you do.” At which point she interrupted me to say yes, which was nice because I don’t think I could have stopped myself from babbling at that point.

And that’s how I managed to get a date with her.

Russell_Secord

9 hours ago

You know That Guy, right, ladies? Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair, blue eyes, strikingly handsome. So you get near him, send some signals, wait for him to open the gate.

And nothing happens. He’s so shy and awkward he can’t read your flirting for what it is. If you do get him to talk, he stammers and misunderstands and looks like he wants to leave.

Luckily that guy met someone at work. We’ve been married almost 22 years.

deadromanoff

9 hours ago

early eighties, me early 20’s
Bic used to make lighters with sayings printed on them. One was Flick me in script.
if you scraped the top of the L off it changed it to F#ck me.
i tossed it to a girl and got a one or two night stand out of it.

I May Be Crazy But…

9 hours ago

On the other hand, the first (and only) time I realized I was being asked out when it happened instead of a couple days later. This is a couple years ago. I was at work and apparently thought to myself “I really need some bad coffee to make this day worse” so I went to the break area to get coffee. As is usual, someone had emptied the last and left the empty put to burn instead of making more.

So I grabbed a clean pot and started to make more while I scrubbed the burnt one clean. While I’m working on that, a young woman who I sometimes saw around comes to get coffee and we do the pointless small talk thing, but she’s weirdly awkward. Whatever, we all have days like that.

I got the pot clean and started, then figured I’d get things settled there while I was at it so I got fresh decaf set up and cleaned everything. What I did when I was waiting tables so I’d always have coffee ready – nobody likes to wait for coffee. And she’s there the whole time.

I poured her a cup and then one for myself and she blurted out, “Do you want to get coffee this weekend?” I looked down at our cups of coffee in confusion, then realized what was happening.

I told her I was married but thank you for the compliment. I didn’t see her for a couple months after that, but I do occasionally now and I try to be pleasant. I feel a bit bad for her because it clearly took a lot for her to do it and I didn’t even consider it.

Spooonster

8 hours ago

Back in college, there was a girl that was in several of my classes as we were in the same major. We’d chatted a bit before and after class. One of the classes was before lunch and one after, and occasionally between classes a bunch of the people from one or both of those classes would hang out at the on-site university cafeteria while waiting for the next class. One day, there was a small group having a spirited discussion about something and there was a dude I’d never seen before sitting next to her. He never said a word the entire time. But, it soon came time for class to start and most of us headed off our next class. This particular day, I had to give a presentation in class and I was a little nervous about it because public speaking is not my forte. I happened to ask the girl, “Who was that dude at lunch, anyway?” She replied, with a small amount of panic in her voice, “Just a friend. JUST a friend!!”

The jolt of confidence from that comment carried me through the best presentation I have ever given in my life.

And yes, I asked her out after class and we dated for a few months.

Wine Sipping Elitist

8 hours ago

Long story short, a smoking hot 25 year old latina with a boyfriend moves into my cul de sac. I was 40 years old or so. Later her boyfriend starts beating her, got her hooked on drugs. She ran over and knocked on my door after a fight, and I let her in. We talk, I told her to leave him. She did not.

This was the first time I’ve ever talked to her, btw. She wouldn’t even look at me until this day.

She came over again about a month later after anothef fight and beating and I said leave him now. She said ok so I got my gun and the biggest, blackest friend I had and we protected her while she packed up her stuff and left. We text a few times to let me know she is safe.

One year later, she comes by to thank me and tell me she is all clean now. I say thanks for letting me know and her improvement and safety is all that I care about.

I guess no one has ever said anything like that to her before. She basically said, can I be your girlfriend? I couldn’t get rid of her for the next few years, then we took a break, and now she’s back. She’s definitely one of my favorite people in life.

And that’s the only time in my life a beautiful woman knocked on my door and asked to be my girlfriend. It’s really unbelievable.

7 hours ago

I have a bunch of first date stories but I’ll tell my last first date story.

I was a young potter and I was signed up for a craft show in Nashville. But, my truck had just died and I hadn’t been able to fix it yet. I was going to have to be a no-show, until my friend George asked me if he could share my space– his wife had just been in the hospital and he really had to sell some pots to start paying off those bills. So I rode up to Nashville in his van and set up my booth.

