@Serelanordir - our current ability to detect earth-destroying meteors is quite lousy. We might get lucky to have enough time to send in a bunch of oil drillers to blow it up, or we might only see it at the last moment - it mostly a matter of luck. Our defenses are even worse when it comes to hypothetical "relativistic" weapons, but they are pretty much impossible to defend against anyway.
So the trick to getting romcom MCs to admit their true feelings is to fake a huge world-ending disaster? (or even instigate a real one?)
That's an idea for an anthology.