Of all the things that can ruin a potential romance, it’s often the little things that matter most. The tiny habits, quirks, or mannerisms that can seem so insignificant at first can slowly drive you to madness and ultimately, break the deal. These little things may seem petty to others, but they can make or break a chance at love. In this article, we explore some of the pettiest reasons why people decided not to pursue a relationship with someone. These stories may seem silly, but they highlight the importance of compatibility and chemistry in a relationship. So, get ready to cringe, laugh, and maybe even relate, as we dive into the little things that killed the chance for romance.
He kept casually mentioning a friend at work whom he very proudly and smugly called his work wife. He always referred to her as that in subsequent conversations. I got a pretty good idea that if we ever became an item I would always be second to this work wife. You might call me paranoid or jealous, but I noped out of that sh*t pretty fast.
This girl always answered the phone with, “Hi what’s wrong?”
Nothing is wrong, Samantha. I’m just calling you to see if you want to hang out/say hi/ask if you wanna get food/etc. She would always be down to hang out after the initial what’s wrong, but for some reason, it just irrationally bugged the sh*t out of me.
We were taking a train to Cornwall for a long weekend with some work friends. I found an Ad Libs book on a seat so I decided to give it a go.
“Give me a verb”, I said.
“What’s a verb?”, she replied.
Couldn’t imagine getting her pregnant by accident and being stuck with her in my life in some way for decades. I ended the relationship after that weekend.
I met this dude on Match, and we talked on the phone several times before meeting in person. I actually really liked the guy and was looking forward to our date. We agreed to meet at this romantic Italian restaurant and I was pumped. I know it sounds stupid or TMI or whatever but I had fapped to this guy’s picture for a while and was pretty excited that the real deal might be happening…
Fast forward to the weekend…We met outside the restaurant and before we walked in he gave me a hug… And it was then that I realized that something was off. I couldn’t figure it out. He was clean and nicely dressed. Great smile… not a catfish! I tried to shake it off and not let on that something was bothering me. I chalked it up to nerves.
We sat down and I ordered some spaghetti and we were having a fairly nice conversation when it hit me. He used the same cologne as my brother. And that was that. Super attractive guy one minute, and the next he was in the barf zone. I literally puked in my mouth a bit trying to get…. the scenario… out of my head. It didn’t help that he turned out to also be of similar size and stature.
I was really honest and apologetic with him and ended up leaving dinner early. I paid for my meal (and his, because I felt so awful) and went home. He was visually upset and messaged me for about a week requesting a do-over, saying he could wear something else, but I just couldn’t get over it.
Because she decided to start a gluten-free, vegetarian, lactose-free, and alcohol-free diet for the year right as we went on our first date… at a nice sports bar known for their pizzas.
If we have known each other for a bit and were already invested, that would be great. However, I just felt that that was too soon for me to have to deal with that, especially on the first date.
This girl was beautiful, driven, and intelligent; we got along well. She was perfect, except that she would snap her fingers whenever someone would say something she liked. Every conversation is peppered with snaps. She’d do it instead of applauding at concerts too. Eventually, I realized that this couldn’t be my life.
There was a girl I’d known for a while and flirted with a little in college when one day it dawned on me just how similar she was to my sister. I couldn’t unsee it and immediately stopped being attracted to her. We’re still friends, though.
He kept opening doors for me. I was not allowed to get out of the car until he opened the door. I couldn’t go into a restaurant until he opened the door. It got old real fast. I have opposable thumbs. I am capable of opening doors.
I went on a first date with a guy who worked in HR and he literally interviewed me like it was a job (and it was not a joke) “So, tell me about two of your hobbies and how do you think they would work with my hobbies. What activities would you take me out to entertain me? and so on. After telling him thank you for your consideration but that I don’t feel we were right for each other and that I would contact him later I left. 2 years later saw him posting about being sad cause he wanted a boyfriend and couldn’t find one, was tempted to comment: maybe do some outsourcing for the selection process?
This insanely beautiful redhead in my college kept trying to talk to me after she met me at an art club event I set up. One of my friends said she liked me and wanted my phone number, so we talked and exchanged numbers. Then she started getting weird and playing games like she wanted me to chase her to date her instead of just getting together. After a few weeks of dealing with that, I gave up on that because I didn’t wanna chase her around after she approached me.
