From learning that she doesn’t like poetry after spending years writing love poems for her, to an expensive birthday gift gone unappreciated, people share romantic gestures that didn’t go over well.
[Source can be found at the end of the article]
I booked a weekend at a nice resort up North after the first decent snowfall of the year, and one of the options was a sleigh ride. I thought it would be like a Hallmark card. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
First of all, it’s way below freezing, but we were dressed for it. The horse had constant gas for the duration of the trip. Also, that horse doesn’t care that we’re there. He’s clipping trees, farting, hitting rocks, all in a sleigh with no suspension whatsoever.
“Hold on, this is where it usually tips over.” Our guide says.
As if bouncing around on solid wood behind a fart machine wasn’t bad enough, now it’s apparent that we can just fall over any time. It’s not that uncommon, though I’ve never seen it on a Hallmark card.
We came back cold, tired, and in pain.
You know what’s more fun than a ride on a one horse open sleigh?
Drinking inside in front of a fireplace. Or anything. Anything is more fun.
The_Town_of_Canada
I once had a car break down at the very beginning of my relationship with the girl of my dreams, however me being underage couldn’t rent a car. But I could… Rent a U-Haul. For just 20 dollars a day and but a few dollars for extra mileage I rented a U-Haul and was on my way to her house to pick her up for what promised to be the most awkward date of her life… Until I pulled up that is. For you see, once I arrived I saw her family moving boxes from storage, and they had a lot of stuff. And they saw me pull up in a U-Haul and thought I was just the greatest help. So I instead had to help them all day with boxes. No date for me.
BUT We’re engaged now so. Yeah.
Im_Justintyler
To celebrate out fifth Valentine’s Day together I was going to replicate our terrible first meal together over candle light. It was Banquet chicken patties with marinara sauce and mozzarella melted on top with pasta and a Dole bag salad. In the days leading up to it, when she asked what I was going to do, I told her I was going to make a special meal. She laughed and said, “You’re probably going to just make the same food we had years ago or something dumb.” So, needless to say I went to plan B.
lotus38
After the date I dropped her off in the parking lot where her car was parked. We said goodbye and no kiss. It was our first date. She got out and began walking across the parking lot and I suddenly got the courage to whip my car around, stop right in front of her, get out, and kiss her. In my head it was like something out of a film. In person, I pulled up to her, forgot to put it in park, got out, walked away from the car, she looked at me horrified and pointed, I turned around and ran towards my car as it slammed into another parked car.
SomehowStillAwake
My ex and I were to get married in 18 days, and we were really stressed out about the wedding.
So I left work early, got a bunch of things, cooked dinner, set up a little scavenger hunt of memories to remind her of why we’re together, which then lead her to the dinner table with her favourite meal with candles.
She then broke up with me, lied about why she did it. And I found out a few weeks later that the reason we were having trouble was not wedding related. It was because she was with someone else.
throwyoworkaway
Senior year in high school I had a girlfriend who I had been going out with for awhile. With graduation getting close and us having different plans for our futures things were getting tense and our relationship was getting rocky.
There were really tall cliffs over the lake in the town I lived in. Our first official date was there and in the early days we spent a lot of dates there at those cliffs. When we were rocky we hadnt gone to them in awhile so as a way to like revitalize our relationship I decided to go there with her.
It was really still and there was fog over the lake. Its a Great Lake so its massive and it was unusual for there not to be at least some waves. We were sitting on the beach under the cliffs, she seemed happy and asked why I had wanted to come here, I explained my reasoning to her. I looked over to her and her face was in her hands. She said she wanted to break up.
So yeah that was rough, but its been a few years so now I can look back at it and laugh.
FrenchSnail
I had a girlfriend come live with me after being in a not so great situation for nearly a year in another state. I was planning for 8 months to have a dress she had been dying to get waiting for her under the Christmas tree when she arrived because she hadn’t had the cash for groceries, let alone a nice dress.
So, she got super excited when she saw the box and opened it right away.
I bought the wrong dress.
