Long before we started giving cards to girls to let them know that we choo-choo-choose them, the Romans were celebrating love in their own way. Every February 15, they held Lupercalia—the original Valentine’s Day.

The holiday has gone through a few changes over the past few thousand years. But don’t worry—if you’re hoping to celebrate a truly traditional Valentine’s Day this year, has you covered. We’ll let you know everything you need to do.

10 The Murdering Of The Cute Puppies

On the original Valentine’s Day, the Romans kicked off the festivities by dragging two goats and a puppy into a cave and letting a group of cultish priests ritually slaughter them. The instructions were specific about the puppy part. It couldn’t be a mature dog—it had to be an adorable baby puppy.

Even the Romans didn’t really understand why they had to kill a puppy. The best sources we have on the holiday were written centuries after it began. By then, Lupercalia was just an old tradition and the Romans writing about it make it clear that they didn’t understand any of it.

Plutarch was pretty sure that they stole the puppy-killing thing from the Greeks. Based on how Plutarch described them, the Greeks were puppy-killing aficionados. He said that the Greeks killed puppies in rituals so often that they had a word for it: periskulakismoi (“purification by puppy”). This word has also been translated in some real academic papers that people with PhDs were paid to write as “pupprification.”

But even that’s just a theory. By the time Plutarch came around, nobody really knew why they were killing puppies—they were just following tradition. He had another theory, though. Pure spite. “Is it that the dogs bark at the Luperci [priests],” Plutarch theorized, “and annoy them?”

9 The Feigning Of Laughter Of The Blood-Soaked Boys

After the puppies and the goats were killed, two young noble boys were brought into the cave to do something that creeped the hell out of the Christians, who ended up banning this festival.

The priests would touch their knives to the heads of the boys, staining the boys’ heads with blood. Then the priests would dip wool in milk and rub it on the boys’ heads. That was kind of strange, but what really made this unnerving was what came next: With milk and blood streaking down their heads, the boys were required to feign laughter.

Again, the Romans had no idea why they were making creepy, blood-stained children laugh in a dark cave. The Romans believed that it was a purification ritual, but even that was just a theory. It was just a tradition that they’d been following for as long as they could remember, and they weren’t about to break it.

After this, though, came the main event. The priests would make leather thongs out of the goats, the boys would strip naked, and the real games would begin.

8 The Streaking Of The Thong-Carrying Men

“At this time, many of the noble youth and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked,” Plutarch tells us, “striking those they meet with shaggy thongs.”

These naked men would be covered in oil first. The lower class wasn’t allowed to do this. These were the highest-ranking and most dignified men in the city. People like Mark Antony would strip naked, oil up, and run down the streets.

Once they were good and oily, they’d run around hitting people with shaggy thongs. In particular, they’d target women, who would pretend to run from it. But secretly, the women would try to get hit with the thongs. If you got hit with a thong, the Romans believed, you would become more fertile. So women would bare their backs and offer up their hands in the hopes that naked oily men would whip them.

Those thongs, by the way, were called februare—and they were named before the month. That’s right—the entire month of February is named after magical potency thongs.

7 The Eating Of The Entrails On A Stick

Lupercalia also involved a feast. Although when it came to food, it wasn’t exactly the best holiday. Even Roman poetry calls the feast of Lupercalia “scanty”—and with good cause. The priests would put the entrails of the sacrificed goats on willow spits, cook them up, and feed them to a crowd of people.

Splitting two goats between all the citizens of Rome probably didn’t extend that far, but that wasn’t all they got. Some vestal virgins would also burn salt cakes, which seem to have been something like ancient pancakes. But that was the feast—a tiny bit of goat entrail on a stick and some burned cakes.

None of that might seem particularly appealing, which is probably why the Romans served one more dish: copious amounts of alcohol. For the rest of the day, the people of Rome would be drunk out of their minds.

