Imagine the scenario - you're dating someone new and you're planning an amazing trip away together. Things are good, you know you're going to have an amazing time and you're more loved-up than ever...only for your new beau to hit you with a literal invoice for the trip.
This exact thing happened to Reddit user BlueMahoon, who admitted she felt a little turned off by her boyfriend's procedural nature over the romantic getaway.
Discussing her scenario on the subreddit /r/relationships, she explained: "We've been dating for a few months, exclusively together for 3 weeks and this is our first weekend away together. We're just going to a nearby town (1 hour travel time), staying in an Airbnb and visiting one tourist attraction. Not an extravagant trip by any means."
Highlighting cracks before they even go on the trip, she continues: "Although it seems he is excited to go, he was a bit hesitant at first and nervously asked 'but what if we break up before the trip?'. I found this to be a huge mood killer given we are in the honeymoon phase of our relationship, but I told him that as the trip is only overnight, and relatively inexpensive (less than $200) it wouldn't really matter if we just cancelled if it came to it - or I could take a friend.
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"A few days later I messaged him to suggest a restaurant I thought we could visit on the trip, and he said "very nice but super expensive as well" and suggested we got takeaways instead. So I dropped the idea, as it wasn't worth fighting."
BlueMahoon added: "Then he sent me a message explaining how he'd "broken down the cost of the weekend" so he could book the Airbnb, transport tickets and tickets to the tourist attraction. He'd attached a spreadsheet with our names in it, literally breaking down the cost of everything to the cent, with the final add up of everything telling me I owed him $167.99 (around £122.54 in sterling).
BlueMahoon stressed it wasn't about paying her fair share of the holiday, and was more than happy to give him the cash.
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"I'm not tight with money at all, and would happily have just given him $200 to cover my share of the weekend (or booked some things each and let it all balance out) without the need to quibble over minor costs like this," she says.
"My boyfriend and I are both in professional jobs on decent salaries, so money is not tight. Since the beginning, I have insisted on always going halves on any dates etc so there is no cause for tension there."
What she took issue with was the way she was told to pay it, with her new bae practically giving her an invoice.
"He's an accountant so I get that he kinda does spreadsheets for a living, but this has ruined the vibe of the weekend for me," she said. " I'm his new girlfriend going on a romantic weekend away, not a client to send an invoice outlining every cent. It feels so procedural."
Naturally, the subreddit lit up with comments from others who were quick to tell BlueMahoon she was right to feel uneasy.
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"I think I would talk to him about this but you're not wrong for being turned off by this," one said. "It may just be a personality difference - some people like to split costs more loosey-goosey ("you get the dinner, I'll pay for the hotel") without breaking things down to exact 50-50, and other people would prefer a more even split.
"I think the red flags for him being kind of a cheapskate is asking 'what if we break up before' (implying the loss of money will be more important than the loss of relationship?) and then talking you out of a nice restaurant."
Another wrote: "The fact he's talking about breaking up before the trip is a red flag. Penny pinching is never going to end well. I personally wouldn't even go on the trip. Is this how you want to spend the next six months of your honeymoon phase?"
A third weighed in: "When I read that he wanted takeout instead of going to a nice restaurant on your first romantic weekend away that was enough. He's mean, it's that simple and I would hate to ever have to depend financially on someone like him. Imagine if you got pregnant or ill and had to stop working for a while? Do you think he would happily step up and pay for everything?"
However, some people felt BlueMahoon was being a little harsh on her boyfriend.
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"It's. Just. A. Spreadsheet," one person stressed.
"They are just three weeks in, maybe she should talk to him about it?" another said. "Saying 'oh this person acts slightly stingy, better cut my losses and run' seems a pretty extreme reaction to what might be difference in personality or a misunderstanding."
"Maybe the spreadsheet is not about being stingy with money but it's just how he likes to share things," another person pointed out. "Maybe he thought that it was good to be transparent with you and sending the spreadsheet is the simplest way for you to know where your money went.
"And being concerned about money does not mean that he's selfish, or even a cheapskate. Maybe he just likes to know how much he spends on certain things, or limit expenses in a category to allow more expenses in another, or maybe he's had money problems before and prefers to be cautious. Talk about it with him."
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Well, we know what we'd be doing...
Featured Image Credit: PexelsTopics: Dating, holidays, Sex and Relationships, Life, travel