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this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2026
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A lady I connected with online (not a dating site or similar) asked if I was willing to help with a web site. I said ok and we met up at a nearby late night restaurant. It turned out it was a porn site and she was a porn actress, wanting to have her own site instead of the exploitive one that she was then on. We had a nice conversation about all kinds of things including web development.
The restaurant was not fancy but she spent a while picking out the cheapest things on the menu. I was the one who suggested the meeting place and I inferred that she was having cash flow problems while I was working as a programmer, so I figured I should pick up the tab when it came. It was just the considerate thing to do. When I picked it up, she freaked out as if I expected something from her because of it. She left the restaurant in a big hurry and I didn't hear from her after that, oh well.
She was an interesting person, and attractive, and I didn't anticipate that reaction at all. I like to think we could have gotten to know each other better if I'd let her pay her own tab. Shrug, whatever.
Makes sense to me, really. Evidently you'd already been a big help to her, so to pay for her meal as if it was a (non-business) date was probably over the top to her. Nice sentiment, but...
I hadn't been of any help to her. We met up because I wanted her to help clean my apartment and she suggested that I could help her learn web stuff, but nothing had happened yet. Anyway according to Feynman's "Surely You're Joking" memoir, if you're really trying for a date in that situation, you shouldn't pay the other person's share. It's an interesting approach.
I feel like you're underestimating yourself. You met for allegedly one job, she spilled upon another, and you turned out to be an unusually good listener upon such, with some actual, relevant tools that could help her.
For her, that might have been rather mind-blowing right there compared to all the shit she'd likely slogged through already, and then you gave her... let's just say the WRONG vibes, for someone who was trying to break away from ownership and all that shizzle.
Put yourself in her place and think about how paying for the check likely came off to her.
She heavily wanted INDEPENDENCE from controlling men at that exact point. She was literally proving to herself via her meal choices that she could be an independent person, able to scrimp and pay for her own.
You unknowingly came along and shattered that for her.
(and I probably would have done exactly the same, TBF)
Uh no? We had talked about it on the phone (web help and housecleaning help) before meeting at the restaurant, and she'd sent me the url of her then-in-progress web site so I knew what it was. Nothing new spilled. But yeah, in such a situation I probably should have just offered to get the check and saying I could afford it and wasn't expecting something, instead of just picking it up without asking. But, as mentioned I had picked the restaurant and while it wasn't fancy, it was kind of midrange, not real cheap. She wouldn't have picked that place if it were up to her, so I was responsible. And I picked it mostly because it was nearby and convenient. to me It's ok, I think I understood afterwards, but too late.
IDK if I was an unusually good listener. We were both old enough to not be be too distracted by the type of work she did, so it was a normal type of intro chat that I think went ok til the check came.
Aha, I see from my earlier post that my description skipped the part that I already knew it was a porn site before we met up. Sorry about that. It was a long time ago and I didn't organize the story in my mind enough before posting it.
That's heartbreaking