Then a week later I hooked up with a cute Latin girl who gave me her number, asked me to hang out with her that night, and planned a bunch of fun stuff for us to do. Redhead got upset I wasn’t trying to get with her anymore and found out about me and the other girl when she saw us together on campus.
He liked cooking for others so much that I literally never had a chance to just chill and eat my hummus alone in bed, nooo, I had to save my appetite for some fancy creation dish and eat it in front of him so he could watch my reaction to how good it was.
This is an undermentioned pitfall of dating a roommate. Do not recommend it. Luckily it was just temporary housing for me.
Asked me if I was ok too much. And yes, I am well aware of how that sounds but legit! it was two months of “morning! You ok? Having breakfast, you ok? That film rocked, you ok?”… He’d ask me it incessantly, text me it, leave me post-its with “you ok? Miss you” on them. I tried so hard because he was so genuinely sweet, I asked him nicely to stop, and we had whole conversations about it, and there was no underlying reason – he just “‘likes to make sure I’m ok”. I counted once for the heck of it because he didn’t think he said it that much, so I bought a clicker and tallied it on a random day. It was more than 100 times in a 24-hour period. It got to the point where it was “you ok? No you’re not you’re mad at me, why are you mad at me”
IM MAD AT YOU BECAUSE FOR TWO MONTHS I HAVE HEARD SO MANY U’S O’S AND K’S I WANT A 23-LETTER ALPHABET PLEASE JUST STOP ASKING ME IF IM OK FOR FIVE GODD*MN MINUTES
He referenced memes in daily life. He’s not natively English so he doesn’t get that the neckbeardy culture is something you want to avoid. He called my dog a doge, called me m’lady and just always says stuff like “awesome level over 1000!!!” He also thinks that “being random” is a good compliment to give someone. It sucked because he used to be hot and now all I see is an oblivious Reddit stereotype. I also tried to fix him but it didn’t work so hopefully he’ll just find a nice equally oblivious german girl who will think he’s “random and funny”.
I had this girlfriend who was beautiful and very artsy. She seemed really cool too. She was always talking about her artwork and seemed super passionate. Honestly, I was really attracted to that passion, talent, creativity, etc.
She was a SUPER headache to deal with in general, but I would just tell myself “she’s an artist. what did I expect? Anyway, one day she’ll make something brilliant and all the hassles will be worth it.”
Then a few months into dating, she had a big art show. The first time I would truly get to see her work in all its glory. When the show finally happened, the art was so embarrassingly bad that I couldn’t believe it. I mean it was f*cking wretched, lazy and completely devoid of any redeeming qualities. Even her friends that were there turned to me and said things like “man, this is not art”. I wish I could describe it, but I know she’s a Redditor and I don’t want to put her publicly for being such a hack.
Honestly, it wouldn’t have bothered me so much if she hadn’t acted like a complete diva the entire time. Basically treated me like her assistant all day. Then at the end of the day, there was a big cocktail party for all the “artists” involved and she sort of floated around the room dressed up like a crappy Marylin Monroe and acting fancy.
After the party, I dumped her. I guess now that I’ve explained it, it’s not that petty. I always felt bad for doing it on her “big day” because I thought she was a sh*tty artist, but I just had an overwhelming sense of not being attracted to this person anymore. Maybe also that I had been tricked a bit. She didn’t give a sh*t about making art. She just liked the attention that goes along with it and having a license to act like a diva.
I went on a date with an attractive man, who gave me an amazing kiss at the end but it really bugged me that he described his weekend plans as “daddy daycare” because his kids were staying. I didn’t mind that he had kids, or that they came on alternate weekends. It was just that phrase REALLY irritated me. That and he remarked that dinner was expensive – this was despite the fact I said I’d go halves and he was the one that had ordered a starter and a pudding as well as a main. Those two things were the sole reason I didn’t see him again.
I broke up with an ex-girlfriend because she went to a car dealership without me or her dad with her and bought a junk car for way too much money. I didn’t want my bank account anywhere near that kind of stupid.
