This was a few months ago but I still wonder about it. We’ve been together about seven months at this point. He’s expressed that big social gatherings bother him and that dances/parties especially aren’t his scene.

We’re in highschool and there are homecoming dances. I’d gone the previous year with friends, before I’d met my boyfriend, and decided to go this year as well. Two weeks before the dance, I’d texted my boyfriend, asking if he’s gone to past dances since he’s in a higher grade. He tells me no and asks why I asked, and I tell him it’s because I wanted to know if I’d be going with friends or him as a date in advance. He was unsure and the convo stopped there. 

Flash forward two weeks, the day of the dance. I’m getting ready and receive a text from him. He asks if I’m attending the dance and I say yes. I get a very typical “oh, nevermind,” response. I press a little and he ends up flipping the fuck out. He immediately asks why I hadn’t asked him to be his date, and why he was finding out last minute I was going. I told him I’d mentioned it two weeks prior and didn’t bring it up again because I didn’t want to pester him. I’m terrified of bothering somebody so close to me. My anxiety makes me 100x more bothered by rejection, especially from my own partner. He tells me “I’m at a tournament stressing about this because you didn’t want to use your big girl words.” (He’s an extremely dedicated wrestler. Tournaments are every weekend and it’d take something super important for him to miss one.) 

By now I’ve left home. I ended up repeatedly apologizing for not making my desire for him to be my date clear and spent most of my dance time worriedly checking my phone notifications. I asked how I could prevent this from happening in the future, to which he gave a condescending “Speak up. That is quite literally what needed to happen. A concept instilled in four year olds because they’ll hurt themselves and not say anything.” That combined with the big girl comment left me extremely hurt but I gave up trying to defend myself because every reason seemed like bullshit to him. 

Halfway through the dance, he asks where I am. Somehow he’d gotten entry. We sat down and talked more, and he was noticeably calmer. A few off topic things were mentioned and I’d asked why he even approached me when we first met, and he claimed it was a friend’s dare. This killed my self esteem, which he knows I already struggle with heavily. I told him that later that night and he admitted he lied about it being a dare make somebody feel worse than he was (because he’d lost the tournament? Which anybody would be upset by.)

Basically, AITA for not formally asking him straight up to go to the dance with me? Or was it blown out of proportion? My friends think his reaction was completely uncalled for and that his words were beyond hurtful, but I feel as though none of this would’ve happened if I just had the balls to be direct. 