You can travel many ways: solo, with a friend, with your whole family. But the best way to do it is with that special someone. What could be more romantic than exploring the globe together, hand in hand?
On the other hand, when travel and romance combine, there’s always the potential for things to go very wrong — throwing the relationship into chaos, snuffing it out, or at least landing you in the doghouse for a couple days.
From dropped reservations to virus-infested cruise ships to honeymoons gone wrong to cheating partners overseas… here are the best vacation romance disaster stories from all around the world.
42. Delhi belly
I’m currently on my honeymoon in Delhi, India, and we are from Northern Ireland so not exactly used to the cuisine. My new wife was just sick at the side of the road, and it’s my birthday.
41. Monkey business
40. The happiest place on earth
My parents got into a huge fight and decided they wanted a divorce on the second day of a week long vacation at Disney World. It was the most awful week of my life.
39. Dumped by text… while he’s sitting next to you
We dated for four years. We went to the beach with my family that weekend, and all drove in the same car. Me and him rode in the back seat on the way home and I fell asleep on his shoulder. I woke up to a text from him saying he was dumping me…
So not only did we treat this guy to a free vacation, he had the audacity to dump me while I was asleep, through a text, in front of my parents, while we were all trapped in a car for the next 3 hours.
Looking back it was hilarious, but I definitely didn’t think so at the time.
38. Love and worms
The trip was great for me, and everyone else involved until the end. Went to Jamaica with a 40+ person wedding party. Beautiful ceremony, super romantic, lots of love, blah blah blah.
When we got back to the States people started texting in circles that everyone had HOOK WORMS in their feet and legs. Only about 5 people didn’t get them and I was one of the lucky few. Some people had the hook worms travel all the way to their knees.
37. Freaks and Greeks
When I was seventeen and graduating high school, I knew my relationship with my girlfriend wasn’t going to last when I went to college, we weren’t compatible enough. We had a senior trip to Europe scheduled together and I didn’t want to break up before the trip and have it be awkward. So I waited until the end of the trip, and planned to break up with her when we got back to the US.
Well, turns out she was having the same thoughts, except she broke up with me in the Athens airport.
We had assigned seats and got to sit next to each other in silence for the next fourteen hours.
36. Good thing you didn’t buy a real Ferrari
I was 16 and totally head over heels for my best friend since I was 8.
He felt the same way, we long-distance dated for about 8 months. Before going on a trip to Italy, I call him and he seems distant on the phone.
I chalk it up to stress or whatever and go to Italy promising to bring him back something great.
I spend the whole trip wearing the gaudy dolphin necklace he gave me and spent an insane amount of money on a Ferrari remote controlled car at the Ferrari HQ.
I come back from my trip, call his house, and his dad answers. I ask to speak to my boyfriend, and he says, “Oh, he told everyone you guys broke up before your trip”. I gave the car to my little cousin.
35. Thrown from the rollercoaster
My boyfriend and I were long distance. I paid for him to fly down and visit me for two weeks. On the second or third day of his visit, my grandfather passed away.
I was an emotional wreck. The next day he broke up with me on account of me being an emotional rollercoaster, then got mad when I said he couldn’t stay with me the rest of the visit.
He then claimed he didn’t mean what he’d said about breaking up, then broke up with me again as soon as he was back home.
34. If she won’t marry you there, she won’t marry you anywhere
A friend of mine takes his live-in girlfriend to Greece for vacation.
On the beach one day, he pulls out a ring and asks her to marry him. She tells him not to be so silly, she’s never going to marry him and tells him to put the ring away so they could enjoy their vacation.
He sat on beach with her for two more weeks before flying back home.
That’s when they finally broke up.
33. Dumped for a baby
My girlfriend of two years and I lived together and everything. She convinced me that I should quit my job because I hated it even though I had crushing student loan debt.
She buys me tickets to Voodoo Fest in New Orleans for my birthday.
Instead of it being a romantic vacation for two it turns into me, her, her roommate from college, her brother, best friend from high school, best friend’s cousin, and roommate’s boyfriend. Once in New Orleans, I run out of money very quickly and she dumps me on Bourbon Street.
