Dating Horror Story Finalists!

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

Now that you’ve heard my dating horror story, I’m going to share with you the three stories I picked to be finalists in the Dating Horror story contest. I’ve been asking for your dating horror stories all week. Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences with me. (Nice to know I’m not alone in the awful date department!) I’ve read all the entries, and while they were all pretty good, I picked three that really stood out to me. (And made me cringe!) After what they went through, these girls could all use a great fictional boyfriend! 

Read each entry and vote for the one you think was the biggest dating disaster. The winning story will receive the Kelly Oram contemporary collection. (Serial Hottie, V is for Virgin, and The Avery Shaw Experiment) The runners up will both receive some signed posters and bookmarks along with the Kelly Oram collection in ebook format.

Good luck to our finalists!

Dating Horror story #1: Cold in Carolina

Everybody has the story about joining an online dating site and the person that shows is nothing like the picture! That happened, but also on this same date...

I gave him my address as he was coming from out of town. Stupid I know. However I did, and when he showed up, I went ahead with the date even though the picture was really old. Well, he took me to a car wash. Not out to eat or anything but a drive thru car wash! LOL!

Well that was bad enough, so I told him to take me home. I lived in Charlotte, NC at the time and he was coming from somewhere in SC. He informed me he was cold. Out of my breeding I offered him a jacket. I really didn't think he would take me up on it. Well he did and the jacket was actually a very nice zip up and silk I had hanging in my closet. I thought he meant to borrow it, not to keep it. It was too nice! That was 10 years ago.

I never heard from him or got the jacket back. I don't even remember his name now, but I immediately cancelled my subscription to the dating site. I am still single so maybe I shouldn't, grocery stores are not really working these days. However I am warm!

Dating Horror Story #2: Married On Monday

It was the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I lucked out and got an amazing job working downtown right in the middle of all of the tourist action. The job paid a little bit more than my regular job, and my boss at the library was more than happy to let me take off for a few weeks to have that experience. I showed up for my first day on the job (selling T-shirts and sweatshirts at a table) and was waiting around for my new boss to show me the ropes. I had no idea where the bathrooms were, so I looked around for someone official to ask and decided to approach the adorable security guard that I'd been checking out while reading my book. When I went up to him, his face lit up and he gave me the most amazing smile I'd ever seen. For the following week, he was the security guard assigned to the door nearest my booth. We spent a lot of time talking, really getting to know each other. I was convinced it was the start of a great romance—we clicked like I had never clicked with anyone before. 

On Valentine's Day, I had the day off and he had to work. I decided that after all of the flirting and becoming such amazing friends that it was time to make a small gesture just so he would know where my feelings were. We were making all of these plans on what to do together (brownies, popcorn, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer) even though we lived about two hours apart from one another. But something had been bothering me, and I wasn't sure how to bring it up. I'd noticed a ring on his left hand the day we met (hey, this is Utah, after all!), but after that he'd never worn it again. Someone was looking out for me and went to his boss to find out the truth of the matter. 

As planned, on Valentine's Day I headed to work, but a single rose and a steaming hot thermos of tea did not accompany me. Instead, I was there to get an answer. I pulled up a folding chair next to him and said that we needed to talk, that I'd heard something and needed to know the truth. I flat out asked him if he was married, and he told me no, he was not. I felt relieved, but still uneasy. A few more minutes passed, and he told me there was something he needed to tell me…but I had to promise that I would not get up and leave. Finally, he admitted the truth to me and I felt the biggest betrayal and heartache I would ever feel in my life. 

So now every year on Valentine's Day—even though I'm happily married now (to someone else)—I cannot help but think about what happened thirteen years ago on this day. Instead of being a day for celebrating love, it's the one day I think about betrayal and my biggest heart break.

Dating Horror Story #3: Ditched at the Dance

His name was Victor . He was a close friend of a friend. We 'd seen each other a few times from a distance. I was in my last year of school, and prom was close. I was very excited, but  I didn’t a date. So, one day in math class, I gathered my courage and sent a text message to him asking if he wanted to be my date for the dance. After a few minutes, and solved 5 math exercises, I got my response and he said YES! WUAHAHAH I was very, very excited! All my friends told me that he was a very hot guy.

The big night came, I wore a white dress very, very small and some silver heels. At about 9 pm he arrived and we went to the party. We arrived very early; the taxi was super fast. As we expected, we went to sit with friends, Gabriela and Paolo. They also were on a date. We talked, we laughed, and we had fun. The music started, and went dancing. WUAHAHAH I was so happy! 

After a while we went to sit down to rest. When we approached the table where my friends were, they were shouting between them. I asked my friend to calm down and tell me what was going on. Apparently, she had danced with her ex-boyfriend and Paolo didn´t like it. (Paolo did not have the right to tell her who and who is not allowed to dance with) They were arguing for a while, then I think they got tired, because they stopped talking.

While I was trying to solve the problem between them Victor was playing with his cell phone all the time. After a while, things calmed down and Victor said he was going to go to the bathroom and he would be back. That what he said! When he left, I tried to talk my friends. Gabriela said she was going to go to an after party where her ex boyfriend was going to go also and the screaming started again.

I spent an hour waiting for Victor to return from bathroom... I thought that he was stuck and was gone by the toilet because there was no trace of him. So I sent Paolo to look in the bathroom to see what had happened. Paolo came back and said Victor was not there. I started looking like crazy to see where he had gone... Gabriela pointed to a spot on the dance floor. Victor was there with a leggy girl in a low-cut dress and little more than mine! That was not even what bothered me the most. It was that they were passing their cell numbers to each other. IN OUR DATE! And also too close while dancing... so very, very close... 

After a while He returned to our table with a smile, a big one. I did not say that I saw him dancing with another girl and I saw him exchange their phone numbers. When he asked if we were going to go to the after party, I told him no, that I was tired from dancing even though I sat for over an hour waiting for him to return of the "bathroom". I said I wanted to go home. He asked me if I cared if he still went to the after party. With a giant smile I said no, that he could go and have fun. The next day Gabriela told me that she saw him with several girls dancing and other things...

Okay, so for some reason I can't get the poll to embed in this post correctly, so the poll is placed in the upper right corner of my blog. Make sure you vote for your favorite story!

Today’s Giveaway

Leave a comment on this blog, (maybe a sympathetic word, or a hug for our contestants, or a dating nightmare of your own) and you’ll be entered to win some signed bookmarks.  Good luck!