Are these the worst Valentine’s Day dates ever?

The first official St Valentine’s Day (on 14 February) came about thanks to Pope Gelasius in 496AD. He wanted to turn a Roman festival into a Christian one and decided to use the day to remember St Valentine. But it was the Victorians who popularised the sending of cards once the Uniform Penny Post of 1840 made it relatively inexpensive to do so. Although, some of them were a bit different to the ones you'd find in your average card shop.

Love it or loathe it, Valentine’s Day is more popular than ever. In fact, the UK spent a whopping £620m on V-Day presents in 2017,  more than we spent on Easter. Of course, the day isn’t just about gifts – it’s also about love. And it really is. Last year, NHS data released for conceptions in 2015 suggested Valentine’s Day was linked to a mini baby boom nine months later.

But, if you’re not feeling the love this year, then don’t sweat. These excruciating Valentine’s horror stories will have you squirming with second-hand embarrassment (in the best way, we promise).

“My co-workers saw me get dumped”

Mel*, 32

One year, a large box addressed to me was delivered to my office on Valentine’s Day. Colleagues gathered round and, as I was new to the company (and wanted to make friends), I let them watch me open it.

I was seeing a guy at the time, who often gave me gifts, so getting something from him wasn’t a total surprise. Only, it wasn’t from him, it was from his mum. In the box was a bunch of stuff I’d left at his house: underwear, cosmetics and books. And there was a note attached: “Nice to have known you. Good luck with your life.”

He hadn’t messaged for a while and I had just assumed he’d been busy. Turns out that meant he’d ended our relationship and I hadn’t realised. It was like a tragic scene from a rom-com: my work colleagues standing there, staring at my underwear – mortifying. Everyone silently went back to their desks and I never lived it down.

“The waiter took a call from my date’s mum”

Amelia, 22

My first boyfriend and I were excited about our first Valentine’s Day together. I was 17 and he was 18 and, even though I was ill with the flu, I decided to battle through as he’d made a reservation at an American-style diner (pretty much as romantic as teenage love gets).

When we were mid-way through our meals, the waiter came over to our table and told my boyfriend he had a phone call. We were obviously perplexed as to who could be calling us at a restaurant but, when the waiter brought the phone over, my boyfriend picked it up. It turned out it was his extremely overbearing mother.

She had rung the restaurant to check if there was “a boy on a date with very curly hair” in there, and was asking the waiter to double check my boyfriend was where he said he would be. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened - his mum had to know his whereabouts at all times. Once, when we were at a festival, he was instructed to text her every 30 minutes letting her know he was safe or, otherwise, she’d threatened to call the police on him.

It seemed to me that she wasn’t genuinely worried about his whereabouts, she just wanted to be the focus of the evening. After that, we just sat there in stunned silence before I decided that, no, we probably didn’t want dessert. Safe to say the fun Valentine’s mood was ruined, and we didn't last too long after that.

“My blind date did a runner”

 Ant*, 30

I was standing outside a restaurant in Norwich waiting for my blind date to arrive. I was a fresher at university and was keen to find out what the city had to offer in the way of gay single men.

When he finally arrived (25 minutes late), I noticed he was much shorter than he’d appeared in his picture online. Hopefully he’d look better up close, I thought. We went in and ordered drinks. When we were on the second round, a guy next to us accidentally bumped into my date. Seeing red, my date lost his temper and nearly knocked the guy out. I should have left then but I somehow found myself walking back towards our table.

Dinner was unremarkable – I only remember what happened afterwards. My date asked for the bill then went to the bathroom. He never came back. I’d met him online and didn’t have his number so there was no further way of contacting him. He left me, a skint student, with a big bill to pay on Valentine’s Day. I was so embarrassed.

In a panic, I spoke to the manager and explained what had happened. Amazingly, he took pity on me. I left without paying and, best of all, he gave me his number. We went for a drink after his shift that night, and ended up sleeping together.

“I had a flight I’ll never forget”

Alexandra*, 30

A few years ago, I went on holiday to India with my then-boyfriend. For 10 days we had a blissful time eating fresh fish on the beach, drinking cocktails and staying in a nice hotel.