You know how some people will drive in the exit-only lane of the highway because traffic is moving faster, then they get out at the last second, cutting in line and nearly causing a wreck? She was driving and she did that, and I pointed out that it was kind of a d*ck move, and she responded that she does it every day on the way to work. That was the moment I realized she thought she was the center of the universe and the relationship wasn’t going to work.
She was TOO good-natured and sweet. We’re talking volunteering, church-fearing, love everyone, total sweetheart kind of a person. I couldn’t handle it.
I knew I’d shatter that girl’s heart faster than a bull in a china shop. Hopefully, she found someone nice!
When I met him he was wearing a visor. When he picked me up for our first date he was wearing a visor. We went to dinner at a nice restaurant and he just looked ridiculous. The more I looked at it the more I wondered if he just always wore one. I couldn’t let it go.
Went to dinner with a guy and when the bill came around, he took out his phone to figure out 20% of the bill. The bill was $40. He was an accountant with a finance degree. I knew it wasn’t going to work out.
I don’t know if it’s petty but at the end of a date with a guy, he started telling me about his family and then began crying about his traumatic upbringing. In hindsight, I am glad he felt comfortable with me but it just wasn’t the time and place. It was awkward as I barely knew him prior to this. I was only 19/20 years old and it just seemed a bit much for me on a first date. I wasn’t prepared to play therapist on the second one so there wasn’t one lol.
He was super late. He told me work had overrun as I was on my way to meet him, so I said it was fine and I’d just grab a drink and wait for him to show. What wasn’t fine was him thinking he could keep me waiting a bit longer still and go to the supermarket to buy some milk and a paper! He turned up to our date with a bright orange carrier bag containing said milk and paper and to add insult to injury – looked NOTHING like his pictures!
She once told me that she was super insecure about the space between her eyes. She thought they were too far apart. I laughed and assured her that they were not and that she was being silly.
Only, she sort of wasn’t. After she told me, that’s literally all I could see. Her eyes were further apart than average. Most people have one eye length’ish between their eyes. She must’ve had like 3’ish 4’ish?
I can’t say that was the only reason why we broke up. But when people ask, I always say it’s because we couldn’t see eye to eye.
Back in my early 20s I dated this girl for a while, we got set up by a mutual friend and things started off just fine. She was the really sweet and pretty girl-next-door type. She came from a religious family and at first everything was cool and totally normal.
After a few of months, and after letting her guard down I suppose, she started to let things slip in passing that, in hindsight, should’ve been red flags. She never really said or did anything too overtly offensive, off-putting, bigoted, or anything like that but more so just made passive-aggressive judgments; I guess I just chalked it up to her sarcastic sense of humor. Ex.: She’d say stuff passing people off as a bunch of sinners for not believing in God but would say she was just joking around and my young and dumbass self believed her.
Anyway, this went on for a while and the sarcasm started to wear thin and I was having a hard time justifying staying with her. Finally one night we were going to a movie and went to pick up snacks. I picked up a couple of boxes of Skittles and that’s when she gave me the final nail in that relationship’s coffin.
She gave a shocked ugh kind of a sound and went from chill to hostile and said “What are you doing? We can’t have those.” Totally confused at the sudden jump in a tone I asked her why not and she said “That candy’s the devil’s candy.”
Obviously, I had missed something since I never knew tasty fruit chews were from Beelzebub himself. For the next 10 minutes of waiting for the movie to start, she explained how because they’re poor and unhealthy imitations of good and nutritious food it was a mockery of God. Or something.
Ok. Sure.
Cue the movie and a quiet ride back to her place to drop her off where I told her it wasn’t really gonna work out. On my way home I stopped and got a big ol bag of that forbidden fruit to stuff my face with and never saw her again.
Every time I have some now I can’t help but think of her and chuckle at my evil ways.
I don’t mean like she just played with her cat a lot. I mean every time there was a lull in conversation she’d pull out her phone and show everyone pictures like it was a newborn.
“Isn’t she so amazing!?”
I can only feign enthusiasm so many times.
She also became jealous when she returned from a trip to find that her cat loved her roommate, who had been taking care of the cat for her while she was gone.