N4g4rok
I cooked Valentine dinner for an ex back in like 2002. I was making some chicken. I put it in a pot to cook. Me and girl were hang out while I cooking and got a little ‘preoccupied.’ Afterward, I think to myself, ‘oh crap the chicken!’ and run to kitchen naked. I grab the lid off. Apparently, I used my roommates pressure cooker. I didn’t know what a pressure cooker was but I do now. I force the lid open and got boiling water all over my stomach, arms, and crotch. Spent Valentine’s Day in ER getting burns treated.
drewuncc
I was seeing a girl who I really liked. She also seemed to really like me as well.
One day I wanted to buy her flowers as a random act of kindness. She told me she didn’t want me to buy her flowers. Okay… So a week later I went out to my friend’s farm and picked flowers for her instead. I was proud of myself with the colors I chose and filling in around the sides, it looked like a bouquet you would buy at a store.
When I saw her that night, I showed them to her. She proceeded to laugh and call me horrible names. She almost forgot them when she was going home and she just left them in the back seat of her car until they died.
I stopped talking to her shortly after.
elad101
I used to write my boyfriend one sonnet per week about how much I loved him. I called him to tell him I got in to the writing program at my University. He told me hed been seeing someone else for two years, that he hated my writing, and ripped up all of my poems on the phone for me to hear.
makeupyourworld
I flew cross country to surprise her. I had spent weeks working on a model of her aircraft in the Air Force, including painting it with the correct tail number and spending hours getting the crew chief hair color right. (She was a crew chief). Left it on her doorstep with a note since I knew she was out. I figured she would call when she got it.
She never noticed it and I ended up calling her. Once she realized I was in town, she was pissed. She said she was going to deck me for trying to surprise her.
Now she is my ex-wife after 14 years. I guess I should have known earlier.
Dchrosniak
This actually happened this morning.
I am planning a surprise birthday party for my wife. I’m renting a beach house and flying a few of her friends in to celebrate for a weekend. My wife handles most of our finances and watches them like a hawk, so in order to keep this a surprise I applied for a new credit card to pay for everything (We have a pretty good income, so I don’t expect her to be upset over the amount that will be spent). I got the new credit card in the mail and hid it. Well she found it, thought I had a gambling problem or something worse that would require me to hide money. I explained why I had it, but basically had to give up the surprise. Bummer.
techblackops
I surprised my fiance at her work with a bouquet of flowers.
She thought it was creepy and told people I snuck into her work and security had to change the codes. I simply walked up to receptionist and said I had a delivery for her, and was escorted there.
Turns out she was having an affair with her boss and was gas-lighting me to make me look like the bad guy. It clicked for me because I always thought “the only difference between a creepy gesture and a romantic one is how you feel about the person doing it.”
Benadryll
I spent a month and a half teaching myself how to make origami roses because she liked origami and was not big on flowers. She had said numerous times she thought origami roses were really charming though.
I hid it from her as best as I could. I spent hours on YouTube trying to figure this out. I wanted to burn my own house down on numerous occasions because of the amount of struggle involved here. Thought this was going to be romantic. I made 12, each with stems and leaves and each one was a different colour. I put them in a vase and presented them to her. Her reaction was about the equivalent of ‘thats nice.’ Pretty much zero appreciation.
I would also like to point out how ridiculously difficult origami is, and I have utmost respect for people that do this proficiently.
If you are good at origami, hats off and I hope it came more naturally to you than it did me. I wanted to play in traffic for the duration of trying to learn this. It’s amazing how something so seemingly simplistic can be so impossible to execute.
Rambro663
It was our three year anniversary. Before I left for work, I set up a rose petal bed, including a flower arrangement, and a gift. I left work early to pick her up for our dinner reservation. When I got to her house she still needed some time to get ready. While she gets ready she likes to play music on her laptop. So I went to change the song and her messenger app was open, with my friend’s name at the top. Turns out she slept with my friend at my house a few nights prior while I was drunk.