Our flight home was on Valentine’s Day and I was determined to make our last day as romantic as possible. Unfortunately, my stomach had other ideas. We were sitting at the gate when I suddenly felt very dodgy. I ran to the loo where I was extremely ill. (I blame the chicken burger I’d had the night before – the only non-Indian food I’d eaten the whole trip). After that, I felt fine – until 20 minutes later.

We were boarding and I motioned to my boyfriend with a panicked look in my eye. He got it immediately. “CAN YOU ALL MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, MY GIRLFRIEND IS ABOUT TO SHIT HERSELF?”

I made it to the plane's loo about half a second too late. There followed a pretty degrading (but could-have-been-a-lot-worse) clean-up situation. Soon after, I was back in the loo again where I continued to empty myself for the next five hours. I was mortified as I had only been with my boyfriend for nine months. But he was sweet, mopping my sweaty brow. He laughed quite a lot though.

"I drunkenly dropped the L-bomb"

Serena, 39

For once, I’d actually been looking forward to Valentine’s Day. After an agonising few months my new love had been released from hospital - he’d been badly hurt in a car accident - and was now on the slow road to recovery.

I had it all planned. A cosy meal at the local Italian, followed by a candlelit bath, followed by me plucking up the courage to tell him I loved him. In my fantasy version he would smile, kiss me and whisper the same words back. Then we would retire to the bedroom and make sweet love all night long.

It didn’t quite work out like that. The restaurant was rammed and it took ages for our food to arrive. Normally, we have loads to chat and laugh about but I’d placed so much pressure on the night that I couldn’t relax. Instead, I kept running over in my mind how I was going to drop my L-bomb. I nervously gulped down my wine and ordered more. 

My twitchy silence and nervous boozing didn’t go unnoticed and half-way through the meal, my boyfriend asked me what was wrong. Having just drunk away my inhibitions, I blurted out: “I want to tell you I love you, but I’m worried you won’t say it back.”

The words hung between us. We stared at each other. Our pizzas grew soggy. “I’m not ready to say that,” he said. I nodded, swigged more wine, and stuck a knife through my pizza.

Once we were back at my flat, I flopped face down on my bed, falling on top of the kiss-face emoji pillow he’d bought me as a gift. “I love you!” it said in a high-pitched squeak, prompting me to burst into sulky, silly tears. The boy, who’d been awkwardly making tea, came rushing in to comfort me.

“It’s just that for me saying I love you means I’m going to marry that person,” he said. “It's not something I take lightly. We’ve only been together five months!” I nodded, embarrassed. He lay down beside me, hugged me and just as I started to think the night might be salvageable - I heard him start snoring. 

Despite this, the odd tense moment aside, in the next few weeks our relationship blossomed. I explained that, for me, saying I love you wasn’t the same as making a life-long commitment. It still took him a while to reciprocate. But two months later, he finally said it.

Turns out his instincts were right - sometimes it’s better not to rush. Four years on, we’ve made that life-long commitment and are happily married.

“My Valentine’s Day was on fire – literally”

 Vicky*, 33

It was my first year at uni and Valentine’s Day was all anyone could talk about. Luckily, my man stepped up. We were too broke to go out, so we agreed to have dinner in his room: he would do decorations, I would prepare ‘a feast’.

Our meal was pretty basic. We both like pizza and Valentine’s Day is about hearts, so I made heart-shaped pizzas. My mistake was underestimating the heat the oven would throw at me on the night and the ‘pizzas’ came out looking like burnt cow pats.

Upstairs, my boyfriend had arranged a display of candles and strewn rose petals all over his bed. It was adorable. We sat on cushions opposite each other and attempted to hack our way through our charcoal dinner.

It was hard work, made harder by the fact that lots of candles emit lots of heat. Realising I was sweating, I started fanning my face and, in doing so, my top flapped in front of one of the candles – and caught fire.

Within seconds, my boyfriend had poured his drink over me. We then blew out most of the other ones but kept a few going for ambience – at a safe distance obviously. You’d think, with burnt food and singed, beer-stained clothes, our night would have similarly fizzled out. But like everything else that night, what happened afterwards was pretty hot.

*Some names have been changed