
Originally Posted by
Armitage
So it's a thoroughly beaten dead horse by now on the forum, but I dated this guy during summer. His dream is to become a model in Paris, which I believe he can pull off, because he definitely has the good looks for it. He has an athletic lithe body, piercing blue eyes, and dominant stance. He always dresses fashionably with dark or white colour tones and a metal chainlike necklace. In order to get to and from Paris he needed money, because his job as a waiter didn't earn him enough for that. He thus borrowed money from his best friend and over time felt an increasing need to pay him back. Already quite soon after meeting me he brought this up, but I politely explained that as a student myself I had no income either. I suggested that he'd ask his parents for help, but he said that he already tried this to no avail.
Despite acknowledging that I had no income, a couple weeks later he brought his financial issues up again. I explained to him that in the Dutch culture it is not done to discuss money. He rhetorically asked that if it was me who needed money, if he then should not help me out either? I replied that if I ever needed money that I would be more inclined to scrape by, than to ask for help. He had not anticipated this reaction and it effectively halted his request, until a while later he brought it up again.
Now realizing that politely declining his request didn't work, I changed tactics and instead acted like I didn't understand him, in order to distract him and then quickly change the subject. I joked around a bit and laughed, but he perceived this as laughing him out. He confronted me about this and I told him that I wasn't laughing him out, but he wasn't convinced. He felt hurt. We were going to meet up later that evening after he finished his shift. I had proposed discussing his financial problem that evening. I had in mind that if we could talk about it openly and made some solid agreements, I would give him the money that he needed. Instead, I waited in vain. The following day he messaged me that he stood me up, because I had disrespected him by laughing him out, but that he loved me still. I chatted with him normally afterwards, as if nothing had happened. I think that it frustrated him that I didn't acknowledge his revenge to have hurt me.
Eventually he had mustered enough money by himself to go to Paris and I believed the problem to be solved with that. I was going to visit him there two weeks later. But little did I know that what money he had saved was just for the travel expenses and that he had gone to Paris otherwise unprepared... I was unaware that all this time he that he was there he was sleeping over at a friend's place.
The week before I would visit him we were planning everything. Originally I was going to stay with a friend who lives there and who had already invited me to come visit him when the lockdown would be lifted. However, this friend was called into a series of important meetings for his work that week, so I instead was going to book a hotel. I informed my date about the change of plans and he proposed to book together. He explained to me how he had been staying with his friends for the past weeks, but that he needed to get out of their house and find a place that he could rent for himself. He suggested that we would therefore book the hotel room for a longer period, so he could sleep there the days before I'd arrive. He offered to reserve the hotel room, if I would send him the money. He knew a cheap place not too far away where another one of his friends might get us a discount. Still weary of forking him any money, due to our previous arguments about it, I told him that I would rather stay at the Ibis Budget Hotel where I normally sleep, because my father has a discount for there. He was cool with that and asked if I could then book for him too. That was okay with me, but I first had to await my father's return from my grandpa, because he was currently being hospitalized (my grandpa had cancer).
Impatient for a place to sleep that night and perhaps sceptical of my story, he messaged me five minutes later asking me if I was going to help him or not? I replied that my father had yet to return, but if he was in such a hurry to ensure a place for the night, he could tell me the name of the hotel he had proposed and then I'd book for the two of us there. Instead of complying, he put his foot down and insisted on him reserving the room and me sending the money. In turn, I replied what I said before, that I needed the name of the hotel, so I could book a room for him. He reacted that if I was willing to help him that I should send him the money instead. At that point I had gotten furious, I told him that if he wanted money so badly he should work for it instead and that it was cruel of him to play my feelings for money. The plans were off, I wasn't coming to Paris anymore.
For a week we didn't talk. I noticed that he changed his profile picture, he tried to look macho and indifferent about the whole situation, but his smile was fake and I saw sadness in his eyes. Every day that week I had been staring at his picture, every day that week I called with my SLI and ILI best friends about how heartbroken I was about the whole situation, and every day my friends told me that it was for the better that I had broken off contact with the guy. Only on Wednesday I could reach neither of my friends. All alone and missing him, I wrote a lengthy apology message in which I named everything about him that I liked and how much I missed him. He read it and pondered the whole day about what to reply. The following day he answered my message: "Let it go, because what I missed was respect."