In-Laws from Hell·
THE CURFEW CLASH
A first date ends in a tense standoff as a protective father confronts a late arrival, sparking a clash that tests parental boundaries and dating etiquette.
Apologize to the father or walk away?
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A first date turned into a chokehold showdown the moment a father grabbed a 20-year-old man by the collar and raised a fist at his daughter's front door.
The poster had met a 20-year-old woman and learned before the date that she lived with her parents and had a curfew. He planned the evening carefully: putter golf, then walking tacos. Before he even pulled up, he was told the house rules.
When he came to pick her up, her father, described as a much older man and "very traditional on dating", gave him the deadline in no uncertain terms: "I need to have her home by 9:30 sharp." The poster agreed.
The date itself went well. But on the drive back, everything slowed down behind what he later called "this jerk who wouldn't let us pass and was going almost 15 below the speed limit." By the time he got her home, he was late.
He was walking her to the door when the evening snapped.
According to the poster, her father "physically grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and throw his free hand in a fist." The father cursed at him, and the poster said he told him, "I will never date his daughter." In the moment, he said he reacted by getting behind the older man and twisting his arm, holding him in place.
He later described the move with a shrug: "By no means am I an expert in hand to hand combat, nor do I want to." When someone questioned how he got behind the father if the father had him by the shirt, he replied, "Clothes can stretch under tension."
He left after letting go.
The situation didn't end there. The woman called later and told him he needed to apologize for "attacking her father and hurting his pride." The poster pushed back online as well, adding that, "It's the first date, you normally don't go asking people the age of their parents on the first date." When another commenter objected to the father's behavior, he added a sharp aside: "it's his thing, now in the Midwest, that's normal!"
In an update, the poster said he ran into the father at work. This time, the older man apologized and said he had assumed the worst because he became a father around the poster's age. The poster forgave him for assaulting him, then told him plainly that he would not be seeing his daughter.
The father walked away.