People Share The Dumbest Ways They Tried To Impress A Crush

We’ve all done stupid things in the name of love. Saying “I love you” on a blind date. Pretending you love your crush’s cat, even though you’re deathly allergic. Driving three hours to see your high school girlfriend at her college, even though you’re pretty sure this “Dave” guy is more than just a friend. (For example.)

Unfortunately, just because you did something stupid doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to receive any love out of it. More often than not, our most boneheaded mistakes only result in embarrassment and therapy visits.

Recently, a Reddit user posted a thread asking people to share the dumbest things they’ve ever done in the pursuit of love. The thread got over 15,000 replies, and over 50,000 upvotes. Clearly, love has made a lot of people look foolish. But at least we aren’t alone, right? Right?

1. Dance like no one’s watching. Or maybe just one person watching.

“I was abroad in Dominican Republic, they had a dance competition on a stage, anyone could enter and it had around 200 people watching. I was about 9-10 ish and spotted a cute girl who must’ve been around 14-15… So obviously I decided the best way to get her attention was to get up on stage and dance my heart out. Queue 3 minutes of awkward shuffling, while maintaining constant eye contact with that girl, and horrified/queasy looks from my parents. The coordinator cut me off early by pretending the speaker stopped working. I got a pity clap.” –  SlothWithATopHat

2. The opposite of playing hard to get.

“In high school, a few hours after school was let out, I was talking to this guy I had a crush on when he mentioned he left his Spanish notebook in his locker and had a test the next day. Since it was a regional high school and he was far away and I was close, I offered to help him out. I walked a mile to the school, went to his locker, called him, got the combination, and read 10+ pages from the notebook to him while I sat on the hallway floor and he took notes.” – ExoticaAsstronut

3. Where’s my Pulitzer?

“I lied and said i had experience in journalism (because I didn’t think we’d have anything except a brief encounter) when I’d actually only taken one class in college. Our first date he took me with to report on a local clash between police and citizens and i got tear gassed and robbed.” – throwwawwayy66

4. No good deed goes unpunished.

“I made sure I was the one to return her jacket when she forgot it at school. When I gave it back to her the next morning she blamed me for stealing it, we didn’t end up together.” – remmie538

5. His first and last day as a gymnast.

“I tried to do a backflip. I’ve never actually done a backflip before, not even on a trampoline. I actually would up just jumping backwards and hitting my head hella hard on the ground, and then I woke up and threw up a bunch. If she ever had a thing for me (which all my friends said she did), it was gone that day.

Edit: for everyone worried, I did wind up going to a doctor, he said I was an idiot but that it was a minor concussion and not to worry unless more symptoms(?) started happening, which they didn’t.”

6. He’s street smart, not book smart…actually he’s not very street smart, either.

“When I was 15, I dropped a heavy book on my head. It was this old dictionary: a single volume that was easily 8” thick and probably weighed 15 lbs. I laid down on the floor, held it over my head with my arms fully extended, and dropped it the foot and a half right onto my forehead. I guess I though it would show how tough I was? I was not tough. It sorta worked because I dated her until freshman year of college. But that was likely in spite of my actions and not because of them.” – raymond1138

7. The back slapper.

“Tried to backflip from a 5m diving board, there was no flipping involved, just me falling on my back into a pool from 5m high. Shit didn’t feel good, don’t know which one was more bruised, my back or my ego…” – JayCDee

8. Maybe don’t smoke ’em if you got ’em?

“When I was a teen I took Tae Kwon Do classes and there were 2 beautiful girls around my age. They liked to go and have a smoke behind the mall before class and I wanted to be cool and impress them so I took up smoking too.

It was about 2 weeks in when one girl came to class early so I went and had a smoke with her. Then the next girl came in and wanted to have a smoke, so I went and had another one with her.

When we came back we started doing our warm up laps and I felt very queasy, I had to throw up, so ran outside, right next to the Dairy Queen. I threw up all over the glass wall where the cashiers and several people eating looked on in horror.” – Kelluthus

9. The accidental flasher.

“Getting up from the bleachers to play PE dodgeball, I tried to pull my sweat pants off while yelling “LET’S DO THIS!”

Ended up yanking off everything, boxers and all.” – CopperSmokeClayton

10. Funeral crasher.

“Tried to razor scooter down the steepest hill around. Crashed into the back of a funeral hearse and shattered the back window. There was a body inside and the family was outside waiting to either go to the cemetery or take the coffin inside. I got up, covered in blood and glass, grabbed my scooter and hobbled away to the nearest alleyway.” – brokendew

11. (Almost) lost at sea.

12. The unauthorized home makeover.

“The guy I was seeing went on a vacation with his family for 2 weeks, and I had the key to his place to feed his cat. While he was gone, I painted his bathroom. He thought it was weird, but seemed mostly ok with it.

But it worked…he married me in October.” – cucumberwubwubs

13. BMX Bandit

“I was about 12 years old and riding my bike home from high school when I saw a pack of pretty girls ahead of me, like 5 years older. This stretch of road meant I had to ride on the pavement, so I thought I’d be cool and overtake them by dropping down into the road and then jumping back up the curb once I passed them.

Well, I almost died that day. My determination to impress the girls overtook the part of my brain that deals with logic and I severely miscalculated the jump. I skidded against the curb and it bucked me out in to the middle of the road into oncoming traffic. I scrambled to get back onto the pavement and my bike flew clean off the ground and I was propelled into a bush.

Goal achieved: I overtook the girls. And they did come over to help and called me cute when I started crying, so I took it as a win. Haven’t been on a bike since, though.” – snowdropwrites

14. Uno is the loneliest number.

15. At least this one has a happy ending.

“I bought a hedgehog off someone to give to her, but her parents said no. I ended up keeping him and he was the sweetest boy. Lived for 7 years!” – QuinceyRaistlin

h/t: Bloomjoy Collective

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