I was used as a tool.

[Thatonemikeguy]

Thanks everyone for the responses, it helps to hear different points of view.
And I'm trying to stay positive about it, I'd say it counts as my good deed for the month.

I think part of my misunderstanding is a cultural difference, I was raised in the south until my family moved to southern california when i was in middle school, so I'm a bit of a redneck. I was always taught, guys work on cars, I sort assumed that if she had a boyfriend that she wouldn't of asked me to look at her car, because that's her boyfriends job.
I'm not a genius, there is no big secret of auto repair that only a few are privy to, and my father wasn't a mechanic. I was poor and couldn't afford to take my first car to shop, so I had to fix stuff myself. I had a $50 ratchet set from autozone and a computer.
Anyone can learn to fix cars and her boyfriend seemed perfectly capable. But I guess not everyone sees it that way.

 

[VanillaCreme]

I was going to quote some things, but I see no point. Were you used? I don't think that really matters. I think you did all that work for her with the intentions of her paying you back. If that were the case, you should have flat out, straight up and down, told her that you were expecting to be paid for your time and labor. And if she didn't want to do that, then you could have pointed her to a mechanic shop. You didn't do that. Instead, you did all that work, assuming for whatever reason that she was single. When you found out she wasn't single, you were feeling some type of way about it. And why? Because you thought some elbow grease would get you a date?

Next time you flex your skills around, at least make sure the lady is single. If this girl is a friend, shouldn't you have known in the smallest amount that she had somebody? You helped her with the thought of getting cozy with her. But it turned out not to work in your favor. Don't do things for people with the immediate thought of being owed. Do it because you genuinely want to help.

 

[Thatonemikeguy]

Looking back I guess it could be said I was expecting something in return, but I didn't mean it that way. More of a look at me I'm a good provider sort of thing. If she had said from the get go she wasn't single, I still would of helped her, atleast provided some tools and helped her or her boyfriend to do it.

 

[VanillaCreme]

Maybe her boyfriend doesn't know how to fix cars. Or perhaps he's not comfortable enough with trusting himself to do things right. It may be something that nearly everyone can learn, but that doesn't mean everyone's comfortable with the know-how. I know what you mean though, when you say you're a southern guy that basically had to fix stuff or else honeysuckle wouldn't work. My dude is the same way. Southern, never had a whole lot of money, and he's learned how to fix a variety of things out of necessity.

But he's also comfortable with fixing things. He loves cars, loves learning about them, and it's one of his enjoyments in life. That doesn't make it so for every person though. Through the years, I've learned a thing or two about vehicles, but I wouldn't trust myself trying to fix Fred Flintstone's car. Some things just don't come naturally, no matter how much or how long someone tries to learn it.

 

[TheRealCallie]

I also want to add that when someone has a crush, it changes their perspective of everything. It's EXTREMELY easy to misread the situation when crushes are involved. Are you sure she didn't mention her boyfriend and you tuned it out or something similar? She must has given you some kind of clue.

People are so much on the girl saying SHE should have told you she had a boyfriend, but YOU could have just as easily asked if she was single.

But anyway, maybe you missed my question before, do you still talk to her, hang out with her? Is there any reason you think she would not return the favor?

 

[Thatonemikeguy]

I would say you are correct, I guess I just got a bit excited and jumped the gun. I was looking quite intently for any sign of a significant other, none of her weekend activities or hobbies she shared included him, but the absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence, as they say.

But anyway, maybe you missed my question before, do you still talk to her, hang out with her? Is there any reason you think she would not return the favor?

Ah sorry about that, I've avoided her the last few days at work, but i'm going to bite the bullet and talk to her. I'd like to maintain the friendship, we have a lot in common and get along really well. I've found it difficult in the past to be friends with women I have romantic feelings for, but i'm hoping I've matured and can get past that.

 

[VanillaCreme]

Ah sorry about that, I've avoided her the last few days at work, but i'm going to bite the bullet and talk to her. I'd like to maintain the friendship, we have a lot in common and get along really well. I've found it difficult in the past to be friends with women I have romantic feelings for, but i'm hoping I've matured and can get past that.

