10 Stories That Prove Romantic Intentions Can Eventually Turn Into Real Disaster

Romance looks easy in movies — candles, roses, slow kisses, perfect timing. But in real life? People panic, bodies betray them, and dignity is often the first casualty. Here are stories of people who tried their absolute best to be romantic and instead created unforgettable disasters.

• Met a guy, and we hit it off. He asked me out on a date and told me to dress up very nicely as we would be attending an art gallery opening. I got all dolled up and when he came to pick me up, he was in a t-shirt and jeans.
  Some of his friends were there, but he wouldn’t introduce me to them and proceeded to chat with them and ignore me the entire evening. After we left, he asked if he could take me out to dinner. I figured, whatever, at least I’d get a free meal out of this. We hit up a nice pizza joint and ordered a pizza.
  As I reached for a second slice, he just looked at me and said, “WOW! A second slice? Really? Jeez, you’re a house!” So I ate the rest of the pizza. — etothepowerof3 / Reddit

• I prepared a candlelit dinner for my boyfriend — roses, soft music, everything perfect.
  But when he walked in and saw the candles, he immediately screamed. I was shocked, but tried to calm him down. When he was finally ready to say anything, he claimed that he’s scared of open flames because he once set his childhood curtains on fire trying to burn a mosquito.
  We spent the evening eating pasta in the hallway under the smoke alarm he insisted we stand next to.

• Set up a date with a girl I had class with the previous term, she mistook me for a different guy she liked with the same first name in her cell contacts list, then she spent half the date waiting outside for this “other guy” while texting me saying, “Where are you? I really don’t want to be stuck here with this guy I used to have class with!” — Jollies / Reddit

• A couple months ago, an old friend of mine was coming into town. We spent a lot of time together in high school, I had a huge crush on her, but we were always dating someone else. Anyway, we end up going to her friend’s place, we have a decent time.
  On the way home, I figured I’d fess up and hope for the best. I told her that I was really nervous about tonight because I always had a huge crush on her. “Oh, wow. Uh, I never knew. Well, yeah...”. She wasn’t interested, and in turn lost a longtime friend. — doctorsound / Reddit

• On a vacation, I decided to be romantic and climb up to my girlfriend’s balcony like in a rom-com.
  I knocked on the sliding door, whispering her name dramatically. A stranger opened it. A man. Half-asleep and holding a frying pan. My girlfriend was on the balcony next door, filming the entire thing because, in her words, “I thought you were committing a crime but wanted to see how it played out.”

• I was trying to chat up a cute girl at a checkout counter. The conversation had organically faded out, and we were both just kind of standing there awkwardly, her waiting for me to leave. But I was oblivious and didn’t want to stop talking, so in a desperate attempt to keep it going, I blurted out, “I bought a comb today.” She looked at me like I was a complete idiot (not wrong) and I shamefully walked out of the store. — H0use0fpwncakes / Reddit

• I slept over at my crush’s house. In the morning, I went to the bathroom and did what humans do.
  I used an air freshener I found... a LOT of it... to be polite. When I walked out, he was standing in the hallway blinking like he’d been pepper-sprayed. Turns out it wasn’t air freshener. It was pet stain remover with an “enzyme activation scent.” His whole house smelled like chemically enhanced citrus despair for three days.

• I spent six years secretly, yet not so secretly, in love with one of my good friends. One night he kissed me...and it continued for about a week or so. And over that week I guess I just couldn’t contain my happiness about it and I just told him how I really felt. I then got the “I never meant to lead you on” speech. And now I basically trust no one. — Lady_Rugger / Reddit

• My partner and I booked a romantic Airbnb with a hot tub. He got in first, I joined after... and immediately realized I was way too warm. The heat hit me like a tranquilizer dart. I fainted. Face-first. Into the water. He had to drag me out like a soggy seal, and when I woke up he was crying and shouting, “WHY WOULD YOU PRETEND TO DROWN DURING A DATE?!” I wasn’t pretending. The hot tub betrayed me.

• A girl I had previously been with and I still talked nearly every day since we broke up years ago, but now she was at college two hours away. So, I was going to put it all on the table for Valentine’s Day.
  She had a busy schedule, so I decided to go in early morning, I took two kittens and two dozen roses and went out there and sat in the back seat with her, amongst the kittens on a bed of roses and proceeded to talk to her from what I (foolishly) tried to memorize. We were close enough that it wasn’t completely awkward, but still just wasn’t happening. — anarkingx / Reddit

In the end, these moments remind us that romance isn’t about perfection. It’s about being real, vulnerable, and sometimes accidentally ridiculous. And somehow, those imperfect moments become the ones we remember most.