Mia persuaded the narrator to go on a blind date with her boyfriend’s friend Eric. Skeptical but giving in, she was told he was “courteous, romantic, and thoughtful.” Eric arrived early, brought roses, opened doors, and even gifted a small engraved keychain, leaving her cautiously optimistic that “maybe good men still existed.”

That hope vanished the next morning when she received an email from Eric: an itemized invoice for their date. It listed the dinner cost, a request for a hug for the flowers, repayment through another date for the keychain, and a demand for more affection as “emotional labor,” ending with a veiled threat: “Failure to comply may result in Chris hearing about it.”

Disturbed, she showed Mia, who urged her to block him. Mia then told her boyfriend Chris, who responded by sending Eric a mock invoice from “Karma & Co.” The humorous bill included charges for “public embarrassment, emotional disturbance, and the crime of ‘forcing a woman to sit across from someone wildly out of her league.’”

Eric reacted angrily, claiming they misunderstood his “symbolic” gesture, but the narrator calmly replied with a thumbs-up emoji and blocked him everywhere.

Reflecting on the ordeal, she concludes that “true kindness never comes with conditions, and self-respect is never something to refund.”