Instead of letting me spend the night in the hotel that we were all staying at, she graciously let me sleep in the car. Then I get to ride back nine hours to Austin in a car with her best friend from high school, the cousin, and her brother.
Now she’s married to her best friend’s cousin (the one that went with us). Did I mention that the best friend and cousin were billionaire trust fund babies?
32. You cruise you lose
I came back from a cruise. Everything’s normal between me and my girlfriend. We tell each other how much we missed each other while I was gone and all that mushy stuff.
About three days after I got back we were talking on Facebook messenger and I decided to click on her profile and look at her pictures.
I noticed that she had apparently entered a relationship with some other guy on the day I left. Unsurprisingly, she ended up cheating on that guy, too.
31. We’re over, happy birthday
My ex and I went to Thailand together for a two-week trip around the country (after being together over a year). This was also a sort-of birthday present for me as it was right before my 20th birthday.
On the third day he confessed that he didn’t love me anymore and realized it a month before the trip but couldn’t tell me, and didn’t want to be with me anymore. The trip was non-refundable. I had to get a new bloody passport and take two weeks off work, and it was HIS IDEA!
It was miserable and humiliating. I drank a lot. Instead of going home with me at the end of the trip, he stayed and partied with some of his friends who conveniently showed up, and slept with random girls.
My birthday was terrible and then I had to explain everything to my friends and parents when I got back. I cried for weeks.
30. The beginning is the end
My ex-wife and I were on our week-long honeymoon in Jamaica.
She told me the second night there that when we got back home she wanted to see other people. We definitely could’ve used the $15,000 from the wedding and honeymoon on something better.
29. You shoulda said so before we bought a house
We were dating for four years and lived together for three.
I got into school about three hours away and we decided it’d be best if I moved temporarily. Everything was normal. One weekend I drove to see him and we put an offer on a house that we had been looking at and picked out floor samples.
One week later he goes on a business trip and says that he “realizes our whole relationship is a lie” because he never ever wants to get married. He gets together with a woman he met at the hotel bar, then called me up and told me.
I’m pretty sure there were better ways of handling that.
28. Couch surfing solo
I was going to college in Michigan. She was going to college in North Carolina.
We started dating in the fall and we decided that I should fly out and spend Thanksgiving with her and her family. Thanksgiving break comes and I fly out to Greensboro, North Carolina.
I get to the airport and she’s not there. I call her up and she says she couldn’t make it, but to meet her at the college. I spend what little money I had and take a taxi.
The taxi driver was really nice and didn’t charge me full price, at least.
So I get to the campus and she meets me at the square.
We go back to her dorm and she has to sneak me in because it’s a female-only dorm. Once we get to her room she promptly breaks up with me.
I spend the next couple of days holed up in her dorm room because I’ve got no way to go anywhere else. After a couple of days, she has her new boyfriend give me a ride to my friend’s house. I spent Thanksgiving bouncing from couch to couch until the day of my flight.
27. Of course his name is Blake
My wife and I had a ship cabin next to a couple that was on their honeymoon (coincidentally, we were on ours as well).
The first two days went well enough, I suppose.
They, as expected, were inseparable. At some point on day 3, though, they got into a very loud fight and proceeded to continue their fight, very loudly, for the next day.
By day 5, he was sleeping in a different cabin. On the last night, they were back to quietly hooking up and watching DVDs. I don’t know if that boded well for their relationship, but best of luck to Tiffany and Blake.
26. That’s truly horrifying
My dad and his first wife had a nice honeymoon at some fancy resort. Apparently, 5 years later on their anniversary they went back to rekindle the romance and booked the same room. They requested some raunchy VHS tapes to get them in the mood. As they popped one in, they couldn’t help but feel that the room in the video was a bit… familiar, shall we say?
Unbelievably, it was the very room they were in, albeit decorated differently. It didn’t take long for them to realize that the people doing their thing on the videotape were actually them and the whole video had been filmed by a hidden camera.
This is all true. There was a lawsuit, and people at the hotel were fired. Unfortunately for me and my trust fund there wasn’t a major payout as it was the 70’s and people weren’t as litigious back then.
25. A honey moon screwup that works out for the best
After little sleep on our wedding night we head out about noon to drive to Bodega Bay, five hours away.
