If you went on a date with someone who was pushing you for physical closeness and then told you about the lice going around at your job, would you want to call it a night and go home?
This 25-year-old woman has been seeing a guy the same age as her for a bit more than a month. When she began dating him, everything was pretty amazing.
Their first few dates happened in public settings, and they met up at cafes or went for walks. Following their fourth date, this guy told her he didn’t like the dates they were going on and said he preferred to have her come over to his place.
It made her hesitant to go back to his house after not knowing each other for that long, but he insisted he liked her so much and could picture them in a serious relationship, which made her change her mind.
“For context, I tend to take things slow when it comes to dating and physical closeness due to past experiences. I told him early on that I’d need a longer dating phase before putting any label on things or moving too fast,” she explained.
“At the time, we had only known each other for about two weeks. He said he completely understood and that he was willing to wait until I felt comfortable.”
“The first time I went to his place went well overall, but he really wanted me to stay overnight, which I wasn’t comfortable with yet. I explained that I don’t sleep well at other people’s places and that it felt too soon. He seemed disappointed but accepted it.”
They still routinely went out on dates after having that chat. Yesterday, she agreed to go to his place, and he offhandedly made a comment about how there was a lice outbreak at the kindergarten where he works.
That made her hit the brakes on cuddling him that night, as she has a fear of insects and did not want to catch lice from him by getting too close.
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Instead of being sympathetic, this guy stated that he shouldn’t have mentioned the lice before claiming he was joking. She still didn’t want to cuddle, because she thought he was lying to get his way.
“Over the next couple of hours, he brought it up multiple times and kept saying how disappointed he was because he had been looking forward to it all week. I started feeling pretty uncomfortable,” she said.
“At one point, he even went to ask his mom (he lives in a separate apartment in his parents’ house), who is a teacher, and came back saying she told him it was completely harmless to cuddle.”
He thought that would make her cave, but it made the situation more awkward for her, and she kept declining. Finally, she announced that she wanted to head home.
He got mad at her and demanded to know how long she wanted to date before saying that sleepovers and cuddling are routine parts of that phase for him.
“He said he found it strange that I didn’t want that yet, even though we had already talked about taking things slow before. I felt overwhelmed and tried to explain myself again, hoping to de-escalate the situation,” she continued.
“After that, he stopped pushing verbally, but then hugged me, pressed his head against mine, and joked that now he had probably ‘given me lice.’ That really didn’t sit right with me, and I kind of froze in that moment.”
He walked with her so she could catch a train, and he made her hold his hand while letting her know how disheartened he felt about the night not going the way he planned.
He texted her after she left and pretended everything was fine. She responded that she didn’t feel like speaking to him and would get back to him in a day.
He admitted he wasn’t trying to put any pressure on her while promising he wasn’t disappointed with her. She’s curious if she made a mountain out of a molehill in leaving the date early and withholding the cuddling.
“I understand that physical affection is important to a lot of people in dating, and maybe I’m being too rigid because I’m more cautious than average,” she concluded.
Ok, but he is totally trying to pressure her and doesn’t respect her boundaries at all, which is unacceptable. Him not wanting to meet her at her pace is one big red flag; the second is how he tried to manipulate her by stating he never should have brought up the lice, and the third is that he went running to his mommy while still not taking no for an answer.
She needs to block him because ghosting is the only decent way to deal with a man like this.
Do you think what she did was wrong?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
