I built her name out if Lego’s. It was so dumb and all my friends made fun of me but she loved it.

—TannerTwaggs

4.

Stalked her.

It’s not quite as bad as it sounds because she wasn’t a stranger or a slight acquaintance. I’m not that creepy. In fact, she was my best friend. I was in love with her, but we weren’t dating. And I simply wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.

We were both in grad school, and I knew her class schedule. I didn’t do anything creepy like hack into the school computer to find her records or keep notebooks where I was listing everywhere she went. I just knew—from talking to her and from times we’d arranged to meet after her classes—what her class schedule was and when her classes were over.

So on most days, whenever she came out of a class, there I was, waiting. At the age of 28, I basically carried her books for her, everywhere. She always seemed pleased to have me around, and if I didn’t show up, she would call to ask where I was and if I wanted to hang out, but everyone knew she wasn’t my girlfriend, so there was lots of talk, and I looked ridiculous. Our classmates would point and laugh. Even professors commented. It was a small school and everyone saw I was following her around like a puppy.

I looked like I had absolutely no self-respect, and I guess I didn’t. But I also didn’t care. I just wanted to be with her. I wasn’t trying to seduce her. I didn’t have any goal. I just was spending my time the way I wanted to spend it. (I also … er … might have bought her a guinea pig for Valentine’s Day.)

Over the course of that year, we became closer and closer. We eventually did start dating, moved in together, and, year after that, got married. And we’ve now been a couple for 19 years.

I don’t generally tell this story. I’m not embarrassed by it, but young people see how happy my marriage is and ask me for advice, and I don’t want them to emulate me because I did everything wrong. I did everything you’re not supposed to do. And yet it worked. What can I say? Sometimes the wrong thing does work. Usually, it doesn’t, which is why we call it “the wrong thing.”

Funny thing is, I was recently chatting with a good friend about how our respective marriages started, and I told her my story. She leaned across the table and said, “My husband did the same thing!” So I guess the wrong thing worked twice!

I think the moral is “Don’t be a stalker! But if you insist, make sure you’re stalking someone who likes you and clearly wants to be stalked. And be prepared for sniggers.”

—TaylorKatherine

5.

Climbed a tree. Used it to get onto the roof of the neighbor’s house. My step sister yelled at me to get down while her hot friend stood idly by thinking it was funny.

I started my climb down and a branch broke and I fell some 7 or 9 feet onto a pile of fire wood. I screamed, and laid there for some time, feeling the blood on my back soak through my shirt. I was worried I’d broken my back. I was fine, quite a few cuts and scrapes, no stitches needed.

Still dumb though.

—Remotefeatures

6.

Bought Molly for the both of us, she did hers and then wanted more so I gave her mine and told her not to worry because I had some more. Then paid way too much for one more and snorted it so we could be rolling together but it turns out that my Molly was actually crushed up Adderall.

Rave girls. Never again.

—MajorMustard

7.

Drove 17 hours to the Yukon see her on my days off. Hang out for 5 days or so and then drive 17 hours back home to catch a plane to work. Did this for months. Love makes you do dumb things.

—Madshibs

8.

One night this sequence of events happened over a tumultuous breakup with an ex:

Attacked a guy that she brought to my going away party, got pinned down by my dad and three friends, bit one of them on their calf, faked passing out, jumped the fence saying “Huh-hah!” like a Hanna-Barbara cartoon villain, almost got hit by a car, evaded family pursuit by crawling under cars and stuff, fell asleep in a field until dawn (this is actually how I evaded the police too, they were ~30ft away sweeping the field with their cruiser lights but I just laid down and passed out drunk, (I was wearing a fresh OD green flight suit on a lush green unmowed sports field), let myself into her house because I still knew the garage door code (no one was home), took a shower, read the letters I had written her while softly weeping, then walked home listening to dozens of voicemails of people begging me not to do anything stupid and to just come home. Let my family know I was still alive and went back to sleep for a couple hours. 4 days later I was in Iraq and far removed from any consequences of my insane behavior.

—OMGorilla

9.