We had no hotel reservations for the night. Wait, what? You need hotel reservations? Actually, we had none for the whole week. I’d been left in charge of that. Oops.
We hit Bodega Bay as the sun dropped into the Pacific. It looked so big on the map. Figured there had to be a bunch of motels. Nope.
On we drive. The sun has set. It’s growing dark. Highway 1 is desolate. We drive for a while hoping to see any sign of civilization. Now dark, off in the distance, I see lights. The only lights anywhere.
As we get close we see it’s a rustic but beautiful hotel overlooking the ocean. We go inside and explain our pathetic situation.
The manager says, “How about the Honeymoon Suite? It’s available”.
“I’m not sure we can afford it,” I respond.
“Oh, it’s empty tonight. Just pay the regular room price,” he continued.
“Ok, sounds great”.
When we went to our room a chilled bottle of bubbly was ready for us on on the dresser. A wedding gift from the manager.
And after that the honeymoon just got better. Even the adventure of another week of finding hotels.
Don’t you love serendipity?
24. Thanks for visiting, I’m cheating
My girlfriend was studying abroad. Went to visit her after several months saving to be able to buy a plane ticket. Arrived and she almost immediately told me that she has someone else.
Ticket of course was non-refundable (cheapest) so I had to spend 5 days completely heartbroken in a city I didn’t know filled with people whose language I didn’t speak and without the means to get home.
Freaking worst week of my life.
23. Let’s begin our 7-hour flight with a breakup
Timing is everything! A cousin of mine flew to Italy for a 6 week trip (with his girlfriend who was living there at the time), their plan was to travel and hike all around Europe and finally meet her entire family in Spain for a rather grand festival. He broke up with her as soon as he arrived on the plane…
And they then proceeded to go on their trip! He said that it was rough, and that there was a lot of crying (he seemed very surprised at this).
We don’t see eye to eye on many things.
22. The barf cruise
My wife and I took a transatlantic cruise back from the Mediterranean to the US on board a Holland America ship, because we thought it might be more romantic and fun that just flying back. A chance to reconnect.
As we were boarding we were given notice that there was some kind of severe sickness on the previous cruise with lots of vomiting, basically the whole ship had become a vomitorium. Elevators, hallways, walls, everywhere. Most of the amenities were shut down, including laundry facilities.
There were notices that also said the ship was being “deep cleaned” to remove the virus or germs, or whatever the issue was, but I didn’t really see many signs of that, as our room was pretty filthy. There was a layer of grime on the phone that made it look like it was never washed, the sheets looked dirty and stained, and that bathroom was mildew city. We immediately made demands to have the room cleaned again, and it wasn’t much better.
After a two days on the ship, we started to hear about people getting sick on the cruise, and being quarantined in their quarters. I even saw fresh vomit in the hall. We were still traveling around the coast of Eurpoe, and were at a port in Spain when we decided to just bail out of the rest of the cruise, take the loss, and fly back home instead anyway.
What a romantic cruise.
21. Don’t cheat on this guy
I work for an airline and I heard that this guy I work with found out that his girlfriend was cheating on him. He told her that he wanted to go on vacation and they flew to Japan. They checked into the hotel, then he waited for her to fall asleep and went back to the airport cancelled her ability to use his discount and then flew back. Leaving her stranded in Tokyo with no money.
20. You’re still paying for my trip, right?
I went to visit my girlfriend who was on a year abroad in Paris. We wanted to take a couple weeks to travel around Europe.
She gave me a cool reception on arrival and seemed to have business to attend to. I was perplexed but killed some time by taking a walk in Paris.
On my walk I was lucky enough to see her walking hand in hand with some guy. I was so stunned that I just went back to the hotel and when she came back and I asked her what was going on, she proceeded to say she was seeing this guy and was breaking up with me.
The whole trip was arranged, all my money was paying for both of our fares, rental cars, lodging etc. And she still expected to go on the trip.
19. We’re bad but we’re good together
One time my wife and I went on vacation to a scenic coastal town and got absolutely hammered together. Our hotel was in a walking distance so we went back after our shenanigans. We both hopped in the shower together and I sat on the floor because I wasn’t feeling well.
