It doesn’t matter if you’re single or in a relationship: Valentine’s Day is full of sky-high expectations and awkward situations that can make the holiday kind of a disappointment. If your crush doesn’t send you a rose at school, or if your bae doesn’t sweep you off your feet with a Nicholas Sparks-level swoon-worthy gesture, the whole day can be a let-down.
Still, no matter how ambivalent you feel about this upcoming V-Day, chances are your holiday won’t be as bad as it was for these 13 Valentines. From poorly-timed breakups to humiliating gastro-intestinal issues, these V-Day horror stories will make you seriously cringe.
1. I got dumped
“My ex-boyfriend invited me over to his house to spend Valentine’s Day with him. I was really excited, and I had even bought him some really nice pens and a notebook because he was really into drawing. I drove 30 minutes from my place to get there, and we were just hanging out in his room. He was acting really weird, so I asked him what was wrong, and he proceeded to breakup with me right there, after I gave him his present.” — Shanna, New York City
2. I got stood up, then swerved
“I’d been seeing a guy for about two months and we hadn’t had ‘the talk’ yet about whether or not we were an official couple. He asked if I wanted to go out on Valentine’s Day, though he just said ‘Friday.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, great,’ assuming he knew that was Valentine’s Day. I got a blowout and dressed up… and then waited at the sushi place for 45 minutes. I could just FEEL everyone giving me sad-eyes for being stood up. So finally he got there. No good excuse for being late, and no flowers. I busted his balls about this, and he totally panicked because he had no idea it was Valentine’s Day. He wound up giving me the “I’m not in a good place to commit to anybody right now, blah blah blah’ speech right there.” — Abby, Dallas
3. I got pranked
“One time, in middle school, my biggest crush asked me to be his girlfriend. After that, I started sending him cute glitter texts saying how much I loved him and missed him. A few days later, right before Valentine’s Day, he told my best friend to tell me he was only pulling a prank on me because he wanted to see what would happen. Life sucked.” — Carolynn, New York City
4. I clogged the toilet
“On Valentine’s Day my senior year of high school, my mom decided it would be a good idea to invite the extended family over. Her cousin had just gotten divorced, and somehow both the cousin and the ex showed up. Cue the stiffest family gathering you could ask for. You could seriously feel the tension through the whole house. This surreal nightmare culminated in me clogging the toilet, which caused a pipe to burst, which caused a massive leak about five feet from where everyone was sitting eating cheese.” — Jacob, Boston
5. I had to dump my long-distance BF
“I was in a long-distance relationship that was going downhill and needed to end, like, yesterday. We had been together for more than two years, so I felt I owed him the respect of having the difficult breakup conversation in person. The problem? Once I realized it was time to break up, the first available weekend for me to visit happened to be Valentine’s Day. He ended up taking me out for a disastrous dinner on V-Day — it was so bad that the waitress actually asked if I was OK! — and I wound up breaking up with him the next day, on the actual holiday. My train home wasn’t until the next day, so I had to stay at his place after dumping him.” — Emma, Des Moines
6. I got into a fight with my GF
“Right as my family was leaving for a week-long ski trip, my girlfriend and I got into this huge fight over text. She was saying how much she was going to miss me that week, but to such an extreme point where every other message was, ‘I miss you.’ I said, ‘Sorry, I don’t feel like doing the ‘I miss you’ game.’ She got all depressed and was mad at me, so I spent all of Valentine’s Day reassuring her that I loved her and wouldn’t leave her. When I got back, I suggested we have a late celebration, but she wasn’t having any of that.” — Julia, Boston
7. I got caught sending an anonymous Valentine
“I had a very awkward moment when I slipped an anonymous Valentine to my crush George and he showed it to everyone in the class. They all recognized my handwriting so they knew it was from me. I tried to front like it wasn’t really from me but that I had written it for a friend. No one bought it, of course.” — Caroline, Buffalo
8. I confessed my feelings for my best friend, then he said he loved our mutual friend
“I told my best friend I was in love him on Valentine’s Day. He told me he didn’t feel the same way about me and said he was secretly in love with our other friend. He kept saying how “hot” she was, which made me feel inferior. Things were rough for awhile. I was mad at him for being insensitive when I had literally just poured out my heart to him. I ended up rebounding with some other guy, and my best friend and I stopped speaking for a while. I was heartbroken for a long time.” — Grace, Milwaukee
9. My boyfriend forgot about V-Day
“Jack and I met on Christmas Eve. Valentine’s Day was about seven weeks later, and we were strolling down the street together when I mentioned that it was V-Day and that I was so excited to give him my gift. It was like a lightbulb went off in his head. He hadn’t even considered the magnitude of a weekend like that for a girlfriend. A few steps later, he spied a CVS and petitioned me to please wait outside while he ran in. Minutes later, he returned outside with a bag containing a pathetic, small heart-shaped box of CVS chocolates.” — Audrey, Boston
10. My secret admirer stood me up
“I was sitting in history class on Valentine’s Day when I got a weird text from a number I didn’t recognize asking me to be their Valentine. I had no clue who it was, so I asked. He said we had met before, but didn’t give me any more details. After hours of texting back and forth, I was dying to know who my secret admirer was. I agreed to meet up for a blind date at a coffee shop, but took a ton of safety precautions (including telling all my friends where I was going and letting the barista know I was on a blind date). I got to the coffee shop and was so excited. Time ticked by. A half hour later, I realized I had been stood up… on Valentine’s Day… and I didn’t even know by whom. The next week, the same anonymous number teased me about getting stood up. The whole experience was such a bummer.” — Lauren, Denver
11. I discovered my crush was in a relationship
“During my freshman year, I had this giant crush on this guy Zach in my honors bio class. He was super cute, a skater dude, and really goofy. My dad was driving me to school the morning of Valentine’s Day, and as we pulled up to campus, my phone started buzzing. I picked it up to find that my best friend was calling me, saying Zach taped a Valentine onto my locker. I got to my locker only to be met with a brand new, unopened whoopie cushion taped to the top of it. I thought, ‘LOL, only Zach would do this,’ and thought it was a confirmation of our love for each other. A week later, he saw me in the hallway, and said, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, I have a girlfriend.’ I acted like everything was ok, and went home and cried the rest of the night.” — Ashley, New York City
12. I was caught pantsless
“My best friend, her boyfriend, my boyfriend, and I made plans to get Valentine’s Day dinner together. The restaurant was close to my boyfriend’s house, so we all went over there after school to hang out beforehand. At some point, my friend and I scurried upstairs to change out of our school clothes and into something cuter — and I accidentally left the pants I’d been wearing at school behind at my boyfriend’s house. The next day, he gave the pants back to me in the hallway before class, saying ‘Here — you left these at my house.’ Apparently his mom had found them and had asked a lot of questions (and so did my friends).” — Clara, Washington, D.C.
13. I splattered myself with food
“My ex-boyfriend and I wanted to make dinner on Valentine’s Day, and his mother decided that she needed to be home and pretended to be sick to spy on us. Ultimately she made me so nervous that I dropped pasta sauce all over the kitchen floor and my dress. My ex told her she needed to leave us alone because she was making me so anxious!” — Simone, New York City