Dinner

I went out to dinner last night with my boyfriend of a year and I wanted to have a little experiment without telling him. I knew he would pay because that is how our dinner dates usually go. It's his choice to pay because he said that's how he was raised. Can't complain. After dinner I was going to grab the bill and see what his reaction was. It was a reaction that cracked me up. When I grabbed it, he leaned over the table and said in a low voice smiling, "do not embarrass me." I started laughing because I couldn't believe it meant that much to him to say something so blunt. I put the bill on the table and he grabbed. After we both stopped laughing I told him about my experiment. I asked him why he reacted that way and he went on to tell me everything that was going in his mind at that point. He told me that when I grabbed the bill he felt like the whole room was looking at him and that he felt embarrassed that I might be paying for the dinner. He felt that it as a little weakness in his manliness. He felt that everyone was looking and thinking that he was broke and had to have his girl pay for him. It made me laugh how this was such a big deal to him, that he felt he REALLY needed to be the one to pay for the dinner. It is weird how something as simple as paying for a meal can determine a man's manliness. It didn't make sense to m and I suppose it didn't have to. To my boyfriend, it's just the way things are. He couldn't explain it more than that.