He sent me his resume and cover letter to proofread and he insisted on using “&” instead of “and” throughout the cover letter because it was “faster” not to read the two extra letters. During the five minutes it took to talk him out of it, my ladyb*ner died.
Was giving her a lift back to her place after our second date, The radio was on and apparently, she really wanted to hear whatever they were saying so she very sharply and suddenly shushed me as I was mid-sentence.
He was too immature. Like when he talked about sex, first off, he had discussed these things with his mom, and told me “Mom says we need to keep a helmet on Willy since we are still in school.” I was a senior, he was a junior but only 8 months younger than I. Needless to say, we did not have sex. Fun fact, I saw him about 8 months after he graduated and he was married with a 10-month-old daughter. Wonder how Mom felt about that.
He incorrectly told me I mispronounced Ip Man when we were talking about the trilogy of movies. He had a very condescending laugh coupled with “Oh sweetie, it’s so cute you said it wrong. It’s Eye Pee man” I kept saying nope it’s pronounced like Yip Man (mun) as he clearly says it in the movies repeatedly. “Oh I didn’t watch the Japanese version, I saw the dub.” Some sh*t like that. For some reason it reeeeeally pissed me off the way he went about it. He made me feel like an idiot talking to me like a little girl when he was actually in the wrong. Petty? Sure as f*ck.
In high school, I was dating a girl that was just from an all-around rude family. I made sure to greet her twin sister in the hallway whenever I saw her, but she never once responded. The girl herself was worse; she thought it was ‘cute’ to call me names and hit me. Generally little taps, but she’d put some sting into it at times. I’m a big guy with little self-esteem, so I put up with it for a month or so. Then, one day, we were eating lunch together. I was silently chewing my food and staring off into space as she was sitting next to me, just listing off all the flaws she could think of because she thought it was funny to mock people. I tuned most of it out until I caught the phrase ‘…And you suck at Pokemon, too.’
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I do NOT suck at Pokemon. I played my older brother’s copy of Pokemon yellow religiously before I could read. I haven’t missed a single generation. I am a d*mn fine pokemon trainer, and I knew it. I also knew that I needed to end this abusive relationship.
So I broke up with her over Pokemon. I stood up at that moment, knowing I’d never have another chance to do something this petty and silly, and said ‘No, YOU suck at Pokemon. We’re done.” I took my tray, dumped my food, left the cafeteria, and never spoke to her again.
He wouldn’t tell me when he wanted to do something.
He asked me out on a date but didn’t give specifics. I said OK, we set a time. Asked me where I wanted to go for dinner, we went to my favorite place and it had a wait. Asked if waiting was OK? He said sure. So we ate and went home.
I later found out through a friend that he had gotten surprise movie tickets to see My Neighbor Totoro. We missed the showing because he didn’t tell me he had tickets. He never told me… just her a month or so later. I called and yelled at him then broke up with him. All he had to do was tell me we had time-specific plans!
I was dating a girl for 4 years, we had moved in together and I was on the verge of proposing. She had dropped out of college before I met her and I helped her and myself get back in after we both had a stint of just working to save money. Well, about a month in, after she got her financial aid, she dropped out because she was getting promoted at McDonald’s from $9/hr to $9.25/hr to be a shift supervisor. She thought that was a better trade than school. Dumped her pretty quickly after that.
That was almost 7 years ago. She still works at McDonald’s as a shift supervisor. She probably makes 11.50/hr here in California.
I went on a trip to the UK and my then-girlfriend wrote me a ‘love letter’ for every day I would be gone. They were dated and sealed so I had one to open every morning.
Ordinarily, this would be sweet and heart-warming, except that she obviously didn’t put any time, thought, or effort into it. Each page was written in her grossly inconsummate chicken scratch handwriting and filled with horrendous grammar, egregious spelling mistakes, and severe, unsightly corrections. She even misspelled ‘Monday’ and wrote bizarrely wrong dates on each of them. She was 20 years old and had just transferred to UCLA so there was no excuse.
