agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR HARRIETTE: Halloween is around the corner, so I decided to take my boyfriend to a haunted house attraction for a fun date night. We were both excited, and he expressed nothing but enthusiasm for our plans.

When we entered the haunted house, things immediately went left. My boyfriend was completely horrified and begged me to leave early.

Now I can’t help but feel a little nervous about our relationship. Is it possible that I’m dating a coward? I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I paid good money for our tickets, and he couldn’t even put on a brave face for me for the night.

I think this says a lot about how fearful of a person he could potentially be. Am I overthinking it?

— Man Up

DEAR MAN UP: Something else may have been going on that triggered your boyfriend’s reaction. Find out what’s up.

Ask him why he reacted so strongly. What upset him? Continue and ask him what else frightens him. You are in the getting-to-know-you stage, so listen carefully and observe.

You can also tell him that it bothered you that he got so scared, and you want to understand what happened. The more you get to know him, the better you will come to understand his motivations.

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I agree with the consensus, this LW sounds like a seriously horrible person and should break up with this "cowardly" boyfriend before they hurt him badly.

The only thing that gives me slight pause is that BF expressed nothing but enthusiasm; not liking haunted houses is completely fine, but maybe he should have said from the start, I'm sorry, I don't think I would really enjoy that as a date activity. That could be a sign of a communication problem. On the other hand it's very possible that there was one particular type of horror there that triggered him that he didn't know about in advance.

Yeah, sometimes implementation details matter. My wife once suggested a tour of some underground catacombs; I paid for the tickets; we got to the threshold and she stopped dead and said it was going to set off her claustrophobia, and she noped right out of that excursion.

Yes, with a different LW I think “so you seemed enthusiastic about it during planning, was there an issue you weren’t expecting…? I’d like to avoid taking you to things you won’t enjoy” would be a perfectly reasonable conversation. It doesn’t sound like this LW is likely to have that conversation, though.

But that would involve caring; why do that when LW can just decide it's cowardice and be judgy about it? /s

I really wish we had the bf's side of things.