I jokingly said that she should help me throw up and without missing a beat, she shoved her finger down my throat and I threw up all over both of us.
Best place to be at that moment was the shower so it all worked out. We’re bad but we’re good together.
18. “What followed was six months of a living nightmare”
My ex-husband (he was a widower) had a very abusive stepmom growing up and I guess he didn’t want the same thing happening with his kids.
He told me on the way home from our honeymoon that I was never to interact with his kids, ever. I was just going to be his wife and nothing more. If I had anything to say to them, I was to tell him.
I should have left then, but I didn’t. What followed was six months of a living nightmare. If I so much as looked at any of his kids, he would explode at me.
The worst part is they think the divorce is their fault.
17. Lost the girl and the best friend
I met my first girlfriend when I was 16, and we were together until we were 18 years old. We organized a trip with our mutual friends, and rented a little apartment for three weeks by the sea.
We were about 5 guys and two or three girls.
Five days before the end of the vacation, she tells me she “Only came here to see if I had to break up with you or not”, and left me.
In those 5 days, she slept with my best friend and they didn’t even try to hide it. It was really bad, because I had to wait for my flight, and I had to live FIVE days in the same house as my ex-girlfriend and my ex-friend.
16. Who falls in love with a math tutor?
I started dating a girl during college. I met her when I was a senior in high school and she was a foreign exchange student.
Well she obviously had to go back home to Germany so our relationship kind of ended there but we decided to try the long distance thing while I was in college.
It was going great and I would talk to her everyday.
I made plans to fly to Germany to go see her for two weeks.
We were both excited to see each other again and planned on moving our relationship forward. Fast forward. I arrive in Germany and things are going well.
On the THIRD day of my TWO WEEK stay at her place she tells me she doesn’t feel the same way anymore. (She met some guy at a party a month prior to me coming there who helped ‘tutor’ her in math). She ignores me and flirts with other guys right in front of me for 11 days.
I’m living with her and HER PARENTS (who were really nice, and mad at their daughter). Worst trip ever.
15. Love makes you forget all sorts of things
14. Counsel yourself, jerk
A friend of mine and her husband were married about ten years. They have three children. Husband surprises her with a trip to the same resort in the Caribbean as their honeymoon. On the second day of a five day stay he tells her he wants a divorce. Turns out he had been having an affair for five years. Also he is a psychologist and specializes in marriage counseling.
13. Is it so hard to just tell the truth?
I met a girl a few years back when I lived in London, we spent a few months together before I returned to Australia. The following year she came over and spent 3 months with me before she returned to the UK. We never actually broke up, we just left it as a ‘see you again soon’ kinda thing.
The year after that I booked a flight to London to spend a few weeks with her. The day after I booked my flight she told me she was seeing another guy. It was going well with him so she decided the thing we had was officially over.
Now I totally understand the difficulties in staying with someone who lived on the other side of the world, but come on, coulda broken up with me before I booked the bloody flight!
12. We’re breaking up but not because I’m a cheater
I encouraged my ex-girlfriend to apply (and helped write/edit her entry essay) to go to a symposium in a foreign country because it would look great on her resume and be good for her master’s degree. She gets to said country and a few days into her trip she just stops talking to me. I knew something was up. I could feel it in my heart.
She finally gets back to me and proceeds to blame me for the past three years of our relationship for everything that has ever gone wrong and make me feel like I never made her happy the whole time we were together. This goes on for a few weeks and she wouldn’t admit to doing anything on her trip. Finally, I tell her, “It’s obvious we’re broken up but are you seeing someone during your trip”?
Her answer: “Well, yes and no. But that’s not the reason we’re breaking up”!
11. Never lose that magic
I was 15. I lived in MA and my dream was to go to Disney World at the time. My boyfriend was going to Florida with his family for a week and his family invited me to go with. It was the most magical time. In my head, everything was going so perfect… I got to go to my dream place with my first love. I fell in love with him so fast and so hard. His family loved me, my family loved him. It seemed so right!
Then the day we got back from this amazing vacation, he broke up with me… Through email! I asked him why and never got a response back, ever. He could’ve at least waited a week after coming back! Way to break a young girl’s heart.
