The first time I went to my boyfriend's house for dinner, his parents served me food, and after I got home, my boyfriend broke up with me.

The first time I went to my boyfriend's house for dinner, his parents served me food, and after I got home, my boyfriend broke up with me.

Girls nowadays are all the treasures of their own families. Which one of them wasn't cherished and doted on by their parents while growing up? I was the same. From childhood to adulthood, my parents never hit me once, never spoke a single harsh word to me, so I was a girl who grew up soaked in a honey pot. But even though I was a little princess at home, I still had to grow up, and after growing up, I would get a boyfriend. It was only then that I discovered that having been raised freely and willfully at home, where no matter what I did my family never complained about me, once I was in someone else's home, facing his family, my every move would be magnified, and not even the tiniest flaw would be tolerated.

My boyfriend and I have been dating for a year now. How should I describe him? Ambitious, proactive, highly capable at work, with a bright future ahead, he is the type of good man and good son-in-law in the eyes of all parents, and my parents are quite satisfied with him. They always say I am carefree and scatterbrained, and never expected that I would actually have good taste in men, and they often tease me about him. In my view, my boyfriend is a very upright person. Perhaps because he comes from a science and engineering background, his personality is quite rigorous and he is very meticulous, the kind of rare person who pays special attention to details. I rely on him a lot. In front of him, I can still freely be myself. Although most of the time some of my behavior is not so proper or reasonable, since I have a simple personality and am naturally not so fussy about small things, after he mentioned it a few times and saw it had no effect, he stopped bothering to bring it up again.

Not long ago, he was finally going to take me home to meet his parents, and I was a little excited. Before we went, he repeatedly reminded me that his parents, like him, were people with high standards, and that their family atmosphere was relatively formal and particular, so I should pay some attention, hold back a bit, and try to win a good impression, which would greatly help his parents accept and approve of me. I went home and asked my parents to help me carefully choose gifts for them. I even wore a ladylike dress for the first time ever, and combed my hair straight, looking like the typical little princess. Even my parents said that this look of mine was highly deceptive and would surely fool my future in-laws and let me successfully get through. The next day, my boyfriend came to pick me up, and he was quite satisfied when he saw how I was dressed.

That day, his parents cooked several dishes to entertain me, and I also maintained a reserved and cautious attitude in my responses and conversations with them, behaving properly. My boyfriend sat to the side smiling with his lips pressed together, seemingly quite approving of my performance. However, during the meal, I noticed that his family's tastes were all quite spicy, which I did not really like. My family are all not very good with spicy food. As soon as I eat it, I sweat all over, and afterward my stomach hurts, so I just kept eating only the plate of shredded potatoes in front of me. His mother thought I was being polite and standing on ceremony with them, so she took the initiative to serve me a lot of cilantro beef to eat. But what she did not know was that I happened to hate cilantro. To me, that smell is very unpleasant, simply unbearable. At the time, I just kept not eating it, and it was left in my bowl.

Unexpectedly, that very day after he walked me home, before my boyfriend turned to leave, he said he wanted to break up with me. He said I disrespected his parents, and that after he had briefed me like that, I still had not taken his words to heart. In his view, a well-mannered girl should at the very least know that even if she dislikes the food his mother served her, she still has to eat it. That is etiquette. I was completely stunned. Was it really just about being a picky eater? Was it serious enough to warrant breaking up?

(From a reader submission. The images in this article are from the internet.)