We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us a time they tried to be romantic and it failed. Here are the painfully funny results.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
1. The allergy adversity:
"My fiancé loves to cook, and he was returning from a business trip one night, so I went all out: candles, lingerie, making ahi tuna steaks, and wine. It was going well until he started sweating and turning red. He broke out in hives and asked if there was any sesame in the food, because he was deathly allergic. I HAD NO IDEA. Our evening ended with a trip to the ER and me staying out of the kitchen for a while."
2. The smoke situation:
"I decided to surprise the guy I was seeing with cake and candles for his birthday. He drove us to a romantic lookout, and I brought out the surprise. I lit the candles, but when he blew them out they just kept sparking and sparking. It got pretty intense and the car was filling with smoke, so he threw the cake and candles out the window. I didn’t realize they were trick candles. He wasn’t amused by it."
3. The dark discovery:
"I was going though photos on my ex's laptop to order him a personalized card for Valentine’s Day with pictures we'd taken in Disneyland (he had them all saved), and I came across naked photos from multiple other women who he was texting and messaging with… needless to say, we're no longer together. Who saves those photos, anyway?!"
4. The mom mistake:
"For my one-year anniversary with my boyfriend, I made a journal for him filled with entries all about us (some of which were about our sex life). He loved it and kept it in his room. His mom was in his room while he went on a trip, and read ALL the entries in full detail. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life."
5. The holiday hellscape:
"I wanted to surprise my boyfriend over Christmas break. He worked until 9 p.m., so his roommates let me in, and I stripped down to fishnet stockings, a Santa hat, and one of his shirts. I waited until 1 a.m. and finally gave in and called. He said he was at the bars, finally showed up at 6 a.m. and said nothing — just got in bed. When he fell asleep, I checked his phone and found texts between him and a girl he'd spent the night with, talking about breaking up with me. Merry Christmas!"
6. The flower fudge-up:
"Back when my boyfriend and I were just friends, he put a rose on my car while I was working at my two jobs that were in different towns. I thought I had a stalker, and my boss almost called the police."
7. The insect incident:
"For our anniversary, my husband packed a cute picnic lunch and took me to the nature preserve where he proposed. As we sat on the bench, a swarm of bees underneath stung me! The worst part? I'm allergic to bees. I swelled up, the sting sites turned black and blue, and I couldn’t walk or bend my knees for three days."
8. The ice cream issue:
"I tried to propose by putting the $1,200 engagement ring in her ice cream while she went to the bathroom — genius, I know. She came back, took one look at the ice cream, and said, 'I told you not to eat my ice cream!' She got really mad, until she calmed down and then almost swallowed the ring. At least she ended up saying yes!"
9. The flirty fart:
"One time my boyfriend and I snuck off campus to stargaze. After a while, we ended up in this position: me lying on my stomach, and him sitting on my legs while he admired my butt. But I didn’t realize how close his face was to my rear end, and I was holding in some major gas. Next thing I knew, he spread my cheeks and I ripped a HARD fart directly into his face. We still laugh about it three years later."
—ebb2
10. The flame starter:
"A friend of mine totally botched the first hand job she gave. She started rubbing it with both hands, like she was trying to start a fire. She figured out her mistake pretty quick, but we still call her Campfire Girl."
11. The hickey headache:
"I was making out with my then-boyfriend and told him I was going to give him a hickey. But I realized I didn’t know how to give someone a hickey, so I bit him on the neck really hard — like broke the skin hard — and I panicked, and immediately drove him home. My friends will never let me live it down and a favorite comeback of theirs is ‘What are you going to do, bite me?’"
12. The handwriting happening:
"In seventh grade I wrote a sappy poem for a guy I liked and slid it into his locker without my name on it. Well, I accidentally got the locker wrong, and the next day the guy who received it read it to the whole class. He also performed a middle school handwriting analysis to prove that I wrote my 'g' the same as the person who wrote the note. I spent the rest of the day hiding in the bathroom."
13. The dinner defeat:
"My first Valentine’s Day date ever was about six years ago. My then-boyfriend took me for a five-course meal and a movie, and I was so excited — until I got food poisoning and spent the entire movie in the bathroom throwing up. He was a trooper though; we ended up laughing about it!"
14. Happily never after:
"In elementary school, my grandma made me a skirt for colonial day. I'd just seen Ever After, the Drew Barrymore movie, and decided to try out a line from it on this cute kid named Bobby. I sat down after my presentation and said with as much confidence a third-grade girl could muster, 'Yards of fabric and I still feel naked.' He turned to me with a disgusted look, and turned away while saying 'ew.'"
15. The cough controversy:
"I wanted to set up our apartment for a nice evening, so I lit candles and spread them around the room. Unbeknownst to me, my boyfriend was at the doctor being diagnosed with pneumonia. When he got to our building, the elevator was broken and he had to walk up seven flights. He was wheezing and coughing by the time he got to our floor. When he walked in to the candle-filled room, he nearly passed out from the smoke! Not the evening I'd planned."
16. The tequila trouble:
"For Christmas, I got lingerie and a big stocking to hide in when my guy got home. Well, before that, I ended up meeting him at a bar and taking ~quite a few~ tequila shots. At home, I told him to wait because I had a surprise. I was too drunk to put on the lingerie, and as I tried to get into the stocking, I fell off the bed and hit my face on the corner of the nightstand, giving myself a black eye and a busted lip. I ended up holding frozen veggies on my face while I vomited up 11 shots of Patrón."
17. The chocolate catastrophe:
"My new boyfriend and I decided to see a movie. He got me chocolates, but I have a severe nut allergy, so it was unfortunate when it turned out there was some strawberry almond purée in it. I did an EpiPen, called my mom, and went to an urgent care clinic. All seemed fine. We missed the movie, so we went to Rite Aid. There I had a severe relapse reaction and went into shock. My mom was with us, called the paramedics, and my date rode to the hospital with us. After the swelling went down, he went home and I was at the hospital for most of the night. I never heard from him again."
—Kiley Cloud, Facebook
18. And the car calamity:
"I was on the path of getting back together with my ex, but still had hesitations. He was five hours away and lonely, so I decided to bring him his things and hang out. I was 20 minutes away when I crashed my car. The cops came, and my license was suspended, so I got arrested. My ex had to show up to get me from jail."
UPDATE
One of the responses in this post has been removed to adhere to BuzzFeed's editorial standards.