Brynley Stent and Kura Forrester are documenting their cross-country quest to find love in the new Spinoff series, Bryn & Ku’s Singles Club. We asked readers to share their own stories about past dating experiences and finding love in Aotearoa.
‘Late, drunk, smelly’
We met on Tinder and agreed to meet up at Korean BBQ. He seemed really nice, and I thought at the very least I could meet a new friend! He turned up late, drunk, smelly, looking nothing like his photos, and spent the dinner slurring about how “I must be getting a bit worried” about running out of time to start a family (I’m 31). Just a nightmare from start to finish, and the audacity of some men never ceases to amaze. He messaged me afterwards, saying, “That was really great, and I think you’re hot”. Were we at the same dinner? Do you think I care what you think of how I look? My first and last Tinder date, lol. Terrible stuff and I’m pretty sure this is on the tame end of the bad date spectrum.
‘Just hold on’
Back in my uni days (which, let’s just say, weren’t exactly recent), I went on a first date with a guy I barely knew as his plus-one to the Uni Ball. I was nervous, so I borrowed my sister’s dress, let her do my makeup, and mentally prepared myself for an evening of mingling with total strangers.
To calm my nerves, I turned to the most logical solution – alcohol. Unfortunately, I may have overcommitted to this strategy.
After the ball came the afterparty. The nerve-calming continued at Shadows. After the afterparty, it was time to head home.
My date, who had remained stone-cold sober, was also my ride. As soon as we hit the motorway, I felt an urge to pee and politely asked if he could pull over so I could find a toilet… or a bush… anything. He refused. “Just hold on, I’ll get you home soon,” he said.
Let’s just say, I couldn’t hold on. Despite my increasingly desperate pleas, he kept driving, convinced I’d be fine. I wasn’t. Somewhere near Te Atatū, he finally relented and pulled off the motorway but by then, it was too late.
In my sister’s borrowed dress, in his front passenger seat, the floodgates had already opened. I never saw or heard from him again.
‘I’m really glad I took you to the all-you-can-eat buffet’
I was a fledgling radio host in my 20s and interviewed a well-known visiting TV comedian one morning for a slot. It went well, and we had a lot of laughs and, yes, chemistry – and off-air, he asked me out for dinner, which I was excited to accept. We exchanged numbers, and later, he rang to see if I could pick him up from someplace he was playing tennis on the other side of the city and drive us to our date. OK. I collected him and asked where dinner was. He was like, “Well, the place I’m performing is covering my dinner at the casino, so we’ll go there.” So I’m giving him a lift for free to his free dinner. Seems legit.
The dinner itself was a fixed-price all-you-can-eat buffet. I was living in a shared flat, had no money, a massive student loan, and worked three jobs, so I made sure to take advantage of all the grilled prawns, steak and chicken breast wrapped in bacon I could, made a few trips to the salad bar, and had at least two mini tiramisus and a cheese plate. There was zero romance from him. In fact, he barely spoke to me. Afterwards, he wanted to head upstairs to the actual casino part, where he casually blew a few hundred smackers as I looked on, unable to participate, before asking if I could give him a lift to meet a mate, again in my old Nissan. I dropped him off, realising I’d pretty much been nothing more than his glorified Uber for the night, and he thanked me with a thinly veiled insult. “I’m really glad I took you to the all-you-can-eat buffet. Because you clearly made the most of it.”
‘They pulled out an ID and showed it to me like I should be impressed’
I had been chatting with this person for a couple of weeks. Friendly enough. Got a little bit flirty. I am not good at flirting. A few days before we finally met, there was a red flag when they said, “I am pro-choice, so I am not vaccinated”. We agreed to meet at a restaurant. Friends had told me to text “help”, and they would call me if I needed an out. During our time chatting, I told them a story about a security incident at work when a kid threatened our security guard with a knife. When I met this person, they were short and very “cocky”. At one stage, they pulled out an ID and showed it to me like I should be impressed. It turned out it was a security ID, and apparently, their level of security training was far above what our work security guard would have. They also told me that if they had been involved in the incident that our security guard had been in and threatened with a knife by a kid, they would have stood their ground and said, “Come at me”. Needless to say, there was no other meeting after this one.
‘I even have the fish to prove it’
I had been messaging a guy on a dating app for a week, he was in town as an actor at the pop-up Globe (here for a good time not a long time) the chat was great and we teed up a date (yipeeee).
