Dating Disasters·
THE SOUTH OF THE BORDER STOP
A long-haul couple clash over a single roadside detour, as one partner begs for a goofy stop at South of the Border while the other stays stubbornly on route.
Was the stop too much, or was the refusal the issue?
Be one of the first to vote.
On a 19-hour drive to Florida, the fight was not about the car, the gas, or the tolls. It was about one hour at South of the Border.
The trip itself was already a big one: the poster and their boyfriend were planning to drive from Pennsylvania down to Florida to visit his parents for a week. The boyfriend would do the driving, but they would be using the poster's car. The poster says they would pay for gas and tolls, and even make up for the boyfriend's lost wages for the week he would miss at work.
Then the vacation days went in, and excitement kicked in.
According to the poster, they told the boyfriend, "I really hope we can stop at South of the Border!" South of the Border is the cheesy tourist trap right at the border of North and South Carolina, sitting directly on I-95 along the southbound route. For the poster, it was the kind of place worth a quick detour, a goofy roadside stop with enough kitsch to make the drive feel like a trip instead of just a long haul.
The boyfriend was not interested.
"He said no, he doesn't want to stop anywhere on the drive down," the poster wrote. His version of the trip was simple: drive straight through, keep a cooler in the car, and only stop to pee when necessary. No wandering off the highway. No souvenir break. No tourist stop.
The poster tried to shrink the ask. It would not need to be a whole afternoon, they said, "maybe an hour to eat and look around." Just a short pause in a long day behind the wheel.
The answer still stayed no.
That refusal hit harder than the poster expected. They said they felt really hurt, because the drive is 19 hours long and they were only asking for one of those hours. They acknowledged exactly what South of the Border is, "just a shitty highway stop", but said they loved it there anyway.
Now the question is not whether the stop is glamorous. It is whether the boyfriend's hard no is out of line, given the setup: her car, her gas money, her tolls, his lost wages covered, and still no pit stop for one roadside attraction she actually wants to see.
The poster ended by asking the obvious question: AITA for thinking his hard no is unreasonable?