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People Describe The Saddest Thing They've Ever Seen On Valentine's Day

People Describe The Saddest Thing They've Ever Seen On Valentine's Day

With Valentine's Day just around the corner at the time of writing it's easy to lose our sense of appreciate for our significant others. Ideally, if you have a partner, you're in a strong relationship built on trust, understanding, and support. Also, being able to binge-watch the same shows repeatedly is a big help. Regardless, it's easy to take our sig-oths for granted...

...Untll you read stories like these.


Reddit user, u/Paradox052, wanted to get sad with the best of them when they asked:

What is the saddest thing you guys have seen on Valentine's day?

The Highest Of Lows

The saddest was when my friend proposed marriage to the girl he loved on Valentine's Day and she flat out turned him down.

He was heartbroken - especially since they'd been dating a long time and got along so well.

Back2Bach

Only Solution: Blasting Out The Toto

I saw a guy crying, eating a burrito alone in his car blasting Toto

HOLD THE LINE LOVE ISN'T ALWAYS ON TIME

me ex (who was there) and I text each other about it every February

LegendOfDylan

At Least He Taught The Roses Who Was Boss?

My buddy in college had his girlfriend break up with him in Feb 13 during a fight so he thought he could win her back and make a big gesture showing up on Feb 14 with roses and a teddy bear.

Didn't go as planned and we were walking to dinner and my roommate starts laughing as we round the corner to see our buddy angrily throw the teddy bear into a tree and drop kick a dozen roses.

Ol_Man_Rambles

Not Even Felines Should Be Alone On Valentine's Day

I found a stray kitty on Valentines day as a kid.

I was in elementary school but big enough to be walking home alone. He was this little black and white cat.

My grandma had him for a while- he eventually passed but she had him for maybe 5/6 years.

Doofy thing- always falling off of sh-t. She called him Fernando

WorfLovesDax

Working Hard For That Action

I have a friend who I've known since I was 5. She and i happened to find ourselves both single and close to each other on Valentine's Day. So we jokingly decided to spend it together so we aren't "total losers".

I dress up, shirt, tie, jacket and drive 30 min to pick her up and she's in a slinky red dress with matching high heels. We went to dinner and then to a club and people watched.

We told people we weren't a couple, just friends making sure we weren't alone Valentine's Day. The number of lonely guys coming out of the woodwork to hit on my friend was insane. The pathetic and desperate guy tried to give her $300 to come home with him. To f*** him, she told this guy that if he could get a girl who wanted to "take care of" me, she'd sleep with him. He went around to all the women in the bar. I'd watch him walk up to a lady, talk her up, point over at me. I would have loved to hear what he was saying.

When my friend and I left, he came running up to is literally begging for her to stay. Probably the most desperate act I've ever seen.

Ol_Man_Rambles

One For Every Day

The same guy I saw at the table yesterday, only with a different woman.

Feb 13th is Valentine's day for mistresses.

Mors_ad_mods

Defiant In The Face Of Loneliness

My husband and I were at a really fancy steakhouse, the type that will coordinate dinner napkins to the guests outfits and brush crumbs off the tabletop with a little metal thing between courses. It was all couples, everywhere, Valentines night right?

And then there was one old guy, well dressed, in the corner at a table by himself. It wasn't that he was waiting; he was having this lavish multi-course meal. It sort of looked like he was talking to someone at certain points of the dinner but there was no one across from him. (It also could have been chewing, steakhouse after all and he was old, so who knows? Dentures?)

Anyways... some people think eating alone, especially alone on VDays, is sad but I was impressed by this guy. Dining alone like a bad ass at a fancy steakhouse on Valentines Day. Looked like he wanted to treat himself to a good meal and DGAF what day it was or what other people are doing/thinking. So I sent him a bottle of the wine we were drinking.

The waiter told me he and his wife have come every year for Valentines and anniversaries for like 25 years and 2 years ago his wife died so he's been coming by himself, eating a big meal and talking to her chair.

So sweet, so sad 💔😭

WeddingElly

Have A Box Of Tissues Or A Loved One Nearby? Good.

I travel a lot for work. As a part of it, I spend far too much time in restaurants, most often by myself. No big deal for me, I can eat by myself, see a movie by myself, whatever.

So I am away on a job over Valentine's Day and I'm in a place seated close to another guy by himself. He's obviously waiting for someone to join him. We start talking, he asks who I am waiting for, I tell him no one. He is waiting for his girlfriend...she had just called him, she's running late as usual, he chuckles.