The day of the date arrives, and I confirm we are on to meet at 5.30pm at a bar in Ellerslie – confirmed. At 5.15, I get a message saying, “Sorry for running a bit late”, to which I reply, “No worries, how late are you? I can work for a bit longer”. He replies 15 mins later, “about 15 mins away”. Me: “All good”. With 5 mins until he has said he will arrive, I head to the bar, sit down, and do the classic “yeah, no, I am meeting a friend. I’ll wait till they arrive”. Fifteen mins later, still no sign of him, so I send another message: “Are you close?”. He replies: “Yep, 5 – 10 away”. ANOTHER 20 MINUTES LATER, I see him running down the street carrying a plastic bag. He jumps the fence into the bar and, sitting opposite me, says, “I am so sorry I am late. I was out fishing and got stuck out there. I even have the fish to prove it”. In the plastic bag, he has four dead fish. WTF.
I then put all of my existing data on him aside, and we start having one of the best and funniest first conversations I had ever had on a first date. After 25 minutes, he jumps up and declares he’s gotta run to make up as he was on stage soon. I am slightly jarred but concede work is work, and off he goes.
With no in-between conversation, the next day, he texted me and said, “Hey look, I am not looking for anything serious, so I don’t think we can meet up again”. I am very confused as I didn’t think we had a single serious conversation, but roll with the punches.
I still think of this man semi-frequently and often wonder what happened to the fish. Did they stink out the pop-up Globe that night?
Crashing a wedding reception
On a first date with my friend’s flatmate we ended up crashing a wedding reception at the Morningside Tavern. We enjoyed some free drinks, canapés and a dance with some of the guests for about half an hour before we were embarrassingly asked to leave by wait staff who spotted that we weren’t guests. Best first date ever!
A bad FIVE HOUR first date
This is my friend’s story but a favourite. She went on a date with a woman who she very quickly established was terribly boring, but then proceeded to have a FIVE-HOUR date with her because she felt too bad to call it off. And also because: lesbians.
‘All he really wanted to talk about was tripping on shrooms’
From the get-go, this started out poorly because this guy asked me out right after my friend was loaded into an ambulance. It was the second year of uni and my friend who has Type 1 diabetes had had too much to drink. Some other friends and I were concerned that she had low blood sugar and wasn’t in the right state of mind to deal with it, so we called an ambulance.
Just as the ambulance was pulling away, this guy, I’ll call him Dan, walked by and decided it was a good time to ask me out. We had met the previous year at a party thrown by my friend Michael who had had a crush on Dan. This was six months later, and both the timing and my incorrect assumptions about his sexuality left me a bit blindsided when he asked: “Would you like to go out to coffee sometime?”
So I said nothing for the first few seconds and then said: “Suuuure.”
He replied: “Well, that wasn’t very enthusiastic.” I had to backtrack and talk about my friend having to go to the hospital as an explanation for my answer. I didn’t think I wanted to date him, but I thought I might as well give him a chance.
A week or so later, we had plans to go for coffee at a cafe on campus. I had asked to meet there, hoping the location would signal that this was casual. And because it was on campus, several of my friends were there by chance, and I felt like they would give me silent moral support.
However, we had settled on meeting at 3pm, and I hadn’t realised that the cafe closed then. So when he showed up, they weren’t serving drinks anymore. I asked if he wanted to go somewhere else so we could get coffee. His response? “Oh, I don’t drink coffee.” (very strange from a man who had asked me to coffee). Then I asked if maybe he wanted to get another hot beverage. And he still said no. So we just sat at the table with nothing to do, as the cafe emptied of people aside from my friends.
I tried to strike up a conversation about what he was doing the rest of the afternoon, and he told me that he had class at 4pm. I was a bit surprised because he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, and he hadn’t brought anything with him except a small crumpled paper bag that he placed under his chair.
All he really wanted to talk about was his amazing experience tripping on shrooms the previous weekend.
Thankfully, the date lasted less than an hour because he had to print an assignment for class. After he was gone, I immediately went to a table where some of my friends were and started talking to them about how poorly it had gone. A minute later, Dan walked back into the cafe. I went bright red and prayed he hadn’t heard me. I couldn’t say anything as he walked over to the chair where he’d sat, retrieved the small paper bag, and walked out again.
I still wonder what was in that paper bag. I sort of hope it was more shrooms and that they helped him forget that entire experience. I certainly wish I could.
Stories have been slightly edited for clarity.
