This happened when I was in my mid-twenties. I had been dating a young woman for three or four months. She was a “take no s***” kind of person, but we’d gotten along fairly well.

One weekend, she spent Friday night over, and then Saturday was a lazy, rainy day, so I decided to make gumbo. For those who don’t know, this involves standing over a pot and stirring a roux for quite a while, and that roux can be around 400 F (200 C).

While I was standing at the stove stirring, my girlfriend was standing in front of the sink just casually chatting with me. I don’t know if I got distracted, if the spoon stuck, or what, but I accidentally splashed a not-small amount of roux onto my arm, causing a lot of pain.

I tried to run to the sink to get it off of me, but my girlfriend was in the way.

Me: “AHH! BURNING! MOVE!” 

I’m normally a pretty calm, soft-spoken guy, but with boiling oil on my arm, I was admittedly pretty loud and forceful.

Girlfriend: “No, I will not be yell—”

Me: “JUST MOVE!”

Girlfriend: “DON’T YOU DARE CUT ME OFF!” 

At that, I just turned and ran to the bathroom sink to get the oil off of my arm. I heard her yelling after me.

Girlfriend: “AND NOW YOU ARE RUNNING AWAY FROM THIS DISCUSSION! UNBELIEVABLE!”

By the time I had gotten my arm cleaned up and bandaged, she had grabbed her things and left. I took myself to urgent care to get treatment for my burn, and I received a text from her.

(Ex) Girlfriend: “Your behavior was unacceptable, and I will not tolerate it. Do not contact me again.”

And that’s the story of the most sudden, out-of-the-blue breakup I ever had.