As the time goes longer, we are talking more. And he confides he wants to ask his girlfriend to marry him. I say that's awesome. He wasn't sure how to do it or when. He even had the ring on him, it was nice, nothing too showy or stupid. This wasn't the kind of restaurant to do that with...and personally, I kinda don't do the whole in public thing. I ask if they have a special place or something that means more to the two of them personally, and he smiles...indeed he does and it now clicks how he wants to do it. Sweet.

His cell rings at some point after that. Dude has been at the restaurant for over 45 minutes by now. I can tell it's not good. Not good at all, but it's not his girlfriend. I hear "How did it happen?" and "Is she ok?" and I watch his face just sink. I've never actually seen someone die in front of me, this is as close as I can imagine.

I am looking at the shell of a man who moments prior was nervous and excited and happy...and I see nothing. There is nothing left. He rises, doing what he can to keep from falling apart, and heads out of the restaurant.

So piecing it together; I am thinking he just found out his girlfriend, to whom he was ready to propose, was either gravely injured or killed on her way to the restaurant...just moments after speaking to him on the phone.

TigLyon

People Explain Which Things They Thought Were Fancy As A Kid That Totally Weren't

Reddit user SinkingFeelingBruh asked: 'What did you think was fancy as a kid that isn’t?'

champagne in two flutes

Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

Have you ever gone back to your elementary school as an adult and been amazed that everything looked smaller than you remembered?

It's a great example of how our perception of the world around us is shaped by our own experiences and where we are in life.

As a child everything seems big because we're small.

Our childhood perceptions of other things were also skewed. Things that seemed grand luxuries became ordinary or mundane as we aged.

Keep reading...Show less
Teenage guy sitting alone
Photo by rayul on Unsplash

CW: suicide.

When we're asked how the "lonely guy" in high school was, we can all think back and come up with an example.

Some peers may have referred to them as weird for keeping to themselves, but sometimes, it's surprising what they end up achieving after all those years of seeming isolation.

Curious about others' experiences, Redditor Sad-[c-word]-420 asked:

"What happened to the lonely guy in your high school class?"

Major Career Move

"Well, I just googled him, and he's a Georgetown law professor."

- BulletDodger

A Simple, Happy Life

"The person I always thought of as possibly lonely retained the same couple of friends for the past 13 years, and they still seem to enjoy getting together and doing the things they did back then. Video games, anime, etc."

- ptbus0

The Lost Friendship

"I lost touch. You can't be a one-way street to someone forever."

- NewPickleballer

Data Science Things

"He is sitting in a data science conference reading Reddit."

"I am sitting in a data science conference reading Reddit."

- zykezero

Tragic Therapy

"He didn’t like to be around people much, so he spent a lot of time riding his motorcycle alone, which he said he found therapeutic. He died at 20 in a motorcycle accident."

- Disastrous-Year571

Sometimes The Loneliness Sticks

"Still lonely, However, he worked his way up within a KFC franchise through high school and bought his first house early on even though he didn’t do well at school. Then he worked in the army for 10 years and bought properties number two and three. "

"Now he works as a director on a cruise liner and goes from country to country by himself."

"No partners or girlfriends ever, but he's financially well off."

- ethereumminor

Secret Model

"He became an actual model for high-class perfumes and brands and not one those Instagram or TikTok 'models.'"

- dkguy90

"I was in the suburbs of Buffalo. A super quiet, shy, plain girl everyone kind of ignored, was modeling on runways in Paris or doing high fashion photo shoots in NYC from about age 13. No one knew until Senior year when she had her portfolio with her because some journalist was going to interview her at school."

- NYCandleLady

Shoutout to the Late Bloomers

​"I got a degree, got married, and started a career. Not much different from others, just started later."

- Ben_Thar

Success Stories

"He grew several inches after high school and went into tech. HE was very successful and now has a supermodel wife and a beautiful family."

"Another guy became a pediatric surgeon. He was married and had a daughter... Over the years his wife disappeared from his Facebook post and it was just him and his daughter. In a few years ago, he married a supermodel Eastern European nurse."

- wastingtoomuchthyme

Nothing Short of Tragic

"He joined the army and then literally went AWOL two years later. No one has seen or heard from him since. His mom posts his missing person flier up on my hometown's Facebook page every year on his birthday. It's really f**king sad."

- nails_for_breakfast

Funny in the End

"He became an entrepreneur of a really successful company."

"He employed the three jokers who used to bully the heck out of him. They still don't know who he is."

- AbsurdFormula0

"'Employed the three jokers.'"

"Is he Batman?"

