'AITA for telling the guy I'm dating that he'll never meet my parents?'

"AITA for telling the guy I'm dating that he'll never meet my parents?"

I (22f) started dating my coworker "Josh" (M28) about 3 months ago. We get along great and we're on the same team so we basically spend all of our shift together or on a teams call. We also see each other on our days off to go eat somewhere and spend the night at his place, is always just the two of us and occasionally some colleagues from work who know we're dating.

Since we became a thing he has always made it very clear that he wants a casual relationship and that I'm not his girlfriend or vice versa. We don't post each other on social media or interact with each other's friend circle. This arrangement works great for me as I'm also not looking for someone I have to post on my stories or take with me to my cousin's wedding or something like that.

The issue started this past week when I was discussing some family drama with him and one of our mutual work friends. I was talking about how my parents are very conservative people and specially in regards to dating and marriage and how I, unlike my cousins, have never introduced them or the rest of my family to anyone I've ever dated and how I never planned to unless I knew I was going to marry them.

Our friend joked that they would hate Josh since he has a bunch of tattoos and piercings and has a general "bad boy" vibe to which he replied something along the lines of: "Your mom's not really like that, right? She won't kick me out of the house if she sees my tattoos and my bike?" I honestly thought he was just joking and I said he shouldn't worry about that as he'll never meet her anyways.

As soon as I said that, he dropped his smile and I felt the room tensing up, I guess our friend noticed too because she just mustered up an excuse and left. I was left alone with him, I tried to ask him what was wrong or if something had happened but he just kept saying everything was fine and also left, saying he was late for a coaching session or something.

After that he's been really dry with me both in real life and over text and after a few days he told me it hurtful to hear me say that as if he was something I wanted to hide from everybody, specially since I've meet his parents already but I really don't see the problem here, his parents are much more open minded than mine and he always tell them I'm the girl he's seeing, not his partner, not his girlfriend.

I have explained my reasoning for not wanting to do the same with my family as they're very different from his but he keeps saying is unfair in his point of view.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

Imaginary-Quarter-85 said:

NTA. He cant have a casual AND serious relationship with you at the same time.

bizianka said:

NTA. It seems like he doesn't really expected that "just casual" goes both ways. He probably believed you like him way more than you do, so when he realized you see him just as FWB hit his ego hard.

Sensimya said:

Why would he ever meet your family??? He's not your boyfriend, he's a casual dating hookup. He made that very clear. Meeting parents is for relationships. I'd stop dating him. He's clearly incapable of casual. Nta.

roodafalooda said:

NTA. He's being a wuss. People need to understand the need to compartmentalize. And he should be grateful. Plus, as you say, there's the double standard or mixed message of his not referring to you as anything more than "the girl I'm seeing". So yeah, I don't think he has any right to be piqued.

Amazing_Reality2980 said:

NTA, but I wonder if he's actually getting feelings for you now and maybe he was thinking things would eventually be more than casual. Saying he would never meet your parents made it clear to him that this is casual for you and won't ever be anything more.

Successful_Ocelot590 said:

Nta either he's caught feelings or he wants to be seen as the prize you're pursuing even if he doesn't want to be "caught." Either way this is some dumb high school crap, especially for a casual relationship.

After reading the commenters, OP updated the post to include:

Hello all, I first want to thank you for taking the time to comment and offering your thoughts and advice on my post. I'd like to reciprocate offering a small update for those of you who'd be interested.

Before I met Josh I had applied for a visa to study abroad (he knew about this and even took me to some appointments at the embassy), I just found out the visa got approved and I'd be going away to Europe for at least 6 months.

We sat down and had a conversation about what we each wanted out of a relationship but ultimately me being away for several months will make it impossible to sustain a romantic relationship, casual or not, at least in both our points of view.

So, we made the decision to remain friends, as we were before we decided to be intimate with each other or be involved romantically. It may not be the mature or right decision for some (probably most) of you but I do have to say I consider him to be a great person and I'd like to keep him in my life, even if we're not a good match romantically speaking.