Enjoi686
I lived in a small country town and we had a huge ice storm that lasted two weeks, all the power in the town was out so I’m not exaggerating when I say it was pitch black everywhere. It had been a while since my girlfriend and I saw each other due to the entire town being iced over, including the roads. So on Valentine’s night, I got her a rose and walked miles to get to her through pitch black woods, loud winds and what I’m pretty sure I heard was wolves nearby. When I gave her the rose she brushed it off like nothing really happened. She broke up with me the next day and I saw her with another guy later on that she told me not to worry about before.
howlwizard
Our son was spending the night at grandmas for the first time in months. I snuck upstairs and got into a super tight corset with thigh high stockings. I called him up from downstairs. He walked in and just stood there. So getting nervous I asked if he liked what he saw? He responded with, “What am I supposed to do with that?” at this point I’m almost in tears. My anxiety is rising through the roof, and all my self hating fears are popping up. He walked back down stairs. I took a shower and cried.
pinkunicorn555
I was too nervous to ask a quasi-friend of mine to prom so I wrote him a letter asking if he would go with me because I really liked him. Because I was so nervous I basically handed it to him and ran away. He refused to speak to me and told my best friend to tell me no (judging by the fact that she never spoke to him again despite the fact that they were decent friends and she was a very friendly person probably says a lot about what he actually said).
Well, the next day I happened to be making cupcakes as thank you gestures for a few of my teachers who had written me some kind of recommendation letters, so I, in all of my 17-year-old brilliance, thought that I would change his mind and ‘woo’ him through my (completely non-existent) baking skills. So I made him a cupcake, complete with heart shaped sprinkles. I gave it to him just before lunch and was expecting him to be touched, at the very least. Instead, he told me to leave him alone because I was embarrassing him. I started crying and ran away, but as I was leaving one of his classmates started telling him off for being too harsh, which was some nice vindication at the time. Looking back, it was creepy and weird and I don’t blame him for turning me down like that. But as a consequence I don’t really approach people now because it brings me right back to that moment without fail.
shiguywhy
I planned a huge overnight surprise for my wife on Valentines Day at the nicest hotel in our city with flowers and chocolates and coordinated our song to be playing in the room when got there so we could dance to it. We weren’t going until after work that day so I didn’t say anything to her because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. So the whole day she thinks I haven’t done anything for her while co-workers are getting flowers and gifts and posting all the things their loved ones did for them. She was so bummed that I had to spill the beans before going.
Greasy_Phil_Collins
I had been married for two and a half years. I got my wife the $450.00 Artisan KitchenAid Stand Mixer for Christmas that she’d been drooling over every time we walked into William Sonoma for the last 3 years. I was sure she’d freak out but be happy at the same time.
When I walked in the door at 3:41 pm, she was home. She wasn’t usually off work until 5pm so I was surprised and disappointed when I walked in the door with the box in plain sight, I’d planned on wrapping it as soon as I got home.
First words out of her mouth were “We need to talk.” The four most horrifying words ever uttered in a relationship. She wanted a divorce. She wanted me to move out.
I remembered 3 hours later that it was my birthday.
feyedharkonnen
I drew out Will you go out with me? on a large piece of paper, then cut the paper into a bunch of puzzle pieces and proceeded to make a scavenger hunt for the guy I liked to find when he came to visit me for the weekend. He loved the scavenger hunt through my building and had a lot of fun putting the puzzle together. When he was all done and read out that the final product said Will you go out with me? he replied No.
fee_niks
I went out and really looked for a good watch for my boyfriend (ex now). I went to Nordstrom & Macys and found the perfect watch. I had to get a store credit card because it was way more than I had. I wrapped it and had it ready for his birthday.
I wake him up for his big day and hand him the watch all nice. He opens it and says, wow you shouldnt have… I dont deserve something so nice, and we went on a 2-hour argument back and fourth on that damn watch. At the end we ended up arguing that we forgot about the watch and it wasnt worn for 3 weeks because he didnt want to wear it. I felt horrible for even getting it.
abrahamsir
Many years ago I lived with this girl. One Valentines Day I bought her roses and planned an elaborate meal. Just as I was putting the lobster tails on the grill, her mother called. They talked for over two hours, and dinner got ice cold by then.
Years later, the first time I stayed the night with the woman to whom I would eventually become permanently shackled, I woke up early and made pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon. I then presented this to her in bed, waking her with a kiss. She became instantly LIVID, screaming at me for waking her up and telling me it was gross to eat in the bedroom. I threw the food in the trash and left without a word. Unfortunately, we made up the next day.