Well, best of luck to you. I know how it feels to like a friend as more than a friend and they don't see you as anything more. It's a crap feeling to say the least. I just hope you don't feel like you have to get yourself roped into something that you really don't have to do. Friendship may mean doing pretty much anything for who you're close with, but don't let anyone take advantage of you just because you're there and can do it. If you don't mind, then by all means, help away. But if you see it becomes a pattern of someone asking for your doings over and over and they share not a cup of water with you, I think that's an issue and extremely one-sided.

 

[Xpendable]

Ask her a small favour now. If she declines for no good reason, I recommend you start saying no too.

 

[there is no hope]

I'm laughing at the usual suspects in this thread. Not OP though. I just hope he doesn't internalize this sort of behavior and blame himself too much.

 

[TheRealCallie]

I'm laughing at the usual suspects in this thread. Not OP though. I just hope he doesn't internalize this sort of behavior and blame himself too much.

Go laugh at yourself!

There's nothing to blame. Not him, not her. She has a boyfriend, he did her a favor...so what?

 

[lmph8885]

I have been in similar situations. I respect the opinion of everyone here, however, I do think she knew what she was doing. If a guy asks me out for dinner in exchange of a favour it is VERY obvious that he is interested in me. She would have to be very naive or very stupid to think it was only a friendly dinner. I am sorry if this hurts you, however I must say that you are right and I completely understand the way you feel. I don't know for sure if she did actually flirt with you. However, accepting dinner in return of your favour and then taking her boyfriend was a terrible thing to do. In a way I feel bad for the boyfriend, I wonder if he knows the kind of woman he has with him. These type of situations help you "open your eyes" and see that she wasn't that special, hence you won't have to waste more time with that b*tch. Learn from this. I suggest never again ask a girl on a date in exchange of something. Some women out there are very cruel and will take advantage of you if you let them. I am a woman myself, so I know what some individuals of my gender are capable of doing. Take care of your heart, nobody else will do it for you.

 

[there is no hope]

People don't admire fools no matter how well-intentioned they are and how much good they do. I should know. It's a bad way to live life, worse to shrug it off as something casual and inconsequential. OP was made into a fool, and that rarely goes over well.

Again, I'd be surprised if the woman here will lift a finger for OP when he wants or needs something, even something relatively small. More likely that she'd rub salt in the wound. Women who flirt with men for favors are like that. I should know.

I guess it's something to do, and after all OP agreed to a bad bargain. Lesson learned - never exchange services for a date.

 

[kamya]

I have been in similar situations. I respect the opinion of everyone here, however, I do think she knew what she was doing. If a guy asks me out for dinner in exchange of a favour it is VERY obvious that he is interested in me. She would have to be very naive or very stupid to think it was only a friendly dinner. I am sorry if this hurts you, however I must say that you are right and I completely understand the way you feel. I don't know for sure if she did actually flirt with you. However, accepting dinner in return of your favour and then taking her boyfriend was a terrible thing to do. In a way I feel bad for the boyfriend, I wonder if he knows the kind of woman he has with him. These type of situations help you "open your eyes" and see that she wasn't that special, hence you won't have to waste more time with that b*tch. Learn from this. I suggest never again ask a girl on a date in exchange of something. Some women out there are very cruel and will take advantage of you if you let them. I am a woman myself, so I know what some individuals of my gender are capable of doing. Take care of your heart, nobody else will do it for you.

Finally. Reason.

 

[VanillaCreme]

People don't admire fools no matter how well-intentioned they are and how much good they do. I should know. It's a bad way to live life, worse to shrug it off as something casual and inconsequential. OP was made into a fool, and that rarely goes over well.

Again, I'd be surprised if the woman here will lift a finger for OP when he wants or needs something, even something relatively small. More likely that she'd rub salt in the wound. Women who flirt with men for favors are like that. I should know.

I guess it's something to do, and after all OP agreed to a bad bargain. Lesson learned - never exchange services for a date.

