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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to ask if you've ever known a man do this or is it only in films/books?

76 replies

SomethingIdNeverThoughtIdSay · 30/03/2019 22:59

Come home and found a bf or an ex bf unannounced waiting for you outside your door to declare true love?

This happens all the times in films and books- usually in a romantic leading couple meant to be together/ had some sort of argument or broken up/its over or she thinks its over/out of the blue she comes home and there he is all puppy dog eyes/ they make up/fade into happy ever after sunset.

Often her front door is a flat or apartment - probably so he doesn't look too weird camping on a door step in the rain -and it is never explained how he gets in the building (tailgaiting probably).

I am 100% sure this has never happened to a woman in the history of the universe and it is made up film crap.

Am I right?

OP posts:

isabellerossignol · 30/03/2019 23:01

In real life I'd think it a bit sinister!

Original poster

SomethingIdNeverThoughtIdSay · 30/03/2019 23:02

Aw isabllerossignol! It could be really romantic see said books and films

OP posts:

anniehm · 30/03/2019 23:04

It happened to me years ago (many years) shocked me and I told him to leave. Bunch of flowers and everything.

Ribbonsonabox · 30/03/2019 23:04

This has happened to me but both times they were nuts guys who I'd slept with/been out with who I didnt actually want anything more to do with... so not very romantic... more creepy and invasive.

One of them the guy got into the hallway of my flat because someone else in the block had let him in.. and was just stood outside my door with flowers telling me how he felt about me... I'd slept with him one time and had met him in a bar. It was actually quite frightening. I didnt know what to do so I just shut the door in his face. Luckily never saw him again!

I often thing things which are framed as romantic in these romcoms would actually be seriously disturbing and massive red flags in real life.

SrSteveOskowski · 30/03/2019 23:05

Yup. I had an ex who after we'd split up suddenly decided to declare his love for me.
I told him to fuck off. He certainly wasn't thinking about how much he 'loved' me when he was shagging around behind my back.

Persimmonn · 30/03/2019 23:05

It must have happened to someone, which is why it’s done over and over again now. Tbh, if I found a man like that outside my door, I’d tell him to come back once I’ve settled in. Worse thing is a person on your doorstep as soon as you get home from work/shopping. And if he’s declaring true love and forgiveness, he must have done something pretty shitty for me not to be talking to him. Usually the woman in the films has been hurt by him and then jumps back once he realises he was in the wrong. Fuck off I say. Creepy stalking shit.

mondaylisasmile · 30/03/2019 23:08

A lot of "romantic" gestures in films are actually just creepy if it happened in real life. I once watched a film in the last couple of years where the female protagonist wanted to stay single for valid reasons (her safety/cover)... She ended up being photographed with a guy who got her into the shot at work on purpose, then he tells her he'll not publish it if she goes on a date with him. Not wanting to have her workplace in the paper, she agrees, has a fun time, and tells him it was nice but not what she wants (a relationship).

Next scene is him waiting outside her apartment door having somehow obtained her home address from her employer.

Creepy but it was meant to show how much he loved her in the plotline.

I spent the last half of the movie wondering what the script writer was thinking, it was so bizarre when you step back and think about it!

Annasgirl · 30/03/2019 23:09

I had this. I worked with him. Thankfully he moved on. But for months I had to hide and switch the lights off so he would go away from my door. I was terrified. He even tried to help me find a new apartment which just happened to be in the same block as his, when my landlord served me notice.

It was hell - I moved to an apartment far away. Luckily I shared with my sister, I dread to think what could have happened if I lived alone.

So I don’t think it is ever a Happy ever after scenario.

Original poster

SomethingIdNeverThoughtIdSay · 30/03/2019 23:09

It's interesting that anyone has had this happen at all but I'm not surprised at the nut jobs comments.

I'm wondering if there has where it's actually been true romantic love and falling into each others arms.

OP posts:

burritofan · 30/03/2019 23:10

Sinister and stalky.

I did once wake up to find my ex in my bedroom peering down at me, inches away from my face – my flatmate had let him in. I couldn't make out the declaration of love speech over my banshee shrieks.

AnneOfCleanTables · 30/03/2019 23:11

Yy an ex who turned up on the doorstep declaring undying love and a different ex who left an anonymous gift at my work on Valentine's Day.

Ribbonsonabox · 30/03/2019 23:13

Grand gestures and grand declarations may look good in films but in real life they tend to be made by absolute narcissists and/or controlling abusive bellends. (See love bombing)

Turning up unannounced is not respectful of someones boundaries... trying to solve an argument by plying someone with gifts is not respectful of someones emotional needs... it looks nice but it doesnt bode well in reality

cheesenpickles · 30/03/2019 23:13

Had a guy turn up I was seeing and shout up at my bedroom window that he loved me when I was a teenager.

