Sometimes the most unsettling relationship problems aren’t huge arguments or obvious betrayals. Sometimes they’re tiny moments that leave you sitting alone afterward, wondering whether you can trust your own memory. I’m thirty-nine, my boyfriend is forty, and we’ve been together for about a year. I already know our relationship isn’t exactly what most people would call healthy. I’ve been doing a lot of the helping, driving, and supporting, while he has repeatedly promised to do things for me and then failed to follow through. I’ve also been considering breaking up with him because we barely spend meaningful time together and have never even gone on an actual date. Still, I’ve been hesitant to walk away.
Then something happened involving one of the most random internet personalities imaginable: Nikocado Avocado. My boyfriend had specifically asked me about him, and I remember the conversation clearly because I was actually happy that my boyfriend was making an effort to engage with something I found interesting. So when he later insisted that the conversation had never happened and that he had never even heard the name, I was left questioning something much bigger than internet trivia: was this simply a forgotten conversation, or was I being made to doubt my own reality?
I’m Thirty-Nine, He’s Forty, And I’m Already Questioning Whether This Relationship Is Healthy Enough For Me To Keep Ignoring The Things That Make Me Uncomfortable
I’m A Socially Awkward Nerd Who Grew Up Experiencing Traumatic Invalidation, So Being Told That Something I Clearly Remember Never Happened Hits A Particularly Sensitive Nerve
I’m Still Learning About Internet Culture, And One Completely Random Conversation About Nikocado Avocado Has Somehow Turned Into A Much Bigger Relationship Problem
I Tried To Respect His Request, But An AI Summary Appeared As The First Search Result And I Accidentally Learned The Entire Story Before I Could Stop Myself
Instead Of Being Annoyed, I Actually Thought It Was Sweet That My Boyfriend Was Making An Effort To Talk About Something I Was Interested In, Especially Because I’ve Been Asking Him To Engage With My Interests More
Yesterday I Mentioned That I Had Started Watching A Commentary Video About Nikocado Avocado Even Though I Already Knew The Twist, And My Boyfriend Suddenly Claimed We Had Never Discussed Him
I Could Have Accepted That He Simply Forgot Having The Conversation, But He Didn’t Just Forget It, He Insisted He Had Never Even Heard The Name Nikocado Avocado Before
Even Though I Trusted My Own Memory, I Still Did The Most Ridiculously Thorough Reality Check Possible And Went Searching Through My ChatGPT History To See If I Had Somehow Confused An AI Conversation With A Real One
The Bigger Problem Is That This Isn’t Happening In An Otherwise Perfect Relationship, Because There Are Already Plenty Of Reasons I Don’t Completely Trust My Boyfriend
I Also Know That My Boyfriend Has Serious Self-Awareness Issues And Low Self-Esteem, And I Worry That Those Traits Could Make Him Lie Or Manipulate Situations To Protect Himself
He Has Already Pulled Me Into Lies With His Friend And Landlord About How He Ended Up Owning Various Livestock Birds By Telling People They Were Birthday Gifts From Me
He Has Promised To Help Me With My Own Projects In Return, But Despite Repeatedly Asking Me For Help, He Has Never Actually Followed Through On His Promises To Me
I Had Finally Reached My Limit After He Once Again Backed Out Of Coming Over To Help Me, And I Told Him That “Weaponized Incompetence” Had Been On My Mind For Weeks
In Fact, We’ve Never Even Hung Out Somewhere Outside One Of Our Houses Unless We Were Running Errands, Which Makes Me Wonder Why I’ve Accepted So Little From This Relationship For So Long
When We Finally Spoke Again Yesterday, Nothing Was Actually Planned Between Us, So I Turned My “I Can Buy Myself Flowers” Focus Mode Back On And Stopped Taking His Calls
Time to scroll through Reddit’s hot takes on this saga.
What makes this situation so difficult for me is that I don’t think the real issue is actually Nikocado Avocado. If my boyfriend had simply forgotten a conversation we had weeks ago, I could probably shrug it off. People forget things, especially small conversations that don’t seem important to them. But he didn’t just say he couldn’t remember. He insisted that he had never heard the name at all, even though I have a very specific memory of him bringing it up and telling me not to search for it. Because of my childhood experiences with invalidation, being told that something I remember never happened is especially difficult for me to process.
At the same time, I know this relationship already has problems that existed long before this strange conversation. He has repeatedly accepted my help without returning the effort; we’ve never gone on a date during our entire year together, and we recently went five days without speaking after I finally confronted him about it. Now I’m left wondering whether I’m focusing too much on one bizarre incident because I’m afraid to admit that I may already know what I need to do. Perhaps this is a genuine misunderstanding. Perhaps it isn’t. Either way, the fact that I no longer feel completely comfortable trusting what happens between us may be the bigger problem.
