‘That was a friend not a boyfriend’: Woman meets boyfriend for coffee. Then she breaks up with him after he only ordered for himself
A woman says she decided to break up with her now ex-boyfriend after seeing what he ordered at a coffee shop. Viewers discuss why her partner’s behavior led to the end of the relationship in a viral TikTok.
In a video with over 578,000 views, TikToker Lys (@humanembodimentofatwig) reveals that she “broke up with [her] boyfriend over a cup of coffee.” However, she explains that the lead-up to the final straw was much longer.
She explains that the couple started dating when she was unemployed and didn’t have money to spend on dates. She says she wouldn’t suggest the couple go out to eat to avoid asking her boyfriend to pay or covering the check herself.
“He’s not offering. He’s never like, ‘Let’s stop and get some food,'” she says, noting that he was making a lot of money at his job.
A month and a half into dating, her boyfriend invites her to get brunch with him. She assumes that he’ll cover the check since he asked her to come with him.
She can’t believe it when he asks her to go 50-50 on the check when it comes to the table.
“I legitimately choked on my water in that moment. He kinda like took the check back and just ended up paying it himself,” Lys recounts.
Lys says she eventually gets a job and continues to date her boyfriend. She slowly begins paying for every single date.
She decides she can’t tolerate his stingy behavior after their final coffee shop date.
Why did she break up with him over a cup of coffee?
Her boyfriend asks her if she wants to meet him “downtown for a cup of coffee” after she gets off work. She drives downtown and parks near the cafe to wait for her boyfriend. But 15 minutes went by, and he didn’t text her that he arrived.
When she asks him where he is, he tells her he went into the coffee shop without her. Lys walks in and sees him sitting by himself with a cup of coffee.
“He just looks at me and goes, ‘I got myself a cappuccino,'” she recounts. “This man did not wait to walk in with me, did not wait for me to get inside to get a table. Just went up and ordered himself something, sat down, and god knows when he was going to contact me.”
Lys says she was “fuming” after seeing the lack of consideration. When she confronts her boyfriend about only ordering for himself, he insists that he “doesn’t know [her] coffee order.”
However, he still didn’t get her a cup of coffee after she arrived.
“I just sat there. The entire hour to hour and a half we were at that coffee shop, he never once said, ‘Oh, do you want me to go and order with you? Do you want me to get you one?'” she says. “That’s just too much.”
Lys says she ultimately broke up with her boyfriend after the incident.
Should you break up over food?
Other women who have dealt with partners who don’t offer to get them food bring their frustration to advice forums like the r/relationship and r/relationship_advice subreddit.
One questions whether she should break up with her boyfriend because he never offers her food, even when she explicitly says she’s hungry. She writes, “He usually will just microwave a frozen dinner for himself or eat junk food and I’ll awkwardly stand there and watch him eat it.”
Other members of the forums suggest that a lack of generosity with food could be the sign of a bigger problem.
“I’ve noticed that ungenerosity with food is usually a sign of being ungenerous with everything else – love, support, intimacy, and attention,” a commenter writes.
@humanembodimentofatwig T R A S H #breakup #relatinshipdrama #storytime ♬ original sound – lys
“Ugh, I dated someone like this for a year. Its not worth it, and personally while I do agree a part of it has to do with just being clueless, I also think it has to do with just being a generally selfish/inconsiderate person,” another suggests. “If you stay with this guy, this behavior is not going to change.”
Commenters on Lys’s video agree with her decision to break up with her ex-boyfriend over the cup of coffee.
One remarks, “The bare minimum wasn’t even bare minimum-ing.”
“I’ve been married for 10 years. its a cardinal sin not to offer to get each other something when the other ventures out alone,” another says.
A third jokes, “That was a friend not a boyfriend.” Lys replies, “I told him that we were business partners. not even friends and CERTAINLY not in a romantic relationship.”
The Mary Sue reached out to Lys via TikTok direct message and comment. We will update the story when she replies.
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