He was good looking, super cool and very rich... He was also very drunk and had a bit of a drinking problem. This, the fact my mum was an alcoholic and the total embarrassment/calls to the police over noise disturbances I told him it was over. Then he text me breaking up with me (actually it said "Game Over" ) and when I replied I'd already dumped him he then spread a rumour around my town that I was unhinges.

So yes, grand gestures tend to go hand-in-hand with total bonkers-ness.

cheesenpickles · 30/03/2019 23:14

*unhinged

Tinkoschminko · 30/03/2019 23:14

My ex was always outside my house. Creepy, retrospectively.

womandear · 30/03/2019 23:19

Happened to me but wasn’t creepy! Maybe cos it was a woman, so I didn’t find it weird or threatening just a little over the top but lovely as feelings were reciprocated

RainbowMum11 · 30/03/2019 23:19

No, but in my younger days I have returned home to flowers on my door step and a note through the letterbox - not from the same man, but the latter did become my husband for a few years!

SosigDog · 30/03/2019 23:20

Sort of happened to me once. An ex who I dumped turned up on my doorstep with flowers and chocolates to woo me back. I was out at the time. He hadn’t thought about the practicalities of sitting outside for hours on end, and he got sick of waiting for me to come home so he buggered off and left a wilted bunch of flowers and melted chocolates on the step. By the time I came home the ants had got into the chocolates. The only positive was that he’d also left a packet of biscuits for my dog which she thoroughly enjoyed. I didn’t take him back though!

NicoAndTheNiners · 30/03/2019 23:22

I've had it happen twice and both times I was unimpressed.

First time a guy I'd been seeing a short time got on a train and turned up at my student digs. I dumped him soon after.

Second time another guy drove 50 miles and turned up unannounced at my house early one morning. I was going out with friends for the day and sent him off with a flea in his ear and then dumped him.

SerenDippitty · 30/03/2019 23:22

Grand gestures and grand declarations may look good in films but in real life they tend to be made by absolute narcissists and/or controlling abusive bellends. (See love bombing)

Like the end of An Officer and a Gentleman - how embarrassing would that be in real life!

WardrobeMalfunction · 30/03/2019 23:24

I once came home from work to find a bunch of flowers on my bed. A guy I'd been seeing had called by to leave them as an apology and the landlord let him in. He was apologising for turning up drunk at ridiculous o'clock and frightening me. He wouldn't leave, he was a big lad, and friend who'd introduced us said he was not to be trusted when drunk. He'd been sober every other time we'd gone out.

Landlord got an earful, flower guy got the boot and flowers got the bin. Not a romantic experience, but an upsetting one.

NicoAndTheNiners · 30/03/2019 23:26

Oh and a friend of mine has it happen with her ex several times a week. He turns up at 7am, often with flowers. Arrives at her work place with flowers. Leaves letters declaring his undying love under her car wiper, ties balloons to her car.

I think she should get a restraining order! She's sick of it, she has a new bloke!

OhTheDramz · 30/03/2019 23:27

Something worse happened to my poor friend.

She had a really persistent, stalky, controlling ex who she’d finally managed to shake off and had moved out of their house back to her parents. A couple of months later she went on a two week family holiday with them to NYC. Opened the door of her hotel room to find him already in there, down on one knee with a ring proposing. The parents had him had cooked it up together.

She felt she had to say yes and spent the next three months planning a wedding, before finally getting rescued by a guy who worked with them both. She went on to marry the rescuer and it’s still a bit of a weird dynamic today between the two of them.

edwinbear · 30/03/2019 23:28

In real life, when I was 16, a new boyfriend came round to the house where I was babysitting, unannounced, to deliver a vinyl copy of Milli Vanills ‘Girl You Know it’s True’. I lived out in the sticks, was babysitting out in the sticks, he had to pay a mate £10 in petrol to drive him over and clearly couldn’t come into the house where I was babysitting young children he didn’t know.

It all seemed very romantic. 3 months later he and his mates burgled my parents house 😱

maxinespalour · 30/03/2019 23:34

My ex rang me to say hello when he was traveling in America (we were friends at the time but I loved him!!) We chatted and he asked what I was up to that evening etc We said our goodbyes and later I went off to the pub to meet some friends. Walked into the pub and he was there, at the bar waiting for me!!! He had come back to the uk early to tell me he was in love with me, it was so bloody romantic and totally like being in a film.
Why is he my ex?!!!

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