A few years back I dated a guy who was shall we say, quite frugal.
And I didn’t have any problem with his frugality at first; he had a good stable well paying job, a nice home that he hoped to pay off in a few years, didn’t drive a late model fancy car, didn’t spend his money foolishly, saved, invested, wasn’t in any credit card debt: all very good things in my opinion that at first blush made me think he might be a “keeper”.
He was fond of using coupons and discount cards – again not a problem with me!
So what was the problem?
Well the problem was that he was rather overly obsessed with saving a few bucks and with money in general.
For instance, he’d take me out for dinner at a nice restaurant, ask me if I enjoyed the meal then go into great detail about how he found this coupon or used this or that discount card and about how much money he had saved and how proud he was about himself. Again I have no problem with my date using a coupon or discount card but when he spends more than 20 minutes of our date explaining how smart he is for doing that, that’s not what I consider a particularly good date.
And it wasn’t as if I was expecting to be wined and dined all the time. I had an equally good job and income and nice home and was more than willing to pick up the tab now and then or at least chip in to pay the tip. I cooked meals for him at my home and we stayed in to watch a movie – to me, not a bad way to spend an evening.
One Sunday we planned to take a picnic at a local park, a very romantic gesture IMO. But when I met him at his house that morning, he had all the local newspapers spread out and all the grocery store flyers and a game plan on what stores we should go to in order to buy what items we needed for our picnic at the absolute cheapest price. Two hours spent visiting four grocery stores to save all of about two dollars?
Another time he came with me to buy a birthday present for one of my teenage nieces and admonished me for spending too much money at Old Navy (I think I spent all of about $40) and then insisted that we go to a dollar store for the wrapping paper and birthday card.
He also told me that buying my make up at a department store was a waste of money as I could get the same thing at the Dollar Store.
He was also engaged in a very heated and bitter argument with his sister over their parent’s estate, and his parents were still both alive at the time.
One day I gave him the “You’re a really nice guy but…I’m in a different place in my life…It’s not you it’s me… Let’s just be friends” speech and ran away as quickly as I could. Can you blame me? Does that make me a shallow?
Can you blame me? Does that make me a shallow?
You gave it a the old college try...i wouldn’t say you were shallow at all...pretty tacky of him to comment on your niece’s gift also.
His zealotry gives you ample justification to split.
It’s called, “being penny smart, and pound foolish.”
So you went out with Alan also !!!
I had a similar experience. I first saw him a “stable” but he was a joyless miser who ruined every occasion for happiness with his obsession for control.