Am I being harsh to finish with my date over his ‘home cooked’ dinner?

[WeeksJa]

I’ve had a few dates with a man over the last couple of months, and he invited me over to his last night for what he promised would be a ‘home cooked’ dinner. He knows I like my food and eat healthily/well.

This is what he served up:

Starter - Gyoza’s from the supermarket
Dinner - Curry; one of those kits where you fry off the spices and add provided sauce etc
Desert - chocolate brownie (supermarket purchased)

It just felt a bit…low effort. Not what I’d describe as ‘home cooked’.

My friends are divided - a couple say to finish it, a couple say to give him the benefit of the doubt, feedback my disappointment and see if he can redeem himself.

Thoughts welcome!

To say nothing of desert for dessert!

It sounds like a perfectly fine meal to me. Did you expect him to make three courses from scratch? With matching wines?

I would be delighted to eat a three course meal that I did not have to shop for and cook. It's not as if he got a couple of ready meal, pierced the film and bunged them in the microwave til it went ping! Did he do rice with the curry, was the food reasonably presented, was there wine or a nice soft drink? Did you enjoy his company and have a good conversation while you were eating?

How does he feed himself?!
Wtf are you on about?

People like different things and I suppose you might be thinking into the future (he obviously can’t cook!). Had my dh judged me on cooking we wouldn’t be together as I’m the worst cook. Saying that while he’s a good cook and likes different foods, he’s not the foodies some of my friends are, they probably couldn’t date the guy you dated!!

I think this is a warped way of interpreting not settling for less. You are using criteria for hiring a personal chef not a life partner. Not settling for less means ensuring the person you are with is genuinely kind and caring of you, who doesn’t display red flags that indicate that’s not the case, and is someone you really get on with.

My advice is to focus on the person and the things that matter. Some people might think not settling for less means going for the person that impresses with grand gestures only to realise that they are with a person who is actually horrible and just happens to go for grand gestures at the early relationship stages! Never settle for less, but do remember the things about a person’s character that actually matter.

I don't think you know what home cooking and red flags are tbh.

By the sounds of it, I think you both have a different opinion of what a home cooked dinner means. He meant cooking it at home and you think it means to cook from scratch.

Maybe he’s not a confident cook? My husband wouldn’t know where to start making a dessert, he doesn’t like them, doesn’t eat them and tried making mince pies once. (And only once!!) but if I had finished with him because he made curries using Pataks sauces when we first met, that would have been my loss. And he makes brilliant curries from scratch now.

Poor man ! He probably thinks it is home cooked as in you are eating at home and not in a restaurant. He did go to effort shopping and providing 3 courses .
It’s just your definition of home cooked is from scratch .
Maybe you are not suited if you think this is a dealbreaker.

Very clear why you’re single 😂

He probably just meant eating in rather than going out

Wouldn’t bother me. If you’re considering ending it over this, I’d say it’s dead in the water.

We all have things that are a turn off. He might your grocer’s apostrophes intolerable, for example. I once dumped someone once because he held his knife like a pen.

You know what actually? I have made pasta with a jar sauce once for friends of mine when they came for dinner. It was a nice sauce and I thought they would like it, and I thought that for a change it would give me a bit more time to see them than faffing in the kitchen.

Well a friend has a partner who is a sensational cook and quite an arse in many other ways

When I met my husband I was a spoilt only child who couldn’t even peel a potato,god knows what he thought of my cooking or lack of it.We’ve been married over thirty years and I still have to follow recipes to the letter whereas he just chucks stuff in but we’ve muddled along.He might just need more practise.My mum always used tins/packets so that’s what I thought was the right way

I'd rather have good sex than good food, but I suppose the two aren't mutually exclusive . . .

I’d be really happy and grateful if a man made that dinner for me!

This dilemma has made me laugh, sorry!

OP - could he learn how to cook? If not, and if you need healthy food without having to do all the cooking yourself, then maybe look for someone else.

It sounds trivial but I guess it isn't! It's important!

When we met, my DH’s idea of a home-cooked dinner was a tin of beans with a fork stuck in! Your chap’s meal sounds delish to me!

Forgive my autism for making me blunt, but have you ever been abused, OP? I’m trying to imagine my thought process over ending a possible relationship being “ew, store-bought brownie!” vs “is this person nice, caring, and capable of both loving and being loved?” But I mean, you do you. We all have different standards and different boundaries; I’m not any more right than you are. I just suspect my trauma might have changed my point of view a bit.

If it won’t matter in five years, it doesn’t really matter (in any big way) now. (This doesn’t mean you can ignore the logistics required for all life’s little shit, unfortunately). So the question is: if everything else tells you that you could have a lovely, healthy relationship with this man, are you going to end that over whether he made curry sauce from scratch? Maybe you are, and if that’s what works for you, that’s what you should do. He’ll find someone more compatible and so will you.

Id be screwed then.

Gyoza, do you eat it or rub it in?

Seeing sex as a reward is odd.

I hate cooking, he did better than I would do possibly, doesnt mean I make low effort in my relationships.

Blimey OP. I think you'll find that Jamie Oliver is already taken. I mean, when he said a home cooked meal he wasn't lying. Loads of people use shop bought ingredients like curry sauce anyway. It's hardly scandalous. Unless he blatantly lied and said he always made everything from scratch, then I think you're being ridiculous.

It was home cooked, just not homemade!
Think you are being rather unkind

it sounds like he should finish with you tbh!

You think a man inviting you into his home and cooking you a meal is a red flag?

For me, being judged for going to the effort of cooking a 3 course meal would be a red flag