I went vegetarian for six months in high school to impress a girl. Looking back I feel like the girl had an agenda and knew I actually wasn’t a vegetarian before we meant and that she was perfectly fine with this since I was now decreasing the amount of meat eaten all the same.

—fuckboy1776

10.

I had a huge crush on my friends older sister, but I wasn’t really going to SAY anything to her about it, so I tied violets from my backyard around the fence between our houses in hopes she’d see them and realize they were for her. In my defense, I was ~12.

—D45_B053

11.

Learned French for one night, or so I thought. Cute girl but didn’t speak a lot of English so drunk me figured I’d use the very basic French I knew and improvise the rest.

Actually went really well for most of the night until it turned out at the end of the night she had a boyfriend but didn’t know how to explain that to me so just didn’t bother.

—FlorissVDV

12.

Moved into her apartment after three months of dating.

We met at a bar one night, and I managed to turn a one-night stand into a relationship. We got on really well, and she was easily the hottest girl I’d been with (until my wife), so I was eager to make things work.

It all moved too fast, and I didn’t pick up on any red flags. We traveled around Europe for short breaks. We talked about our future together all the time. In short, we were pretty enamored with each other. Or so I thought.

My apartment’s lease was due for renewal when she asked if I’d move in with her. After only three months, I thought this was a bit fast, but I have to admit that at the time it seemed like a risk worth taking, especially with the money I would be saving by sharing rental costs (I was barely making ends meet at the time). And hell, we’re both adults, surely if things ended we could do it amicably?

Three months later, she goes on a business trip. Texts me the usual “I miss you” / “I love you” on a daily basis. She gets back and I’ve surprised her for her birthday with a bunch of gifts and a dinner reservation at a top London restaurant. That night she asked me to move out. After ordering the most expensive thing on the menu, of course.

Turned out she cheated on me while she was away and started feeling guilty. I only found out months later because very shortly after moving out she fell seriously ill and her parents asked me to not contact her (they were the ones who actually told me that she wanted to end things – so they broke us up on her behalf). Once she got better, we had a chat and I was finally able to hear the words from her own mouth, although she never admitted cheating on me until I called her on it. There’s a lot more to the story but I don’t want to bore people with the details. It was a pretty messed up situation, and I hated being blindsided like that. There was zero indication that she wasn’t into it anymore.

Anyways, kids, the lesson here is to make sure you know what you’re getting into before you move in with a romantic partner. I’m not saying that you can’t know that within three months, everyone is different after all. That just didn’t work for me in this particular case.

I met my wife just one year after that whole incident so it all worked out for the best in the end :)

—MAD_Saffa

13.

I told her that I thought she was cute and now we don’t talk anymore :(

—PM-ME-YOUR-STOMACH

14.

Changed colleges. Left basically a full ride at a small school (really small, ~250 students per year) for getting out of state tuition waived at a school with 35,000 students.

Still paying for it to this day. Literally. We broke up six months after I moved.

In hindsight, it’s been a financial bitch, but attending a school like that broadened my horizons and social circle immensely. I grew a lot in ways I would not have at the smaller school.

—UnknownQTY

15.

I joined the campus Catholic Ministry and started singing in the church choir at mass.

I don’t even believe in God. She was just really, really hot.

—rawbface

16.

Got my ex to stop smoking, when she broke up with me I started smoking to get back at her. Now I have a habit of smoking. I’m a fucking idiot.

—thekingofdope

17.

I drove drunk when I was 15 to get to a girls house. We had a crazzzzy make out and then I drove back home. On the way home my windshield was super foggy and I didn’t know how to use defrosters. I was probably driving 25 on the freeway.

—BIRCHTREEIII

18.

She “sweet-talked” me into painting the exterior of her parents’ home during a college break. It was a big job, with lots of scraping, sanding, and priming required.

After it was done and looking great, a “For Sale” sign went up and they moved from the east coast to California.

She and her parents never mentioned their plans to move, even though it had been in the works a long time. Instead, they knowingly “used me” to get a free paint job to help sell their house at a higher price.

—Back2Bach