F, came across as lovely on her profile. My wit sparkled in messages on the computer and flowed similarly by text after numbers were exchanged. "You have a knack of saying all the right things" read one.

Arranged a time, arranged a place. I saw her walking towards me after getting off the Metrolink at Market Street for the rendezvous. I held my hand out to shake hers and leaned in for the traditional kiss on the cheek.

At least I think that's what I did. The look on her face suggested I wafted freshly laid dog faeces under her nose. From that ill-advised opener to "See you later" followed by "Er... yeah" at the same tram stop, just 55 minutes passed.

There have been no more text messages exchanged.

It sounds laughable now (or like the title of a John Cooper Clarke song), but at the time – during that oppressively hot summer of 1998, it was absolutely bloody terrifying.

If you’re not familiar with the phrase, flirty-fishing is to be lured into a cult – or possibly even the Conservative Party – with the promise of a sexy time. Before you know it, you’re standing on a street corner in a tie and side-parting selling flowers and gaudy paperbacks for a shadowy huckster billionaire called ‘Pappa’.

The girl in question – a ringer for Nat Imbruglia - had proceeded to gently unravel me throughout the evening with her mental ju-ju until I was lemon jelly in her hands. Admittedly, I was easy prey – my dad had just died, and I was a wee bit vulnerable at the time. With a promise that she’d pay half my fee if I attended an introductory lecture with her the following week, I staggered off on my dazed way.

A few days later, my mates told me I looked and sounded like a zombie. I conceded they had a point, and fled to a cult monitoring charity based in London, who keep bulging files on every cult (or ‘New Religious Movements’ as the non-litigious say) under the sun. Sure enough, this girl’s bunch were well represented, in folder after folder.

I won’t divulge the name of the organisation, but will mention the startling fact that its founder was kicked out of L Ron’s lot for being too extreme! Meanwhile, another girl of my acquaintance shudderingly told me my date had also approached her and offered to pay “half my fee”. Ice cubes slalomed down my spine.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, come on Stick, one man’s cult is another’s perfectly harmless religion, and where’s the harm as long as they’re only dishing the Kool Aid out amongst themselves? Sure, belief – faith – is a highly personal affair – and it’s true that many religions we now consider orthodox and established once began as cults too. Such as Christianity. A bunch of grimy fish-worshippers hiding out in caves I understand.

All I can say is that my date’s bunch – who all speak exclusively in cult jargon, all the time – were among the most noxious, brattish, deluded, twisted ass-clowns I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. Drawn mostly from the media and the City (naturally – that’s where the dosh is), when not actively recruiting for more members (I think every stranger they snared entitled them to a free lecture) they were paying through the nose for lectures in ‘Crossing busy roads without looking both ways’ or ‘defying gravity’. The mad bastards.

Anyway – forearmed with all my knowledge, I went along. A dingy hall in Euston (round the corner from one of the Massive’s favourite meet-up pubs, I believe) provided the base for a cross between a revivalist meeting and a social for young traders, all shouting away at the tops of their voices about how much money they’d made and how successful they’d become once they’d joined up. It was like a church service for a congregation of Patrick Batemans.

When I indicated I’d sign up, they rushed to give me the paperwork with indecent haste, but I said I’d mull it over for a few days. Afterwards, in a local pub, my date proudly told me I seemed so much more ‘Authentic’ (more jargon), and I answered her in some previously learned jargon (which also impressed her) and we went our separate ways. Perhaps needless to say, I never saw her again.

At any rate, the group ultimately told me I wasn’t eligible to take their 3-day intensive course, during which people cry, wet themselves, and are told that everything that happens to them is pretty much their own fault – as I was on Prozac (so I told them), which, they said, “bends reality”.

A few days later, a man from the organisation called me up at home. How was I getting on, he wondered? Did I want a little chat? “Keep the faith!” I sobbed. And then I hung up.

First date with a really stunning girl.

