First Date Popcorn Hoarding? What do you think? more info 16 update pg 8, 10

[WillyNilly]

To me, it's fine if he had any of the issues suggested. What's not fine is that he couldn't just tell her that. Instead, he exhibited very strange behavior, and deprived her of enjoying something she paid for. Then, after the movie, he couldn't just mention it with a quick explanation? At best, he's bad at communicating, at worst he's a controlling jerk.

Well we have to remember that going to a movie was a last minute decision, not a pre-established plan.  He might have been caught off guard.  And then after - well did you see Batman?  It was good and it was something to talk about too, it had a plot twist (which upon further dissection could be a major hole) and an end that could lead to interesting discussions (I thought the end tied up the whole series leaving no room for a sequel - the director will just move onto Superman next... but my DF though the end actually set the stage for a sequel... which of course just led us to discussing District 9 and when will that sequel be out because its been the 2 or 3 years or however long it was the alien promised be back by!) So maybe it was a bit of a combination of being caught off guard and being a bit embarrassed of himself and add in nervous about a first date and yeah stuff happens and things don't always get explained properly and promptly.

[CreteGirl]

I love popcorn.  I surly do.  Many years ago, I was out to dinner with a boyfriend at a casual restaurant that served popcorn before a meal.  I was happily munching away, when he took the bowl from me, saying "I don't want my future wife to be fat".  We had never discussed marriage before.  My response was, "when I get married, it will be to someone who accepts me the way I am!".  I broke up with him, and later married my husband, who accepts me the way I am. 

Back then I was a size 6.

I wish I was still a size 6.

So I will echo "red flag!", and everything else that has been said about making a good impression on the first date.  There is no way his behavior will improve, it will only get worse. 

Run. Run. Run.

[Audrey Quest]

“The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
― Maya Angelou

He's shown her.

Wiser Words have never been spoken.

Absolutely!  This was not about popcorn at all.  Or about control.  This guy was unkind and rude--frowns, exasperation, keeping her treat away from her and wasting most of it.
 
Who cares why he behaved that way?  It was terribly inappropriate.

[Twik]

He took food away from the person who legally owned it. His rudeness was mindboggling.

I cannot in any way see that this is excusable by "oh, he was nervous, poor guy." If his response to stress is to become rude and aggressive, the OP's friend should be getting out now. She's making a large mistake, IMHO, by hoping that this particular sow's ear will turn into a silk purse the next time.

[thlayly]

I POD Twik completely.

[Cz. Burrito]

He took food away from the person who legally owned it. His rudeness was mindboggling.

I cannot in any way see that this is excusable by "oh, he was nervous, poor guy." If his response to stress is to become rude and aggressive, the OP's friend should be getting out now. She's making a large mistake, IMHO, by hoping that this particular sow's ear will turn into a silk purse the next time.

I agree with this.  The absolute best case scenario is that he was merely astoundingly rude on the first date.  It's only going to get worse from there.  I wouldn't want to date anybody whose response to any of the aforementioned scenarios is to behave like this.

[Cat-Fu]

My instinct is pretty different from others', given that the OP's friend is willing to give the guy a second chance. I don't immediately leap to eating disorders or a disastrously controlling future. I instead thought, "I wonder if he thought playing hard-to-get with the popcorn is flirtatious or fun?"

I have known guys, particularly immature ones, who think that making their date reach across them or be 'playful' with the snack is cute. I happen to strongly disagree with them, but I do wonder if it was coming from a place of awkwardness rather than abusiveness.

I would make date no. 2 a dinner or lunch date to get to talking more and to see if he acts weird around food in general, though!

Had he kept it in his lap, yeah, I would guess that. But, he put it on the floor.

You know, I've been thinking about this more, and I wonder if this isn't also a jerk-flirt move.  He placed the popcorn on the floor on the other side of him. If she wanted to get more popcorn herself, she'd have to lean over him and place her head strategically close to his lap. Throw in that the theatre probably wasn't that full and... Perhaps she was ruining his "fun" by making him get her the popcorn.

[jmarvellous]

My instinct is pretty different from others', given that the OP's friend is willing to give the guy a second chance. I don't immediately leap to eating disorders or a disastrously controlling future. I instead thought, "I wonder if he thought playing hard-to-get with the popcorn is flirtatious or fun?"