6 The Hooking Up Of The Swingers

In some parts of Rome, they would take the whole fertility ritual a bit further. Eligible young women hoping to get pregnant would write their names on clay tablets and place the tablets in a jar. Then the men would draw a name at random. Two completely random strangers would be hooked up and be together for the rest of the festival.

Some of the details on this are a bit vague and inconsistent, but it seems like these two weren’t just going on a blind date. The man was there to make the woman’s dream of having a baby a reality. Exactly how long they stuck together seems to vary. Some say they just spent the festival together. But according to others, those two would be sexual partners for the next year.

5 The Airing Of Grievances

Lupercalia had its own songs, too. The lyrics have been lost to time, but we have enough of a description to get a pretty good picture of them. For one thing, we don’t have any records that mention the songs without using the words “licentious” or “obscene.”

At least by the fifth century AD, people at the festival would break into filthy, vulgar songs that described every bad thing their neighbors had done. If you had an affair or got caught at a brothel, your neighbors would come out on Lupercalia and sing a song about your sexcapades for everyone to hear.

The idea was to shame people into good behavior. But as far as the Pope was concerned, the songs tended to come across more as celebrations than criticisms. When they got the chance to talk about what their neighbors had been up to, the Romans apparently got a bit carried away.

4 The Celebration Of The Horny God

Like any good festival, Lupercalia had its classic stories. One was the classic Lupercalia story of Faunus, which Ovid called “an old tale full of laughter.”

Faunus sees Hercules walking with his mistress and declares, “She will be my passion!” This, however, is Rome. So that doesn’t mean he is going to write her love notes and ask her on a date. Instead, he plans on waiting until she’s asleep, sneaking into her house, and going wild.

Faunus sneaks into the girl’s home, unaware that she had covered up Hercules with her own clothes before she went to sleep. So Faunus just starts groping the mound that looks like her clothes. He feels something strange and recoils. As Ovid describes it, someone “will draw back his foot on seeing a snake”—which is more or less what Faunus realized he was grabbing.

Hercules gets up, Faunus falls down, and everyone realizes that Faunus just tried to sexually assault Hercules’s mistress. But nobody gets the slightest bit upset. “Hercules laughed,” Ovid tells us, “as did all who saw him lying there, and the Lydian girl laughed, too.”

According to Ovid, men ran naked on Lupercalia to honor Faunus’s failed attempt at sexual assault. “So the god hates clothes that trick the eye!” Ovid wrote, “and calls the naked to his rites.”

3 The Uncertainty Over Whom You Are Worshiping

The Romans would spend Lupercalia telling stories about Faunus, but he wasn’t actually the god of the holiday. The holiday was called Lupercalia. It was held in Lupercal Cave by Luperci priests. So obviously, it was dedicated to the god Lupercus. The thing is, nobody—including the Luperci priests—actually knew who Lupercus was.

They had a whole cult dedicated to this god, but they didn’t know what he stood for. Lupercalia was an old farming religion. Nobody could remember when the holiday started, let alone why. They were just doing what their parents had done before them.

Their only hint was a statue of a naked man in a goatskin girdle outside Lupercal Cave. The Romans also figured that he probably had something to do with farmers. But that was it—that was all they knew. Lupercus wore a girdle, and that was enough for people to dedicate their lives to being his priests.

2 The Crowning Of Julius Caesar

A major moment in the life of Julius Caesar happened during Lupercalia. When Mark Antony put a wreath on Caesar’s head and offered him the throne, it wasn’t just any day—it was Lupercalia. When you realize that, you realize it went down a bit differently from how you’ve always pictured it.

History specifically states that Caesar was watching the festivities when it happened. But he wasn’t watching people eat; we’re specifically told that he was watching naked, oily, young men run down the streets when Mark Antony came over to offer Caesar the throne.

Unlike Caesar, though, Mark Antony wasn’t just a spectator. He was participating. Plutarch describes him as “one of the runners in the sacred race,” which means that he didn’t walk over to Julius Caesar wearing a tunic. Antony walked over completely naked, holding a shaggy thong in one hand and a laurel wreath in the other.