But here is a happy ending to this story…Now I’m happily married and live in Orlando. I can go to Disney World with the hubby anytime I want!!!!
10. Back off the wagon
I work at an upscale hotel chain on the coast in Florida, we get a lot of international guests.
This couple were clearly married and on a special romantic vacation. They were both French and in their late 60’s.
I was working at the pool and the husband walked up to me looking for a towel.
As he was walking up I noticed his wife pull out a bottle and take a serious pull right out of the bottle. We have a no-glass policy on the pool deck and not wanting to make a scene I grabbed a couple plastic cups and asked the husband if he could put their beverage in them.
He looks really outraged/offended when I asked and he said “my wife doesn’t drink”. Well I was pretty confused at this point but I just said whatever it is, could they put it in the cups?
He took the cups and walked back over to their chairs and after some heated conversation she stormed out but not without giving me a witheringly dirty look on her way.
I walked over to the guy to apologize, and told him that I didn’t mean to upset them and that I was just doing my job, etc. Turns out she was addicted and had been pretending to be sober.
The guy ended up crying as he sorta explained what the big deal was. It was pretty awkward. I think it was probably for the best that it came out though.
9. Breaking up the family at the family reunion
After a few years of dating and just under a year of living together, we were out at Lake Powell for a family reunion/vacation with all of his immediate family (8 siblings, their significant others and kids) and some extended family, all staying on a houseboat together.
He lied about something. He lied about a lot of things and I usually just let it slide because it was usually such a pointless lie that it didn’t matter (i.e. “I only gamed for 2 hours last night” when it was 6). This time, he was trying to throw my roommate and longtime friend under the bus and I caught him in the lie.
When we were away from the family, I confronted him about it very calmly and asked to talk to him about why he lies about little things that end up just making his life harder. Well, instead of having a conversation with me in a neutral and private environment, he lost it, went back to the houseboat and started packing all our stuff and yelling to his entire family about how I was psychotic and manipulative and he wouldn’t put himself in such a toxic environment anymore.
Told my 5 year old several times that we had to leave because his mom is crazy.
The entire time I was silent, and just let him pack. Pretty soon into it, I took my son away from the situation because it was that dramatic and psychologically harmful. I was silently crying and his sisters and brothers were coming to hug me and tell me they love me (they all know how he is).
He demanded his brother drive us the hour back to the marina, 2 days into the 7 day trip. I gave him a ride all the way home (a couple hours) in my car, because his car had been repossessed a few days earlier. Silence the entire way home, and then he moved all of his stuff out while I took my son to the park.
8. I don’t know if you could pay me enough to forget that one
I’m a wedding photographer. A groom that had recently returned from his honeymoon told me the story of how he got his $15,000 honeymoon free of charge.
He and his brand new lady wife had just checked in to the honeymoon suite of a palatial island paradise after a long flight from London.
Having showered after their journey they retired to the bed to, cough, celebrate their new union.
Once the throes of passion had subsided, the groom told me that he had noticed the drapes by the window move a little.
He jumped up and pulled them aside only to find a bellhop concealed there – and, you guessed it, having a bit of fun with himself.
Naturally they complained and the manager, seeking to minimize the damage, fired the employee on the spot and basically traded the full stay in return for them taking the incident no further.
7. If you’re going to do this, you should be the one who pays
My fiancé had an internship in Boston while I was still at home in the Midwest. We texted constantly, called a few times a week, and Skyped a couple times (once she told me she was so horny she stripped down and started doing it dirty on camera).
Anyway, I make plans to go see her once she’s been there a month. I’m on the phone with her while I buy a $300 plane ticket to go see her (while being unemployed at the time).
