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(This is cross-posted at BlogHer.)

I try to stay positive when faced with a bad situation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from one of those overly-chipper, “the sky is always blue and butterflies are flitting around” type of people. I’m too realistic for that. But my realism skews more toward the positive than the negative — and in the absence of finding anything positive in a given situation, my next go-to is to convince myself that I learned something.

In the context of dating — specifically the dates that are so bad that you want to throw up your hands and give up for a while — you can seriously start to question your pre-screening skills. But really, if you’re going on first-dates with people you’ve previously only seen photos of, and exchanged emails with, and maybe talked to on the phone…there’s a very high probability that you’ll encounter a stinker or two at some point.

For me, it’s helpful to think about the advantages of having put up with this person for an hour or two (hopefully it didn’t last any longer than that). Think about this:

You’re learning good social skills.

You have to spend time with (and be nice to) someone you normally would have steered away from. Life isn’t easy; we have to know how to put on a smile and talk to someone even if we’d rather not. Just think to yourself, “I’ll never have to see this person again. Eat the dinner, have the drink, and soon it will all be over.”

You’ll have a good point of comparison.

Bad dates give a really great contrast to the dates where you actually enjoy yourself. When you go from wanting to pull your hair out one night, to meeting someone else the next night and you completely lose track of time because you’re enjoying yourself so much, it makes you appreciate those good dates even more.

You’ll have an interesting story to tell.

When something bad (or good, or shocking, or funny) happens to you, don’t you look forward to telling someone about it? Either verbally, or through your blog, or another written form of communication? Look at comedians. They often have stories that are hilarious while they’re being told, but at the same time you’re thinking to yourself, “I sure am glad it wasn’t me in that situation.” Basically, bad dates give you an easy way to commiserate with others. You can hold on to these horror stories and tell them again and again, even years down the road.

I must admit, compared to some of the dating horror stories I’ve heard, my experiences haven’t been all that bad. Most of the time, what I consider to be bad dates are really just boring. But a few examples tend to stick out. Like a few years ago when my date told me that he’d just purchased some Viagra off the internet. (Please note: this guy was in mid-20s at the time, and he didn’t need it for any kind of medical condition — which I know because he volunteered that information, too. Apparently he was just curious to try it.)

Or that time a few months back when I ended up in a large chain bookstore with a guy who looked both older and heavier than the pictures he’d posted of himself online. He kept picking up sex-related books and making some kind of comment or joke about them. While I don’t consider myself prudish, I don’t want to talk about sex with someone I’ve just met. Needless to say, I didn’t see him again, either.

My most recent example was a guy who couldn’t carry on a conversation and then had the nerve not to leave a tip on his portion of the bill (which we split). He ended up writing something in, but only after I called him out on his receipt after I noticed it only had his signature and nothing else. (Not tipping is inexcusable!) After dinner, I gave him the “goodbye hug of death.” That’s what I like to call it when I know there’s absolutely no chance I’ll see someone again, but I’m trying to be nice and also have an excuse to get away both quickly and gracefully.

But like I said, there was a positive side to it. I had a funny story to tell afterward. I was able to practice my social skills, thinking up questions and topics of conversation to engage someone who was very quiet. And yes, it made me appreciate my good dates so much more.

Am I missing anything? Are there any more advantages to bad dates? What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?

Related Reading:

Deutlich went out with someone who was conceited, “ridiculously condescending,” and unable to hold his liquor. After all that, he still expected her to go home with him.

Lisa has been on her fair share of awful dates over the years, but she was finally able to find the right one. Her message: “Stick with it.”

Yes, it gets dreadful to go on one date after another after another. And at a certain point you think, fuck, I simply cannot put on one more smile and act like I’m excited to have a drink with someone who will most likely either bore the crap out of me or do something annoying that makes me want to pinch him, hard, before the evening is over.

But honestly, I swear to you, your person is out there. You’re not necessarily right for everyone, but you are perfect for someone who will be perfect back for you.

This post doesn’t really count as a “bad date” in the context in which I’ve been talking about them — it’s more like a horrible, awful, nightmare-type date. But it’s also an excellent, captivating post by Black Belt Mama about how she escaped being raped at age 18 (and a great lesson about being aware of your surroundings and listening to your gut instincts).

[S]omething snapped in me and I got completely FURIOUS that he was trying to do this to me. He WAS NOT going to succeed.

What came after this was fast and furious. I managed to get my legs out from underneath his knees, pulled my knees up to my chest, planted my feet on his chest and launched him. I remember watching him literally fly across the room as he slammed into the wall. This is the adrenalin people talk about when Mom’s remove cars from on top of their kids.

Liz Rizzo mentioned some of her bad dates on BlogHer last year. Some personal examples: “The 45-minute sushi dinner, because we were starving and completely not interested from the first hello; the guy who apparently couldn’t believe that I wasn’t having sex with my male roommate; the guy who made homophobic jokes about our gay waiter…”

Yahoo Personals, Dating 101: How to Manage Your First-Date Jitters