- panzer22222

Hard Work Pays Off

"That was me. I always sat at my own table with the occasional foreign exchange student."

"I got out of school and worked really hard. I just turned 48 and I still haven't peaked. I have a large portfolio of real estate and do a lot of traveling."

"I wanted something more for myself but I didn't really have that confidence until after school. I now live an incredible life. There is hope for us losers who aren't afraid of a little work."

- kjschaben

Wishing Them Well

"He was the smartest person I ever met. He was very quiet, kept to himself, and did 110 percent on anything he was ever given to do. He always got the best scores."

"Me and my best friend were the second and third place, but it wasn’t worth chasing first place with him around. We always tried to be his friend, but he wasn’t interested in friends. He was always polite but didn’t seem to want friends. He always accepted me as a friend on social media though, and we were always friendly."

"I was 21 when he posted for the first time on Facebook. It was a suicide note. Thank God someone got to him in time. I messaged him after and let him know I understood and he could talk to me."

"He sent me a long message back, and I understood so much of what he was saying. The constant pressure to be perfect, the trap of trying to please your parents, the spiral downwards when you realize you aren’t a superhuman… I had no idea how much pressure his parents were putting on their kids."

"We talked for a bit, but he eventually stopped responding, and I moved to a different country."

"I hope he’s doing well now, he is an amazing guy. Love ya Scott, if you ever see this."

- lorealashblonde

A Thriving Life

"He ended up graduating top of the class, got a full-ride scholarship to Cornel, got his master's, makes seven figures a year, and is happily married with two kids."

"I was one of his few friends in high school and the dude is doing amazing in all aspects of his life."

- Superb-Pattern-1253

Doing Just Fine

"I don't really know what happened to anyone from high school, and I'm okay with that."

- FireyToots

"Found the fellow lonely person."

- Kiltemdead

"So it seems the lonely guy from your high school class is doing fine."

- CleaningMySlate

"I don’t know why, but this made me really proud of myself. Thank you random internet person for making this other random internet person feel good."

- FireyToots

Thinking back on high school, it's surreal to think about all the people we knew but have lost touch with, unable to really know what's going on in their lives anymore.

But some of us might hold a special place for the quiet kids and wondering how their lives turned out. Just because they were quiet in school doesn't have to mean that they didn't make huge change after graduation.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

Little girl covering her eyes
Caleb Woods/Unsplash

Being nostalgic for happy childhood memories is something we do from time to time as we get older.

The stresses that come from adulting make us yearn for how much simpler things were when we still possessed a sense of awe and fascination with the world that was slowly revealing itself to us before we refined our critical thinking skills.

While there are the warm and fuzzy memories of being with family during the holidays, a favorite toy, or a beloved pet, there are certain incidences from the past that are not-so-pleasant when looking back through an adult lens.

Curious to hear from strangers online about their childhood, Redditor beesechugersports asked:

"What horrible thing happened to you as a kid and you didn’t realise the severity of it until you got older?"

For children, it's all fun and games...at first.

A Dangerous Game

"I lived in the countryside in a farming town. Alongside the road my family lived on was a small concrete ditch. It was visible for about half the road and then went underground the rest of the road until it flowed out into a large canal at the end."

"I was a really thin and small kid. When I was about 9 or so my sister and I and some of her friends were playing in the small ditch to cool off. My sister thought it would be interesting to see if I could fit into the pipe that led underground. So my 12 year old sister and her friends held me by my arms and lowered me into the pipe until my hips were in. I could feel the rushing water pulling me in. I yelled at them to bring me back out. They did and then we left."

"I didn’t tell anyone about it for years and when I finally did they looked horrified. So yeah if my sister had lost her grip, I would have gone underground and likely gotten stuck and drowned."

augustus-the-first

Playing Dead

"Oof… my sister was messing with me and pretended to be dead. I thought she was kidding but I was little and not completely sure cause I hit her, pinched her, checked for breathing (those classes where EMs show you what to look for and firefighters telling you to stop drop and roll and don’t be scared of their masks REALLY paid off!)"

"So I went and dialed 911 but thankfully my sister decided she didn’t want to have to explain to my parents wtf happened so instead she got chewed out by the operator lol"

– ovrlymm

Kids get an early lesson on death.

Dying On The Job

"Our babysitter died while she was watching us when my twin and I were 3. We had no concept of death, and tried to wake her up."

"She had spilled water when she fell, and I still remember getting a dish towel to wipe it up, thinking she would be proud of how responsible I was being."

"I remember going to get our little toy pots and pans to bang together to make noise to wake her up, we had no idea what a heart attack was."

