A couple of years ago, TikToker Madison (@madisonkm22) matched with a guy on a dating app. They talked for a day or two before they met up. They decided that their first date would consist of taking a walk in a park and going out to dinner afterward.
Madison has a rule about not letting men pick her up for a first date because she doesn’t want them to know where she lives, so they drove separately. When Madison arrived and saw him in person, she immediately knew it wasn’t going to work out.
He clearly had a hygiene issue, and within two minutes of them greeting each other, he told her that he had something for her. He suggested that she sit down, and she was glad she did because she was baffled by his gift.
“This was the one and only time I actually thought about getting back in my car and just leaving, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that, like I just thought that would be too mean,” said Madison.
He gave her a box of chocolates and a hand-drawn comic book. Inside the comic book, there were detailed sketches of the conversations they had had together so far.
She had to admit that the drawings were quite good. However, he wrote a message on the back of the comic book that really creeped her out.
He wrote, “Love you, Madison. Looking forward to our future together and whatever crazy places we go. Thanks for being awesome.”
What she didn’t like about this was that she had only known this man for less than a week, and he was already making declarations of love.
She pointed out that if the comic had been given to her months into a relationship, she would have found it to be incredibly thoughtful.
But considering they had known each other for a brief amount of time and had only just met face-to-face, the message made her uncomfortable.
“I do think this would have been a very sweet gesture at like a six-month mark or a year,” said Madison. “It’s cute, and there was clearly a lot of work put into this.”
Although she finished the date, she decided the relationship was not something she wanted to pursue. The next morning after the date, she texted him to say that she felt like he came on a little strong, and it was too much, too soon.
He seemed to have a hard time understanding why his grand gesture had the opposite effect of what he’d intended, so she simply stopped replying to his texts.
A bunch of people in her life knew that she had gone on a date with this guy, and she texted them about what had happened. If she didn’t have physical proof of the comic, they wouldn’t have believed her.
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By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
