{"id":71913,"date":"2025-08-15T07:51:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T07:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=71913"},"modified":"2025-08-15T07:51:56","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T07:51:56","slug":"my-date-insisted-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=71913","title":{"rendered":"My Date Insisted on"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"491\" height=\"633\" src=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-556.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-71914\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-556.png 491w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-556-233x300.png 233w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 491px) 100vw, 491px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>At first, Eric seemed like a rom-com lead\u2014thoughtful texts, fresh roses, perfect manners. Our dinner was fun and easy: we laughed about podcasts, debated fridge etiquette, and he even gave me a \u201cgood luck\u201d keychain. I thought I\u2019d met someone genuine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next morning, he sent a PDF that made my jaw drop\u2014an <em>itemized invoice<\/em> for our date. Roses? Worth a kiss. Holding the door? A selfie. Dinner? \u201cPayable via second date.\u201d At the bottom: \u201cPayment due in full. No refunds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I forwarded it to my best friend Mia, who introduced us. Her boyfriend Chris responded with a parody invoice\u2014fees for \u201cemotional distress,\u201d \u201cperformative gallantry,\u201d and \u201cdelusional entitlement.\u201d We sent it back. Eric wasn\u2019t amused. He called me immature and \u201ctoo modern to appreciate effort.\u201d I blocked him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mia felt guilty, but I didn\u2019t. If kindness is treated like currency, that\u2019s not romance\u2014it\u2019s a transaction. That night reminded me to trust my gut, laugh off nonsense, and protect my boundaries. Eric came with a ledger; I left with a story\u2014and the satisfaction of a well-earned roast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=71813\">also read&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At first, Eric seemed like a rom-com lead\u2014thoughtful texts, fresh roses, perfect manners. Our dinner was fun and easy: we laughed about podcasts, debated fridge etiquette, and&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71913"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71915,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71913\/revisions\/71915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}