– Mushrooming247

Strawberry Ice Cream To Make It All Better

"I always remember a paramedic talking about responding to a scene where an aunt had died looking after a three or four-year-old child. The aunt was slumped on the floor but she had some strawberry ice cream around her mouth. Apparently the child had tried to feed her dead aunt some strawberry ice cream after she'd collapsed and died because whenever the child herself felt bad, sometimes her parents would give her strawberry ice cream. So she tried to help her aunt that way. That image really stuck with me."

– skonen_blades

Childhood traumas never go away.

Addiction

"It took me almost 25 years to realise that alcoholic parents aren't normal and other people have it different."

– Veeyas

"I remember asking a friend how many times they’d seen their parents drunk in their life when I was 16 or 17."

"When they said a handful I kinda knew I’d been f'ked. My dad had driven while drunk with me in the back more times than they’d even seen their parents intoxicated."

"It killed him a few years ago. Not while driving, like organ failure. People don’t notice it as much if they’re all extroverted and likeable when they’re intoxicated"

– CauliflowerThat6430

Abandoned On The Side Of The Road

"My mom admitted after she got sober that she would stop on the way home from work (an hour away) and get a 6 pack and drink 3 of the beers before she got home, then would drink a bottle of wine when she got home. She did this every day."

"My sister and I knew she was drunk, but my dad worked 2 jobs and wasn't home that much so he didn't see it like we did."

"The worst was when she drove me through the backroads at 10 PM and just stopped the car on the side of the road and told me to get out and that she didn't want me anymore. Luckily may dad was home when she got back and he came and got me."

"That f'ked me up for the rest of my life and she doesn't even remember it."

– TheGreensKeeper420

Daily Ritual

"My dad got drunk EVERY night, and his behaviour made us uncomfortable, but we didn't know it wasn't normal. He would send us to get him beers from the kitchen, and we'd gladly do it because it was one of the few things that reliably made him happy with us."

– LVL25_Lapras

These Redditors grew up in a hoarder household.

Moving The Clutter

"Having a 'cluttered house' and needing to spend a few hours carrying everything from the living room into my bedroom to make the living room appropriate for guests. I would sob and beg for it not to go into my room because I knew it would never leave, and the living room would get filled again with TJmaxx bags and garbage we don't need. Turned out a hoarded house isn't normal and it made me a pretty awful roommate to my friends in my teen years."

– plantsndogs

Symptom Of OCD

"A lot of people are unaware of the fact that hoarding is a symptom of OCD. Real OCD, and not the pop-psychology OCD that people claim they have."

"My bio-mom was a hoarder, and she had other OCD symptoms as well, everyone was expected to count the stairs as we climbed them, out loud, and one at a time, with no other options. Always monitoring the location of every person at every time (which was much harder in the 1970s than today), needing someone else to dial the (rotary) phone for them, because certain phone numbers were just "wrong," for various reasons (too many odd numbers, the pattern the dial sounds made were summoning demons, too many of the same number in a row, that sort of thing.)"

– Galaxy_Ranger_Bob

Ignorance is always bliss to a child until something goes wrong.

As a child, I was reckless and hyper and I would often ignore the warnings of my mother to dial it down a notch.

Kids, listen to your parents.

I ignored my mom when she told me to stop jumping up and down on the bed. I fell backward and slammed my head on the corner of the headboard that was also doubled as a low bookshelf.

Apparently, when your scalp ruptures, you bleed profusely. Even my mothers hands couldn't stop the bleeding. Since my dad was at work and my mom couldn't drive at the time, she had to call the neighbor and have them take me to the hospital where I got stitches in my head.

So yes, it's all fun and games until you get hurt. The consequence of refusing to heed my mom's warning is something that stayed with me and makes me appreciate all you parents out there who are doing the toughest job of all: Raising kids.

CW: Eating disorder.

Everyone remembers the first time they were in love.

Or, at least, the first time they thought they were in love.

Some people might very well have a true "one and only," remaining with their first love for the rest of their life.

For the majority of people, however, the first love is, indeed, their first.

The person who shows them what it is to love and be loved so they know when they've truly found the person they were meant to be with later in life.

With this in mind, some people find ending relationships with their first love easier than they might expect, as deep down, they knew it was never going to last.

Others, however, remember ending things with their first love as the first time their heart was truly broken.

Redditor xgc_promathia was curious to hear how people ended things with their first love and the lasting effects it had on them, leading them to ask:

"How did your first love end? Do you still think of them?"

The Folly Of Youth

"I was a dumb, selfish 23-year-old who wanted more than I had."

