Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To advise my dd that she should expect to be picked up in the car for a date?

166 replies

Hellandhighwaters · 22/09/2023 19:23

I have just been informed by my lovely dd (age 19) that she is going on a third date tonight. I am lucky that she chats about her dating life and I genuinely never pry or ask her for too many details.

She is a university student (as is the lad she is seeing). She’s just messaged me to tell me he has made last minute plans and asked her to come to his tonight. It’s raining, so she is deciding whether to walk or get an uber. This is where we disagree - the lad she is seeing has a car and it will be a 15/20 minute walk for her, but would be less than a five minute drive for him to pick her up and take her back to his.

He sounds nice enough and they have had a pub date and also been out shopping together on their second date (when he did drive and they went back to hers). She’s taking things really slowly with this boy after having a really horrible dating experience in her first year at uni. However, aibu to think it is not very gentlemanly that he has not at least offered to pick her up (in view of the weather). She genuinely does not mind walking and goes everywhere on foot normally as a skint student, so she got annoyed when I suggested that it was a bit lazy of him to expect her to walk to his in the rain, without the offer of a lift. I said that back in the day, all my boyfriends who wanted to see me came to pick me up in their cars (before I passed my test) even to go on local short journeys. Am I just old fashioned and aibu? She has just said that if he isn’t drinking and doesn’t offer to run her home later then that will be a red flag!

OP posts:
BelindaBears · 23/09/2023 08:50

It’s a 15 minute walk! I wouldn’t even expect my DH to pick me up to save me such a short walk unless there was some kind of biblical weather event happening.

BelindaBears · 23/09/2023 08:50

It’s a 15 minute walk! I wouldn’t even expect my DH to pick me up to save me such a short walk unless there was some kind of biblical weather event happening.

43ontherocksporfavor · 23/09/2023 08:52

I think if it was raining heavily, I would offer anyone, friend or date, a lift if I had the means.
That’s just polite.
I would feel the same but not because it’s chivalrous, just polite.

CapEBarra · 23/09/2023 08:53

You’re far too involved. It’s a 15 minute walk. You DD is too needy if she needs advice on this, and spoilt if she needs a lift for a journey that’s only about a mile.

thinkfast · 23/09/2023 08:57

You don't get picked up for a booty call OP.

MartinChuzzlewit · 23/09/2023 08:57

NRTFT but the last place I’d want my DD to be with someone she barely knows is in his car.

Also a bit weird to be this invested in your 19yo’s dating life

Whattodowithit88 · 23/09/2023 08:58

I would expect to be picked up if he has a car, maybe that is old fashioned though…but I’d still expect it today if I was dating.

StopStartStop · 23/09/2023 08:59

Going to his place isn't on - unless she's up for being convenient sex for him.

Original poster
Hellandhighwaters · 23/09/2023 09:05

Redbrickrebel · 23/09/2023 08:34

OP, I can see you are only picking out the responses that have match your already pre determined position on this. And being slightly sarcastic about any others.

Your descriptive words for your daughter show you have her high on a pedestal, and I would imagine your interference here is irritating and unwelcome to her.

Let her live her life and bloody walk 15 mins - she probably is judging this new bloke on performative gestures like unnecessarily driving to collect her when he could be cooking, tidying up etc

Yeah, I think she's got this covered without your help!

Thank you for your response. I have spent the last year helping my dd pick up the pieces after she ended a dreadful relationship. This saw her confidence drop and she became unrecognisable as the cheerful, bubbly girl she once was. If reminding her about some of her amazing qualities helps her to feel good about herself then I shall continue to do this and enjoy the lovely relationship we have. I do not view this as having her ‘high on a pedestal’ just helping her to regain some self esteem which she was seriously lacking after this relationship ended.

With hindsight I should not have made the remark about mode of transport and take on board the constructive comments in this thread about not interfering in future. I do not think my tone has been sarcastic in response to others.

She quite rightly is more than capable of walking 15 minutes. However, I will continue to encourage her to value her worth and not accept the bare minimum if she asks my opinion. @FUPAgirl your son sounds lovely. I’m just very grateful I’m not dating these days.

OP posts:
Aprilx · 23/09/2023 09:06

Hont1986 · 22/09/2023 20:30

You are trying to apply your 1990s-based views on dating to 2023, and it just doesn't work, for better or worse. It's a more egalitarian world now, and women are expected to make their own way there, to pay half, to not expect to be the only woman he's speaking to. And vice versa.

I am 53 so I guess I have a 1990s view of dating too and I do not ever recall being “picked up” for a date. I lived in University cities in the north and then London, people always made their own way to dates at an agreed meeting point and generally on public transport or foot. It seems more sensible to make one’s own way to a date than get into the car of a relative stranger.

Although, yes I would expect to be the only person he is speaking to. I am very much 1990s that way. 😊

MasterBeth · 23/09/2023 09:07

It's none of your fucking business.