So, next time your local drama club puts on a production of Julius Caesar, you can make sure they get the costumes right.

1 The Killing Of People Named Valentine

The last Lupercalia was held at the end of the fifth century. By then, Christianity had taken over Rome, and Lupercalia was one of the few Roman holidays that was still being celebrated. Pope Gelasius ended it, though, declaring that it was a pagan ritual full of blood sacrifice that glorified sex.

Most of this ritual had been stopped anyway. Although we don’t know all the details of how it was celebrated in the fifth century, we do know that the Pope challenged the Romans who complained to actually do that “running around naked” part—and none were willing to do it.

The Romans weren’t too happy about losing a festival, though, so a new festival came into existence: St. Valentine’s Day. Well, technically, the Pope replaced Lupercalia with the slightly less popular “Feast of the Purification of The Blessed Virgin Mary,” but eventually, it became Valentine’s Day.

The holiday got the name St. Valentine’s Day because people named Valentine had a strange habit of dying on February 14. Two separate Valentines had already died on that date, so they created St. Valentine’s Day—a day to remember a saint who got beheaded.

Over the next 1,500 years, some things changed. Instead of putting their names in jars, women got cards. Instead of hitting women with girdles, men gave them flowers. But the holiday we celebrate today got its start here.

Valentine’s Day is a day unlike any other that pops up in the calendar if you are lucky in love. Or perhaps even if you are unlucky in love and are unfairly reminded of your forever-single status. But we hope that’s not the case! We hope Valentine’s Day celebrations of the past and present have been good to you, and your spouse, or partner, or other loved one. They’ve certainly been good to many people.

Around the world, hundreds of millions of people celebrate Valentine’s Day with greeting cards, chocolate, flowers, little love notes, and other sweet gifts and trinkets meant for that special someone in their lives. But where does all this come from? Why do we do it like this? And how long has it been going on?

In this list, we’ll take a deep dive into the history and development of Valentine’s Day. From a pagan tradition that grew into a Christian-adjacent celebration, the day has been marked special on the calendars of a variety of cultures for several thousand years. In more recent times, of course, commercialization has come. And chocolate. Did we mention chocolate?! Yummy! Anyway, go grab a piece of candy or two and settle in for a long ride through the romantic realm of Valentine’s Day!

Related: 10 Real-Life, Romantic Love Stories from World War II

10 An Uncertain Pagan Origin

The origins of Valentine’s Day are, frankly, pretty hard to pin down. The day has been celebrated or at least acknowledged in one form or another for centuries and centuries. Many historians now believe that the day as we know it—or, at least, the foundation of what we have come to know it as—began as a Christian attempt to make a religious event out of a former pagan holiday and popular fertility festival called Lupercalia.

That festival occurred early in the spring every single year and turned out to be a great tradition. Some historians even acknowledge that the festival was a joint bash meant to celebrate and honor Faunus (the Roman god of agriculture) and Romulus and Remus (the founders of Rome itself).

Regardless, Lupercalia was always a big hit. And when the Christians slowly but surely swept into power during Rome’s reign, they pushed to Christianize the holiday festival and give it the fixed February 14 date to appeal to pagan believers—and help convince many of them to join up with the new Christian cause.^[1]

9 Made after a Martyr

The reason St. Valentine’s Day is named as such is thanks to a Christian martyr who died while trying to protect love nearly 2,000 years ago. Valentine was the name of a clergyman—history identifies him sometimes as a priest and sometimes as a bishop—who was mad that the Roman emperor Claudius II banned marriage.

Claudius did so after his reign began in AD 268 because he believed that unmarried men made for better soldiers. While he may have had a point about the aggression single, unmarried men could take out on the battlefield, he didn’t exactly make many friends in the realm of Rome when it came time to enact that position. And one of the people who hated the marriage ban the most was Valentine.

