Granted I got roflstomped because I was first pick and tried to play it safe with riven...
I mean I only died twice, and he needs much more to snowball hard, but I couldn't even get a CS, I tried to shield his bull**** silence and stun away from his spin, but it's hard to do that when your silenced.

Is there any way a melee champ can beat garen? (other then jungler)

Any champion with a ranged harrass. Darius and Lee Sin are examples.

How does Darius ranged harrass? You could make some money selling a guide on that if it's real...

With his Q, if you're not a baddie with him. His Q does more damage on the outer circle, plus it works for an amazing bait. A good darius will beat a good garen any day. Walk in, Q, walk out. If Garen decides to charge in with his Q and E, just kite until they're finished, then destroy.

if you don't hit him just right with that Q, he has the advantage. Also, his sustain will dominate Darius in the long run.

I've never seen anyone claim darius can range harrass with Q. It's so easy to avoid by taking either zero damage by baiting him in to using it, or by taking half damage by rushing at him.

I play Darius often and I find that people typically run away when a Darius comes at them. With that said, I also use run speed quints so I usually run faster than my opponents, making the Q easy to land. It's a relatively low mana cost which means if you miss one now and then, no big loss. Another thing is, if they do charge in for the reduced damage, they just made themselves vulnerable to his bleed, which mixed with ignite, tears people new bumholes.

actually you just need to learn to fight against him and it is easy

good players will notice if youre using the quints and take advantage of that to kill the **** out of darius unless theyre using a wimpy toplaner. Garen is not a wimpy toplaner so you'd need some other sort of strategy.

As for riven, you are either going to have to just live with it or be very aggressive. There's no inbetween, garen has the final say in initiations against her and stuff like that if you try to get the best of both worlds. You may even have to dive him. Don't get reckless though and also make sure your fingers have memorized rivens antitowerdiving jukes. No time to think about it before he's ready to ult you if he dives. Don't think.. FEEEEEL

I dunno... seems liek a good garen would also have movement runes (actually, most bruisers would). When I successfully dodge either darius' pull or his spin, I normally make the most of it by going in and getting some dmg on him, and getting out whenever I want because on any champ, your movement > darius' I mean, garen goes to walk away u pull, he uses his "I'm garen i'mma retreat" and he does, then sits out of battle regenin' his health while you do what? farm some creeps? because if you do anything except heal up (porting or pots) then next attack isn't going to go well.

ummm. hate to tell you this. but garen is a hard counter to darius