I thought I'd impress her by taking her to a Captain Beefheart concert at the New Victoria Theatre in London (now the Victoria Apollo).

She sat stony-faced throughout and in the taxi ride later confessed to not understanding a single note of what she'd witnessed.

Funnily enough I never saw her again after that night.

I was fourteen and so was she. When I arrived at the cinema she was waiting patiently on the steps, which was good, but she was holding hands with her little brother, which was bad.

John and Olivia had barely finished singing Summer Nights before the kid, who was sitting between us, announced loudly that he needed a wee. Date said I'd have to take him to the Gents. And it went on like that for the next 90 minutes; alternately filling the little tyke with Kee-Ora, then hanging round the cubicles while he drained it out.

So my first date was with an eight year old boy in some toilets. I've still never been able to watch Grease without blushing.

That's a bit forward for a first date, isn't it? And while the play was still in progress as well?

She must have liked you though.

As evidenced by some of the above posts, online dating can work beautifully for some people, but not always. Not. Always. Soooo not always. There was a cartoon strip many years ago in Mad comic, in which a newly-met couple go back to his place and gradually, literally, strip away the pretence, starting with the shoulder pads in his suit, her padded bra, the lifts in his shoes, until finally she takes out her teeth and he removes his wig. I had a one-sided hint of that a few years ago when I met up with a woman via a reputable 'well-known online dating site'.
She looked great in her photo; as she said 'I'm a very attractive asian woman in my early 30s'. The proverbial 'right boxes' were all ticked in the 'interests' section. After a couple of email exchanges, we agreed to meet in a pub, on a lunchtime. I arrived on time, the right mix of apprehensive and excited. I scan the pub; noone fitting the description whatsoever. I drink my lime and soda, order another, and wait. Twenty minutes after the agreed meeting time, I'm reckoning on giving up, when the pub door opens, and in walks - I say walks, shuffles would be more accurate - an elderly asian lady. It's her. I'm a combination of aghast and over-compensatory polite, so for the next half hour I buy her drinks and we chat inanely. We leave, with no arrangement to meet again. Ten minutes later, I receive a text. 'Good to meet you. You may have noticed that I'm 67 years old. I hope that doesn't bother you'.
Reader, I married her.
Not!

... mainly to meet girls. During the run of one play I seriously fancied one of my co-stars to bits and we agreed to go out to see another play. I thought this was an excellent notion: both of us into the theatre, you don't need to make conversation all night long, when you do there is an actual play to talk about, you tend not to end up drunk, what could possibly go wrong?

What went wrong was the play was a stage adaptation of Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Treacle and I hadn't the faintest idea of what actually was going to happen onstage.

So you can imagine the chill which descended when we got to the part (conveniently just before the interval) where a disabled woman is raped onstage, curing her of her disability. I have never wanted to curl up and die of embarrassment so much in my life.

There was no date two sadly.

Gorgeous girl, friend of a friend, slightly younger than me. We met, we snogged we arranged to see each other the following day.

That date turned out be at a friends house at a 'gathering'. I froze. I recognised the assembled throng.

As we entered the living room it was announced that Syreeta would lead us in prayer. Then there was a bit of a Kumbaya singsong (by them), mortified mumbling (by me), and then a discussion and role play about what it was to deceive yourself and the relevant passage from the bible.

We never saw each other again. When she called round I told my mum to tell her I was out. She got the message.

A couple of years ago, as I was gently enjoying an after-work pint in a Manchester bar, I was approached by a woman. She seemed perfectly normal/civil at this point, and we swapped numbers with her explaining that she'd just moved to Manchester and didn't know many people.

I gave her a bell that weekend, asking her if she fancied chancing a drink on the Saturday night; she explained that she'd already arranged to go for a drink with a mate from work, but said mate lived in central Manchester so could go home when I arrived.

