Have you ever had a friend or partner react inappropriately to your work?

Last summer, at the end of a particularly dense week of writing, a friend-with-benefits invited me over for some casual fun. While we were hanging out beforehand she asked what I'd been up to, and I excitedly told her about the story I'd been working on. I know fiction writers have a reputation for ranting about our worlds ad nauseam to people who don't care and didn't ask, but this friend and I had recently worked together on other artistic projects, so I figured she might get a genuine kick out of it.

For context, my story takes place in a huge library, wherein the people have to make all their weapons out of materials you might find there (papercutters, scissors, etc). It's a pretty trivial detail about the world, but it's fun and campy so I like to use it as an ice-breaker before mentioning any deeper themes the book explores. As I'm moving on to the core allegory of the world, she interrupts and starts joking about all the different kinds of weapons a book could be — "A book could be a sword! A book could be an axe!" — kind of missing the point, but I play along and joke back, "A chair leg could be a club!". From there the conversation moves on and I figure hey, whatever, I guess she's not really interested. Totally fair.

That's not the inappropriate part. The inappropriate part is that, later in the night, after we've been nakedly making out and right as we're about to go all the way, she blurts out with zero context "A book could be a gun!". Like WTF dude, I'm one small hip adjustment away from literally being inside of you. Now is not the time! I laughed it off, but later she did it again. I don't think I've ever been so completely dumbfounded during sex, nor have I ever had to fight so hard to maintain an erection. Needless to say, we did not hook up again after that.

Posted Jan 3, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC

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