I thought Bryce was just confident until I realized our entire date had been a test.<\/p>\n
I had suggested coffee.<\/p>\n
He insisted on an expensive seafood restaurant and told me not to worry about the price.<\/p>\n
Throughout dinner, he asked strange questions about money, dating, cooking, and whether I expected men to pay.<\/p>\n
Then the $200 bill arrived.<\/p>\n
Bryce grabbed it, looked at me, and pushed it across the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got this. I don\u2019t pay for foodie calls.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
He accused me of using him for a free dinner\u2014even though he had chosen the restaurant.<\/p>\n
I calmly asked the waiter to separate the bill and paid only for my meal.<\/p>\n
Outside, Bryce followed me.<\/p>\n
Then he admitted the truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to see how you\u2019d react under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n
He had deliberately embarrassed me to test whether I was \u201centitled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou passed.\u201d<\/p>\n
That made it worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came here to meet you,\u201d I told him. \u201cI didn\u2019t agree to be evaluated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next morning, he texted asking for another chance.<\/p>\n
I declined and blocked him.<\/p>\n
Strangely, the date taught me something important.<\/p>\n
I had spent years constantly explaining myself so people wouldn\u2019t judge my choices.<\/p>\n
After Bryce, I stopped.<\/p>\n
A month later, on another date, a man disagreed with me about a movie.<\/p>\n
No test. No argument.<\/p>\n
Just two people talking.<\/p>\n
For once, I didn\u2019t feel the need to prove anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought Bryce was just confident until I realized our entire date had been a test. I had suggested coffee. He insisted on an expensive seafood restaurant and told me not to worry about the price. Throughout dinner, he asked strange questions about money, dating, cooking, and whether I expected men to pay. Then the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9643","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\/9643","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=9643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9644,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9643\/revisions\/9644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}