First impressions are everything. I'm not saying to pretend you're someone else on the first date (or first speed dating event), but you do want to show your best side. True story, I ended one date with a kiss on the lips from my date who just smoked a cigarette (my fault for letting it happen---and yes it was more gross than it sounds) AND he left the toilet seat up. Call me old-fashioned, but if you are a guy, and you come into MY apartment, I don't care how messy it is you do not leave the toilet seat up in a girls' apartment. I don't even have any men living in my apartment! And yes, women do fall in at three in the morning when we're really tired. It has happened. I actually wrote said person an email saying as much, in a very nice way, and he apologized profusely. No, that's my imagination. He wrote back that that was the dumbest and most ridiculous email he had ever received. I thought he was joking. He wasn't.

Then again, there are plenty of guys who are plenty smooth in the first date. Everything was perfect and amazing and you were on another planet---except for that one small thing that still stays in your mind, but you try to pay it no mind. That will come back to haunt you. Because every little thing he or she does, shows you who they are. I don't have much experience dating straight women, but I expect it must be similar. It's human nature. I'll tell you one example.  A girlfriend and I met these two guys in a lounge. We were dancing before we knew it --although I actually wanted to dance with the other one. They did some choreographed dance move and suddenly I was in the other guys' arms, whom I originally wanted. The whole night was Cinderella-perfect--he was cute, funny, dashing-- except for that one thing. He would pull my hair back so hard it was painful. I assume it was supposed to be a turn-on, but it was too painful for me to be a turn on. And anyways, isn't there at least a 2-date minimum before you start S&M moves on someone? Or I'm probably just conservative. Yea, that must be it.

What's one of your hilarious, painful, ridiculous first date stories?