The rules of early romance are often unspoken and easy to misread, especially as a teenager who’s new to dating.

One young man thought he was being respectful by letting his date pay when she insisted, but it turns out, he failed a test he didn’t even know he was taking.

Read on for the full story!

AITA for not paying for a girl’s food when she said she could pay for herself?

So I (17M) have been talking to this girl for a bit, and we finally hung out in person.

We went to McDonald’s, and I was planning to pay for her, but when we got to the counter, she said something like, “Oh, I can pay for myself.”

Deciding to be respectful, he took her at her word.

I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to be independent or polite, so I said, “Oh okay,” and then (this is the part I may have messed up) I said, “Do you just wanna Apple Pay me then?” since I thought she was still letting me cover it.

But it turns out, the truth was more complicated.

Apparently, that was a “hint” that she wanted me to insist and pay anyway, but I genuinely didn’t pick up on it.

Now I found out through a friend that she told her friend it “went terrible” and seemed super condescending about it, even though we still hung out for a while after and she acted totally normal.

Now she’s not interested in seeing him anymore altogether.

Now she’s saying she’s “not really interested anymore” but might give me a second chance.

The whole experience put a sour taste in his mouth.

I feel weird about the whole thing, like I was respectful of what she said and now I’m being talked about like I failed some hidden test.

So, AITA for not insisting on paying when she said she’d pay for herself?

Oh, young love!

What did Reddit make of all this?

A fellow woman says this type of behavior just isn’t cool.

It’s definitely not too late for this young woman to learn an important lesson about choosing a suitor.

This type of bad behavior on dates really shouldn’t be rewarded.

Communication is one of the most important things in a healthy relationship.

He thought he was right to follow her lead, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Ultimately, mixed signals made the whole thing more complicated than it needed to be.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.