I have known guys, particularly immature ones, who think that making their date reach across them or be 'playful' with the snack is cute. I happen to strongly disagree with them, but I do wonder if it was coming from a place of awkwardness rather than abusiveness.

I would make date no. 2 a dinner or lunch date to get to talking more and to see if he acts weird around food in general, though!

Had he kept it in his lap, yeah, I would guess that. But, he put it on the floor.

You know, I've been thinking about this more, and I wonder if this isn't also a jerk-flirt move.  He placed the popcorn on the floor on the other side of him. If she wanted to get more popcorn herself, she'd have to lean over him and place her head strategically close to his lap. Throw in that the theatre probably wasn't that full and... Perhaps she was ruining his "fun" by making him get her the popcorn.

That's what I was thinking.

It's very far from attractive (and thus would probably not get a second date from me), but it's possible it's not quite pathological.

[Mikayla]

My instinct is pretty different from others', given that the OP's friend is willing to give the guy a second chance. I don't immediately leap to eating disorders or a disastrously controlling future. I instead thought, "I wonder if he thought playing hard-to-get with the popcorn is flirtatious or fun?"

I have known guys, particularly immature ones, who think that making their date reach across them or be 'playful' with the snack is cute. I happen to strongly disagree with them, but I do wonder if it was coming from a place of awkwardness rather than abusiveness.

I would make date no. 2 a dinner or lunch date to get to talking more and to see if he acts weird around food in general, though!

I completely agree.  Also, it's hard to picture parts of this, but it almost sounds like the friend was sending mixed signals by not keeping the popcorn near her.  Even if he moved it for whatever reason, my response would have been to reclaim it or ask him to give it back.  I put my own popcorn on the floor all the time, so he may have just done it for convenience without thinking (if it wasn't a flirt-gone-bad).

[LazyDaisy]

My instinct is pretty different from others', given that the OP's friend is willing to give the guy a second chance. I don't immediately leap to eating disorders or a disastrously controlling future. I instead thought, "I wonder if he thought playing hard-to-get with the popcorn is flirtatious or fun?"

I have known guys, particularly immature ones, who think that making their date reach across them or be 'playful' with the snack is cute. I happen to strongly disagree with them, but I do wonder if it was coming from a place of awkwardness rather than abusiveness.

I would make date no. 2 a dinner or lunch date to get to talking more and to see if he acts weird around food in general, though!

Had he kept it in his lap, yeah, I would guess that. But, he put it on the floor.

You know, I've been thinking about this more, and I wonder if this isn't also a jerk-flirt move.  He placed the popcorn on the floor on the other side of him. If she wanted to get more popcorn herself, she'd have to lean over him and place her head strategically close to his lap. Throw in that the theatre probably wasn't that full and... Perhaps she was ruining his "fun" by making him get her the popcorn.

Except that jerk flirts usually say things and do other things under the guise of a joke that really let you know for sure. If he were putting it on the floor to get her to bend across him, he'd probably say something about it when she did or lift his leg to brush against her or something. I think he was distracted by the movie and thoughtless. Lots of people are not very self-aware about that -- for example if he's right-handed he just naturally holds it with his right hand that happens to be away from the woman so she thinks he's keeping it away from her, but he's just not paying attention to it at all. And then he puts the bag by his right foot because it's an automatic thing.

[Yvaine]

My instinct is pretty different from others', given that the OP's friend is willing to give the guy a second chance. I don't immediately leap to eating disorders or a disastrously controlling future. I instead thought, "I wonder if he thought playing hard-to-get with the popcorn is flirtatious or fun?"

I have known guys, particularly immature ones, who think that making their date reach across them or be 'playful' with the snack is cute. I happen to strongly disagree with them, but I do wonder if it was coming from a place of awkwardness rather than abusiveness.

I would make date no. 2 a dinner or lunch date to get to talking more and to see if he acts weird around food in general, though!

Had he kept it in his lap, yeah, I would guess that. But, he put it on the floor.

You know, I've been thinking about this more, and I wonder if this isn't also a jerk-flirt move.  He placed the popcorn on the floor on the other side of him. If she wanted to get more popcorn herself, she'd have to lean over him and place her head strategically close to his lap. Throw in that the theatre probably wasn't that full and... Perhaps she was ruining his "fun" by making him get her the popcorn.

