He Turned Our Date Into A Hangout With His Buddies

My ex was a lot of things, but considerate wasn’t one of them. We broke up eventually for a variety of reasons, but in retrospect, his bad behavior on our early dates should have been the biggest indicator of what a jerk he was. Did I mention he turned one of them into hangout time with his friends?

1. Something felt off right from the start. Earlier that day, he called and asked me if we should just meet at the restaurant we’d chosen or if I wanted him to pick me up. It immediately struck me as odd since he’d insisted on coming to get me for our last date. I shoved aside any doubts I had in my mind and told him that I didn’t mind just meeting him at the restaurant. We’d only been dating a few months and I didn’t want to come across as too pushy or demanding.
2. He rushed through our dinner as quickly as possible. We went to a nice place but he seemed disinterested. I now realize that this was probably when he started becoming disinterested in our relationship in general, but I wouldn’t let myself believe that at the time. Instead, I kept trying in vain to draw him into conversation or at least get him to slow things down a bit. The whole time he acted like he had somewhere to be, but whenever I’d ask him about it, he insisted he was just so happy to be there with me.
3. I was still pretty surprised when he brought it up. On our way out of the restaurant, he asked the usual, “So what do you want to do now?” When I naturally responded that I’d like for us to go back to either his house or mine, he acted both surprised and disappointed. It was then that he told me some of his friends were hanging out and that he thought it’d be awesome if we joined them. Uh, what? Was he really choosing hanging out with his friends over having sex with me? Yep, he was.
4. He threw a fit in order to get me to go. Instead of getting angry or showing how hurt I was, I calmly told my boyfriend that I’d prefer to continue our date than hang out with his bros. We’d been hanging out with them all week, after all. Instead of agreeing, he started acting like a child and whining that he never got to see them (not true), that I pushed him to come on the date (also not true) and that one of his friends was leaving town soon (really not true). For some reason, I swallowed my pride and agreed to go.
5. We went to his friend’s… mom’s house. Oh, so did I mention that my boyfriend’s friends were hanging out at one of their mom’s house? Granted, his friends were a little bit younger and were still in college, whereas we’d been out of college for a few years. Even so, it just felt weird. They were playing ping pong and drinking cheap beer in the garage, and at one point the friend’s mom even came in just to check on everyone. Needless to say, I’ve never felt so old and out of place in my life. And as usual, I was also the only girl there.
6. I really didn’t like his friends to begin with. I knew his friends pretty well by that point and I always acted as though I liked them, but deep down I really didn’t like those guys. I could have gotten over the severe immaturity (even for college guys they were extra juvenile), but what I struggled with regularly was their blatant sexism, racism, and just genuine lack of care or empathy for other human beings. I once even witnessed these guys bragging about how they looted a house after a fire had recently forced the family that lived there to seek temporary accommodations (and they genuinely didn’t seem to understand how their actions were wrong when I spoke up about it).
7. It was just a regular night for his friends—nothing special was going on. In case you missed it, my boyfriend had totally lied about the fact that one of his friends was about to leave town. This was the beginning of the summer; nobody was moving away, and those who were in college had a few months before they had to go back. To emphasize just how weird the whole situation was, one of my boyfriend’s friends even commented, “I thought you guys were supposed to be on a date?” when we showed up.
8. He ignored me when I wanted to go home. My boyfriend proceeded to become ridiculously drunk on cheap beer, to the point that he was slurring his words considerably when I approached him and said I wanted to leave. I’d stuck it out for over two hours by that point, and a couple of his friends had already left themselves. But instead of even acknowledging how I felt, my boyfriend proceeded to look past me and yell at his friend for more beer. What a catch!
9. I left on my own. Believe it or not, I actually stayed for another whole hour after that. When it was finally clear to me that my boyfriend didn’t care whether or not I was there, I decided to leave. He was too drunk to even notice and he just nodded in my direction when I repeated that I was leaving. Even though we were much closer to his house, I decided to just go back to my place and try to sleep off my hurt feelings.
10. He acted shocked when he found out how disappointed I was in the date. The next day, I woke up to multiple texts from my boyfriend asking why I “just stormed off like that when everyone else was just chilling and being cool.” When I called him and talked about what happened, he expressed extreme surprise that I’d actually left as late as I did and that I was disappointed in the way our date had gone. According to him, he thought it was the perfect evening. I should have broken up with him right then and there.