My new man’s strange request has thrown me off my guard

DEAR DEIDRE: I’ve been dating a guy for three weeks and he’s just asked me to lend him some money.

Is it me or is this a strange request so early on in our relationship?

He’s a 41 year-old man and he works as a coach driver. He takes people, mainly pensioners, up and down the country on holidays. I met him online and we chatted for a month before we met up.

I’m 39 and I’m looking to settle down and so is he. He’s a divorcee with two children.

We saw one another three times the first week and now we are dating and hoping we can develop our relationship.

He told me that his son was going to be 13 last week and asked me to lend him £120 for a gaming chair for his boy. He said because he’d been travelling all week he hadn’t managed to get to the bank.

These days, you don’t need cash to buy a gift so it sounded strange to me. I turned him down.

I talked to my sister about it and she told me to end it with him but he seems really nice. I’m not sure whether this is a red flag and where it leaves our relationship.

DEIDRE SAYS: This doesn’t sit right.

As you say, you don’t need cash to buy a gift these days and even if he did, there are better options other than asking someone he’s recently started to date for a loan.

While I do think it is suspicious, if you are determined to give him the benefit of the doubt – please keep you eyes open to any further questionable requests to ‘borrow’ money.

If he asks again, at the very least it may be a sign that he can’t manage his finances, which may well be an unwanted complication in your life.

You absolutely did the right thing by refusing him.