There’s nothing like the delight of a great first date: easy conversation, shared laughter, hope for what may lay ahead.

But all too often, that feeling is elusive. On any given night or weekend, especially in the before times, bad dates were probably happening all around us.

Or to us.

We asked you to share your terrible dates, then we selected three and sent them off to Tess Smith-Roberts, a London-based illustrator known for drawing her own, and others’, awful dates. (See this one, about an erratic professional triangle player, or this one, about a guy who truly believed he could time-travel.)

Below you’ll find three crummy dates, in comic form. We hope these give you a laugh — and maybe a sense of relief that you didn’t live them. Enjoy.

—Nneka McGuire, Lily multiplatform editor

Hi, I’m Tess.

I decided to start illustrating bad dates at the end of the summer, after a series of very unfortunate ones. In fact, a high ratio of my dating life has been pretty tragic, really (ha-ha). I kept telling my friends about these bad, funny dates, and one friend suggested that I turn them into a graphic novel.

On Instagram, I invited my followers to share their own bad dates with me. The response was amazing — I received so many ridiculous and funny stories. I then started drawing them, as well as my own dates, and here we are. It’s a lot of fun, and it feels very cathartic and enjoyable to get this all out. I think it’s good to be able to laugh at your own misfortunes, and even better to draw them.

Check out the comics I drew for The Lily below.