Blind dates are always a gamble, but when my friend Mia set me up with Eric, the initial signs were overwhelmingly positive. He arrived for our dinner date bearing roses and a perfectly chosen little gift, proving he’d actually listened to Mia’s description of my interests. The evening was filled with easy laughter and deep conversation, and I found myself genuinely enjoying his company. He was the picture of old-school manners, from opening doors to insisting on paying the entire bill. “Please, a man pays on the first date,” he said with a charming smile. I agreed, feeling a sense of gratitude and thinking how rare it was to meet someone so principled and generous.
The illusion shattered the moment I opened his message the next day. Instead of a romantic follow-up, I was met with a cold, professionally formatted invoice. My blood ran cold as I read it. Eric had broken down the cost of our evening not in dollars, but in demands. The roses came with a price of a hug. The souvenir keychain required a follow-up coffee date. Each small courtesy, like holding my chair, was listed with a corresponding expectation for physical contact. The document was capped with a stark ultimatum: I was to provide this “payment in full” or he would “tell Chris,” using our mutual friend as leverage to shame me into compliance. I felt violated, as if a beautiful evening had been retrofitted into a sinister transaction.
Shock quickly turned to action. I forwarded the entire message thread to Mia, who was just as disgusted. Her boyfriend, Chris, was livid on my behalf and suggested a fitting retaliation. Together, we crafted a counter-invoice. Our version charged Eric for “wasting a perfectly good evening on a fraudulent gentleman” and for “introducing you to someone out of your league.” The required payment for these services was his permanent silence and a block from my life. Sending that document was incredibly satisfying. It reframed his manipulation as the pathetic behavior it was and gave me back a sense of control.
His reaction was a torrent of angry, defensive texts, which I only saw a preview of before I blocked his number entirely. The entire ordeal was unsettling, but it taught me a invaluable lesson about the dynamics of dating. True generosity has no strings attached. When someone insists on paying, it should be a gift, not an investment they expect a return on. I kept the keychain he gave me, not as a memento of a nice guy, but as a tangible reminder to always look beyond the surface of a grand gesture. It’s the strangest souvenir I own, from the date that taught me to always read the fine print, even when it’s written in roses.
