Law teacher, Sheila O’Farrell

“I was young at the time, maybe 25 or 26, we were fixed up by a friend I worked with who told me to meet him. I agreed and we decided to meet at a restaurant, which I was grateful for. We drove our own cars and met there. When we got there, he began to tell me how he had already been married and his wife died. I already thought he was odd because of his inappropriate behavior later on, but was kind of freaked out when the waiters brought the food because I hadn’t noticed before, but he was missing fingers on one hand. Panicking a little, I thought ‘Oh no, he chopped his wife up!’ and so finally, I excused myself.”

Language Arts teacher, Andrew Reich  

“I was maybe 16 at the time; I had called her up and asked her out, she said yes and so I went to pick her up for a movie date. She lived in Plantation; I lived around here, and this was before 1995, so I had a little hard time getting there. When I picked her up, we went to see a movie called ‘After Hours,’ and the movie was kind of strange. It went completely over my head and she was uninterested so we left and I dropped her off. While driving home I got lost and a cop pulled me over for speeding a little. I told him I was on a date and it didn’t go well so I was very depressed about it, he didn’t give me a ticket and said to call her again. I did and we went to see another movie called ‘The Gods Must be Crazy’? This movie was really funny, I thought it was great but she didn’t so I said ‘you know what? That was two chances, you didn’t find this movie funny, we’re not meant to be.” 

CTE teacher, Shannon Haynes

“I was walking around the mall, he walked up to me expressing interest, so we walked together. We were talking and he eventually asked for my number. He was a little short for me because I’m tall, but I gave him a chance. When he called, we talked for a bit and I agreed to go on a date at a restaurant called ‘The Forge.’ The first bad thing about the date was that I was wearing heels to dress up, so I ended up being even taller than him. Also the day we met, he was wearing those sneakers that give you a little more height because I noticed he was shorter than before. The second bad thing was that he had a really bad breath, so every time he talked and opened his mouth wide, it smelled so bad I didn’t even want to breathe. He paid for dinner and brought me a gift but his breath was so horrible I could not do it. After the date, he called me several times and I ignored.”

Language Arts teacher, Thisa Tynes 

 “My worst first date happened a year after my divorce, in my thirties. We met through a mutual friend. He suggested that since we were both free one weekend, that we should go out for a late lunch on a Saturday. He picked the restaurant since he didn’t know any restaurants I suggested and we met up at a place called ‘Bahama Breeze,’ in Pembroke Pines. The date went horrible. He arrived late, was dressed like he was going to the beach in shorts and flip flops, he was on his phone the entire time claiming he had to ‘conduct business’ and the worst part? He ordered meat that he did not know how to cut, so to save me some embarrassment, I cut his meat for him. When the check came, he insisted we each pay half, therefore, I blocked him and told my friend to never set me up on a date ever again or else she would be blocked too.” 

Math teacher, Michael Storper 

“I used to work in Downtown Miami. My Colombian friends and I worked in parking lots, parking cars. I had met this girl, it was a short conversation, really quick so I only got her number. I found her attractive so I asked her out for dinner. She’s Hispanic and when we met for dinner I hadn’t realized, but she barely spoke English. It was a difficult dinner, even though I found her attractive it didn’t make a difference because I couldn’t understand her. She was so good looking I tried again for a second date, but the language barrier was terrible, we couldn’t even talk to each other so there was no point in going out anymore.”