Valentine believed that it was unfair to prevent people from finding partners and falling into love. So he decided to break Claudius’s rules and perform secret marriage ceremonies anyway for couples who sought the commitment. Eventually, Claudius figured out what was going on, and Valentine was executed for going against the Roman emperor’s very strict and clear decree.

The Catholic Church officially canonized Valentine as a saint thanks to his martyrdom. Today, Saint Valentine is buried on the Via Flaminia—the same place where he was laid to rest on the date of February 14, 270, the year after his death. And we all now celebrate Saint Valentine’s Day, which has also historically been called the Feast of Saint Valentine, after it really took hold as a tradition beginning in about the eighth century.^[2]

8 But There Are More?

That story seems nice and simple, but it may not be the only one that influenced Valentine’s Day. As it turns out, there are actually multiple Saint Valentines floating out there in history. And their stories likely intertwined in bits and pieces to give us the Saint Valentine’s Day trajectory that we are familiar with today.

In addition to the Valentine, who was beheaded by Claudius II in 269 or 270, there were multiple other legends surrounding love. The Catholic Encyclopedia and other faith-based sources believe there are at least three former bishops, priests, or other individuals who have had stories of theirs tied up in the love-fest holiday.

Most notable was our aforementioned Roman priest killed by Claudius II. But also notable was a former bishop—officially, the Bishop of Interamna, which is the present-day city of Terni, Italy—who was martyred for backing love. He was also buried at Via Flaminia outside of Rome, just like the previously mentioned Valentine.

There was even a legend involving a supposed Patron Saint of Love named Valentine that popped up in the Middle Ages. According to lovely lore, Valentine was the patron saint of lovers—but also of beekeepers and epilepsy. It’s a weird combination, but one that crafted the holiday as we know it now.^[3]

7 Chaucer’s Chance at Love

If you aren’t a fan of Valentine’s Day, then we have for you the perfect person to blame: Geoffrey Chaucer. Good luck sending him a nasty email or a snarky tweet about it, though, because he has been dead for hundreds of years. Chaucer was, of course, a very famous 14th-century English poet.

While he may have most famously written The Canterbury Tales, he is also the person most widely credited for turning Saint Valentine’s Day into a celebration of romantic love. Ever since his push, then, we have all followed with roses, chocolates, heart-shaped candy, and all the rest. Oh, those sweet, sappy, and long-standing traditions!

As we’ve learned so far, Valentine’s Day has a bit of a grisly history, what with the beheadings and the martyrdom and all. But in the 1380s, Chaucer wrote a poem called “The Parliament of Fowls.” In that work, he referenced February 14 as being a day that was about love. Even though it had long been a day of feast for Catholics to celebrate and honor the martyrdom of Saint Valentine, Chaucer wrote about it being more than that.

His declaration of Saint Valentine’s Day being meant for love was the first of its kind ever written down. While English people possibly practiced that already before Chaucer wrote of it, of course, he was likely inspired by their tradition. But regardless, his writing spurred it on for all the rest of us. Now, here we are nearly 700 years later, and Valentine’s Day is going strong!^[4]

6 History WAY Before Hallmark

The first-ever known Valentine’s Day card was (probably) sent from a prisoner in the infamous Tower of London to his wife. The year was 1415, and Charles, the Duke of Orléans, was just 21 years old. He was married by then—well, 21 was kind of a ripe old age in the early 15th century—and he was also imprisoned in the Tower of London.

The duke’s story deals with a whole lot of wild royal family in-fighting and imprisonment that gets way off the beaten path here. But suffice it to say for our purposes today that while he was imprisoned, he fired off a handwritten Valentine’s Day card to his waiting wife on the outside of those impenetrable tower walls.

Sadly, historians don’t still have access to the card Charles (reportedly) sent his wife way back in 1415. But they do have something nearly that old! The oldest-surviving Valentine’s Day card comes in the form of a handwritten letter that is currently held in the British Library. The letter was a Valentine’s Day stanza written by a woman named Margery Brews and meant for her fiance, John Paston.

