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Walking around a shopping centre: The teenager's guide to shit dates

LOOKING for romance but on a very limited budget? Here are some of the awful dates you no doubt went on as a teenager.

Head to the cinema

Did you have visions of suavely putting your arm around your date as you watched some erotically charged French thriller? Unfortunately, the guy at the ticket desk refused to sell you a ticket for an 18 film. Instead, you end up in a matinee screening of the new Paw Patrol movie with a horde of screaming toddlers. Enjoy.

Walking around a shopping centre

There’s romance in the air at your local shopping centre, but mainly the overpowering smell of bleach. Why not stroll through a big Boots? Or maybe count the number of vacant store fronts? Once you’ve worked up an appetite, head to the food court and guess which of the non-franchise fast food outlets looks least likely to give you food poisoning.

Going to the park

A stroll through scenic countryside is a surefire way of kindling romance. Unfortunately, you live in suburban Glasgow and the closest thing to nature is a threadbare park. Enjoy trying to make small-talk in the rain as kids from your school, pissed on Frosty Jack’s, hilariously shout ‘Have you f**ked her yet?’

Watch a movie at home

You’ve been invited round to watch a movie at your date’s house. Perhaps tonight will be the night that you finally kiss? Except it absolutely won’t be as you mistakenly presumed their parents would be out. Enjoy watching Die Hard 4 in silence with your date’s dad sitting between you like a big, angry chastity buffer.

Go bowling

You’ve finally saved up enough pocket money to treat your beloved to an evening of bowling at your local alley. After failing to think of an amusing name for the scoreboard, you spend the rest of the evening humiliated, having paid to demonstrate just how profoundly uncoordinated you are. Brilliant.

Group dates

What’s more awkward than two teenagers on a date? Four teenagers on a double date. Bringing another couple into the mix is a great way to immediately become self-conscious about how terribly your own date is going. Watch them giggle together while your date’s eyes glaze over as you ramble on about which is your favourite Star Wars film.

Seven hobbies that inexplicably haven't caught on with women

STRANGELY, certain hobbies have never developed a female following. Here beer festival regular Martin Bishop lists some of the wonderful activities women are missing out on.

Fishing 

A fun hobby that involves sitting alone by an unpicturesque river for hours, occasionally removing a barbed hook from a fish without ripping its face open. Give it chance, ladies – you might discover a secret passion for solitary brooding and revolting fish diseases.

Collecting SS memorabilia

Sadly this historical hobby is practised exclusively by creepy male loners with an unhealthy interest in the Third Reich. But collecting SS caps and daggers really isn’t that different to collecting antiques, it’s just that the previous owner of a Blue Willow tea set probably wasn’t executed at Nuremberg.

Martial arts

Women do martial arts, but they tend to be more interested in the sporting or self-defence aspect, rather than collecting nunchucks and throwing stars or obsessively watching Bruce Lee videos. And, of course, imagining meeting the kid who bullied you at school and karate-chopping him to a bloody pulp. Come on, ladies, surely you’ve got juvenile revenge fantasies too?

The Sealed Knot

Contrary to popular belief there are some great roles for women in English Civil War reenactments – spinning yarn, preparing food, looking after the baggage train. And if you’re a woman hoping to meet a partner through your hobby, the total lack of females basically means you’re Margot Robbie if you can breathe.

Owning a samurai sword

What better talking point for your lounge than a large samurai sword on a decorative rack? Especially if you’ve sharpened it so it will easily take someone’s head off. Curiously, only men seem to be into this engrossing and not-in-any-way-mental hobby.

Dungeons & Dragons 

It’s easy to mock 25-year-old virgins pretending to be dwarves and warlocks, but D&D is actually a compelling game of decision-making and imagination. Also we desperately need more female players because in my current ‘campaign’, Dave the fat IT guy plays a sexy female elf and it’s giving me confusing feelings.

Real ale

Women like getting tipsy and socialising, thus missing out on the best bit of drinking – discussing specific gravity. Females might feel they’d be out-of-place in the world of real ale, but after a few years of drinking heavy brews with names like Old Bender’s Clopper you’ll be as rotund and dishevelled as everyone else.

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