Dancing on to the night in question, we met up, only for me to find that her 'mate' was a gay chap called Brian, who was there as she felt nervous meeting me on her own. This casually ignored the thousands of other people hazarding themselves around Manchester that night, but I didn't mind.

To cut a long story dull, Brian was a lovely chap, and he had a real in-depth knowledge of the Manchester music scene. The woman was, to be fair, a bit odd. Every time Brian and I mentioned something she considered to be even slightly highbrow - Peroni beer, for example - she'd start shouting remarks along the lines of, "You think I'm thick, don't you? I went to school!" She refused to buy any drinks, as I'd technically invited her out, but, within twenty minutes, she'd decided that we were having sex at my place later (call me prudish, but I'd have liked a say in this) and was all over me like Shane MacGowan at a free bar. Unfortunately, she was also all over the bar like Shane MacGowan at a free bar, as Brian kept buying her drinks.

By this point we were on Canal Street, as she'd said, and I quote, "I wanna see some gays...I don't wanna see them doing anything, but I wanna see some gays." She was also completely leathered. She stood up to go to the loo and, basically, collapsed in a drunken shape on the couch. As Brian checked to see if she was ok, I - and I'm not proud of this - ran off to the train station with a Boltian turn of speed.

There was no second date.

First song up from Frank Black & Co, "Bone Machine", first couple of lines..."Japanese Lover...unfaithful to me...you make me hard...molest me in the parking lot".

Not an ideal band to charm the ladies with...

I'd pretty much forgotten about this until I decided to do the initial post and then read all the replies. My first ever internet date was also highly inauspicious. When I met my "date" I didn't recognise her from the photo. This wasn't because it was an old photo and she'd changed/aged/put on weight. It was because the picture wasn't of her. And she was a perfectly nice looking woman. It turned out that she and a friend had created the account together "for a laugh", and her friend "won" the right to use her picture. It wasn't an unpleasant meeting, just very bizarre, culminating in her inviting me to a party at which she didn't know anyone. I went, having nothing else to do, quite enjoyed myself, then headed home, with a profoundly bemused expression on my face.

I went on a first date in Oxford and saw 'Heart's Desire' by Caryl Churchill which is a 2-for-1 play combo. For your delight I append the synopses:

Heart's Desire tells a seemingly simple story of a British couple, together with the wife's sister, awaiting the return of their daughter for a brief holiday from her home in Australia. As one can imagine, this puts strains on the waiting family, who have probably not slept for days. The twist comes with the variations on a theme, as repeatedly the text runs backwards and gets repeated in versions that vary between minor change and complete upheaval, the result is hilarity.

Blue Kettle focuses on a man who preys on old women, claiming to be the long lost son that they had given up for adoption forty years previously. In this case, the shtick is that gradually odd words in the text are randomly replaced either with the word "blue" or the word "kettle". Once again, broad comedy ensues.

No it didn't. No second date required owing to the 'slight difference of opinion' regarding the shitness of the play.

I used to work with an oddball named Dead Dave (skin tone akin to a sheet of A4 paper).

He met a girl via the lonely hearts section of the Bargain Pages, a local Brum advertiser. Within weeks they moved in to a camper van together and used to park up on the works car park from Monday to Friday. He'd take her out a bacon butty from the canteen every morning, and regularly tried to show polaroids of her "bits" to anyone who would stand still long enough, including customers.

One afternoon about 6 months later he was sat in the works canteen drinking a mug of tea and reading the Bargain Pages. All of a sudden the tea and newspaper went up the wall and he stormed out using various combinations of the "c" word. It turned out she had kept the same advertisment going but just removed the word "single"

but an acquaintance of mine went round to meet his in-laws to be for the first time. It was a sunday, and they were all going to have lunch. All was going well in the living room, as my acquaintance, his GF, her parents and her grandmother, who lived with them, chatted away. Then the father goes out to sort something in his garden shed, and the GF and mother go into the kitchen t prepare the food, leaving acquaintance and grandmother in the living room. After a moment of silence, the grandmother gets up from her armchair, shuffles into the middle of the room and - you may want to avert your eyes now - squats and defecates on the floor. My acquaintance ran into the kitchen and whimperingly attempted to convey what had happened. 'Oh she's always doing that these days' said the GF's mother with a shrug and a smile.

