Chatting with a chap and he said-

[Shallysally]

So I’ve been chatting with a chap, very casual, I’m not long out of a long term relationship and definitely not in the right head space for anything other than extremely casual.

Anyway, we had been chatting yesterday about Christmas movies and music. I made a joke that I bet he loves Cliff Richard’s tunes. Just nice banter.

Tonight I saw a post on fb about Cliff bringing a new Christmas album out. So I screenshotted and sent it to the chap.
His response was “you’ll be getting a slap 😉😉”

I said, a what now? He proceeded to make a joke of it, several messages later he admitted he had been a dick, apologised, said he knows better.

I’m seriously put off by this remark.
Am I over reacting? I know that some people do say this, but surely to
people they know well enough to know that they are joking?

Massive over-reaction. It was a joke!

'Ill smack your bottom' would be a joke.
'I'll spank you' would have been a cheeky flirt.

'I'll slap you' however, is neither of those things.

At best it's an inappropriate thing to say to someone you barely know. I mean, would you say this to someone you'd just met?!

At worst, it's a test of boundaries to see if he can say that as a 'joke' and she will just tolerate it.

If your instincts are telling you to excuse his comment, then you sorely need to wonder why!
Luckily ops instincts are on point.

I don't understand what you mean.

Have you told him you are no longer interested?

@DesertIslandCondiment I mean that it’s a bit of a leap to assume that he thinks my sense of humour is weird because I (we) were joking about Cliff Richard.

To answer your question, yes I have told him that I’m not interested now. One reason is because of what he said, he apologised again, but said that he understands.

@Pinkbonbon thank you. I was really second guessing my reaction but know that I’m right to trust my instincts. I don’t think it’s a huge red flag, just not the sort of talk that I like.

Well it was obviously a joke, but it would still put me off. Not because I'd think he would actually slap me. Just because it would make me suspect he was a bit of a twat.

I actually think you've done the right thing ending it for both of you.

I'm probably a lot older than you. I've had an abusive boyfriend when I was younger and he never threatened to slap me he just did it when he was angry.

I'm with someone for nearly 20 years and we have a lot of banter and he has never been abusive. He is so lovely

I do think you should trust your instincts though as if will always be at the back of your mind.

I wouldn’t be happy with a comment like that. I’ve had a “slap” in the past from a former partner

Did he actually joke he was going to do it before he did? It doesn't usually happen like that.

Actually it does commonly happen like that.

I dated someone who would say 'that TV character looks like she could take a good smack' ect. Then one day he 'playfully' hit me really hard on the arse. Totally out of the blue. He didn't last long after that and looking back there were other red flags.

But its really common for abusers to straight up tell you they are abusers early on in various ways, to see if you will tolerate it or try defend them (they they know they've got you fooled). Eg they may say: 'my ex said I was a narcissist', 'I'm a bad person', 'I'll end up hurting you', 'everybody leaves me in the end' ect...ect...

They'll tell you exactly who they are and how you will be treated. Sometimes they'll phrase it as a joke.

Thar is awful. Luckily I got rid of my twat when I young.

I have the best relationship with my DH. Perhaps we are inappropriate sometimes but we have our safe friendship.

So when he says he's going slap my arse I don't get that worried.

Exactly this! I dated a man and he was very “my ex was a psycho, she would scream at me and treated me badly, after all I had done for her”

Obviously some w

Grrr

obviously some women do behave like this, but generally people behave in this way for a reason.
Needless to say I didn’t stick around