That it still survives today is a testament to the power of paper and ink, we suppose. But also to Margery’s apparently undying love for John! If she ever told him, “I love you forever” during their lives six centuries ago, well, she sure was right about it!^[5]

5 It All Gets Commercialized

To be fair, it took quite a while from Chaucer and Margery Brews before Valentine’s Day really became a commercial endeavor. The business side of the love-locked holiday began in 18th-century England. There, people began to make (or buy) and send Valentine’s Day cards to their loved ones. Most often, the targets of these cards were romantic interests. Still, they could also be reserved for friends and beloved family members.

Card senders also often sent out chocolates and other confectionery items along with the cards. And the most well-to-do had flowers sent, as well. From English roots, then, the tradition of sending out cards and gifts spread to the United States in the 19th century, and from there, the business side went in full-bore.

Today, Valentine’s Day represents a massive market moment for the greeting card industry. According to Hallmark and other lovesick companies in that realm, nearly 150 million Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged annually. And, it should be noted, those hundreds of millions of cards are only the messages that get sent through the mail.

The companies don’t include the cards kids traditionally send to each other in school and things of that nature. By sheer volume, that makes Valentine’s Day the second-largest greeting card holiday in the world behind Christmas. That’s some serious mail movement and post office power!^[6]

4 Roses Are Red…

Even if you don’t know anything else about Valentine’s Day, and you’re forever destined to live a single life without love and affection (sad!), you probably at least know that red roses are very commonly associated with it. That connection goes back a long, long way through history, too. See, red roses first became associated with Valentine’s Day due to their link to Venus, who was the Roman goddess of love.

Also known as Aphrodite in Greek mythology, the story goes that Venus found her lover Adonis mortally wounded one day. Adonis, who was the male god of beauty, was dying. Horrified at the sight, Venus sat over the body, and her tears began to fall. Those tears mixed with Adonis’s blood, and the combination of the two liquids amalgamated into a blossoming red rose bush.

Combine the female goddess of love and the male god of beauty, and it’s no wonder their resulting mythological rose bush would carry down through the ages. But while roses are the most popular flower (by far) to give out and receive on Valentine’s Day, they aren’t the only arrangement on deck. In recent years especially, less traditional floral arrangements have been made more popular on Valentine’s Day.

Other popular spring blooms like tulips, orchards, and lilies are now routinely exchanged by those wishing to show their love and affection for another person. And while they aren’t as traditional as roses, the bright colors and unique arrangements of these other flowers can make for exceptionally compelling gifts in their own right.^[7]

3 Strange Celebrations

Valentine’s Day, as we know it here in the United States, is celebrated similarly in many parts of the world. Still, not every nation on Earth carries out this same tradition. In fact, in several Asian countries, Valentine’s Day is done entirely differently. Take Japan, for example. In Tokyo and the rest of Japan’s cities, locals use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity for women to give chocolates to men. That tradition started in 1958 when a Japanese chocolate company urged women to make Valentine’s Day a time for women to tell the guys in their lives how they feel about them—with purchased chocolate, of course.

Be cynical about its corporate origins if you must, but the tradition stuck, and today, women in Japan give all kinds of chocolate to men on that holiday every year. It’s not even just their romantic partners, either. Japanese women hand out chocolate to their colleagues at work, their bosses, their male friends, and more to celebrate the big day.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, there is an entire day dedicated for men to receive gifts in response to Valentine’s Day. It comes one month after the February 14 holiday every year, and it is popularly known as “White Day” in Seoul and across South Korea. There, women turn the tables and give gifts to the men they love as a sort of “equal and opposite” response to the focus on female adoration in mid-February. The tables turn!

And then there’s China. While Valentine’s Day has caught on in parts of China and in ways that are somewhat comparable to the manner in which it is celebrated in the West, China has its own anti-Valentine’s Day, too. Every year on November 11, the Chinese people celebrate “Singles’ Day.”

