I wasn’t very, very literal. I read your account of what your friend told you and responded to another poster.
I voted based on your OP.
i would let them read it only if they consented to the kinkiest sex that i desired for six months.
I’m slightly curious how many “outings” occurred before she informed the work colleague/sorta crush that she wasn’t interested in sex because of her kinda open relationship. To play creepo’s advocate for a moment, I can imagine a scenario where the guy assumed, possibly with some justification, that these were romantic dates or at least leading in that direction.
“I had a really nice time. Let’s do this again.”
“I did too! Let’s definitely do this again! Oh, did I mention that I decided I don’t want to have sex with you? I can’t remember if I did, or just wrote it in my secret private journal…”
Bolding mine.
- Amusement park together on her birthday*
- Concert
- Watching an “event” TV show over at his place
Sorry, but those activities are totally dates, especially for the first couple of one-on-one encounters. Or, at the very least they would be assumed by most reasonable people to be date activities, and if OP’s friend wasn’t thinking of this becoming a romantic/sexual thing, she owed it to him to let him know that before the first date, not after the third. :dubious:
In fact, putting myself in the shoes of the guy here, “third date is TV at my house” would be exactly where I would be expecting either for things to move to the physical, or at least to find out that they weren’t going to. To find out (however dubiously) that, “No, there never was a chance of that,” would leave me feeling a bit strung along, to say the least.
- I’m sorry, but where the fuck was this live-in boyfriend when some other guy was taking his girlfriend to an amusement part on her birthday?!
I’d show them the decoy journal.
Exactly this.
Although, if she hadn’t noticed the other four million huge red flags along the way, I can see how she might miss this one.
An excellent question!
Also an excellent question.
[QUOTE=The Moody Blues]
Dear diary,
It was cold today, but the sun came out later
So I went out strolled about looking at the shops.
Didn’t really see anything I liked, so I didn’t buy anything.
On the way home I posted a letter.
Been quite a nice day.
Somebody exploded an H-bomb today. But it wasn’t anybody I knew.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe I am odd but even asking a question like that on the 3rd date is a HUGE red flag for me and makes me instantly think top level “fatal attraction” style psycho.
Hell I have been married for 10 years and would not ask (or want) to read anything like that from my wife if she kept one. That’s private and asking after a third date is just plain DEFCON 1 in my book.
Dealbreaker for me.
You just don’t ask to read someone’s journal. Ever. Suburban Plankton and I have been together 23 yrs, never once has he asked to read my journal.
Clearly journals are a far more touchy subject than I, a non-journaler, ever thought. Good to know.
If someone asked to read my hypothetical journal, I’d say sure if there was nothing in the volume I didn’t want them to see and no if it did. I can’t imagine most of the entries would be all that interesting.
I started keeping a journal in my mid-teens, and kept it up for about 20 years. It evolved considerably over that time, but one constant was that even the idea that someone else might read it changed the way I wrote, and never in a good way. It was a place where i could be honest with myself in ways that I couldn’t if I could feel someone looking over my shoulder - even a hypothetical spouse in the distant future.
Someone I’d only been on a few dates with would have been unlikely to know about the existence of my journal. But if they had known, and had asked to read it, it would have been a dealbreaker.
ETA: Even 25 years after having ceased keeping a journal, during which time the old journals have been gathering dust in a box in the closet, I’d still be extremely touchy about someone seeing them. My wife’s never asked, thank goodness, though at this point she’s likely all but forgotten they exist.
I’m afraid of responding to the RL details now at risk of totally poisoning the well even more than I already have. Eh, the fat’s in the fryer; in for a penny, in for a pound. (Yeesh, sorry for the mixed metaphors.)
Re: the context leading up to this diary request–I added that in this later post after getting the info from her. (Like you guys, those were two of the first questions that popped into my mind: what on earth was the context, and how did he even know about the diary?)
My answer, now unspoiled because what the hell, is:
That last bit partially answers the other question re: the birthday. The concert was in a park, specifically on her birthday, and my friend really really wanted to go. And her boyfriend can’t go to parks due to his, uh, status. (Sigh. I know, I know. There’s a reason I’m glad these people are purely internet friends who live multiple states away from me. The drama is exhausting even at a long distance, I can’t imagine actually dealing with it in a real-life context.)