I had my great black and silver German Shepherd I’d acquired in Vegas when I lived there, tied up under a bush next to my booth. Boogie was snoozing quietly in the shade and I was bombing in the sales department. Eventually a couple of young women drifted by the booth and one of them had a springer spaniel on a leash. The girl with the dog was astonishingly pretty, wearing shorts and a fairly scandalous halter top, and just as I noticed her amazing looks, Boogie leapt from the bushes and attempted to kill her spaniel, which is something he’d never done before. The leash stopped him from getting to the spaniel, and after we got the dogs settled down she started looking at my pots in a surprisingly friendly manner. Eventually she bought an oil lamp and we talked a bit. I became increasingly interested, she seemed very bright as well as beautiful, and to me there’s nothing sexier than brains, which seems a bit rarer in the South than elsewhere.

In an effort to continue the interaction I asked her a question which in retrospect seems pretty creepy. I said, “Do you eat sugar?” Let me explain. I had recently parted from a girlfriend whose idea of healthy food was boiled summer squash over undercooked brown rice, and I was trying to ask if she’d like to go get some ice cream. She was inexplicably not creeped out, after I explained this, so I borrowed George’s van, abandoned my booth and off we went. Unfortunately the line at a nearby ice cream shop was around the block.

So then she told me she’d just baked a banana cream pie that morning and would I like a slice. It was very good pie. I went back to the craft fair where George yelled at me for staying away too long with his van and extra stock.

Over the next couple of weeks I wrote her a number of letters, which turned out to be persuasive, so that she came to see me at my shack in southern TN.

We’ve been together now 50 years and 6 months.

7 hours ago

The Pope of Manwich Village: Back in the late 80s, I had met this woman – my friend’s girlfriend at the time, actually. She and I didn’t hit it off initially, but over the ensuing years and failing relationships for both of us, fate kept pulling us together.

Wow, that’s a great story. I have a director friend that would.. oh wait, never mind.

The Pope of Manwich Village

7 hours ago

algman: The Pope of Manwich Village: Back in the late 80s, I had met this woman – my friend’s girlfriend at the time, actually. She and I didn’t hit it off initially, but over the ensuing years and failing relationships for both of us, fate kept pulling us together.

Wow, that’s a great story. I have a director friend that would.. oh wait, never mind.

I might have some of the details slightly wrong. It was a long time ago.

The Ice Cream Man

7 hours ago

Most of the time, I didn’t do too well. When people say, “The worst thing she can say is ‘No’, I always reply, ‘No, that’s the second nicest thing.’ “. Let me explain:

First level of rejection is a bs excuse. “I’m busy this weekend” when she really isn’t. I caught one woman who claimed she couldn’t get the day off from her barista job, only for me to stop by on the way home on the day in question, to find that she took the day off. Wouldn’t speak to her after that.

Second level of rejection is a bs phone number. One time a guy called me asking for a particular woman. I told him that there was no such woman at my number. He insisted that this was her number. I had to tell him that she gave him a dummy number, and I was the dummy answering it. Sorry that he had to learn the hard way, but it happened to me a lot.

Third level of rejection is when the girl says yes and gives a real number, but then doesn’t show up. That hurts me the most. Sometimes I had bought tickets to a concert, then had no time to find someone else to go with, so I ended up eating the tickets. What’s worse is either a note on the door, or even her mom telling me the lame excuse why she wasn’t home. At least I knew who taught her how to be rude.

So, this leads to one time when I called a girl for a date, and she said she was busy that weekend. I said, “Well, okay then.” Sensing the disappointment in my voice, she said “Oh, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to go out with you.” I replied, “Yeah, right!” and hung up.

And I would do the same thing today, if it happened like that again!

6 hours ago

Here’s an almost asked out CSB:

I was with friends at an upscale bar on a swanky vacation island (think $$$). Started talking to this smoking hot girl. I really don’t have any game, so I’m shocked that I’m CRUSHING it, she’s waaaaay into me! This never happens. After about 15 mins one of my friends pulls me aside we have this conversation:

Him: “Dude, what are you doing?”
Me: “Hitting on a hot chick, it’s going great”
Him: “she’s a pro”

MelGoesOnTour

6 hours ago

Man. Everyone of these stories is heartfelt. And it shows how many people know what love is. Even the sadder stories are heartfelt. Good for all of you folks. 🙂

handsome boy model

6 hours ago

Does this cloth smell like chloroform to you?

