Romantic films just love the idea of the Grand Gesture: that amazing, undeniable act so powerful it magically papers over every red flag both leads noticed in the film’s first two acts. And just like a silencer doesn’t actually make a gunshot silent, it turns out these gestures are just as unrealistic in real life. We’re talking about wild, memorable stuff like…

8. Sacrificing your career

As Seen In: Jerry Maguire, The Proposal

We’ve seen this a hundred times: a writer who decides to stop writing. A corporate slave quitting a high-paying job and flipping off their mean boss as they make out with their beau in Times Square. Sometimes it’s even a full relocation, leaving the life you’ve built to follow love to the middle of nowhere. Romantic, right? Except notice how movies skip the part where people actually talk about these decisions.

In reel life, quitting is impulsively done before the other person has even had time to think about it. Whoops. Turns out you still need that job. And good luck walking those middle fingers back when you have to ask for it again from your mean boss, who’s now also very annoyed.

7. Being the man who can’t be moved

As Seen In: The Notebook, One Great Love

If you stood outside somebody’s house, come rain, come shine, until they decide to take you back, surely they’ll come around eventually, right? Of course! Expect them to come around with the cops, because stalking is absolutely illegal. But hey, at least you can still take a page from The Script and really stay in one place for a long time. Unfortunately, that one place would likely be jail.

6. Chasing them in the airport

As Seen In: Love Actually, How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days

Uh, yeah. This might have been a thing pre-9/11, but there is no chance in hell you’d pull something like this today and not get in a load of trouble. 

5. A very public display of affection

As Seen In: Say Anything, Crazy Rich Asians

Whether it’s holding up a boom box in the rain or placards while pretending you’re caroling, these gestures assume that you are getting a positive reply thanks to your sheer audacity. This gets even worse when it’s a public proposal, where suddenly, if he or she said no, they’re the bad guy.

Asking someone to love you back is already so stressful when it’s just between the two of you. Making it everyone else’s problem while guilt-tripping your supposedly significant other to reciprocate is just not a good idea. Not to say that you should never make a public gesture of love, but jeez. At least read the room before going for it.

4. Being insanely jealous means they love you

As Seen In: Twilight, 500 Days of Summer

There’s nothing wrong with being jealous, but films taught us that intense jealousy equals intense love. In reality, that just means someone thinks every coworker, ex, and barista is a threat to the relationship. That’s not romance. That’s a full-time job of dancing on eggshells.

3. Testing them so they can prove their worth

As Seen In: My Amnesia Girl, How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days

Isn’t it sweet when you send one of your best friends to seduce your partner, and they resist the temptation? What a keeper! You know who’s not a keeper, though? You. Because if you need to resort to shady shenanigans like that, when does it actually stop? Imagine your partner having to live every day looking over their shoulder, because proving their love to you is apparently a recurring pop quiz.

Remember when Harvey Dent said you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain? This is the relationship equivalent of that. Just don’t.

2. Interrupting a wedding

As Seen In: My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Graduate

Speaking of public gestures, you can’t get much more public than this. And it’s never a good idea.  Not only is it a logistical nightmare (nobody just gets married on a whim with all that planning and paperwork), it’s also deeply selfish. Even if you really belonged together, couldn’t you have spoken up at any time before the ceremony? No? Then maybe you do deserve each other. And this is assuming this wasn’t just you projecting mutual feelings that never existed in the first place.

1. All it takes is one magical night

As Seen In: One More Chance, Titanic

Listen, genitalia ain’t magic. One amazing night doesn’t cancel out red flags, dealbreakers, or the quiet realization that you don’t actually like each other outside the bedroom. Real relationships survive the morning after, not just the mind-(and other-parts)blowing nights.

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