WandaWonder · 23/09/2023 09:10

Hellandhighwaters · 23/09/2023 09:05

Thank you for your response. I have spent the last year helping my dd pick up the pieces after she ended a dreadful relationship. This saw her confidence drop and she became unrecognisable as the cheerful, bubbly girl she once was. If reminding her about some of her amazing qualities helps her to feel good about herself then I shall continue to do this and enjoy the lovely relationship we have. I do not view this as having her ‘high on a pedestal’ just helping her to regain some self esteem which she was seriously lacking after this relationship ended.

With hindsight I should not have made the remark about mode of transport and take on board the constructive comments in this thread about not interfering in future. I do not think my tone has been sarcastic in response to others.

She quite rightly is more than capable of walking 15 minutes. However, I will continue to encourage her to value her worth and not accept the bare minimum if she asks my opinion. @FUPAgirl your son sounds lovely. I’m just very grateful I’m not dating these days.

Show quote history

Bare minimum? Sounds incredibly sexist, she is an adult regardless of is a popular trend on here men are not less of a species

DisquietintheRanks · 23/09/2023 09:10

thinkfast · 23/09/2023 08:57

You don't get picked up for a booty call OP.

If you don't want sex then don't have sex - whether you have walked round, been given a lift or he's taken you out for an expensive dinner.

If you think he'd force sex on you, then you don't go- whether he offers a lift or not.

If he's kind and respectful then you still don't have to have sex, but going round to his should not be a problem.

If you don't fancy a quiet evening in then don't go.

MinnieMouse0 · 23/09/2023 09:12

Surely it’s really unsafe to get in a car with a stranger? I would never accept a lift on a first or second date!

By third or fourth date I might. As PPs said - third date is for sleepovers!

I’m 30 if it makes a difference.

NoodlesAndRice · 23/09/2023 09:13

‘Gentlemanly’ 🤢

MyAnacondaMight · 23/09/2023 09:14

thinkfast · 23/09/2023 08:57

You don't get picked up for a booty call OP.

This 😉

ilovesooty · 23/09/2023 09:17

It's a third date. We don't know how well they knew one another before dating, so it can't be assumed that he's a "stranger".

NoodlesAndRice · 23/09/2023 09:18

DaisyWaldron · 23/09/2023 06:06

If someone offered to drive me a 16 minute walk,and I didn't have an illness or disability that affected my ability to walk or cycle, it would really put me off. I would assume that they were either lazy and wasteful and regularly drove short distances, or that they had very rigid gender expectations around dating, and I wouldn't be interested in anything long- term with someone with either of those attitudes.

Same here. I am in my fifties with 19 and 20y old kids and prefer how things are now.

Someone who is ‘gentlemanly’ might expect a woman to behave like a ‘lady’. No thanks.

My kids have been getting the tube and bus all their lives and don’t have cars at uni. Walking, Ubers or buses work just fine for them.

I find overt displays of ‘chivalry’ really off-putting. Even when I was dating in the nineties.

43ontherocksporfavor · 23/09/2023 09:34

I’m 52.Manners are manners. Kindness and thoughtfulness never go out of style for either gender.

Pacificisolated · 23/09/2023 10:42

Your daughter will stop talking to you about dating and relationships if she perceives you to be too judgemental.

Howdoesitworkagain · 23/09/2023 10:49

I’m amazed that the majority of people are hung up on the walk/lift “conundrum” and missing the real issue / massive big flashing warning light.

Only a handful of posters have pointed out that the last minute change of plans to just go to his place on the 3rd date is entirely inconsistent with your daughter’s “taking it slowly”. I’d be way more worried about the situation she’s going to find herself in regardless of how she gets there!

gannett · 23/09/2023 11:35

It would not occur to me that a 15-minute walk required anyone to get their car out, regardless of the weather. Presumably if this is a university town it's not totally bereft of public transport. I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to make a round trip to pick me up, short car journeys are terrible for the environment.

TrishM80 · 23/09/2023 11:40

I'll tell you what's a red flag for him: the girlfriend's mother sticking her nose into every minute aspect the relationship.

gannett · 23/09/2023 11:41

JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn · 23/09/2023 00:19

For a third date she's mad to go to his house. He's clearly expecting sex. If she's taking it slow, it's just about to go fast!

She's been treated badly over the last year? She needs to raise the bar on her choice in blokes. He sounds lazy and after what he can get. She's kidding herself if she thinks making her own way to his house is being independent. He's sat on his arse waiting for his latest shag to arrive. I'd be telling her to ditch him, value her worth and concentrate on dating blokes who actually take her on a date.

Absolutely hate the replies along these lines that depict sexual desire in the most coarse terms possible, and only in terms of male sexual desire.

Is it not possible for a 19-year-old woman to a) expect sex if she goes round to a man's house, b) desire sex if she goes round to a man's house, c) realise sex might be on the cards but have the ability to say no if she doesn't want to have sex? All three applied to me at various points when I was 19.

Presumably this is a man who she actually likes and fancies, given that she's been on multiple dates with him, and someone she'd like to get to know more. It's just bizarre to react with such vitriol to the scenario.

Dolores87 · 23/09/2023 11:42

I think you are unreasonable. It would be nice to offer to pick her up but I don't think she should expect it.