'He assumes he's better': Ex-boyfriend tries to show off to ex to bring them down a notch

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jun 9, 2024 3:00 PM EDT

This person got back at their ex in a tiny but very irritating way. That's the way some relationships go: the couple breaks up, but they can't stop seeing each other. They get into a cycle of squabbling and making up, but that doesn't mean their relationship isn't toxic. 

u/ReSpekt5eva shared their story of dealing with an ex with whom they ended things, yet remained on friendly terms. They explained that this guy went to the same grad school they did, although he was a few years older than them. The original poster realized that he was self-conscious about their age difference. You can go back to school to get your degree at any age, yet this dude was bothered by the fact that his younger partner was in a PhD program at a younger age. 

In the comments, people remarked on their relationship. One person wrote that "It must be exhausting to compare everything one does to other people." From the biggest issues to the smallest, comparing yourself to others constantly won't exactly help you reach your goals. You can check out the full malicious compliance story down below!

Next up, these people revealed the funniest reasons they've ever gotten in big trouble, like the poor 11-year-old who "received a speeding ticket… on my bike." 

Advertisement
  • 01
    5 2 4 7 2 35 793 86 172 85429 6
    via Bozhin Karaivanov on Unsplash
  • 02
    Ex-BF insists I play a game he assumes he's better at. I complied. Every once in awhile I think about this story while I'm idly playing sudoku on my phone and it makes me smile. I realized it's perfect malicious compliance/petty revenge material.
    via u/ReSpekt5eva
  • 03
    I don't want to go into too much detail here but some background is needed. A few years ago when I was in grad school, I dated a man who was several years older than me who had just finished his masters at the same school (completely different program but both in the realm of STEM) and started a company based on that work. He seemed to have a chip on his shoulder about the fact that he went back to school in his late 20s, and the fact that I
    via u/ReSpekt5eva
  • 04
    was in a PhD program. I need to emphasize I did not think I was better or smarter than him in any way, and I thought and still think he is incredibly smart and his company does fascinating work. But, he still projected this inferiority complex on me and it was one of many things that soured our relationship. He was obsessed with feeling smarter than me and bringing me down a peg. The relationship ran its course within a year and the
    via u/ReSpekt5eva
  • 05
    breakup was messy, but he insisted on remaining friends despite a lot of obvious tension between us. One day he asked me to help him pick up a moving truck he needed for work and I agreed, but when I got in the car we were kind of quiet for a couple minutes so I pulled out my phone and finished the sudoku game I had up in my browser. For some context, I am incredibly good at sudoku relative to most people.
    via u/ReSpekt5eva
  • 06
    This is because I obsessively solved sudoku puzzles as a kid and just had big books of them to solve on long bus rides to school, and it's still my go to game to play while waiting in line, pooping, etc. I don't really correlate this with intelligence; my brain is just trained to recognize the patterns and solving them is soothing.
    via u/ReSpekt5eva
  • 07
    He looked over and saw I was playing and asked what app I played on. I said I just play on a certain website I like and when he asked why I don't use a sudoku app I tried to be as neutral as possible in my response and said that the website had a nice spread of difficulty and that every app I tried had either been all too easy or too hard (admittedly, it's almost always too easy, but because of aforementioned inferiority complex I was hedging
    via u/ReSpekt5eva
  • 08
    this on purpose) He had a kind of "oh really?" response and insisted I try the app he has on his phone because he was sure I would find it hard. So, I maliciously complied. I opened up the hardest setting of puzzle in his app and solved it in about a minute, beating the record on his phone by at least a minute and a half. I showed it to him and he seemed alarmed and basically said I got lucky. So, I played several more times so that
    via u/ReSpekt5eva
  • 09
    my times flooded the fastest times list until his were all gone. His shock and frustration at this was satisfying on its own, but MANY months later when I had long forgotten about it, he randomly sent me a screenshot of his puzzle in that app with a faster time-except it was for the easiest puzzle setting. So of course to be petty, I immediately downloaded the app, played on the easiest setting, beat his time
    via u/ReSpekt5eva
  • 10
    by a significant margin again, and sent a screenshot. Was this mean? Maybe. Was it satisfying? Yes.
    via u/ReSpekt5eva
  • 11
    psmythhammond He obsessed for months about beating you once... he got exactly what he deserved. Nicely played!
    via u/psmythhammond
  • 12
    LtEllenRipleyDied4u It must be exhausting to compare everything one does to other people.
    via u/LtEllenRipleyDied4u
  • 13
    [deleted] My partner actually stopped playing sudoku once I started beating him on it. He still says I "took the game away from" him
    via u/[deleted]
  • 14
    [deleted] This made me lol. I love the pettiness. He's a deserved it. He
    via u/[deleted]
  • 15
    asdfghnbful I think this is what the kids refer to as living rent free in his head.
    via u/asdfghnbful

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

malicious compliance malicious-compliance-reddit malicious compliance reddit boyfriend games date relationships exes dating
Scroll Down For The Next Article