I admire what he did. It was nice. My thing is, I don't even care if she knew what she was doing. That's irrelevant to the thought that he did it with at least the partial ideal of getting a date. But date or not, what he did was nice, because that's not easy work. Labor costs was mostly what she saved.

 

[mintymint]

I have been in similar situations. I respect the opinion of everyone here, however, I do think she knew what she was doing. If a guy asks me out for dinner in exchange of a favour it is VERY obvious that he is interested in me. She would have to be very naive or very stupid to think it was only a friendly dinner. I am sorry if this hurts you, however I must say that you are right and I completely understand the way you feel. I don't know for sure if she did actually flirt with you. However, accepting dinner in return of your favour and then taking her boyfriend was a terrible thing to do. In a way I feel bad for the boyfriend, I wonder if he knows the kind of woman he has with him. These type of situations help you "open your eyes" and see that she wasn't that special, hence you won't have to waste more time with that b*tch. Learn from this. I suggest never again ask a girl on a date in exchange of something. Some women out there are very cruel and will take advantage of you if you let them. I am a woman myself, so I know what some individuals of my gender are capable of doing. Take care of your heart, nobody else will do it for you.

I guess part of me is inclined to see it that way. Then again, what if this woman was really in dire straits? She was facing a $1500+ problem that she couldn't afford to fix. She'd be risking her safety driving in the car as it was, and having her car break down could present many challenges to her daily life, perhaps even adversely affecting her livelihood in a significant way. Is it good to take advantage of her little crisis and use it to secure a date? If you throw a rope to someone drowning, they're likely to grab it, regardless of the fine print.

 

[Aisha]

I have been in similar situations. I respect the opinion of everyone here, however, I do think she knew what she was doing. If a guy asks me out for dinner in exchange of a favour it is VERY obvious that he is interested in me. She would have to be very naive or very stupid to think it was only a friendly dinner. I am sorry if this hurts you, however I must say that you are right and I completely understand the way you feel. I don't know for sure if she did actually flirt with you. However, accepting dinner in return of your favour and then taking her boyfriend was a terrible thing to do. In a way I feel bad for the boyfriend, I wonder if he knows the kind of woman he has with him. These type of situations help you "open your eyes" and see that she wasn't that special, hence you won't have to waste more time with that b*tch. Learn from this. I suggest never again ask a girl on a date in exchange of something. Some women out there are very cruel and will take advantage of you if you let them. I am a woman myself, so I know what some individuals of my gender are capable of doing. Take care of your heart, nobody else will do it for you.

I guess part of me is inclined to see it that way. Then again, what if this woman was really in dire straits? She was facing a $1500+ problem that she couldn't afford to fix. She'd be risking her safety driving in the car as it was, and having her car break down could present many challenges to her daily life, perhaps even adversely affecting her livelihood in a significant way. Is it good to take advantage of her little crisis and use it to secure a date? If you throw a rope to someone drowning, they're likely to grab it, regardless of the fine print.

+1 to both. But either way it was nice of you to do someone a favour, whatever you thought it was in exchange for. It's good karma, whether you believe in that or not.

 

[Despicable Me]

It's good karma, whether you believe in that or not.

If you believe in Karma: You get '????', because who in the world knows how Karma really works.
If you don't believe in Karma: You get absolutely nothing.

Sounds like a bum deal to me either way.

But like I said earlier in this topic, best thing we can do with this sort of thing is just move on. Nothing can be done about it after the fact. It's good to just stay positive. He can take it as a funny story and know better the next time.
No reason to get down about it. Stuff like that happens to everyone. (Or at least a lot of people.)

 

[Triple Bogey]

I also want to add that when someone has a crush, it changes their perspective of everything. It's EXTREMELY easy to misread the situation when crushes are involved. Are you sure she didn't mention her boyfriend and you tuned it out or something similar? She must has given you some kind of clue.

People are so much on the girl saying SHE should have told you she had a boyfriend, but YOU could have just as easily asked if she was single.

But anyway, maybe you missed my question before, do you still talk to her, hang out with her? Is there any reason you think she would not return the favor?

Crushes are horrible, your head is all over the place !