So I travel to an unfamiliar city, navigate the public transportation, finally make it to where she’s staying, and receive the coldest welcome ever. I ask what’s wrong, and she tells me we need to talk. She tells me after 2 years of dating and 6 months of being engaged that she feels “trapped” and gives me back my ring. And like that, it’s over. So now I’m an absolute mess and have to change my flight and get a hotel for the night (an additional $500) and fly home the next day. It was not a good time
6. You can’t run away from relationship problems
My girlfriend had cheated on me and I caught her, she cried and begged and I decided not to break up with her. It took me a while to trust her again. We decided to move to Korea together from South Africa and we lived there for two years. One time she went to visit her sister, who was also in Korea, and I had to stay behind and work. Months later I get home from work and she is on the bed crying saying she can’t lie anymore, she cheated on me while she was visiting her sister, she feels terrible, please forgive her…. I do…
We finish working in Korea, she wants to travel Central and South America before moving back to South Africa to study some more. We spend a year backpacking from Northern Mexico to the Southern tip of South America.
We get back to South Africa and I am struggling to find work because there is no work in South Africa, I freelance as an environmental impact assessment contractor and let me tell you the work is not steady. I end up having to go to very remote parts of the country to try to keep making some money in between the periods of no work. I get back from the middle of nowhere and walk into the door. She says we need to talk, she asks me to leave and go to my parents. I am shattered.
I go to my folks, we break up officially about a week later… I spend six months living with my parents in a terrible state of depression. I guest lecture at universities but am drinking a lot and don’t care. I decide to move back to Korea. Dad and Mum agree that it’s a good idea.
I still speak with her a bit. One day she says to me that we shouldn’t be friends on Facebook and we need to take some time not talking to each other. I readily agree.
She e-mails me a few months later and says she feels guilty and doesn’t want to lie anymore. She had been dating one of my “best friends” since I walked out the door to go home to my folks. I say “all I ever wanted was for you to be happy and if it couldn’t be with me I hope you can be with him”. I never spoke with her again.
5. Who falls in love through email?
Dated a guy for 10 months or so. We traveled overseas and had a great time. Stopped in a town where a good friend of mine lived and spent a few days visiting her. Came back home and continued as usual.
Two months later, I get an email from the overseas friend saying she’s coming to visit and will be in town on such and such dates.
Me: “Awesome! You can stay here, my guest room is ready. Can’t wait to see you”!
Her: “Actually, I’m staying with [the guy I was involved with]. I thought he told you — we started emailing back and forth after you guys visited here and fell in love”.
Me: “WTF? ”
So I email the guy to ask him if any of this is true.
Him: “Oh yeah. I’ve been meaning to tell you. We’ve fallen in love and I’ve never felt this way before”.
4. Deadbeat husband becomes deadbeat ex-husband
I have two children from a previous marriage, and we have one child together. I went home (another country) to see my eldest son graduate. My spouse, who bitterly hated it when I travelled and he could not go, urged me to ‘take some time, see your friends’.
Historically it had been anger before I left, anger when I was gone, and anger when I got home. He had been unemployed for 9 years, totally dependent on me, and wanted for nothing. Every new toy. New computer. New car. New laptop. All the games, and he spent hours mastering each one. It was a pleasant surprise to be offered a bit of time with no guilt. He seemed interested in my son’s graduation…the day, the time…and I honestly thought nothing of it. It felt good.
On the day my son graduated, as we were standing outside for the pictures, my ex texted me: “I want a divorce”. 1700 miles away. I was a zombie. Posing for pictures, mentally re-arranging travel plans to be completed as soon as my son’s celebratory party was done.
I return home, the house had been ransacked. Furniture, books, all missing. Looked like a tornado had gone through the living room. No note. No address. Nothing. And my youngest was with him.
The icing on the cake was a brochure he left in the nightstand. It was a brochure for partners of people who had been assaulted. How they could find ways to cope with what happened to their partners. His parting shot: I had been assaulted years before, but he was the one who suffered.
Like everything else, hindsight reveals all. This man was the biggest passive/aggressive jerk in the universe.
3. Dumped in the great white north
Well guys, here is my story.
I was visiting my family in Brazil, and came back to Canada to spend new years with my girlfriend. Things had been a little weird for a while (we were living far apart because of a school internship, like 3,000 km apart). I thought it was weird because of the distance and I was pumped to see her.
And I got there and things were weird. She continued to be distant for the next three days, avoiding spending time with just me. There was always a roommate or a friend with us. And then, on the morning of the 3rd, we wake up and talk and she dumps me. Not into me anymore (after 2 years+).
