Woman thinks she's going to business meeting, realizes too late it's a date.
He was hoping to...merge with her company.
One young woman thought she was going to a business meeting with an established older business executive. She even set up the meeting through the man's office. But, as the night progressed, she was more and more aware that his intentions were quite different from hers.
'TIFU by accidentally going on a date.'
I (24F) work in a professional setting where networking is very common. I met an older man (maybe in his 50’s) while waiting in a lobby for a meeting and started chatting about what we do for work.
We exchanged business cards, and when he followed up with me, I suggested we grab coffee so I can learn more about what he does.
He told me he’s busy during the day, and he’d prefer to shoot for an after work meeting. I agreed and worked with his assistant to set up dinner.
Well, dinner was…interesting. The entire time, he told me how pretty I am and even insinuated that if we “get to that point” he would cook for me. It was about then that I realized this was in fact a date.
It was solidified in my head when I realized he didn’t have a wedding band on. Fml. He paid for dinner, of course.
After dinner, he stated that he wanted to walk me back to my office and on the way, he took off his jacket and put it on me. He shifted to the outside of the sidewalk and insisted that as a woman I should be walking on the inside of the sidewalk.
He then said that “as long as I’m with him, I won’t be touching any doors.” Then he offered to walk me to my car, but I declined and thanked him.
I think the worst part is that I’m in a serious relationship and didn’t even mention my partner once because at some point during the dinner he started talking about religion, so I didn’t feel safe mentioning my partner. Did I mention I'm gay?
My partner and I laughed it off later, but I still felt horrible. I definitely learned my lesson.
Here are the comments that got the highest ratings:
So, my first impression here is that guys, and people in general are terrible at figuring out if something is a date or not. But the fact that he got his assistant involved with scheduling it would indicate to most people, that it's a professional encounter.
So I do get the impression that he was taking advantage of the situation to push his own clear motives while you made no mistake.
I'm a guy and I've been in a similar situation. I was at university and a South African girl in my class asked me if I wanted to come over for dinner because her mum is making traditional south African food.
My Samoan ears just hear 'food' and I say 'HELL YEAH I WANT THAT FOOD'. I told her im bringing our mutual uni buddy because he's never tried that food either and she's cool with it.
I show up in the same jeans and raggedy t shirt I wore to uni that day and knocked on the door only to be greeted by her whole family lined up like I'm in The Sound of Music all dressed up in their Sunday best. My friend and i still not knowing what this was, are pigging out for over an hour chatting away with her and her family about nothing.
Then the father got drunk enough to say 'there is no more precious thing to a father than his own daughter. If anything were to happen, they would never find your body. You may think you're big but I have guns that are even bigger.'
I thought 'hm, what a weird thing to say. Better not think too much of it, he's drunk.' Then went home.
I realized 3 months later after smoking some weed that holy sh*t she asked me over to dinner as a date. I went through an entire date without knowing it was a date. Confirmed it was a date when she confessed her feelings after a few drinks.
If they asked for an after work meeting, in those words, that's a f*ck up on his part, not yours. A date is a date. A meeting is a meeting. And both are vastly different thing in this context.
Oops. Have you heard from him since?
The OP responded here:
Nope, this was just over 24 hours ago. He did tell me to call his office so he could give me his cell number and text me. Needless to say, I did not call the office lol.