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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Tl:dr Discovered I have a phobia for sleight-of-hand magicians and it ruined the most romantic opportunity of my life.

    I booked an expensive, bougie hotel room for me and my (at the time) boyfriend, and we were planning on a wild night. He asked me to leave the room for an hour for him to prepare, so I went to the hotel bar for a drink. A guy approached me to bum a cig and began doing random magic tricks - pulling cards out of nowhere, making things appear in my pocket, and making ashes appear in my palm. I’m not sure why, but I absolutely panicked - it felt so violating to think that he was in my pockets and making things happen to my body without my knowledge or consent.

    I ended up in a full blown panic attack and rushed back to the room. My partner was fully ready for an amazing romantic encounter, with rose petals and champagne and everything. I ended up just hyperventilating and ranting about scary magicians then fell asleep. I felt so bad that I ruined the night. I still get anxiety when I see magic tricks.




  • Man this is a tough one. It might be worth just leveling with your dad - a quick “Hey, this situation is weird for me and it’s gonna take me some time to come around, but thanks for being super nice.” It will voice your feelings while validating his attempts at smoothing things over. If you continue to just be totally aloof without explanation, he’ll eventually run out of the energy to be nice.