Seth Rogen Says He Cried After Getting Rejected by a Date on His Birthday Nearly 20 Years Ago

Seth Rogen is glad his dating days are over.

In a Valentine's Day appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the 39-year-old comedian shared the story of why he once cried in front of a date during his birthday dinner nearly 20 years ago. Rogen explained that when he was 20, he had been "hooking up" with a woman who was a few years older.

"It was my birthday coming up, and so I asked her … 'Let's go out to dinner on my birthday!' and I was like, 'I'm going to ask her to be my girlfriend at this dinner on my birthday!' " the Pam & Tommy star said.

As the appetizers were coming out, Rogen asked the big question — but didn't quite hear the answer he was hoping for.

"She said, 'No.' And then I started crying!" he recalled, as host Jimmy Kimmel doubled over in laughter.

Unfortunately, the dinner wasn't over just yet. "Then I was like … 'We need to eat. Like, we can't leave.' And she was like, 'It's your birthday,' " Rogen recalled. "And there was a cake coming and s--- so it's like, I had to sit there and this poor woman had to sit there with me as I wept into my truffle mac and cheese."

Now, Rogen says he knows better than to ask such momentous questions during a meal, if at all.

"I was 20, I don't know!" he defended his actions. "I was so young. I guess you don't ask, 'Will you be my girlfriend?' "

The comedian continued, "So if you're watching kids, don't ask that! But if you do, ask at the end of the meal — not when the appetizers have come."

Earlier in the interview, Rogen told Kimmel, 54, that he was "very bad" at dating before meeting his wife Lauren Miller.

"I was terrible. I was a bad dater," the Superbad star said. "I had terrible experiences dating women and I think the women who dated me also did not have the best experiences."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free weekly newsletter to get the biggest news of the week delivered to your inbox every Friday.

Rogen has been off the market since 2004, when he and Miller first got together. The couple wed in 2011, and the actor has since said that they do not plan to have children.

"I wouldn't be able to do all this work that I like," he said during a May 2021 appearance on The Howard Stern Show. "... People are always like — it's something I think I was uncomfortable answering this before — but they were like, 'How do you do so much?' The answer is I don't have kids. ... I have nothing else to do."

As for Lauren, he said, "I would say she wants kids less than I do. I could probably be talked into it; she's like, 'No.' "