Now if that was not bad enough, here comes the whole catch. My flight was only on the 6th. She lived in a town where I knew absolutely no one. My parents house was 500km away, but they were still outside of the country, and I didn’t have a set of keys of my own. I could not change my flight dates. I was stranded at my ex-girlfriend’s house! It was bad.
Bad for half a day. When my best friend answered her phone and got some sense in to me. She got me to travel to her house (200km away), where she provided the perfect break up cure. Partied hard for the next 3 days. Met the most gorgeous girls ever (all her friends from high school, an all girls’ high school). And even hooked up with a beautiful girl after a very crazy night.
The nights after the break up were some of the best of my life and it definitely made things better. I truly can’t complain and I feel that my break up was a great thing. BUT SERIOUSLY, never dump someone like I was dumped.
2. I can’t believe it took him a week to snap
Alright. I got this one. So this happened when I was 19-20. I went to go backpack across Europe for 3 weeks and to visit my girlfriend who was doing a study a broad program for our school.
So I’m really excited I hadn’t seen my girlfriend for months. I am staying at her flat for a couple of days to see her and to plan my trip. About 2 days in her roommates were just being straight up jerks. I mean they were just insulting me putting me down. I would say something back and they would run off to my girlfriend and cry.
My girlfriend would get upset and all I want to do is spend time with her. I mean I’m in freaking Italy, I don’t want to fight. I would go to the roommates and apologize and then apologize to my girlfriend for causing an issue and that I didn’t mean to.
We planned a trip to go into France and visit Paris. I had intended to pop the question there but her roommates decided that they wanted to go and she invited them. I tried to change her mind but then we would argue and I didn’t want to deal with it.
I then would get yelled at for the smallest things from her. I would just take it; I woudn’t argue I wouldn’t raise my voice, I just let her get her frustration out.
Needless to say, I did not ask her to marry me in Paris. The train is delayed and she is freaking out about missing her class and I told her it’s ok. “There is nothing you can do. The train broke down. Things happen. Just explain to the teacher what happened, I’m sure they will understand”.
Well that caused her to be very upset at me. Her roommates then told her the exact same thing and she agreed with them. She wouldn’t talk to me the rest of the train ride. I’m irritated but I say nothing.
That night there was some kind of party for someone who is going somewhere else to finish off the semester. So we are all getting ready to go and her roommate right in front of my girlfriend just full on rips into me about somthing. I had not said anything to her she just started mouthing off.
So I looked at the roommate and said, “Look I’ve done nothing to you the entire time I have been here why are you being such a massive [bleep]”? Her roommate ran off to her room crying. My girlfriend starts yelling at me as we are walking down the stairs of the complex. She is still yelling at me while we are standing waiting for the bus. She is still yelling at me while we are on the bus.
I snapped.
I stood up and laid into her all of my frustration I had from the week I spent there I just unleashed on her all at once. On a crowded bus I was in her face yelling at her at the top of my lungs. I ended it right there got off the bus and went to a bar and started drinking.
I spent the rest of my time having a blast. Never saw her again. I wish I could take that week back and spend it doing something else but I didn’t let it ruin the rest of my trip.
1. Whoever was following you, he was up to no good
This was just part of our honeymoon, but it was quite a part.
This was the late 1990s, before many people had cell phones, and when phone coverage was pretty spotty anyway. We did a little California tour. First we went to San Fran for three days, then rented a car and drove to Napa for a day. At the end of that Napa day, we drove to Lake Tahoe, where we would spend three more days before driving back to Sacramento and flying home. This story happens on the highway from Napa to Tahoe.
We left Napa in the evening, after dinner. It was early fall, so it was still light out, but by the time we got to Sacramento, the sun was setting. We’d be driving the rest of the way in the dark.
Let me pause for a moment here and describe the rental car. It was a crappy four cylinder GM that could barely get out of its own way. Apart from being an unfamiliar car, it was downright unpleasant to drive. There was virtually no road feel at all; it was more like I was making suggestions to the car, and it was grudgingly relenting.
We approached the mountains in short order, but had no idea what we were driving through, because it was dark. Those of you who live in the sparse West know that when I say “dark,” I mean “there’s not a light on for miles and miles in any direction”. It was pitch black.