Cafe Threads

4 hours ago

handsome boy model: Does this cloth smell like chloroform to you?

Oh, honey, that’s so lame.

You’re not going to catch me again. Seven times was enough!

Halfabee64

2 hours ago

Tying my previous two posts together and adding another attempt and an aborted attempt to ask for a date…

I was in college, it was a weekend in the middle of summer, and I was bored. A friend named JIm was attending summer school, and I was maintaining dorms and apartments for the housing authority, so I went over to his dorm with an official state road map in hand. Charlotte was in the middle of freaking nowhere: hours from the beach, hours from the mountains, surrounded by a sea of red clay and pine trees called The Piedmont. We pored over the map and along one of the margins was a list of attractions where we found, “Whitewater Falls: the tallest waterfalls east of the Mississippi at 420 feet, near Cashiers, NC in the Nantahala National Forest.” THAT’S IT! We would soon learn that NC DOT took liberties with the claim of the highest waterfalls east of the Mississippi, as there were two distinct sets of upper and lower falls, each of which were a series of cascades themselves, but that

We hopped in my rusty brown Celica with no air conditioning and drove about three hours to the trailhead. The trail was a wide, paved affair, about a 1/4 mile in length, and led to a scenic overlook. The view of the falls to the north was spectacular, but not what we expected. “This can’t be it? We didn’t drive all this way to walk 1/4 mile to a scenic overlook.” Then we noticed a lesser trail, leading off to the south.

It was steep and more a series of wooden steps than a trail, made of timber sleepers and earthen landings, and it was leading south, away from the falls. “This can’t be right?” Unbeknownst to us, it was heading to Lower Whitewater Falls, so we decided to take matters into our own hands and left the trail to bushwhack to the falls.

It was more a controlled fall akin to an Australian repel without ropes than actual bushwhacking as, we ran down the impossibly steep slope grabbing onto anything that could arrest our descent, long-dead pine branches slashing at us and snapping as we grabbed them. We made it to the bottom and were met by the Horse Pasture River: a rocky stream wedged in a narrow V-shaped valley with no floor to speak of, so we took off our sneakers, tied the laces together, draped them around our shoulders and headed up the stream jumping from rock to rock when we could and fording the stream when we couldn’t.

Eventually we make it to the base of the imposing Upper Whitewater Falls and it is impressive: twin cascades plummeting a hundred feet or more and dashing against a rocky slope before falling again into a deep black pool at the base. To the right of the falls, something strange caught our attention: a rusty length of thick steel cable fashioned into a loop at the end, wrapped around a sheet of bright orange woven polyester tarp, which in-turn was wrapped around the trunk of a massive tree. “Hmm. What’s that all about?” I look down at the deep black pool and up at the deafening roar of the falls and asked Jim, “I wonder if that is deep enough to break your fall? You know, not hit bottom and shatter your legs?” Jim says, “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to find out.”

Continuing to look around, we noticed a goat path of a trail leading up the opposite side of the falls and disappearing behind the veil of water at the top of the slope. We left our sneakers and T-shirts on the ledge overlooking the pool and headed up the trail.

The cave behind the falls was like something out of Last of the Mohicans: a massive cavern continuing up the same boulder strewn slope that formed the lower half of the falls, ending at a flat roof that reached out to the opaque torrent of water covering the mouth of the cave like a veil. We climbed up though the moss covered boulders to the back of the cave and having no place to go, and freezing from the cold mist that covered everything, we turned around to go back and realized that we had made a huge mistake: {How are we going to get down?}.

I assumed a crab-walk stance and started lowering myself, facing the ceiling and front of the cave, searching for hand and footholds. I was making progress when a foothold gave way or my foot simply slipped on the slimy moss. I lost my handhold(s) and launched down the slope, flailing for hand and footholds only to have my momentum rip them from my hands. Then it happened.

There is a scene in Star Trek: Insurection where Anji is gravely injured (ironically) in a cave collapse while fleeing Sona drones and Picard has to use her trick to slow time until help can arrive. Let’s just say that that scene is not far from the truth, though the time dilation is not localized, allowing help to arrive in normal time. Everything came to a stop. If I had been watching a butterfly, it’s wings would be moving imperceptively slow. There was no roar of the falls, no gravity, no sense of urgency, and no fear.