Ewww, yuck, could be.

[Barb3000]

If I was her, I would be thanking my lucky stars I found out about his "weirdness" on the first date, instead of later, say, at the rehearsal dinner.

Unless she is very forgiving or really needs someone to date, I would NOT be going on another date with this guy.

[blarg314]

If I was her, I would be thanking my lucky stars I found out about his "weirdness" on the first date, instead of later, say, at the rehearsal dinner.

Unless she is very forgiving or really needs someone to date, I would NOT be going on another date with this guy.

I go with this.

You can come up with a convoluted explanation that is relatively benign - he's got a phobia about sitting next to someone eating popcorn, but is embarrassed about it, so he was trying to eat all the popcorn before she got back, but didn't manage it, so he had to resort to making it as hard as possible to eat it, and is now ignoring it, and planning never to go to the movies with her again so he doesn't have to explain this.

Or, you can go with a much simpler, and much more likely explanation - he's got food issues of some sort, or it's a move, conscious or unconscious, to test whether she'll put up with bad treatment without standing up for herself, if she's kept off balance.

If she *is* still dating him, and she can't say "By the way, what was going on with the popcorn thing on our first date?" and get a decent answer, she's not headed for a particularly healthy or good relationship.

[LazyDaisy]

If I was her, I would be thanking my lucky stars I found out about his "weirdness" on the first date, instead of later, say, at the rehearsal dinner.

Unless she is very forgiving or really needs someone to date, I would NOT be going on another date with this guy.

I go with this.

You can come up with a convoluted explanation that is relatively benign - he's got a phobia about sitting next to someone eating popcorn, but is embarrassed about it, so he was trying to eat all the popcorn before she got back, but didn't manage it, so he had to resort to making it as hard as possible to eat it, and is now ignoring it, and planning never to go to the movies with her again so he doesn't have to explain this.

Or, you can go with a much simpler, and much more likely explanation - he's got food issues of some sort, or it's a move, conscious or unconscious, to test whether she'll put up with bad treatment without standing up for herself, if she's kept off balance.

If she *is* still dating him, and she can't say "By the way, what was going on with the popcorn thing on our first date?" and get a decent answer, she's not headed for a particularly healthy or good relationship.

But to me this isn't a simpler or more likely explanation at all. It's more convoluted and conspiracy theory-like than just that he was thoughtless and distracted by the movie. I bet if she does ask "what was going on with the popcorn thing?" he'll be totally confused as what she's talking about because he doesn't even remember there was popcorn but he can describe in detail the latest incarnation of the batmobile and how it compares to the previous 5 movies.

[Hillia]

If I was her, I would be thanking my lucky stars I found out about his "weirdness" on the first date, instead of later, say, at the rehearsal dinner.

Unless she is very forgiving or really needs someone to date, I would NOT be going on another date with this guy.

I go with this.

You can come up with a convoluted explanation that is relatively benign - he's got a phobia about sitting next to someone eating popcorn, but is embarrassed about it, so he was trying to eat all the popcorn before she got back, but didn't manage it, so he had to resort to making it as hard as possible to eat it, and is now ignoring it, and planning never to go to the movies with her again so he doesn't have to explain this.

Or, you can go with a much simpler, and much more likely explanation - he's got food issues of some sort, or it's a move, conscious or unconscious, to test whether she'll put up with bad treatment without standing up for herself, if she's kept off balance.

If she *is* still dating him, and she can't say "By the way, what was going on with the popcorn thing on our first date?" and get a decent answer, she's not headed for a particularly healthy or good relationship.

But to me this isn't a simpler or more likely explanation at all. It's more convoluted and conspiracy theory-like than just that he was thoughtless and distracted by the movie. I bet if she does ask "what was going on with the popcorn thing?" he'll be totally confused as what she's talking about because he doesn't even remember there was popcorn but he can describe in detail the latest incarnation of the batmobile and how it compares to the previous 5 movies.

The fact that he gave her 'annoyed' looks and snapped about leaving the popcorn after the movie and actively kept the popcorn after she indicated pretty clearly that she wanted it back points to him being a thoughtless jerk rather than any food issues or distractions from the movie or anything else.  I would be inclined to go out with him again in the name of research, just to see what he does at an outdoor cafe when the OP orders a big meal for herself.