He asked me out. Called it a date. His word, not mine. Set the whole frame — this is a date, I'm taking you out. Fine. Lovely. Off we went.
We get to the restaurant and this man orders the single most expensive item on the menu. The premium option. Top of the price column. No hesitation. Meanwhile I got something normal, mid-range, because I'm a reasonable person.
Bill arrives. And here comes the moment. He reaches for his phone. Opens — I kid you not — the calculator app. And proceeds to split the bill. Out loud. Doing the math audibly. "So that's your total, plus tax, divided..." Narrating the arithmetic like a maths tutorial while I sit there watching my "date" evaporate in real time.
Now — I'm not against splitting. Splitting is fine, splitting is fair, I'll split all day. The problem isn't the split. The problem is you called it a date, ordered like a king, and then whipped out a calculator to make sure I paid exactly half of your feast down to the rupee. Pick a lane. Either it's a date and you don't audibly calculate my share of your lobster, or it's a casual split and don't sell me the "date" framing to begin with.
There was no round two. Obviously. The calculator app closed the tab on the entire situation. Whatever chemistry might've existed did not survive being itemized out loud.
Split the bill, sure. But you also split, permanently, from any future with me.