KEY POINTS:
His peeved fiancee left him in the movie theatre when he fell asleep during chick flick P.S. I Love You. Now 18-year-old Tim Roberts, who was left trapped in a cinema until 3am on Friday - resulting in him setting off fire alarms and attracting the police - has revealed, sadly, that he's no longer engaged.
Speaking exclusively to the Herald on Sunday yesterday, self-employed Christchurch courier driver Roberts said his late-night ordeal wasn't the first time he'd been dragged along to a "chick flick".
"I just basically go where I'm told," he said.
Roberts had met his 27-year-old fiancee at the theatre on Thursday night after working a 14-hour day, going for a run, and having a big roast dinner with his parents. He says he lasted about half an hour in the cinema before passing out cold.
"The movie wasn't actually too bad but I was so tired I just couldn't help myself."
"It was actually my idea to go to the movies," he said, before adding, "but she picked it."
After he nodded off and the credits rolled, his unhappy fiancee left without so much as tipping popcorn on his head to wake him.
"I started to wake up and realised the chair I was in wasn't the La-Z-Boy at home," Roberts recounted. "I looked around and thought, 'Oh s***, have I even left the cinema?'."
Seeing bright red, very empty seats around him, plus a giant blank screen in front, Roberts was just reaching for his cellphone to check the time when it rang - for the 18th time that night. It was his mother, phoning to say the police were looking for him.
"I got up, managed to walk out of the cinema, got into the foyer, and then the alarms started going off."
He yelled out to a cleaner, through the cinema complex's locked roller doors, to "please get security".
Five minutes later, a couple of bemused police officers showed up. They offered to find the master key, but, to save time, Roberts offered to use the fire escape and meet the officers at the back of the theatre.
One of the officers handed his torch through the grate, and the still sleepy Roberts began "running around the cinema, looking for the exit".
"Every door I went through set off another alarm," he said. "It was loud. This horrible, ear-piercing, screeching sound," he said.
Finally spotting the outside fire escape, he made his way down three flights of stairs, only to be greeted by flashing lights and a different police officer demanding to know exactly what he was doing at a mall after hours, setting off alarms and carrying a police-issued torch.
Did the police see the funny side? "Kind of. They were very interested in what kind of movie we went to."
On Friday, the day after the incident, Roberts and his fiancee "mutually" decided to call it quits.
He said she had called police and his parents after waking at 3am to find he hadn't made it home.
Asked who had been angry at whom Roberts said: "It's still a bit tender on both sides."
The two-year relationship now over, Roberts is focusing on work - and sleep. He and his former partner would "hopefully" remain friends.
"I wish her all the best for the future. Things just weren't going the way we wanted them to. I have a really bad tendency to fall asleep."
* Next week: we get Tim to review the latest chick flick.