Not only pitch black, but extra pitch black, because now we were passing through (unbeknownst to us) Eldorado National Forest. The road here goes up and down long, steep hills, and takes some fairly tight turns from time to time. Oh, did I also mention that it’s mostly two lanes, with an occasional extra lane uphill for trucks to climb slowly in and let people by?
So here we are, on our honeymoon, in an awful rental car, trying to navigate a narrow mountain road in absolute blackness. I’m driving at a reasonable speed, at the speed limit as much as possible, but not knowing when I’m about to send us plummeting to our doom is making me very cautious.
Another vehicle comes up behind, riding very close, a pickup truck. I try to appease by speeding up to what I feel is a more than reasonable clip, but that doesn’t help. Dude turns his brights on, and since his truck is considerably taller than my economy rental, I’m pretty much blinded. I turn the rearview away, but can’t manage to do anything about the manual side mirror.
Finally, one of those extra lanes comes around, and the guy does a jerky crazy pass. In this moment of weakness, I flip him off and flash my brights at him when he gets in front of me. I figure whatever. I see it’s a yellow Ford Ranger, and there’s a passenger.
Oh, no. He falls back and gets behind me again.
I only have one choice in this situation: put some distance in between me and him. I have to speed up the mountain.
So I floor it, taking hills and turns as fast as the S-rated tires will allow. I am managing to put some distance between us, somehow, and I start looking for a place to escape. But on this road, through a forest, there’s just not any place like that.
The best I could do was find a wide shoulder to pull off on. The guy was back behind a corner when I pulled over and stopped. I shut the lights off and waited.
Here come headlights, that has to be him. I’m hoping he just goes blowing by without seeing me. The lights aren’t going as fast as I’d hoped. He’s pulling over behind me.
Thankfully, he stopped his truck a few car lengths back. My new wife is looking out the rear window, she’s telling me to go, go, go. “No,” I say, as he opens his door and steps out. “Wait”.
I watch him in the side mirror, coming up to my car. My wife is screaming at me now. Wait for it. Wait for it.
As soon as he got up to the rear door of the car, that’s when I took off again. Now he had to run back to his truck and get in, I’d bought myself about ten seconds.
Now I’m back to driving, focused. My wife is quiet now. I’m looking, looking, for any road to actually turn off on, get out of view from the highway. I’ve got enough distance between us now that I haven’t seen him in the rearview for a while, but I know he’s back there. I know he’s coming.
I remember seeing a road sign for the town of Strawberry. There was a little general store with a gas pump or two, but it was late at night, and it was closed. Just beyond it, however, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a road off to the right. I dived down it off the highway. No idea what was down there, but I could get us out of sight of the road.
That extra pitch black I mentioned got blacker as we crept down this one lane road through the dense forest. Now I was starting to wonder if I could even get myself turned around. We might be trapped.
As luck would have it, the road opened up to a large clearing, apparently paved, or maybe hard packed gravel. In any event, I could drive on it, so I got myself turned around so I could face nose out. Backed way up in the corner.
I shut the lights off. I turned the car off. We waited.
I don’t think we even breathed for two minutes, sitting perfectly still. We could conceivably sit here till morning if we had to, or at least long enough that truck guy would be far away.
Suddenly, headlights, approaching from the left, from the direction of the highway. We are frozen. The lights clear the trees to our left, and it’s the yellow Ford Ranger. We’re frozen.
He drives by, and keeps going down this side road. We have evaded him.
My wife and I look at each other incredulously. A long second passes and I start the car. I quickly put it in drive and slink out of the cul-de-sac and back up to the road before I turn the headlights back on.
Truck guy is gone, but it’s not until we get into Tahoe that I’m able to breathe easier.
0. Seeing double
I was in Italy for the summer and I fell in love with this gorgeous man. He would take me out for dinner and then he’d come back to my rental place. He had a small tattoo of the Sicilian flag on his back. One morning I woke up next to him and I noticed there was NO TATTOO. I freaked out. He told me he had the tattoo removed but that was BS. The man in my bed looked like my boyfriend, but he wasn’t. Finally he broke down and confessed the shocking truth.
They were twin brothers.
I’d been seeing them both the whole time without even knowing.
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