by ISABELL STAMM

With Valentine’s coming around the corner we are constantly reminded about just how single we are or were before meeting our SO. Whether you are in a relationship or just testing the waters, here are some of the best and worst dates that our Augustana staff and students have gone through to make you feel better.

 

English Instructor: Samantha Christenson

“I started dating at about 16 years old. I lived in a small hamlet called Carseland with about 300 other people, and the guy I was seeing was from Strathmore. In typical highschooler fashion I could not have my parents knowing about any of that, so I had to sneak out at midnight to see him. I decided to go out of my basement window rather than take the front door, because that seemed the most logical at the time. Only problem was it was covered in spider webs, and there was no way I was doing that. So I hauled out our vacuum and proceeded to vacuum up all the webs at midnight, before I climbed out. Surprisingly enough my parents didn’t wake up to the noise and I thought I was home free, until my date rolled in with his 1973 El Camino. The entire street could hear him coming. I didn’t hear a word about it until the next day when they decided to interrogate me about my whereabouts last night, but it was all well worth it since that was ten years ago and we have been together ever since.”

 

1st Year Student

“I was 15 years old and had been talking to this guy for a few months when we decided to make it official. We had been together about three weeks when he got pretty sick. So he missed one day of school. And then another, and another. He seemed to have come down with something bad so I, being his girlfriend now, decided to visit him and bring him Jello. He eventually went to the doctor and got tested for strep throat, which came back positive. He got on antibiotics and came back to school the next day. A week later he got sick again, and it was the same thing. So he was put on antibiotics again and the doctor decided to have his family tested, because someone close to him must have been giving it to him. All their tests came back negative, so his doctor asked if he had been seeing anyone. No one knew about our relationship yet so he had to tell everyone that he had a girlfriend now. The doctor suggested I get tested too. I didn’t have any symptoms and I’d been around him the whole time, but I went in just in case. It came back positive. From that day forward he proceeded to call me his “Typhoid Mary,” after infecting him repeatedly while never being sick myself. We are still together, despite the rough start.

 

5th Year Student

“I had an evening exam to go to one semester when a huge storm rolled in. The roads were covered in ice, snow was everywhere and it was just gross. I was really nervous about my exam so the guy I was seeing insisted on picking me up afterwards. I told him there was no way he could go out on these roads but he insisted and didn’t give me any other option. He showed up just on time and it only took us an hour to get home for what should have been a twenty minute drive. Just goes to show that true love can weather any storm.”

 

6th Year Student

“I was in grade twelve when my boyfriend at the time had undergone a surgery to realign his nose. I didn’t have my license at the time so a good friend of mine offered to take me to see him. It seemed like a great idea so off we went. On the way there we were pulling up to a green light and my friend didn’t notice the car in front of us was still stopped, so we rear-ended it. There wasn’t a lot of damage so eventually we drove away and still went to his house. Nothing holds us back.

 

3rd Year Student

“I didn’t really date in highschool so I decided to take matters into my own hands in University and download Tinder. I made a few matches and met a few guys when I got a message from this one guy. His first message to me was the cheesiest pickup line ever, so I thought I would give him a chance. We decided to meet up at West Edmonton Mall and go from there. I called him as I was walking through the mall since I didn’t know where he was at. While I was on the phone I saw this guy walking towards me while on the phone, when a small child ran straight in front of him. He awkwardly tried to avoid hitting the kid while almost falling over himself. He looked up from his situation and looked directly into my eyes and I could hear the guy on my phone say: “You saw that didn’t you?” The rest of the date went well compared to that.”

 

Psychology Professor: Dr. Sean Moore

“I met my spouse in University. We struck up a conversation about one of her favorite artists: Bob Mould. I happened to enjoy him very much as well, and she was amazed because she had never met anyone else who had heard of him. At that point I may have embellished my story a little bit, saying that he was the first concert I had ever been to in University. She seemed very impressed with this, although she did eventually find out that I had lied a little, as it had been my third or fourth. We went out on a date shortly after. We were in Edmonton driving on the highway when we started talking about movie’s we hated. She told me how afraid she was of “Children of the Corn,” a Stephen King movie. There is a famous line in the movie where the man says “Malikay, he wants you too…” in a super creepy voice. I thought it would be funny to imitate that voice while we were in the car, but she freaked out and took her hands off the wheel. We almost caused an accident right there. One word of advice, when someone tells you they are afraid of something, believe them!”

“So my wife’s parents met in a sort of peculiar fashion. Her father was from West Berlin, but moved to Canada before the wall was put up. He went up to the Yukon to work at the gold mines. He was very happy but really wanted a German wife, so he decided to put an ad in the newspaper in Berlin, searching for a German woman to come to Canada with him. His father (the spouse’s grandfather) took the answers, of which there were three, and got them back to him. He liked the first woman a lot and was pretty sure he could marry her, but the grandfather insisted he meet this other lady. She wrote a very nice letter. So he decided to go on a date but ended up getting sick, so he sent the grandfather on the date for him. They met and the grandfather said she was the nicest woman possible, he must meet her. And so he went out with her and really liked her, they continued to date for a year or so. He gave her a ring made of solid gold, which he panned while he was in the Yukon. She thought he was rich, so they got married and moved to Canada together. She did find out he was not rich, but they were very happy together regardless.”

“One night while me and my spouse were at home, we heard a knock on the door. When we answered it was a pair of our friends standing outside. They asked if we would be witnesses to their wedding. It felt a little sudden, because they had only gone out on three dates but we said yes. And so we drove to the Justice of the Peace on a Thursday night. We ended up in this lady’s basement in Edmonton. She was on her way to go to a symphony so she only had a dress and jeans on as she was mid changing. She was concerned the couple was high or drunk and kept asking if they were sure about the situation before continuing. They were also both immigrants into the country, so she had to make sure it wasn’t merely a marriage of convenience. But they were adamant so they were married that night. It was a passionate sort of love, but as we all know; it wanes. They stayed together for a few years before mutually deciding to separate.”

“A cousin of mine had been doing the online dating thing for years, on all of the websites. She learned many things over that time. As a general rule of thumb: If the man’s profile includes his height, take off 3-4 inches from whatever is listed. Men tend to overestimate their physical appearances, some more dramatically than others. She went out on a date with a guy who posted he was 5 foot 8. Much to her surprise when she arrived on the date to find he was shorter than she was! She was only 5 foot 1, so this guy was way overestimating, or just plain lying.”