I cannot begin to imagine what was going through her head when she was ‘drafting’ them. I felt sick after I read the first few, flipped through the others, and then immediately threw them away so I didn’t have to carry them with me. I was finally able to recognize all of the other red flags that had been waving since I met her and broke up with her by email as soon as I had an internet connection again.
She went on a tirade about how domesticated cats have caused the extinction of so many species.
We had been talking about our pets and I told her about the time my family watched our cat stalk and kill a bird. She got very upset and launched a ten-minute verbal assault on pet cats and the people who own them. At the end of her rant, she said something along the lines of, “I feel very strongly about this,” and I said, “This is why I can’t be with you any more.”
She left and threatened to kill herself, saying she was speeding home to down a couple of bottles of pills or crash her car. I stayed on the phone with her for a long time, then told her I had to go. She responded with, “Well, I’ve been in your apartment’s parking lot the whole time.”
A month ago this really cute girl was interested in going on a date. She was a great person but I didn’t want to date her because my musical tastes contrast sharply with hers. I listen to rock/metal and hardcore hip-hop. She listens to only Top 40 and pop rap. Really doesn’t like rock music.
A few weeks later a friend of mine accidentally told her that I wasn’t interested because she was musically different from me. She now thinks I’m shallow and weird. Can’t say I blame her. I know now not to judge a person solely on their musical tastes.
We sat down to watch a horror movie I had been talking about and she was making stupid comments and predictions the entire. F*cking. Time. Like “Oh, that’s so stupid. Why would they do that? Why are they doing that?” gets explained on-screen” oh okay.” And then just kept on doing it. The whole movie.
That might sound dumb, but movies are my absolute FAVORITE thing, and I wasn’t about to go in on someone who’s going to spend the entirety of one talking, especially when it was set up as “Man I love this movie so much and I really want you to watch it because I think you’ll like it.”
Do you remember that episode from Friends when Chandler dumped a girl because of her big head (iirc s2ep3) after someone mentions that she had a giant head (which Chandler did not notice until that moment)? Well, heck, that’s me.
Met a nice, cute girl and we spent some dates together. Then my parents want to look at her picture and I showed them some of her Instagram photos. For a couple of seconds, there was silence, but then they say that she’s got a giant jaw. No, she’s not – I said. Yes, she is, sweetie, – they say and leave my room. I was angry at first but at that moment I realized that she really has a big jaw indeed.
When we met after that I tried not to think about her jaw but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even kiss her again and had to leave early.
At least I learned that I won’t show a pic of a girl that I’m dating to my parents for at least 4-5 dates.
She was super cute but had a space of a dead tooth in between her front two teeth. It was hard to see, just looked like a light grayish spot in between them.
Anytime I kissed her, she pressed those stank teeth against my upper lip, and it immediately made my upper lip smell like dog sh*t.
Once we were at the zoo and her gums started bleeding spontaneously. I was like “oh shoot, I think your gums are bleeding..” and she’s like “oh yeah… that happens. I have sensitive gums” and I casually ask her when she’s been to the dentist last and she tells me “I don’t know it’s been forever lol”
I tried telling her that I really liked her, and I was concerned about her health and said I would even help pay for her dentist visit…. she said she could get dental insurance through her work. I asked why she didn’t apply for benefits and she just shrugged and smiled. I said I would sit down with her and help her apply for the benefits and she was like Nah, I’ll do it eventually…
She just didn’t give a f*ck about her nasty stank teeth so I dipped out.
I met a girl once who was really into me. Then she finds me on myspace and I realize we have the same last name. It’s not a super common last name. The only people I’ve ever met with it are either not the same race as me or are related to me. She realized it too at that point and sent me an IM explaining that her dad whose last name she has is actually her step-dad, he married her mom when she was like two years old. Her biological dad was a piece of sh*t and her step-dad was more of a dad to her than he’d ever been, so when she was like twelve or so and old enough to understand he adopted her and she changed her last name. Really a pretty awesome thing to do. But it turned out that her dad was like a third or fourth cousin of my dad or something. She was still into me, we weren’t actually related or anything, and it made sense. We really did have personalities that sort of complemented one another and got each other’s jokes and stuff. I just couldn’t get past the name though. We were friends all through college but kinda lost touch after graduation. But we never dated, too weird for me.
