“So I Just Ate His Pocket Tacos” – 15 Awful, Cringy, And Creepy Things Men Have Done To Try And Pick Up Women
by Benjamin Dzialdowski · BuzzFeedRecently, u/anxious_society697 asked r/AskReddit, "Women of reddit: Whats the most cringe thing a guy has done to try and court you?" And while many of them were more creepy, than cringy, we thought we'd share some of the top responses.
1. “Twice, I’ve had guys write wishful fanfiction about me dating them. One was in high school, which, cringe, but whatever, we were kids. The other, though, was when we were in our mid-20s. It creeped me out. Didn’t date either."
"I’ll also share that the girl I dated in my late teens/early 20s also wrote fanfiction about us, but at least we were dating? I didn’t like it then either. It was awkward responding to it when I just wanted to go out for dinner for my birthday. She didn’t take me out, either, just wrote that shit and got me a box of tea ‘to drink while I read’.
Fuck. Why was everyone writing fanfiction?!”
2. “Walked up to me at a bar and said, ‘On a scale from one to 10, you are a one…’ and then abruptly walked away without saying anything more. His friend came over five minutes later and said, ‘Sorry. The line is, 'On a scale from one to 10, you are a nine, and I’m the one you need,' but he was really nervous.’”
3. “A patient (50 years older than me) said, ‘Oh, nurse, if you'd been my mother, I would have made my siblings myself.’ Left me unable to work for several minutes, trying to process what the hell had just happened.”
4. “Guy was a regular at my retail job when I was in college. Greasy, older white dude. Loved showing off how much Japanese he knew, talking about Japan, telling me how beautiful Japanese women are, and asking me, ‘Can I please take you out so you can teach me Japanese?’ I am Korean.”
5. “I was at a sci-fi/fantasy convention, hanging out by myself on the smoking deck, when these two guys approached me."
"One of them asked for a light, and we started chatting. I mean, it's a convention; chatting with strangers is normal. Then he asked if I'd ever heard of tantric sex, and I had not. He explained that it was a magical sex ritual and that they needed a woman to participate so they could save their friend's life. They'd approached me because they could sense that I had the right energy they needed for the ritual.
I, um... I laughed in his face. I couldn't help it.
Random tantric sex guy from the convention 20 years ago, if you're reading this, I hope your friend didn't die.”
6. “He took me out to a really nice fondue restaurant, but then said, ‘I know you like tacos, and they don’t have those here, so…’ He then proceeded to pull out baggies of flour tortillas, cheese and other assorted taco fixings from his pocket. He was really proud of himself. Everything was all warm from his thighs, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just ate his pocket tacos.”
7. “He was a grade behind me in high school and very religious. I didn’t go to church, but I suspected this kid had something for me because I was a TA for one of his classes."
"He came to class one day and handed me a bag of cherry gummy sweets from the school’s vending machine. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I said thank you.
To which he replied, ‘MY MOM SAYS YOU HAVE THE DEVIL IN YOU!’ before running back to his desk.
I never interacted with his mum. I have no idea how she knew me.”
8. “Had an acquaintance give me a birthday present. Sounds nice, right?"
"It was a framed picture of his own face.
He then awkwardly played me a song he had written for me on his guitar. He kept an alarming amount of eye contact.
I turned down the date. In his defence, we were about 16.”
9. “I’m 21 now, but this happened when I was a freshman in college."
"There was this guy in one of my classes who was clearly into me. We’d talked a handful of times, mostly before lectures, but I never really thought much of it. He seemed nice, just a little awkward.
One Friday, he texted me saying he had something for me and asked if I could come outside my dorm for a minute. I figured maybe flowers or coffee.
Nope.
This dude was standing by his car holding a framed picture of the two of us.
Except we’d literally never taken a picture together. He’d taken a photo of me from my college’s Instagram page, found a picture of himself from somewhere else, and had someone Photoshop us standing next to each other. Then he had the whole thing printed and framed.
I genuinely didn’t know what to say. He handed it to me like he’d just given me the most romantic gift in the world and said, ‘I thought it’d be nice to have something to remember our first year together.’
I remember looking at him and thinking… first year of WHAT?
We weren’t dating. We’d barely even hung out.
I just said thank you, went back to my dorm, and called my roommate. She laughed so hard she had to sit on the floor.
A few days later, he texted asking if I’d hung it up yet because he wanted to see it next time he came over.
He never came over. And somehow, that framed picture is still sitting in a box at my parents’ house. My mum thinks it’s hilarious and refuses to throw it away.”
10. "I was sitting by myself in the dining hall at college, and a guy asked to sit with me. I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ and we got chatting. He asked my major, I told him, and he said, ‘I’m in political science, but I’ve always been interested in meteorology. And speaking of the weather, if you were a weather report, you’d be sunny and 70 degrees.’"
"The way he said it was cringe and not charming in itself, but as soon as the words left his mouth, I remembered TWO of my friends sharing the exact same story: a guy asks to hang out with them, asks what their major is, and then says, ‘Sunny and 70 degrees.’ This kid was just trying the exact same pick-up line on any woman who made eye contact with him.
I saw him try the same method at least twice more during my time at college."
11. "A guy from my gym heard the receptionist say my name when my membership card wouldn’t scan. He found my Instagram that night, then printed out one of my photos and brought it to the gym to ask me to sign it ‘for his wall’."
12. "Broke up with his wife just to take me on a date. Not so much cringe, but definitely out there. I said no."
"I spoke to him once, at work. It was a simple ‘Hello, how are you?’ conversation."
13. "Always doing a backflip when I walked by."
14. "I thought we were going for a nice lunch in the park."
"He decided he’d treat me and everyone in the vicinity to several uninterrupted minutes of what he claimed was beatboxing. For context, this was a middle-aged man with zero self-awareness or sense of rhythm, who followed up his performance with, ‘People love it when I do that at weddings!’ I could’ve forgiven a one-time misstep, but this was clearly a repeat act, so needless to say, we didn’t go out again."
15. "I went for a dog walk with a male co-worker who insisted we sit on the tailgate and chat for a bit afterwards. He sheepishly handed me an envelope containing $500 in cash, saying it was to help me move out of my rental with my boyfriend at the time (where I was content). He then proceeded to tell me he had shrapnel in his back from saving his friends from a hidden mine at a teenage boot camp, along with other wild tales to try to impress me."
H/T to u/anxious_society697 and r/AskReddit for having the discussion!
Any of your own to add? Let us know in the comments below!
Additional thumbnail credits: Universal Pictures, NBC