5 Terrible Dating Scenarios Mostly Everyone Hates

1. When Someone Becomes Interested In You Once You Quit Liking Them

Gather ’round children, for I’ve obtained the secret to human attraction: if you like someone and want to date them in a real and meaningful way… you’ve already gone too far. The key is not earnestness, it’s to get over your crush. Fast. Just stop liking them. And then they’ll like you! Such curious timing right, that someone you were really into shows up eons late to the game and they’re suddenly all about you… is it your haircut? A new job? Or is your former crush mistaking your disinterest for independence?

When you liked them, they thought you were clingy and pathetic, but now that you legitimately want nothing to do with them they’re all, “Wow, she’s not picking up on the first ring anymore… or ever. What is she up to? This is really intriguing!” It’s like, no, I’m not playing coy or hard-to-get; I’m not more interesting than I was when I liked you THREE SECONDS AGO; I’m not ignoring you to tease your intrigue — I just plain don’t like you anymore. I’m acting this way because I do not like you. Why does that turn you on, again?

2. When The Smart, Hot, Funny Person Who Flirts With You All The Time Is In A Relationship (?!)

Oh, Smart Hot Funny Flirtatious Coupled-Up Person, why are you so cruel? Don’t you realize that when we met, you restored my faith in a dream deferred? A dream that someday, I’d meet a Smart Hot Funny person like yourself and we’d talk over drinks for hours about legal herbal drugs and zodiac compatibility and Haruki Murakami, who I’ve never even read before but will now because you, Smart Hot Funny person, recommended I do so? And now, three weeks into our chance meeting, you drop the monogamy bomb, the Kim Kardashian’s ass of bombs, the bomb heard ’round this stupid city I live in because I thought it’d improve my chances of meeting Smart Hot Funny (Single) people. Don’t you understand that the positive consequences of your relationship — security, sexual fulfillment, confidence — serve only to make you more attractive, so attractive that my dying wish is to quarantine you somewhere desolate where single and delusional people can not see you, ultimately forgetting that your charming and dimpled forbidden fruit is ripe and BEGGING TO BE TASTED AND LICKED? Go away.

3. Hearing How Great You Are As You’re Getting Dumped

A reasonable dumper feels the moral obligation to butter up the dumped person by giving them a bit of an ego boost as they pull off the Band-Aid; and it’s likely that someday, the dumped person will appreciate or recognize that the dumper was right: the dumped person is attractive, smart, and primed to be loved by an anonymous someone, someday; just not the dumper, right now. But logical thinking is a long ways coming, so all the dumped person will recognize during this pep talk is that they’re receiving a breakup speech coated in confectionary sugar, that if the dumper actually believed all of these AWESOME ADJECTIVES applied to the FRESHLY DUMPED PERSON, they would not be getting dumped but perhaps engaged, and that this little self-esteem parade unfolding before their bloodshot, begging eyes is a transparent attempt on the dumper’s behalf to avoid any hatred the dumped person might feel. Because who wants that, that breakup hatred? Certainly not the dumper, who stands a good chance of changing their phone number or getting swallowed up by the earth shortly after the breakup anyway in order to circumvent the inevitably messy aftermath of dumping someone who’s “just so… great.”

4. Trying To Defend The Crazy Person You’re Dating To Your Friends

Sometimes you just know when the person you’re dating exhibits red-flaggy, abnormal, or straight up crazy behavior, but you’re kind of okay with it — so long as your friends don’t find out. No one wants to spend their Happy Hour repeating things like, “It’s actually kind of my fault that she broke into the apartment. I mean, I didn’t answer the phone for like… 45 minutes… because I was in the shower…” or “Yeah, he’s been in Italy for three weeks now and hasn’t answered any of my emails but it’s only because he’s a free spirit, which I love about him, by the way!” It’s like, PEOPLE. When I want to be jerked out of denial, I’ll send an SOS or something. I’m not ready to come back down from this cloud made of delusions and epic sex, OKAY?

5. Giving A Flake The Benefit Of The Doubt

Despite our better judgment, sometimes we continuously attempt to make plans with a cornflake and ignore that at this point we can predict with precision how, when, and why they’ll back out. Over text message, fifteen minutes after we were supposed to meet for dinner, with the candlestick, because of the basketball game! Did I win? I mean, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me five times, DO YOU UNDERSTAND I’M MISSING DEGRASSI FOR THIS, YOU EVIL TIME SUCCUBUS?

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