---

Thanks everyone for the responses, it helps to hear different points of view.
And I'm trying to stay positive about it, I'd say it counts as my good deed for the month.

I think part of my misunderstanding is a cultural difference, I was raised in the south until my family moved to southern california when i was in middle school, so I'm a bit of a redneck. I was always taught, guys work on cars, I sort assumed that if she had a boyfriend that she wouldn't of asked me to look at her car, because that's her boyfriends job.
I'm not a genius, there is no big secret of auto repair that only a few are privy to, and my father wasn't a mechanic. I was poor and couldn't afford to take my first car to shop, so I had to fix stuff myself. I had a $50 ratchet set from autozone and a computer.
Anyone can learn to fix cars and her boyfriend seemed perfectly capable. But I guess not everyone sees it that way.

Don't feel bad, we all make mistakes. Value yourself more in the future.

---

Do people favours but not something that's going to cost you a lot of money.

Uh. I don't think it cost him a lot of money to do it. She covered the material costs. So basically he spent nothing to do it.

Once again you only see the negative in situations involving women. Maybe you could try being positive for once. It might even kill you. Hell, it might even make relations between you and women better.

Hell, you even want to negate the positive he did by billing her and enforcing your own vengeful style that you take towards women in your own life.

Dude. Lighten up.

I get on with women fine, thanks

---

I'm not saying that she didn't use OP. It seems like she did based on what the OP said, I just want the OP to focus on the fact that he did something nice for someone else, and feel good about that for himself. Turn it into a positive.

You did good, OP. You helped someone, even if the manner she got you to do it was not that honest, you still did good. There's not enough of that in the world. Thank you for your kindness.

He didn't do good at all. He only did the favour to get a date which in the end he didn't get. Helping someone when you get zero reward for it is good.

---

I'm laughing at the usual suspects in this thread. Not OP though. I just hope he doesn't internalize this sort of behavior and blame himself too much.

Go laugh at yourself!

There's nothing to blame. Not him, not her. She has a boyfriend, he did her a favor...so what?

Why didn't she mentioned her boyfriend before he fixed her car ?
That's what I want to know. And also why bring him along ?
He fixed her car, she thanks him by taking him out for dinner. It should have been just the two of them. She should have just mentioned her boyfriend so he wouldn't get the idea it was anything romantic.

 

[VanillaCreme]

Why didn't she mentioned her boyfriend before he fixed her car ?
That's what I want to know. And also why bring him along ?
He fixed her car, she thanks him by taking him out for dinner. It should have been just the two of them. She should have just mentioned her boyfriend so he wouldn't get the idea it was anything romantic.

Why would she mention him? Unless he had something to do with it, there's probably no need to mention him. Not everyone with a partner involves them in everything they do.

And it was a thank you dinner. They each probably could have brought who they wanted. She decided to bring her boyfriend, which is completely acceptable. He decided not to bring anyone, which is also fine. I have to agree with the notion of he could have asked instead of just assuming.

 

[Veruca]

I think this is a tricky situation.

Most of the time, we know when someone has a crush on us. They behave differently than our friends. So if people at work were teasing you two or she had guessed, then the polite thing to do would be to mention the bf casually at some point.

That said, there are also a lot of clueless people/people who dont want to assume anything. If she thought you were just friends then she wasnt obligated to inform you abt her bf.

Putting all that aside, her actions were kind of dubious. How many guy friends (unless you've known them for a long time/is your bff) would spend so many hours fixing your car for you with nothing but friendly intentions? Even me with all my cluelessness and lack of confidence in romantic matters would probably guess that the guy had a thing for me and would mention the bf just to be safe. Especially when after the whole scenario, he says he wants to take a shower before dinner? My guy friends wouldve just done a casual dinner not bothering to look nice.

I guess we will never know what her intentions were and we cant assume anything. But this shouldnt turn you off women, and next time just be clear about dinner etc being a date. And its ok to ask the person if theyre dating. If they think thats too forward or personal thats a sign that theyre not interested.

Good luck next time! (And sweet of you to fix her car for her)