I had this classmate in college who I got along with really well, and we used to talk all the time before & after class.
At the end of the semester, we were talking about grabbing dinner later that night, and I went to give her a hug. We’d never been closer than a couple of feet.
She had giant pores. They were so big, it looked like her face was made of pixels.
It freaked me out for a second. She saw I was weirded out for a second.
She constantly invented text shorthand, which did the opposite of what it was supposed to do when everyone had to ask her what the f*ck she was talking about. She was noticeably annoyed when anyone asked what her initialisms meant.
Actual example: “ya lol.. hey hmufl”
That meant “hit me up for lunch” to only one person on the planet.
She’s a saint. Works 3 jobs because she’s got friends at each and can’t bear to quit. She’s also a volunteer for a bunch of different causes/organizations.
Really nice girl. The sort that you could trust with anything and know that if anything went wrong with your trust she’d feel as bad or worse than you did.
BIG boobs, in fact, she had to cut back on running because her boobs were hurting her back. The missing exercise wasn’t hurting her figure much!
I loved making her laugh but when I’d say something really charming she’d give me this smile, that I can only describe as a ‘derpy cow’, and the mole on her cheek would waggle a bit in a really distracting and unpretty way.
She was literally too pretty for me. I had the biggest crush on her during high school and for good reason too; she was absolutely gorgeous. We became close during college, but I just did not want to have to deal with worrying about guys hitting her up or trying to get at her. Guys would literally make comments to her right in front of me when we were together. She was a great person and fun to be around but I was just too petty ever want to deal with that.
She is insanely loud. I’m not talking about how she talks. When she’s eating, you can hear her across the room. When she is drinking, even just a sip, it’s like she’s gulping down an entire gallon after being dehydrated for 3 days. She breathed so loud it sounded like she just ran a marathon, but not in a gasping way, she was just super freaking loud. I couldn’t stand it, it was driving me insane. I didn’t tell her any of this because it would have ruined her self-esteem, so o just said we weren’t working out. But I’ve never seen someone be so loud in every single thing they do!
Too much, too soon. Second “date” he wanted some help with his boat. Didn’t tell me it was at his mother’s house and I’d be meeting her. Then we drove down to the coast on a Saturday. He happened to mention that we’d be driving by his father’s house and should “pop in.” I mentioned that meeting someone’s parents can be a significant thing to people and he agreed that I should have been given notice. He buys me an expensive (albeit nice) leather and canvas gym bag the next time I see him. It was really awkward and unnecessary. I think he was trying to show off (he was pretty well off) or be a bit controlling and I wasn’t into it at all.
We saw the movie “I love you man” with Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. At the end of the movie, I was talking about how funny it was, how awesome Jason Segel and Paul Rudd are, and how much of a good time I had.
The girl said she didn’t “get it”
I asked her what she didn’t get, it was a comedy, not a science fiction film deep-rooted in some complicated mythos.
She said she didn’t find it funny.
I thought back and realized she didn’t laugh once during the whole movie.
He had a crazy, ridiculous, terrible, really long name and mentioned that he had his heart set on having a junior. When I asked if he was joking, he said he was not, and that I had no choice in the matter because every man is entitled to name a son after himself if he wants to. Turned out I did have a say in the matter since I was under no obligation to have his babies at all.
He had the worst shoes ever. I was 19, he was 23, head over heels, very much in love, lots of chemistry, sparks and everything. On date 4, or maybe 5, he had such ugly and dirty shoes on, I just couldn’t believe my eyes, it was so nasty. All the butterflies in my stomach just died on the spot. He figured something was wrong, but I couldn’t straight up tell him what was the problem. I broke up, saying I met someone else.
She didn’t know how to cut an onion. Just cut it all haphazardly, and the end result would be lots of sniffling and tears (from the onion) and woefully uneven knife cuts.
I gently offered to teach her (“Oh, hey, I know a way to get your food to cook more evenly and to reduce the chance of crying, mind if I show you?”).
Through snot and tears: “Nah, I’m pretty sure my way will be better anyway.”
I couldn’t stand watching her butcher another vegetable so eventually broke up with her. Prime pettiness.