Leaving me frozen in mid fall, I have to take a detour. I am a lapsed Catholic and what I call a spiritual agnostic: open to a higher power; hoping against hope that there is life after death; and respecting others beliefs, even finding some eastern religious beliefs kind of cool, so long as nobody is forcing their beliefs upon me. When I was younger, my loss of faith left me with recurring, terrifying nightmares that ended with me in an open grave having dirt shoveled on top of me until there was nothing but darkness, and I’d wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, and muttering “OH, GOD! OH, GOD! OH, GOD” to a god I no longer believed in.

Back in the cave, I am still frozen in time and rather than seeing my life flash before my eyes in a Ludovico-like rapid-fire montage, I have the presence of mind to think about what I could have done better with my life and what I would do with another chance. I thought about my first girlfriend that I worked so hard to win her heart before she ripped mine out. I had brutally cut her out of my life, despite her repeated attempts worm her way back in with overtures of friends with benefits that would ultimately feel more like being cuckolded. Would she come to my funeral? I had burned a few other bridges and wondered who else would be there? If I survived this, I needed to mend some fences. This thought led me to other unfinished business.

In the university cafeteria, one of the women serving us dinner every night was oddly cute, in a young Clair Forlani kind of way and humored my Geico homeowner becoming my parents banter. I vowed to ask her out if I lived to get the chance. I continued to take stock of my life like I had all the time in the world before turning to my impending death.

Well, this is it! No time to worry about whether there is an afterlife or not. I’ve led a good and moral life, relatively speaking, and I highly doubt that a god that allows so much pain and suffering in the world, often done in his/her name, takes attendance at church. So, it’s, “Hello, Peter. Check your notes and judge away.” or nothing: no consciousness trapped in an endless darkness, like some General Zod in the Phantom Zone, just the end of consciousness. I could think of worse ways to go, like suffering a painful terminal illness, blubbering over my mortality until death or morphine takes me. My musings end in blackness as I pass through the veil of the falls and the final drop beyond.

I open my eyes and I’m shrouded in fog, deafened by an encompassing roar, and freezing cold. As my vision comes into focus, I realize that I am floating in a pool of water and a massive waterfall is crashing into the top of the pool. “Wow! Look at those falls! So that’s what all the roar and fog is about. I feel like I’ve been here before. This is…this is Whitewater Falls. I have been here before. OH, MY GOD! I just fell what looks to be 100-120 feet off Whitewater falls. I look around and there is a huge log leaning into the steep walled pool from the ledge above.

I’m siting on the flat ledge above the dark pool with my T-shirt and sneakers on, surrounded by the roar and mist of the falls. “Huh? What?” Looking up at the falls and down at the pool, I muse, “I guess that pool IS deep enough.” Looking back up, Jim is emerging from the opposite side of the falls and holding up bobbing palms as if to gesture, “Stop!. Don’t move!”

Jim is standing over me, shirt and shoes on. “Eric! I thought you were a goner. You looked like a sack of potatoes bouncing down that slope before you shot through the falls.” My T-shirt is tugging the right side of my neck and I reach for my left shoulder to adjust my shirt when I feel something shocking: My clavicle is snapped in half and poking up against my skin, lifting my shirt. “Holy shiat! My shoulder is trashed! How did I even get this shirt on?” Jim looks down at the huge log leaning into the pool and says, “More importantly, how did you tread water and climb that log with THAT shoulder?”

Jim says, “I’m going to get help. You stay here.” I said, “I don’t think you should leave me. I’ve clearly got a concussion and I’ve heard that if you fall asleep with a concussion, you can fall into a coma or die.” to which he replies, “I don’t know about that, but we can’t take the chance. You’ll have to come with me. Can you make it?” “I think so.”

I’m standing in the middle of a stream with my sneakers on. I’m staring at the back of Jim’s T-shirt: a giant green troglodyte is holding a surfer above the waves, pinched between two fingers with a white blurb coming out of his mouth that says, “GNARLY, DUDE!” “Jim?”, I query and as he turns around, I ask, “Where are we?” I feel something strange on my face, reach up to touch my cheek, which feels wet, and my hand comes away covered in blood. “What the…?” I probe my face with both hands, finding my skin flayed away from my cheek and chin and a massive bump on my head that feels like a softball lodged deep in my skull. I scream, “OH GOD, I’M SCARRED FOR LIFE!” Jim tries to calm me down and says, “It’s not that bad. You just fell off Whitewater Falls and we’re going t

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