The next morning, I opened my email expecting a warm, simple note—something like “Had a great time.” Instead, I found a message with the subject line: Invoice for Last Night.
Flowers, described as “in-kind” and allegedly payable by a hug. The keychain, “repayable” with a coffee date. And then, a final line implying that if I didn’t follow through, his friend Chris—who happens to be Mia’s long-term boyfriend—would “hear about it.”
This wasn’t humor. It was pressure, dressed up to look clever.
The charm from the night before suddenly felt rehearsed—a performance meant to justify a debt I never agreed to owe. Modern dating red flags don’t always announce themselves in neon. Sometimes they arrive in a tidy PDF.