The current gf was met via online dating. And very nice she is too. Although her Dad's a bit handy with firearms...

I've referenced the Richard Thompson Support Act Disaster before. So, so bad I've actively tried to wipe it from my mind.

Crazy Danish woman. Now, I'm not averse to a nice walk; not too hot, gentle breeze, other folk - it's quite pleasant. A nice stroll around a lake that is circular in shape.

Oh dear. Well, the first mistake was - there's no escape route. When you realize (about half way round) that you're trapped you have nowhere to go. Have to finish the walk. All next 2.5 miles of it.

It would have been better if it had been in silence. Ooooh no. Apparently I needed "mended". I have ups and downs with my job, which is demanding, timeconsuming, and can involve firing people. "You vill haff to change your chob. This iz nogood for you". Actually, I quite like it; I'm good at it, and I get well paid for it.
The lectures continued. It was like getting interrogated as part of a eugenics experiment (yes, she was typically Danish - strapping lass, blond hair, blue eyes).

In the end I tried to amuse myself by picking appropriate songs or lyrics: "It's a Rat Trap - and you've been caught..." - that sort of thing.

Thought I had posted this but has got lost somewhere:

3 friends and i went on holiday to Dawlish - 18/19 years of age - sole intention to get pissed every night and get laid. We split into 2 groups of 2 thinking we had a better chance as 2 rather than 4. My mate Pete and I did really well and met 2 cracking girls. Got on like house on fire. Arranged to meet next day at the Wimpy on Dawlish High Street. My lass looked lovely in a nice white dress.We sat in the window looking out. It was a hot sunny day and the door was open. As we ordered our meal we were pestered by a wasp dive bombing us. When it took a momentary rest on the window I pick up the tomato ketchup (the plastic one in the shape of a tomato if anyone remembers?) and squished the wasp. As i did so the ketchup ejaculated in a projectile fountain all over my girl. There were no other ejaculations that day nor any further dates.

that I've "upped" every other post above - brilliant stuff! (But nothing of mine to add, oh no).

Keep sharing the pain!

We met at a funeral. Well no, we became acquainted at a funeral. We actually met at the theatre, she was in the cast, I was in the orchestra. She apparently knew me, I had no recollection of ever seeing her before. This displeased her, and she set about trying to find evidence of our apparent friendship. I never head any more on the subject, so I must assume she failed.

We chatted a bit through the week of the show, added one another on Facebook, and exchanged a few flirty chats and messages. Then came the death of a mutual friend, and thus the funeral. We were both pissed and flirty, and good fun was had. so I invited her to spend some time with me. She told me she had a boyfriend, but with the way things were going I should ask her again in a few weeks' time, as it would probably have changed by then.

I did not runs screaming from her, a month passed, I was no less single than before so I thought "what's the worst that could happen?", and got back in touch. She informed me that she was no more single than she had been before, but agreed to go out anyway.

On the day she arrived late, immediately pooh-pooed my idea of what to to (roller skating - seemed to me like a fun, silly thing to do, a good way to break the ice), so we just went strolling around London seeing what caught our fancy. We took a brief jaunt around the Tate Modern, which was "full of crap". About 45 minutes into the day she turned to me and said "You're quite strange, aren't you"? Now if I'm honest I really couldn't fault her perception. Her tact, on the other hand, lacked.

I don't recall many specifics of the the rest of the day. The weather was nice, we passed the time diplomatically enough. At one point we fell to discussing mutual acquaintances at the theatre, and she related that her best friend there was the sound man. A man almost universally reviled as a grumpy, incompetent tosser. I started drinking heavily at this point. Around 6pm she announced she wanted to go home, and we shared a train part of the way there. At my station we said our goodbyes. I haven't contacted her since.

