These are our worst dating disasters in St Andrews

Feeling bad about the Netflix and Dominoes night for one that you have in the diary for February the 14th?

With every singleton’s favourite holiday lingering threateningly on the horizon, we’ve asked five brave St. Andrews citizens to recount their most memorable courting catastrophes…

Love At First Shite

Picture this… It’s the 14th of February 2015, and the very FIRST time in my life that I’ve managed to score a date on Valentine’s Day. I’m sat at Zizzi, pretending not to be embarrassed for having just devoured my entire body weight in cheese fondue, spaghetti carbonara, cheesy garlic bread, and panna cotta, but above all excited to be waving an emphatic adieu to the single life.

My stomach begins to sound the alarm, but I will myself to ignore it, resolute against the possibility of spending the best part of an hour locked away in Zizzi’s bathrooms – fancy though they may be. My unsuspecting date suggests a romantic stroll, and I have no choice but to accept, determined to power on in the name of a successful first Valentine’s Day. Better a sore tummy than to cut the date short, right?…

Wrong.

We’re halfway down the Lade Braes, hand in hand, when I reach the point of no return. I shouldn’t have eaten so much cheese, I shouldn’t have forbade myself from a bathroom break, and I most definitely should not have agreed to go for a post-dinner walk.

To quote a Bridesmaids moment, “it’s coming out of me like lava”. There, surrounded by a beautiful view, on the 14th of February of all days, with my romantic interest’s hand in mine.

Christmas Sock-ings

One Christmas, my boyfriend asked me for a laptop. I saw one down to half price and bought it straight away, then wrapped it that same day. Having guessed from the shape of my gift that I’d gotten him a laptop, he went out to the shops a few days later, and excitedly told me when he got home that he’d bought me something designer that I’d LOVE.

Christmas Day comes, and I’ve opened all of my presents, but am baffled as to where the main present from my boyfriend is – the one that he rushed out and bought out of excitement for having been given a laptop.

“Have you forgotten something?” I asked.

“No”, he says, “You’ve already opened it… Three pairs of Calvin Klein socks!”

Sleeping Booze-ty

Put it this way… I hadn’t yet lost my V card, but I was VERY ready to. My flatmates, who were very much under the influence of alcohol, decided to take matters into their own hands. They encouraged me to invite over a boy that I had a thing for, and to inform him in no uncertain terms what the purpose of his visit would be. Succumbing to a mixture of peer pressure and alcohol-induced arousal, I enthusiastically took their advice.

Five minutes before the unlucky guy arrives, my flatmates start messing around, suddenly hysterical at the idea of witnessing my big moment. They begin to play a spirited game of hide-and-seek around my room, so as to decide amongst them whose hiding places would go unfound.

When the doorbell rang, I hastily shooed my intoxicated flatmates out of my room and bolted to invite my guest in. Flashforward and it’s finally happening – no clothes, no inhibitions, no V card. But there was an intruder. Five minutes into sex, one of my flatmates burst in the door, and opened my wardrobe to reveal another who’d fallen asleep in there during their game of hide-and-seek.

Speed Dating

After a few drinks too many the summer before I came to St. Andrews, my friends finally persuaded me to give Tinder a try. The next day some swiping led to the matches beginning and a week later, after dodging some rather questionable pick-up lines from some of Tinder’s offerings, I found myself on a coffee date. What could possibly go wrong? Half an hour in, he had already declared a passion for Scotland and was planning his trips up here to see me and how we could “make long-distance work”. Bearing in mind that we live in the south, and I had literally only just met the guy, needless to say there wasn’t a second date.

Peckeroni Pizza

My friend introduced me to this guy at a party who I was immediately taken with. We ended up talking online for a couple of weeks but I’d been out of the ‘dating’ scene for a while so I was pretty nervous before he arrived, so nervous, in fact, that I was unable to eat the pizza that my friend and I had ordered.

When he eventually arrived, I tried to eat some, but decided my chewing was too loud and off-putting, since he was sitting right next to me. I waited impatiently for him to leave the room so I could have at least one bite of food, and then he finally left. Success! I shoved as much pizza into my mouth as I could manage in one go, obviously taking some time to actually chew and swallow it, but my grumbling tummy was finally satisfied. All was well until midway through my mouthful he walks back into the room and decides, without warning, that right then was the optimal moment to kiss me for the first time… It was love at first bite!