Real Valentine’s Day horror stories to make you feel instantly better about being alone

It’s no secret to anyone that Valentine’s Day is a horror show. If you’re single, you (at best) have an inbox full of “LOVE50!” promo codes or (at worst) feel totally inadequate. If you’re in a relationship, there’s a chance your partner will royally fuck up by forgetting or give you the ick with their “cute” handmade card. Or worse still, you could be in a situationship, which means you’re buried – one foot in the trenches – amongst the rubble and terror of analysing how the fuck you’re meant to act on 14 February.

Whatever your status – single, taken, it’s complicated – Valentine’s Day is almost always hell on earth. And to prove it we’ve collected five of the worst V-Day horror stories we could find (ascending from tame to terror) to make you feel instantly better about being alone for 2024:

Nadine – A dinner party disaster

Starting off tame on the horror story we have Nadine, who was invited to a dinner party at her then-boyfriend’s house while they were both in second year at university. He lived with four other guys, they all invited their girlfriends too, it seemed like the perfect way to have a semi-romantic evening without going the full nine yards. Except Nadine’s boyfriend didn’t even go nine inches:

“At the end of the dinner all the boys gave their gals really nice gifts,” she says. “A Tiffany necklace was the star of the show. Then my boyfriend pulls out this squashed packet of Ferrero Rochers, which he had opened and already started eating.”

Bella – Cheating, tears and chunder

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You know how it goes when you’ve broken up with someone, you block and unblock them basically every day with the self-restraint of a toddler – desperate for any update on the life you’re no longer part of, which will inevitably make you feel like shit.

And when Bella unblocked her ex the week before Valentine’s Day, she discovered something shocking: “He had a new girlfriend on his story by V-day,” she says. “The timing seemed like they’d been dating the whole time we were together. I cried so much I was sick.”

Sienna – Minimal effort and maximum risk to health

When Sienna was invited out on Valentine’s Day for dinner at The Gherkin in London by a guy who worked at The Gherkin in London she, understandably, felt his date night suggestion was pretty unimaginative. “I thought it was lazy,” she says.

But the problems didn’t end there. As the meal played out, Sarah started to feel alarmingly unwell: “I got instant food poisoning from the seafood we ate and ended up in hospital,” she says. “I was in there for days and days. Turns out I have a severe allergy to seafood. I’ve never eaten an oyster since.”

Obviously, her date never visited her in the hospital and they stopped seeing each other shortly after Siena’s near death experience.

Paige – From lingerie to ladies incontinence pants

When Paige was in her second year at uni she didn’t see why men were having all the fun and ordered herself some female viagra online in preparation for a very special Valentine’s Day night of passion. But early on in the night she suspected a flop:

“It didn’t kick in for like 24-hours and initially I thought I’d wasted my money,” she says. “But suddenly I was so wet I had to wear those super thick night time pads for my lectures for the following three days. Really glamorous.”

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• If you’re given any of these Valentine’s Day presents, you’re dating a walking red flag

• Plan a Valentine’s Day and we’ll tell you if you have any right to be getting a date