am i being obsessive...?

to make a long story short (i posted the long version yesterday), i (24f) went on a date with this guy (26m) on saturday and we had a really great time together. talked for hours, had sex, etc. ended the date with a hug and kiss. i let him know i got home safe and thanked him for the date. the same night, i ordered him flowers as a thank you, and because he told me in passing he liked getting flowers.

he never replied to my initial text. gave it another day and followed up to see if he was interested in hanging out again. no reply. gave it another day and just asked how he was doing in case he didn't want to commit to plans yet. no reply. gave him a call thinking maybe he just wasn't much of a texter. no answer. whatever. i would've cancelled the flowers but it was too late, and i didn't want to chalk his unresponsiveness to ghosting quite yet because there's plenty of reasons why he might not be replying.

yesterday rolls around and the flowers are delivered. he sends me a text and says they're a "nice gesture" but that i've made him uncomfortable, and that i wasn't respecting his privacy by sending multiple texts (it was literally 1 text a day over the span of 3 days, plus the one call. it wasn't like i was blowing his phone up all day) he said he doesn't like gifts and that he prefers to spend time with people. he also said he doesn't want to see me anymore because i "practice unsafe sex" despite the fact that i told him/joked about how i USED to have a bad habit of letting guys hit raw on the first date but it wasn't something i did anymore.

i sent him a text back apologizing for the texts and the call, and that i was sorry i had made him uncomfortable. i re-explained that i no longer engaged in unsafe sex and that he was the first person i had sex with in six months, and before that the only person i had been having unprotected sex with was a long term boyfriend. i also told him that i don't really sleep around, but acknowledged it may be hard to trust me given that in the past i did have that habit of having unprotected sex. i told him to enjoy the flowers, and that i'd give him some space to reconsider if he wanted to move forward with things after i made those clarifications, because i really did enjoy our time together.

my friends had wanted me to block him for not responding to my "got home safe" text in the first 24 hours, but i know it's so unrealistic to expect another grown ass adult with his own life and responsibilities to text back right away. i'm also aware enough to acknowledge that two or three follow-up texts over a three day time period may be a bit excessive, and i should've stopped at the second text, but nothing i said was particularly egregious (just asked how he was doing and if he'd be interested in hanging out again). given it was too late to cancel the flowers, i didn't want to abruptly cut communication by blocking him anyway. i wanted to at least know he received them.

now because of the outcome, i'm being told by some of my friends that i become "too obsessive too fast," and that i "need to match their energy" and they "were trying not to judge" me but i genuinely don't think anything i did was out of pocket, or deserves to be described as obsessive. i mean if the roles were reversed and i decided to ghost him, and he sent me flowers thanking me for the date, these same people would be telling me that he's so sweet, i should give him a chance, he clearly likes me, etc.

also, why SHOULD i have to match their energy? what's wrong with having a really great date with someone and wanting to thank them for their time with flowers? plenty of guys show up to the first date with flowers. or follow up with flowers. i don't get why it's weird for me to do something like that, especially when he told me he likes getting flowers!!!!

was i maybe a bit too eager? yeah. i had a really nice time and was looking forward to seeing him again. should i have stopped messaging him after the second message wasn't responded to? yes, and i acknowledge that was a bad move on my part. and i know i probably shouldn't have called him, but some guys just don't like texting so i thought i'd give it a shot. clearly i unintentionally overstepped his boundaries, even though i didn't know they were there, which is still on me. but i don't think ANYTHING i've done has warranted calling me obsessive.

i genuinely feel like i've just been acting like a normal human being, trying to extend some grace to the man before completely blowing him off. clearly extending grace was not beneficial in the end, but is it really so weird to be kind?