I only said yes to shut Mia up. She’d been hounding me for weeks about meeting this guy—her boyfriend’s friend Eric—and I finally caved just to get some peace. But honestly? I went in with a sliver of optimism. Eric could string together actual sentences. He didn’t reply to texts three days later with “lol k.” He treated conversation like something that mattered. When he suggested dinner at this quiet Italian place, I thought maybe, just maybe, this could be one of those dates that restores your faith in dating after thirty.
He showed up with roses. He pulled out my chair. He’d even bought me this little engraved keychain with my initial on it. For a second there, I actually pictured myself telling the story at brunch someday: “That’s how I met someone who wasn’t a complete disaster.”
Dinner was easy. Comfortable. The kind of night you replay on the drive home because nothing felt forced or weird. When the check came, Eric waved me off before I could even reach for my wallet. “A man pays on the first date,” he said with this confident smile. He walked me to my car. Waited until I pulled out. I texted Mia on the way home: “Okay, you might’ve been right about this one.” Everything about that night screamed textbook “good guy.”
Then morning came.
Instead of a sweet “Had a great time” text, I woke up to an email. Subject line: Invoice for Last Night. I opened it thinking it was a joke—some cute, quirky way of flirting. What I found instead was a literal spreadsheet. Line items for dinner. The roses. Even the keychain. At the bottom, bolded and underlined, was a note suggesting I could “settle the balance” through scheduled physical acts on our next date—and warning that if I didn’t comply, he’d go crying to Chris, Mia’s boyfriend, about how I’d “used” him. It was detailed. Premeditated. Disturbing in a way that made my skin crawl.
I screenshot everything and sent it straight to Mia. She and Chris lost it. They actually drafted their own mock invoice back to Eric and cut him off completely after seeing how he doubled down. Meanwhile, I blocked him on everything and moved on—grateful his mask slipped before I invested anything real.
The night that started like the opening scene of a rom-com turned into something else entirely: a masterclass in spotting transactional manipulation dressed up as chivalry. Some people don’t give—they loan. And they expect repayment with interest. Learning to see that early? Worth way more than any dinner someone else could ever buy.