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DATING is a necessary evil for those looking for love yet - long before Mr or Ms Right turns up - most singles will endure a series of nightmarish, boring and humiliating scenarios.
Author Sam Jordison was so inspired by his own fumbling attempts that he launched whendatesgobad.co.uk to let internet users share their own cringe-making experiences.
Overwhelmed by the horror stories, he has put together the best of the worst in the book Bad Dates - True Tales From Single Life.
Here is the cream of the crop.
One woman was really nervous about meeting her boyfriend's parents, especially as she had heard his mum was a fiercely intelligent and staunchly conservative doctor.
But the meeting went so well the lady in question decided it was time to get serious, which meant moving on to long-term contraception.
The next morning she headed for the family planning clinic and walked straight in to see ... his mum.
Out on the pull one night, a guy thought he'd struck lucky when he was invited back to a girl's room.
Instead, she put on a pair of pyjamas, climbed into bed and ask if he would read her Harry Potter.
Hoping to reap the rewards, the guy read two chapters of Chamber of Secrets as the girl lay smiling.
But when he'd finished she simply said: "Thank you. That's enough. I'm going to sleep. You can leave now."
A girl got chatting to a guy on a night out and was not surprised when he asked her to his flat.
But, in the middle of "events", his mum walked in saying they could:
"Carry on as soon as I've asked my son about his car insurance."
One girl in her 20s was inspired by friends to try out a dating website for younger people and was delighted when a charming guy got in touch.
Through emails they discovered they had been to the same gigs and had the same taste in music.
In time they arranged to meet - but imagine her horror when she turned up to discover her date was her best friend's boyfriend.
Daleks were the sole topic of conversation on one woman's date.
Her suitor even took a call from a friend and proceeded to argue for 20 minutes about the model of a Dalek.
He almost redeemed himself by presenting the girl with a beautifully wrapped gift.
But it turned out to be a copy of The Encyclopaedia of Unusual Sexual Practices - and he asked her to consider the page on what can be done with milking machines.
Lonely while working in the US, one professional joined a dating agency - only for her first date with them to become her last. She met the man in a restaurant but when she asked for wine he took out paper and made an ostentatious tick with a swanky pen.
He explained he was a busy man and that before he "invested any emotional capital" he had to make sure they came up to his standards.
He explained his scoring system, whereby he gave good or bad points for everything from income to breeding potential and that ordering wine had scored her one black mark.
When she said she didn't know where she stood on the existence of the Trinity he folded and put the paper away.
It was a first date and the lady mentioned in passing that she liked a drop of full-cream milk in her coffee.
On their second date she was touched when, at his flat, her date offered her coffee and said he had bought in old blue-top milk specially.
Lovely, the lady thought - until the bloke said that although he had bought the milk for 30p, she could have what was left for 25p.
One singleton took just five minutes to decide she didn't want to know her date any better.
Moments into the date he took a call and started to yell, telling the other person, he wished he had run her over when he had the chance.
"Sorry," he said when he got off the phone.
"Women, eh? That was my awful ex-wife.
"I can't stand to talk to her. I hope you aren't going to be a cow like her."
Bad Dates - True Tales From Single Life by Sam Jordison is available from Black And White Publishing for £9.99.
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