That event is meant for unattached and unspoken-for individuals to spoil themselves. These single people treat themselves to all kinds of gifts and presents and revel in another year of, uh, not being in love. In turn, it has become one of the busiest shopping days of the year in China. Oh, and the chosen date is important, too. Think of it: November 11, as in 11/11. Lots of single digits there! Get it?^[8]

2 A Craving for Chocolate

In 1861, chocolate magnate Richard Cadbury came up with the first idea for a chocolate box that was heart-shaped and was specifically promoted to be sold on Valentine’s Day. Cadbury (yes, of Cadbury chocolate fame) was a marketing genius, and the heart-shaped box of delicious and chewy morsels stuck around, well, forever! Cadbury is obviously still a thing today.

Chocolate has a very close, very symbiotic relationship with Valentine’s Day overall. After Cadbury came up with this marketing ploy at the very beginning of the Civil War, Valentine’s Day quickly began to flourish as a commercial holiday in the United States. People bought box after box of chocolate—both Cadbury’s brand and from many other sources—and now the commercial aspects of the holiday are as we know them today.

Speaking of the commercial aspects of Valentine’s Day, when specifically considering chocolate, the amount people buy and eat in that second week of February is truly stunning. According to industry measurements of chocolate sales in the week leading up to February 14, Americans buy about 58 million pounds (26 million kilograms) of chocolate ahead of each Valentine’s Day. That’s in just seven days!

Just like Halloween in the fall, Valentine’s Day has become a major cash cow for Hershey’s and other chocolate companies seeking to profit from the yearly tradition. And to the tune of 58 million pounds annually, they sure are profiting. What do we get out of the deal? Oh, right, a toothache and a few added pounds around our waists!^[9]

1 Popping the Question!

Because Valentine’s Day is a romantic holiday centered on love and relationships, it naturally makes sense that it is a popular day on which many couples get engaged. And that number is in the millions every year—six million, in fact!

According to surveys, roughly six million couples get engaged to each other every single Valentine’s Day. And the day is broadly popular as the perfect time for a man to show love to the woman with whom he wants to commit. Surveys carried out consistently show that both men and women pick Valentine’s Day as the best day of the year to get engaged. Lovely!

In addition to engagements, Valentine’s Day is also a very popular time for love locks. If you’ve ever walked by a chain link fence in a high-end tourist section of a major urban center, you’ve probably seen at least a few of these. They are popular along the Seine River in Paris, where couples take to the bridges and lock a padlock onto a fence. Then, they often write their initials on the lock in Sharpie or some other marker. Now, many other couples have adopted the love-lock trend in cities around the world.

The lock is meant to commemorate the forever nature of their love. Since nobody who comes by the lock has the key, theoretically, their love will last as long as the lock does on that fence. The ritual has been around for a while now, with couples often throwing their keys into the river to ensure the padlocks can never be popped open.^[10]

As cheesy as it can be, Valentine’s Day is supposed to be a time of love. Couples worldwide show kindness and love to their partners through gifts, experiences, and special treatment. It can be a really joyful and exciting time for people in a new or committed relationship. Unfortunately, it is not all roses, greeting cards, bath bombs, and chocolate. Sometimes, Valentine’s Day can lead to feelings of jealousy, distressing realizations, and even breakups due to high expectations.

From cheaters and misunderstandings to simply bad partners, cupid’s arrow is not always on target for these Valentine’s Day couples. Continue reading below to journey with us through the top 10 worst Valentine’s Day breakups.

Related: 10 Interesting Facts About Falling In Love From Modern Science

10 Bagged a Winner!

According to Pedestrian.tv, Lola was 18 at the time of this story. She was dating a guy who she “Just thought was so attractive that I [she] was almost waiting for him to unceremoniously dump me—and he did!” When Lola asked for more clarity, this super attractive guy did not simply “ghost” her. Instead, he told her to come to his house, and he would explain the whole situation.