Anyway, her so-called work friend–who, hopefully, doesn’t know about her boyfriend’s situation (but at this point nothing would surprise me about this girl’s ability to understand the concept of privacy)–offered to take her to the concert. Before agreeing, she asked her boyfriend if he’d mind, and she says she thinks the boyfriend kinda did but knew he couldn’t give her what she wanted, so he said okay, he’d get over it. And she chose to believe him (IMHO, mistake #39374–he was just being nice, duh!), so she went. As an aside, instead of the concert, the boyfriend took her out the next night for some special romantic dinner.
(BTW, I don’t think it’s coincidental that all of these outings with the work-friend are things she can’t do with her boyfriend. Well, with the exception of the Game of Thrones-watching, unless they don’t have HBO at home.)
To answer the final question re: when she told the “friend” about the no-sex thing, the one thing I’m definitely certain about is that this was done very early on, indeed before they ever went on the first ‘date.’ She’s honest (to a fault) enough to have made that pretty clear from the get-go. And she’s naive* enough to think this guy would be content with that and wouldn’t try for more. To her, an amusement park and concert were just fun things that people do. Sigh.
But surely most of this is off-topic, right? Does it matter if she hadn’t told him about the no-sex clause until the third date? I’m not seeing the connection between that and asking to read her diary.
(Suddenly I’m imagining this freak yelling: “WHAT? After three dates we suddenly can’t have sex? Damn, then can I at least read your diary entries? C’mon bitch, you owe me!”)
- And maybe somewhat socially backward. Like I said: super-sheltered background.
Right, I don’t think asking indicates trouble with boundaries, certainly not compared with not asking when she should, or with demanding.
For the record, I answered the question before knowing the situation, and knowing the situation doesn’t change my answer.
Hoo boy.
It sounds really inconvenient to try and date a registered sex offender.
I wouldn’t show it to my husband of forty years, so I’m certainly not showing it to someone I just met.
Yeah, yeah, Vinyl Turnip and OneCentStamp, as I said, I know. If you want to enjoy the whole stupid story look up my past thread on the subject. Snarking on me is pointless because I think it’s a ridiculous situation and is actively harming her life. Or I should say, her choices are actively harming her life–no one’s forcing her to pick the guys she ends up with. There’s some psychological issue going on with her that I’m not qualified to diagnose, but it’s gotta include low self esteem, as well as a need to play the heroine in some “rescue the damaged vampire/badboy” fantasy.
She deserves better. But again, that’s a whole 'nother topic that went on for hundreds of posts, and that trainwreck sapped the strength out of me. Please not again! Totally my fault for bringing this up, dumb dumb dumb dumb. I should’ve known this would be a distraction.
*This * thread is about boundaries, and whether someone asking to read a diary on a third date is excusable regardless of whether you say yes or no, or inappropriate enough to make you think, “Okaay, exit stage right!”
It just occured to me: I wonder if there’s any gender split? Damn, I should’ve included that as poll options.
For those who don’t have a diary and thus find it hard to imagine the scenario, maybe change the question to: Someone you’ve dated three times asks to read your email/texts. (I know it’s not quite the same thing but that’s as close as I can think of.)
Female here, and a journal writer. Its not a diary, I don’t record private thoughts. Its a record of what has happened during the day. Not in a “I had a pissy day” sort of thing, how many cats I was trying to rescue, how much gas I put in the car and mileage. The temp and conditions. What trees are budding, that sort of thing. Its probably not a journal, its more like a ship’s log.
ANYONE can read it. Nobody wants to. Not even my husband, if he asks a question and my answer is “I think we got his blood work done in November last year, I put that one on the bookshelf”, he gets it and hands it to me so I can look it up.
I’ve never asked him if its because he is giving me privacy, or if he can’t read my scribbles. I’ve always assumed its because I’ve got really crappy handwriting.
Exactly… if my sweetie had a blog I wouldn’t even read it…