To have made my partner switch hotels in London?

[LondonWoes]

My partner surprised me with a long weekend in London, for my birthday. He got us theatre tickets and told me he had sorted the hotel out.

We got on the train today and he started bragging it was £30 a night. That immediately set alarm bells ringing. We arrive and it’s a dump. It’s not even a hotel, but someone’s house with a load of converted rooms. There’s no reception, just a living room, and every door has the same key. That same key also opened the front door. We had been put in a downstairs room, with no window. It was boiling hot.

I told him I wasn’t staying in that hotel. It didn’t feel safe and the vibes were off. He has begrudgingly moved but made me pay, so now im £500 down for my birthday weekend. Was I being unreasonable?

Women who treat men as ‘a catch’

He was a cheapskate. Then he sulked. Then he doubled down with a takeaway burger instead of the promised dinner reservation. Then he stormed off in a strop leaving OP on her own for the evening.

And went to sleep rather than stay up to talk it through.

The OP has not pandered to his sulking and has taken responsibility for having a damned good weekend anyway. Why on earth should she stay with such a disrespectful and petulant bloke?

You've done the right thing.

Ignore everyone saying give him another chance - boasting about spending only £30 a night for a hotel in London, for what is supposed to be a birthday treat for you, shows how little (literally) he values you.

My ex did almost the same - he lived in London when we were first dating, and the very first weekend I came down to visit, he'd booked me into the cheapest place in Ealing that he could find on Late Rooms...this was 15 years ago. Like yours, it was an actual dump, a converted house with zero security and very dodgy 'staff' ... who would basically turn up to take the money (and it had to be cash) and then disappear. I found out years later it was actually a front for Russian money launderers...

What made it worse for me was at the time I'd just been made redundant - he still expected me to pay half of everything (even though he'd made it sound like the weekend was his treat beforehand), and I didn't have the funds to change to anything better. And to add insult to injury, he was staying with his parents nearby and left me alone in this dodgy dump for two nights!

I stupidly ignored these red flags and ended up wasting a decade on him. His tightness was legendary with his friends, but it was easy for them to see it as a joke...not when you had to live with it.

Might not be so cheap last minute.

Good for you OP. Being a tight arse and booking a shithole is bad enough but to then sulk like a giant toddler when called out on his shitness is just pathetic. Definitely right to dump his sorry arse. Good on you for having self respect. Enjoy Hamilton, it’s amazing

He might have an online booking receipt and a shitty attitude.

Exactly. Talk about sunk cost fallacy. Better to walk away after only 18 months than keep chucking more months into the relationship slot machine hoping it'll finally pay out one day.

You could lose the best years of your life waiting for him to figure out why a takeaway burger in a windowless shithole isn't a birthday treat.

Or you could free yourself up to meet someone else who already knows that (which, even then, would still be the bare minimum!).

Im blown away by your bottle and confidence - I really hope he got out of the hotel room before 12 and you don't get a charge on your card for a late check out.

Leave his ticket at the box office to collect if you're feeling kind, and enjoy the show!

I totally get being disappointed when someone has hyped up a special 'spoil you for your birthday' treat and then it turns out he's cheaped out at every turn. Thats shite, thats not at all the same as agreeing in advance to do something as cheaply as possible, or just someone treating you but working within the budget they have.

The sulking about you being unimpressed by the skeevy cheap dive hotel and the 'reservation' to ... sit in a hotel room and eat lukewarm overpriced burgers is very much 'ick' territory for me too!

No, the OP has had a lucky escape.

Have you always had such a low bar?

All that means is that they are on the same suite of keys - the front door has a special barrel which opens for every room key.

Oh dear! I think you need a lesson in the sunk cost fallacy…

The sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to continue an endeavor because of resources already invested, even when abandoning it would be more beneficial. It is a flawed way of thinking that prioritises past, unrecoverable investments (sunk costs) of time, money, or effort over future costs and benefits. This is often referred to as "throwing good money after bad".

Definition:
The fallacy occurs when a person or organization keeps investing in a project or decision that is failing, simply because they have already invested a significant amount of resources into it.

Reasoning:
The underlying psychology is an aversion to waste and a desire to avoid the negative feelings of guilt and loss, which makes it difficult to abandon a project or person that isn't working.

………
OP knows her worth and isn’t wasting another minute of her life with this waste of space male specimen.
👏👏👏👏

I was wondering if it was the equivalent in a lock of a master key.

In any case, the accommodation sounds shit. You can't get anything decent for 30 pounds any more.

He's an absolute tight arse, cheap bastard cunt.
Get rid!!

If youre with a bloke for 18 months and not know the slightest thing about him. He had a lucky escape. she is fake.

go on Airbnb, search for London and see what £30 gets you. It’s totally feasible that those sorts of property owners, would not bother with a suite of keys/something special

Sure, but just because the room key opens the front door doesn't mean that it opens all the other rooms. To say that, she needs to open at least one other room with her own room key.

LOL. She's fake for not realising sooner that he's an absolute tight arse?

Okay.

Maybe if you ask the OP really nicely she’ll give you his number. He’s free this weekend.

The key really is the very least concerning thing about all of this. I don't know why so many posters are fixating on it.

Even if that room door had ten padlocks on it, it would still be a windlowless HMO dump that dealers use to put up their county lines kids.

So refreshing to see a poster who knows her worth. Well done OP.

Too many women put up with or excuse petulant sulking from grown men who ought to know better.

😁 well done! Enjoy 💐

You don’t need to spell out in baby steps sunk cost fallacy!
Are you/have you been in a fairly long term relationship? Would you ditch at the first hurdle?
I think not.
Anyway. It’s probably not real anyway. And if it is? Both the OP and her ex have had a lucky escape from each other.

I'm just being left-brained, it's good to solve issues by identifying facts, so:

The fact that the key opens the front door and the room doesn't mean that it opens all the rooms.

But yes - the suitability of the DP isn't assured by the key suite. Plus I didn't realise that DP had booked a windowless HMO dump that dealers use to put up their county lines kids, me bad. Sorry, windows are essential to any relationship.

I guarantee no one who is giving you a hard time would stay in a £30 a night flea pit. I’m not fancy but booking that would make me seeth, how stupid can you be.

£30 wouldn't get you far in a taxi in London (definitely not over the river 🤣) so I imagine this £30 a night room was squalid 🤢
You can end a relationship for any reason you like.
I would be fucking him off too.
Enjoy your show 🎶🎵🎶🎵

(ETA a word)