Lola believed this charming young fellow (as romantics like to do). She went to his house to have a mature conversation and learn where things went wrong. Unfortunately, when she arrived, he was not there. Instead, outside of his house, he left all of her belongings. They were all thrown together into a Ziploc bag. Talk about a rough way to spend a holiday that is supposed to be about love!

9 Valentine’s Day Surprise

Another Valentine’s Day breakup full of twists and turns comes from CafeMom.com. According to the website, woman E.A. had taken a pregnancy test and knew that she was pregnant. She planned to surprise her husband with the wonderful news on the day of love, Valentine’s Day. The day before, however, she was the one who was in for a surprise.

The day before Valentine’s Day, E.A.’s husband told her that he wanted to “find himself” and was taking a solo trip around the world. This did not sit well with E.A. An emotional reaction was to be expected. According to E.A., she threw the test at her husband and cried all day on Valentine’s Day. If you are upset with your partner for forgetting flowers or getting you the wrong kind of chocolate, maybe consider E.A.’s story and remember it is not so bad!

8 Valentine’s Day “Prank”

Not all Valentine’s breakups are quite as dramatic as E.A.’s. Our next story is based on a middle school relationship. As you can guess from the memory of middle school, it revolves around immaturity and trying to impress peers.

According to Seventeen.com, Carolynn of New York City was dumped on Valentine’s Day, cutting short her middle school romance. Carolynn recalls that her biggest crush wanted her to be his girlfriend. Of course, she accepted. Shortly after, she began to send “Cute glitter texts saying how much I [she] loved him and missed him.” Possibly, she was coming on a little strong. Later, however, it was revealed that Carolynn’s heartthrob “Told my best friend to tell me he was only pulling a prank on me.”

Wow. Middle school students are so creative in finding ways to hurt their peers. While her boyfriend was no Ashton Kutcher and his “prank” was in no way funny, we can hope that Carolynn has recovered and had better Valentine’s Days since.

7 The Candy Man Valentine’s Day Breakup

Depending on how you look at it, the next breakup we’re delving into was ironically sweet. This breakup happened to D.B., according to CafeMom.com. D.B.’s story is about a boyfriend that she had in college. Unfortunately, it is common for couples to break up right before Valentine’s Day in high school and college. This is because one of the partners does not want to give a gift. D.B.’s college boyfriend did not take this approach. In fact, he did kind of the opposite.

Instead of breaking up with D.B. before Valentine’s Day, he waited until the day itself. Whether it was an attempt to soften the blow or make himself look better, the man in question bought D. B. flowers and candy. True, her boyfriend was not cheap. But maybe he should have bought her a teddy bear too. That way, she could hold something while she cried. Instead, she had the flowers to serve as a reminder of her Valentine’s Day heartbreak.

6 Home-Cooked Breakup

Cooking a delicious meal for a partner is not only kind; there is a kind of intimacy to it. Sharing recipes and cooking with a new partner can be a big step. However, maybe it is not always the right step. According to Pedestrian.tv, Chloe had a messy experience. She felt close to her boyfriend, to the point that she wanted to share her “world-famous spaghetti” with him. According to Chloe, preparing the meal took her hours.

Her boyfriend came into the apartment and enjoyed the spaghetti (helping himself to two servings). After eating, the lovebirds got ready for bed with full stomachs. Chloe says the two were “romantically spooning” when “he casually announces he isn’t falling in love with me at all, and we should just cut our losses.”

What was in that spaghetti?!? In all seriousness, it seems as though Chloe dodged a bullet. If a person is willing to eat two plates of your world-famous spaghetti that you spent hours preparing on Valentine’s Day to only break up with you while you are spooning, what else can you expect from them?

5 High Steaks Dinner

Our next Valentine’s Day breakup is another culinary misadventure. AskMen.com reports on a comment from Reddit user u/devilized. U/devilized, who went through a traumatic Valentine’s Day breakup as well. Reportedly, he made his longtime girlfriend a steak dinner. He cooked homemade Italian bread, marinated ribeye, and steamed fresh green beans and carrots. All of this was served to his partner with music and candlelight. Sounds pretty romantic, right?

