On our third date, I met a guy at his house. He was showing me pictures in a photo album. When he came to a picture of himself, he said “There she is, in all her finest!”

—Brian

Aftermath: We did not have a fourth date.

He kept climbing up on things. We’d go to a bar and he’d climb on the pool table or the bar or whatever else and perch on it. I think he thought it made him interesting, but it really just made him look like a tool.

—BlueCanary

Aftermath: He started wearing black eyeliner right around the same time I stopped returning his calls.

He invited me over to watch the new “Battlestar Galactica” miniseries. After it was over, he declared that the decision to run from the Cylons was cowardly, though he acknowledged that to stay and fight meant the end of the human race. A true patriot would have fought anyway, he said. Then he informed me that the show was obviously anti-Iraq war propaganda, and that he was a fervent supporter of President George W. Bush.

—Shannon

Aftermath: I would have ended it right then, but felt bad because we had already purchased tickets to see the premiere of the last “Lord of the Rings” movie with mutual friends a few days later.

While watching the last “Lord of the Rings” movie, he spent the entire movie whispering to me like an old woman, “Who is that? What are they doing? Is that the bad guy? Where are they going now?“

—Shannon

Aftermath: This made it easy to pull the plug.

I wasn’t really sure how much he liked me, and when he told me one day that his uncle had died and he couldn’t have plans because he was going to the funeral, I felt suspicious. I pretty much knew it was over when I resorted to calling a bunch of funeral homes in the region and asking if they were having a service for “Mr. So and So.”

—Jen

Aftermath: It turns out the uncle did die, as I talked to the funeral home where the service was taking place. But my instincts were right; the guy broke things off a few weeks later.