A taste of embarrassment for the anti-love crowd

Do you hate Valentine’s Day? Would you watch with a glimmer in your eyes as a warehouse filled with candy hearts went up in flames? Do you have plans to burrow inside this Friday? Well, here’s something to keep you busy and remind you why you chose to avoid the lovers of the world today.

The following are five short but true stories of cringey first dates, awkward sexual escapades, and embarrassment at its best. All names have been changed for the sake of anonymity, but the details remain for the sake of your enjoyment. After reading these, perhaps we will all be anti-romance crusaders.

First-Date Fender Bender

“I was going on a first date with a dude. He picked me up in his dad’s pickup. We were driving and talking. He was taking a turn when he made a joke. It was funny so we were both looking at each other.

As he was turning, we hopped the curb and hit a light pole and broke the thing in half. It completely fell over. It broke the front end of his dad’s pickup.

Well, that’s how I ended up meeting his parents. We ended up dating for a year and a half, so…” -Tobi, 21

Grade School Foibles

“The first crush I ever had was on a guy I went to grade school with. And I liked him for years, like so many years. At least six.

And then, in 5th grade one of my friends told him that I liked him. Well, he already knew and he decided to ask me out. 

But when he came to ask me out, he was so much cooler than me I thought he was joking and making fun of me.

So I was mad and turned to him and said, ‘Absolutely not.’

He looked really hurt and broken. I still feel like I ruined what might have been for my fifth-grade self.” -Marie, 20

B- Situation

“In middle school, I had made a list of all the things I liked about my eighth-grade crush. It talked about his eyes, his clothing and things he had said to me that I meticulously wrote down. It was a different level of creepy.

Well, I thought I was clever and had encoded it so no one could read it. It didn’t say his name or my name at the top. I had used our initials to write out [MADI], so people would think it was about someone named [Madi]. 

One day, we were grading homework and I gave him my folder to grade my homework and there was the list right on top, with a quote he had said not five minutes before written on it.

He was nice about it. He gave me an A on my homework and a B- on the list. I think I died that day.” -Jackie, 21

Love Cuts Deep

“One time I noticed this guy who kept staring at me. He would look at me several times over a week and just smile and turn away really quick. Then we were riding the same bus one day and I’m starting to fall asleep when I notice him looking back at me. 

Then, as soon as the bus stops, he stands up and rushes towards me.

He chucks a folded piece of paper at me and it nails me in the face. It cut my forehead open and then he ran off the bus.

I opened it and it was like, “Hey, I’ve been watching you for a while. If you like me too, text me.”

I didn’t text him because I was mad that he [messed] up my face.” -Spade, 20

Mistaken Identity

“I had this class with this kid three semesters in a row. I always said hello to him when I saw him. It was clear he had a crush on me. He would always blush when I saw him and when I mentioned in class that I broke up with a boyfriend I saw him smiling.

Anyways, flash forward to this semester and we have another class together. After the professor called everyone’s names, I looked at him and was like, ‘[Tom], they didn’t call your name. You should say something.”

He blushed and was told me they had called his name, his actual name was [Chris]. I had probably called him the name [Tom] like a good thirty times and he never said anything. He tried to tell me that he got people to call him [Tom] now so it was no big deal, but that just made it weirder. I felt awful.” -Chrissy, 21

Camp Crushes

“So when I worked in Colorado over the summer I was at a camp. It was the first weekend there and we had to get partners to get to know them. 

This girl, we were partners and I mean it was fine. She was cool. We made out a little bit obviously. I say obviously because it’s not obvious, it was a terrible decision. 

Then we were just friends or whatever. I thought. Turns out she had been telling everyone that we were dating and that I was going to move home with her to North Carolina to go to seminary with her.

Then I just never talked to her again or addressed her.

She might still think we’re dating.” -August, 22