Guess who's appearing in the show I'm playing for next week…!

Not one from a woman! Whassup, Word Birds? Have none of you ever had a terrible/bewildering/catastrophic attempt at a romantic assignation??

It's 2001. I've recently returned to the UK after years away, in an new job I hate, and single again at 38. It's a bit difficult to make friends so when a supply teacher gives me the glad eye, despite my misgivings (She's obviously nuts),she's soon around chez Bathmat getting the full treatment - slap up meal, faine waines and Tom Waits' knicker-elastic dissolver 'One From The Heart' on the Dansette. Everything goes according to plan, I hope I don't have to draw pictures,etc.

Anyway, next evening she shows up at the gaff with a load of carrier bags. A load of BirdsEye frozen meals "I know you probably don't eat properly' a few spare changes of clothes, and most worryingly of all, the entire Tom Waits catalogue on shrinkwrapped CD. "That was the best music I've ever heard'

Being the easy going lad I was then, I invite her in, pour her a glass and stick a record on, The Young Marble Giants as I recall.

Immiediately she flies into a rage. 'I thought you liked Tom Waits! you've just made me waste 150 quid on CDs! Men always lie to me!' and storms out...

If only it had ended there.

What happened next?

I was widowed just before my 45th birthday, it was awful, but, after a while, I realised that I had to "get back on the saddle".

Apart from a couple of very brief flings, I had had no ('ahem) 'knowledge' for over 2 years, I was climbing the walls.

I tried the small ads of our local rag, & met a local woman, that went on for 4 years, & ended in total disaster. The woman was a massive drinker, & when she had a drink, she got angry & aggressive, so every night was a trial run for WW111, not pleasant. (Oh, by the way, in that 4 years, I had married her - BIG mistake).

Eventually I divorced her & moved from the village into a much smaller house, in a less desirable area, but am now very happy.

After she & I went our seperate ways, I turned into a complete fanny rat, I had the morals of an alley cat & was having a ball.

For good or bad, my best (or worst depending on POV) was being in bed with a local lady within an hour of meeting her.

All in all, 2008 was a very tiring year for me. It couldnt continue, & I joined an online dating agency, met my girlfriend, & am absolutely devoted to her. We think the world of one another, & I havent been so happy for 10 years or more.

I found online dating to be wonderful & would happily reccomend it to anyone.

1. She said she really liked Cliff Richard - I said there was no hope for us - I'm a music snob after all - and couldn't see myself with a Cliff fan. But she was keen and almost insisted on meeting so I gave in and we went to London Zoo. There was zero chemistry and we didn't meet again.

2. She said she looked a bit like Lady Di; I think I said I was a bit like Bob Geldof - we went to see a concert locally - it was Judi Tzuke (the performer that is, not the girl I was meeting). I didn't think she looked like Diana and presumably she didn't think I looked like Bob - we seemed to have nothing to say to each other - she went to the loo and didn't come back.

3. There were others...

I'm now happily married with two lovely girls (14 and 10) and am glad not to have to go through all that ever again.

Cambridge Folk Festival, the tent is erected early evening and with time to kill, myself and my present paramour decide to christen the tent by making the beast with two backs.
The member is primed and ready and at the moment of coitus someone in the next tent decides to play their bagpipes. Collapse of stout party. we exit the tent somewhat dishevelled but not sated.
Later in the weekend she wiped watermelon juice from her mouth on my sleeve and said ' Let's go to bed'. Yes of course she had accosted a complete stranger who must have thought his luck was in. As with the News of the World, she made her excuses and left.

Here's the Twitter version of this thread - though completely unrelated other than by subject matter. There are some fantastic short stories here, some of which me laugh out loud in public.