"Yes, all the time."- grow4road

"Summer Lovin'..."

"We talking love or 'true love'?"

"My first love was a girl I met at summer camp."

"Shel lived and hour away and since we were both 13 we relied on our mothers to shuttle us back and forth, swapping weekends at each others house."

"The next summer at camp we decided that since we would both be going to high school the following fall that we should enjoy that summer camp time together then break up."

"The last night they had a farewell dance and we spent all night dancing to every slow song."

"I still think of her from time to time but haven't talked to her in over 35 years."

"I spent a hour or so looking her up online and I'm pretty sure I found her but it's been so long and age changes people so I can't be 100% sure."

"I do hope the woman I found is her because she has a beautiful family and from what I saw on FB she's doing really well for herself."- StuckInNov1999

What If...?

"My first true love, we were together for almost a year."

"I we lost our virginity to each other."

"We were making plans to elope after high school I broke up with her because I felt like she was hiding an eating disorder from me."

"She kept on losing weight and she started to look unhealthy, I kept on encouraging her to get help, I even offered to go with her and be there for support when she brought it up to her parents, she kept on refusing."

"I then broke up with her."

"I absolutely crushed her."

"She literally cried in school all day for a month straight."

"I felt really bad about it."

"Then she went NC with me for a few years and I stated to really resent her."

"We then reunited and buried the hatchet then remained friends."

"I haven't seen her in person for about 15 years."

"We are friends on Facebook."

"We comment on each other's posts."

"I think about her every now and then."

"Not so much the person she is now, but the fond memories."

"I have of 2 16 year olds intensely in love with each other."

"I wonder if we were really soul mates but we just met too early in life?"

"She has a nice husband and she seems happy."

"I'm happy for her."- Ill-Indication-7706

Forgive And Forget

"We were high school sweethearts, but we broke up shortly after high school because we were no longer good for one another."

"It was an ugly breakup, and we went several years without contact after I left the state."

"Five years later, my mother sent me a box of my stuff, and one of his old creative writing notebooks was mixed in with it."

"I reached out over fb to ask if he might want it back, and from there, we became friends again."

"Ten years later, we're still friends to this day."- Forward_Ad6168

Unable To Go The Distance

"Joined the military and long distance wasn’t working so I broke up with her."

"We tried to make it work but it was taking a toll on the both of us."

"Didn’t want to break up with her but I felt like it was the best decision for the both of us."

"This was over 3 years ago and yes I still think about her."

"I actually reached out to her for the first time since the break up last week lol."

"Was just curious to see how she was doing."- ReckSaber3664

Truly Love At First Sight

"Daily."

"I married him!"- Complex-Half8338

Ended Before It Could Truly Begin

"They died."

"All the time for last 20 years."- Deep_Ad_1874

Wrong Time, Wrong Place... Not Meant To Be...

"I was 18."

"He was 20."

"He was my first real boyfriend, my first sexual experience, and my first real love."

"We argued a lot all the time basically, I still thought we were good together."

"One day during an argument after he threw a plate of food at me I told him to get out."

"That was something I said a lot and it was a trigger for him because everyone in his life either died or abandoned him or kicked him out."

"He left, like actually called a cab took everything including his New flat screen TV and left."

"I spiraled."

"Eventually though after three years I moved on and met my daughter's dad."

"I have love for him and see that he’s now in recovery and having a baby with a new gf."

"This was over 12 years ago when we dated."

"I’m happy for him but also moved on and grateful for that."- SubstantialLove8330

"The Course Of True Love Never Did Run Smooth..."

"Long story short, my first 'real' love ended when she left to a different state."

"We were best friends for a long time but after she left, friendship ended too."

"We were young and I was too immature for a relationship."

"I was the one pursuing it and she wanted to just be friends which was one of the reasons it pushed her away."

"Like I said immature of me because I didn't consider her feelings and respect her answer at the time."

"Many many years later, I reached out and apologized for everything."

"Because I was the problem."

"She was in a broken relationship at the time and I didn't want anything but to say I'm sorry and become friends again."

"A few years later, she brought it up about a possible relationship with me and I agreed (and no I wasn't thinking about a relationship at the time because in my mind, that ship sailed LONG ago)."

"That caught me off guard."

"Years later after this conversation, we are married and have children."

"Not saying everyone's relationship will turn out this way but this was my experience."- VailStampede

As Nat King Cole once famously said, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return."

Sometimes, to know what it is to truly love, we have to have our hearts truly broken.

Making the chance to have a "first love," be it at age 15 or 75, a right of passage everyone deserves.