First dates can be very awkward. There are a lot of nerves and expectations involved and both parties want to make a good impression.
But despite all good intentions, they can't all go to plan. One dater has shared one of the worst first dates she has even been on.
Writer Elena Bjørn took to Twitter to share the harrowing story with her 5k followers, which took place in early 2010 when she was in her 20s.
The mum-of-one described how she had agreed to pay for her own ticket at London Zoo, but her date had then "pulled out a two-for-one voucher, so I paid for my ticket and he went in for free".
This was in no way the worst of it. From here on, the date became more awful for "many, many reasons".
Alarm bells started ringing when the bloke told Elena he was "finally ready to date" after having his heart broken.
She continued: "Even the way HE told the story sounded like he pursued a female friend who wasn't interested until she got her boyfriend to tell him to leave her alone."
At the end of the date a fed up Elena tried to run away by saying she needed to make a start on her Christmas presents, despite it being August.
Elena continued: "He then grabbed me into a weird headlock and smashed his teeth into my teeth".
Many of her followers suggested she shouldn't have been made to pay for the date, and that he was "rude" and that she was essentially "robbed".
One person said: "This is.... Even teenage me would've gone 50:50 so we each got benefit from the discount. What a rude man!"
While another asked: "Why should he pay for you?"
Reflecting on the horrendous date, Elena confirmed the date was his idea, and that there was "no shame" on the fact that he was on a budget.
She added: "I have had tremendous fun on free/extremely cheap dates in the past so I wouldn’t have minded that either. But he suggested it!"
Others suggested the guy probably has a lot of zoo vouchers, and that he probably does this often as a way to get a free trip.
One person commented: "I'd like to think this is a guy who really loves zoos, has an endless supply of vouchers, and this is why he goes on dates."
Elena said: "Lots of men are QTing [quote Tweeting] this saying that he was a king or whatever, and if the man's main objective was to get a free trip to the zoo then. maybe he was. But if this objective was to get lucky he failed miserably.
"I guess it depends what you want out of a date."
Elena ended on a positive note, explaining that despite having a "terrible, hilarious sequence of disappointments" between 2012 and 2018, she is now "ridiculously happy with a very lovely bloke who rarely calls me ugly or scams me into free zoo trips, so fortunately it all just seems quite funny now".
