Picture this: you've been building up to a first date for over a month. Dinner, then a live music show about an hour away, just you and her. You're excited. You reach out two days before to confirm, because you're organised like that.
Then she drops it on you.
Not only is she still coming, so is her brother and his girlfriend, her other brother, her sister, and her teenage nephew. Five extra people. On a first date.
That's exactly what happened to Dan, 29, from the south of England, who met Carla, 37, at a beach bar earlier this year. Despite the age gap, he was into her, she was funny, she was attractive, and the two had been chatting more and more over the months that followed.
Carla had been upfront from the start that family always comes first. Fair enough, plenty of people feel that way. But Dan says there's a difference between family-oriented and bringing the whole clan on a first date that was explicitly planned as a one-on-one.
He told her he wasn't angry, just disappointed, and that he'd leave her to enjoy the evening with her family. He wasn't going to gate-crash what had essentially become a family night out.
Carla apparently found his reaction strange. And Dan's left wondering: if he hadn't messaged to confirm, would she have even told him before he showed up?
He's not fuming. He's not calling her names. He just quietly stepped back, and now he's questioning whether that makes him unreasonable.
Honestly? We're not sure a first date was ever supposed to come with a guest list. But we want to hear from you, was Dan right to pull out, or should he have just rolled with it and met the family early? Drop your verdict below. 👇