According to u/devilized, his girlfriend told him several upsetting things that night. Evidently, she said she was “No longer completely devoted to me, doesn’t like when I touch her, and might break up with me because I don’t want kids.”

That is a lot to take in, and we’re not even considering the tasty meal. Though the results of this encounter were inconclusive, we can all hope that u/devilized and his new girlfriend have found a happier, more fulfilling relationship since.

4 Valentine’s Day Dinner Without Reservations?

Not everyone likes to cook for Valentine’s Day. If you plan to go out to eat with your partner, the best idea is to get a reservation. Valentine’s Day is one of the busiest days of the year for many restaurants. Waiting in a lobby for your turn to be seated is not most people’s idea of a romantic evening. Suppose you and your partner choose to go out for Valentine’s Day without a dinner reservation. In that case, you may end up in the same situation as D.R.

According to CafeMom.com, D.R. said she and her partner had “been bickering all day, what I thought was normal couple stuff, but still decided to go out for our Valentine’s Day dinner. The restaurant had a 45-minute wait, so we went outside. We ended up bickering some more, and then he got up and left… WITHOUT me.” While this sounds like it was already somewhat of a tense situation, the hunger and wait time for the restaurant certainly did not help.

D.R. indicates that she had to find her own ride home from the restaurant via Uber and that her boyfriend moved out the following week. It seems like these two were maybe already not seeing eye to eye, but Valentine’s Day is certainly a sad day for their romance to end.

3 The Most Secret Admirer

Our next Valentine’s Day fiasco was reported by Seventeen.com. While the school is not specified, it seems like this was a high school or college romance. Lauren, from Denver, says that a secret admirer first contacted her on her phone. She did not know the number, and the person did not want to reveal their identity. She was intrigued by this mysterious admirer and continued to text with him, apparently for hours.

The anticipation built up in Lauren. She wanted to know who her admirer was. Finally, he invited her to meet at a coffee shop for a blind date. Reportedly, Lauren was somewhat suspicious and took precautions, “including telling all my friends where I was going and letting the barista know I was on a blind date.” Lauren was smart to take these precautions but still excited to be meeting her mysterious, romantic admirer.

She waited at the coffee shop on Valentine’s day for half an hour, but the admirer never showed. Lauren got a text from the admirer a week later, apparently teasing her for being stood up. The identity of this admirer was never revealed. Unfortunately, I suspect this may have been the admirer’s intentions all along. People can be so mean!

2 Not the Valentine She Was Expecting

Our next Valentine’s Day breakup is a short one from CafeMom.com. Unlike many other stories, this one takes place early on Valentine’s Day morning. K.S. recalls that she was dating a new person, and things were going well from her perspective.

The night before Valentine’s Day, the couple slept together for the first time. According to K.S., “It was kind of awkward, like first-time sex can be, but basically okay.” It seems her partner may have had a different perspective. On Valentine’s Day morning, she awoke not to chocolates, roses, and kisses. Instead, she awoke to find a note on her nightstand. She never heard from him again, and the note simply said he “Just wasn’t feeling this.” Ouch! That’s definitely not how Valentine’s Day should be started.

1 Valentine’s Day Confession

Grace from Milwaukee tells us our final heartbreaking Valentine’s Day tale. Seventeen.com shared her story. Grace confessed her love for her best friend on Valentine’s Day. Like all of the other items on our list, this did not go as she hoped.

Her best friend told her several things. First, he told her that he did not share her feelings. Then, he described his feelings for their other mutual friend. He even described her as “hot.” Of course, this left Grace feeling unwanted and rejected.

According to Grace, she was “heartbroken for a long time.” She has dated “some other guy” as a rebound since, but it took a while to recover emotionally. But…doesn’t it make you wonder if her “best friend” was really her friend after all?