Dates are the most romantic experiences you can ever have as a teen or even young adult.

Imagine a lit candle, wax dripping down the side of it. Maybe some flowers around. You’re looking at each other’s lovey-dovey eyes until, BAM! A man comes flying to your table destroying the decor and unfortunately destroying your date in a bad way.

These stories of dates gone awry will remind you that you’re alone.

First victim: Miguel Diaz, CI junior. His bad date happened in freshman year when a girl asked him to go on a picnic. He agreed to it and went to the park she had told him to go to.

“I thought it was going to be a regular park like the ones with open landscape where picnics are usually in,” Diaz said, “but it turned out to be a very dirty duck park.”

He thought it was only going to be the two of them along with the girl’s little sister. Wrong. When he got there, he saw his date’s mom, little brother and her sister.

“It was very awkward and after 20 minutes I dipped because I didn’t want to be there any longer,” Diaz said. “It went from a friendly picnic ‘date’ to an awkward family picnic.”

Second victim: Mr. David Haynes. The CI science teacher said that his bad date occurred in the 1970s when he was about 13 years old. He was involved in a local church’s youth group and they played “The Dating Game.”

Mr. Haynes was behind a curtain and there were three girls on the other side of the room. He asked them questions, and then picked a “date” based on their answers.

The girl he picked was named Naomi Fung.

“We went on the date and it was awkward,” Mr. Haynes recalled. “All you could hear was crickets chirping because we weren’t saying a word at all. It was dead silent.”

Mr. Haynes said the reason it was so silent was because they were both very shy.

“The only time we talked was when we said goodbye to each other and when we said goodbye to each other we never said, ‘Oh, that was a nice date we should do it again.’ We only said goodbye,’’ he said.

This story does end on a good note, however. Mr. Haynes and Fung met each other again during college in Hawaii and became good friends.

“But I couldn’t ask for a second date because she had a boyfriend at the time,” Mr. Haynes said. “Good for me, in the future I met a wonderful girl and I’m married to her today.”

Third and final victim: Helen Rincon, CI senior. Her bad date happened in 2017 when she was about 15. The guy, she said, will remain anonymous.

Rincon said that he sent her a DM on Twitter and they started talking. Then he asked her out for dinner and she accepted his offer. They went to the Denny’s by the harbor.

“I ordered a plate and he orders two plates of food and then orders a to go box for himself,” Rincon said. “I thought he was going to pay for the food, but he proceeds to tell me he had left his wallet. So, I ended up paying for the food and then he tells me, ‘I don’t have enough gas to take you home.’’’

He left her at bus stop where she had to pay to get herself home, and it took her about two hours to get back home.

“He then sends me a text saying, ‘That was so much fun we should do it again,’” Rincon said. “I texted him back saying, ‘OK, but we’re paying half and half.’ He left me on read, didn’t say a word to me after that and we haven’t talked since.”