THIS MONTH, IN association with Sprite Cucumber, we’re celebrating all the times you stayed as cool as a cucumber. No matter what was happening around you. We wanted to hear your most amusing disaster stories – and we decided to share the best ones.

LOOK, THERE ARE few among us who don’t have a tale of utter woe in our catalogue of dating stories.

God knows it’s not easy out there, but you guys outdid yourself this week with the memories you shared of your most appalling experiences on the dating scene.

Painful and all as it was for you to re-live them and awkward as it was for us to hear about them, we cherry-picked the most toe-curling.

And hats off for keeping your cool during these dating disasters because Christ knows we wouldn’t have been able.

So, without further ado, here are the best of the worst… if you see what we mean.

1. We’re talking a full-on dine and dash merchant.

When I was 21 or 22 I met a guy for a drink in Pantibar. We got on really well so we popped next door for some dinner in Musashi. Halfway through the meal he “goes out to give his brother a key to his place”. He never came back and I was left sitting for what felt like an age and had to pay for his half eaten meal!

2. A broken ankle and some barfing on Molly Malone.

3. When you put your life at risk to cut the date short.

My WORST first date ever concluded with me almost getting hit by a truck in an attempt to run away from him. At the end of the dinner date, I went to my purse and he asked me: “Do you want to just put it all on your card and I’ll give you the cash?’ “I only have enough to cover myself on this card” I replied, a bit put out. When the meal was paid for, having had small, stifled and awkward conversation throughout I finally took my cue to exit stage left. I gathered my things and said goodbye. I left the restaurant and walked towards the bus stop. When I got there I could see him pegging it up the hill towards me, he grabbed my arm and said “I just want to know where I went wrong”. I tried to concede that it wasn’t anything he did we just had no chemistry, but he persisted. Feeling very uncomfortable I saw a bus on the opposite side of the road I could get and dashed out into the middle of the road to catch it. Only to be almost knocked down by a truck.

4. And then there was this…

It would have to be while we were sitting at the restaurant, first time having a conversation (we had seen each other in passing through work and I asked her out), and she told me about how a cousin of hers had gotten shot and killed. In the small-talk-getting-to-know-you part of a first date. (It was also the last date….) It was such a surreal experience.

5. Oh and we all know THIS guy.

Worst first date so far was with a guy who proceeded to lecture me (for a good 10 minutes) about how people who like football are uneducated morons with nothing better to do… right after I told him that I wrote my college thesis on the history of association football in Ireland, how I’ve been going to Shelbourne FC matches since childhood and how I regularly travel to Liverpool for matches too. And he was gobsmacked when I decided to leave?

And now that we’ve soldiered through all that together, it’s time to hear about your nightmare job interviews…