Divineperspiration
My proposal didn’t go as planned. I had put the engagement ring in a wrapped box and bag in the refrigerator. I had been patiently waiting all day for her to get home to ask her to grab me a beer where she would find the ring instead. She gets home and I’m on the couch watching tv and I say “sweetie could you please get me a beer from the refrigerator?” Her answer?! “NO! Get your own beer!!” I tried again “how about a soda? Can you get me a soda?” “NO! Get off your butt and get it yourself!” I didn’t realize the combative mood she was in. Eventually I said “Just look in the damn refrigerator.” She did and found the ring. Everything went well after that.
TheLuzer
In high school, my exs mom didnt want us together because she didnt approve of me, but I wasnt buying it. We couldnt see each other but Valentines Day was coming up and I was supposed to get her a rose everyday for a week straight until the 14th and then on the last day give her a dozen along with a promise ring (leaving everything in her mailbox). I figured it would be nice and it would make her mom think differently of me. Everything was going according to plan but her mom lost it the day before Valentines Day and threatened to call the cops if I came back. I had to return the ring and get a store credit for the flowers I bought. We officially broke up not long after.
Rick_Volcan0
I’ve been writing my wife a poem every year on our anniversary going back to when we were just dating. I’ve been keeping them, and I had planned on giving them all to her on our 10th wedding anniversary. I thought it would be a very romantic way to show her how my feelings for her have evolved over the years. She doesn’t know I’ve been doing this.
Recently, I happened upon a poem on the internet that I really liked and I decided to share it with her, and after I read it to her she says, “I just don’t really like poetry. I don’t know it’s all just so cheesy. I just don’t get it.”
ThatDWE
I was seeing a woman on and off for months. I was infatuated by her but she kept disappearing for weeks at a time. Living in NYC, such things happen. We finally hooked up and everything seemed to be moving in the right direction. So, one day I invited her to a colleague’s film premiere and made sure to reserve an extra ticket. It was a big event so I thought that it might impress her. While I’m waiting outside for her, I reach out via text and she says that she won’t be able to make it… fifteen minutes before the show started. A day, hell even an hour before would have been enough time to absorb the blow. I can understand that things come up. But fifteen minutes? It hurt. Dejected, I went to the bar next door and downed some shots of whiskey real quick. Then I sat down alone in the theater, intoxicated enough to forget about it, and the movie started playing.
Here’s the kicker… the movie was about a man’s internal dialogue after being stood up. I laughed so hard throughout the entire movie because I was going through everything the main character was going through. It was all at once hilarious, painful, and depressing. After that, she completely ghosted me and apparently met some guy who she ended up having a kid with. Fast forward three years later, I’m cooking dinner for my lady and get a random text from her filled with hearts and other emojis. I guess she broke up with her baby daddy. I told her it was inappropriate to speak with her because I was happily in love with my girlfriend, and deleted the message/her number from my life.
kpn_911
I found out her favorite band was playing in the big city near us. I wanted it to be us but her brother and his friend decided they wanted to go. We weren’t dating, it was still just a crush but because I saw the tickets on sale first I bought tickets for us. She said she would pay me back but since I thought this was the implied first date, I didn’t expect her to. We got tickets and they kept adding things they wanted to do in the city making the day longer and longer. Which I was like “this is great! I’ll get to spend all day with her.”
I drove in that day to my aunts house where I was staying the night and they came to pick me up. I was really excited. I gave her her ticket and she playfully kissed my cheek. Our first stop in the city was the zoo. Where we met her very new boyfriend. I was stuck for over 12 hours watching a brand new couple kissing and hanging on each other. She never paid me back for those tickets.
TheTrueJay
For a girlfriend, I once created a calendar for a month with 1 page per day. Each page had a quality I enjoyed about her, everything from her personality to physical features. I intended this to be a calendar while she was out working at a summer camp to help her feel comfortable while she was away.
While there, she had a emotional crisis regarding not wanting to go home to her ‘real job,’ and decided the calendar was a reminder of a ticking time-bomb and ripped it all up in anger.
RagnarokAM
I had a serious girlfriend in high school who was a track runner. When it came time to ask her to prom, I made a design in Photoshop that said, “I had to TRACK you down to ask you. Prom?” I then stood at the finish line, just out of site, for her. The track part of the sign had pictures from when we first met till and all of our other memories.
She ended up finishing and I turned the corner and she looked confused and walked past me. At first I thought she hated it but then after a minute or two she realized it was me and freaked out.
Maverekt
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