The World's Worst Date Story (That Didn't Happen to Me)
In today’s episode of My Secret ADHD Life, I’ll begin by stating that the worst-date story I share below didn’t happen to me. It happened to a relative very near and dear to me. Even though she has endured so much strife in her life, she’s past the point of getting embarrassed about anything, but I’m still not naming names. I’ve read this story to a few close friends, and I can barely get through it without my quivery voice erupting in giggles.
To protect anonymity, I’ve renamed the protagonist Jane, since there are none in my family. The first time “Jane” told me this worst-date story, I nearly pissed myself laughing so hard.
Jane’s Epic Worst-Date Story in Her Own Words:
I was in my thirties, recently divorced, and now a broke, single mom who dated plenty of eligible bachelors. One of those eligible bachelors was Rafe. I felt that Rafe had the most potential for a romance-filled, intimate, long-term relationship. I knew it in my bones after going on a couple of dates with him. We hadn't slept together yet, but I was hoping to change our status on the night of our third date.
I felt like I had been waiting forever for this third date night to arrive. I met him at Sandpiper’s, a local favorite for fine dining. We drove there separately—a fact for which I will be forever grateful.
A hot tub spa shared the same parking lot with the restaurant. Although people went there for therapeutic healing, there were also romantic couples’ rooms. These were not sleazy in any way. They had more of an elegant resort-spa vibe. Rafe told me he had reserved a hot tub for us to enjoy after dinner, so I wasted no time packing my sexiest swim suit. I was primed!
Rafe and I had a lovely dinner together at Sandpiper’s. Our conversation flowed, the red wine flowed, and we learned we had much in common. I had ordered a large salad with all of the fixings: tomatoes, corn, sunflower seeds, bleu cheese, varied greens, and a beautiful steak. One thing you should probably know about me, and sorry if this is T.M.I. Sometimes I have to rush to the bathroom right after I eat a meal to evacuate. It’s this frustrating and weird medical anomaly I put up with sometimes. Unfortunately, this third date night was one of those times.
Our chemistry was intensifying over dinner. Once Rafe settled the bill, we left the restaurant holding hands as we walked across the parking lot toward the hot tub spa that would forever seal our fate.
Upon entering, we each went to our separate locker rooms to change into our swimsuits. We reconnected as we entered the private hot tub room Rafe had reserved. I was still in my 30s and in good shape, so I wasn’t shy about showing Rafe a little skin. We spent the next hour snuggling in that cozy hot tub, cranking up the heat on our fledgling romance. The way he kissed told me he’d be an amazing lover. We made plans to meet up at his place afterwards for our first real romantic interlude.
To understand this next part, I need to explain the weird setup at this spa. The men’s and women’s changing rooms were separate, but connected in the middle by one large, shared shower room. This shower room had two side-by-side showers with shower curtains for privacy and a partition separating the two showers so you couldn’t see the other person. These showers were huge—each about five feet deep by five feet wide with a divider in between. All you could really see was each other’s feet while you were showering.
We each entered our separate showers, inches apart, separated by that divider. I’m sure we were both imagining the great sex we would be having in the next hour as we rinsed off, readying for our long-awaited coupling. I know the suspense was building inside of me, intensifying at the thought of seeing this hot man in the buff. I sensed he felt the same about me.
But it was not to be.
While I was hurriedly rinsing off, I felt my left foot slip. Then came the dramatic, wet splat. My legs were splayed out before me, as my naked ass hit the shower room floor. Hard.
“Oh my God! Jane, are you okay?” I heard the genuine concern in Rafe’s voice from the other side of that divider. And then my heart sank as his large feet—hinting at his horizontal hula potential—sloshed over to my side of the shower.
Rafe whipped open the curtain. And that’s when he saw IT.
A total shit show.
My dinner from Sandpiper’s had exploded out of my body, splattering everywhere in our shared, white shower floor…up the tiled walls and all over me. I looked like I’d just competed in a mud run. Rafe’s first and forever glimpse of sexy, naked me was that of a hysterical woman covered in her own shit—half-digested steak, salad greens, sunflower seeds, and corn…way more corn on the floor than I ever remembered adding to my salad.
I was crying, my hands shielding my eyes, begging him to just leave me alone and go away. I couldn’t even bring myself to look up and see his pity—or worse, disgust. Now that the shock had worn off, I was mortified.
And then there was that horrific smell. It was beyond the worst raw sewage-outhouse smell you’ve ever known, just hanging in the dank, humid air with no way to dissipate.
Rafe tried his level best to manage this crime scene before him and stay composed. He started kicking my stringy shit towards the center, but the shower’s drain holes were too small and it wouldn’t rinse down fast enough. I just sat there crying as the hot water rained down on me and my lizard brain plotted an escape.
The last God-awful memory I have of Rafe was watching his left big toe’s hairy knuckle scootching a piece of my ass corn towards the drain. After a few slippery mis-attempts, waving away Rafe’s offers to give me a hand up, I got my naked self up and raced right past him for the changing room. I threw my clothes on faster than Superman in a phone booth.
In the meantime, angry patrons were pounding on the door outside, complaining that we were taking too long. It was so God-awful, and I was so panicked, I can’t begin tell you how humiliating it was.
I opened the door to emerge. The patrons stepped back, aghast. The whoosh of putrid-smelling air descended upon them like a toxic cloud from Chernobyl. Their faces all shared the same horrified expressions as they guarded their noses with their hands against the wafting poo-fume. I admit, it was ghastly. They had every right.
I often think about how my date was the last of us to leave and do his walk of shame out of that spa. I wonder if he had the wherewithal to tell those angry bystanders that it was me—not him—who polluted the shower of this once-lovely spa.
By the time he was walking out, I had already broken the land-speed record to get home in my junky car. Once there, I started closing the curtains, shutting off lights, and ducking out of sight of the windows. I prayed for God’s mercy that I would not hear a doorbell or knock on my door.
I did not. In fact, we never spoke again.
Three months later, I was dining at the Sandpiper and noticed the hot tub spa had closed. I’ll never know if I caused its early demise.
Whenever someone says their life is a “shit show,” I have to smirk, because that phrase is forever cemented in my mind with my literal shit-show date.
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So, how might someone with ADHD handle this worst-date scenario? After all, we are crisis whisperers. I can think of a few options:
Insist the backed-up raw sewage somehow flooded in from the drain hole on Jane’s side of the shower, causing her to slip and fall.
Feign unconsciousness and pray that he leaves.
Declare “One day, our children will laugh about this story!” as Jane cackles like Kamala Harris. If Jane could get Rafe to laugh with her, she might then rinse off and resuscitate their romantic interlude. (Some men might be able to get past it.)
I’m just thankful Jane doesn’t have ADHD. Every unforced error and mistake we’ve ever made is what we fixate on at 2 a.m. when we cannot sleep. Revisiting a Defcon 5 memory like this one would cause me lifelong insomnia.