My best friend Mia swore her boyfriend\u2019s friend Eric was a \u201cnice, dependable guy\u201d and begged me to let her set us up. Against my better judgment, I agreed.<\/p>\n
Eric was charming from the jump: thoughtful texts, full sentences, zero creep vibes. He picked a cute Italian place, showed up early with roses, pulled out my chair, paid the bill while declaring \u201ca man always pays on the first date,\u201d and even gave me a little engraved keychain. Old-school, but sweet. I actually thought, \u201cHuh, maybe Mia was right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next morning? I wake up to an email titled \u201cInvoice \u2013 Date 1 Expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flowers: $35 Dinner (my half): $68 Keychain: $22 \u201cTime & emotional labor\u201d: $150 Total due: $275<\/p>\n
With a note that non-payment would be \u201cdiscussed with Chris\u201d (Mia\u2019s boyfriend) if I didn\u2019t Venmo him immediately.<\/p>\n
I thought it was a prank until I saw the itemized PDF.<\/p>\n
I forwarded it to Mia. Her exact response: \u201cHe\u2019s actually insane. Block and delete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mia and Chris sent him a counter-invoice for \u201cemotional damages\u201d and \u201cwasting everyone\u2019s time.\u201d Eric lost it\u2014went full victim mode, then rage-texts, then \u201cyou modern women don\u2019t appreciate chivalry\u201d essays.<\/p>\n
We all blocked him. Mia and Chris dropped him as a friend that same week.<\/p>\n
Moral of the story: if a guy treats \u201cpaying for dinner\u201d like a down payment on your gratitude (or more), run. That\u2019s not generosity; that\u2019s a transaction with an unhinged terms-of-service agreement.<\/p>\n
I never paid the invoice\u2026 but I did pay very close attention to every red flag after that. \ud83d\udea9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My best friend Mia swore her boyfriend\u2019s friend Eric was a \u201cnice, dependable guy\u201d and begged me to let her set us up. Against my better judgment, I agreed. Eric was charming from the jump: thoughtful texts, full sentences, zero creep vibes. He picked a cute Italian place, showed up early with roses, pulled out …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1481,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions\/1481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}