Red flag/Dealbreaker

Big red flag right there. He must have known he was low on fuel. No write him off as a no no.

Totally......

Agree, alarm bells ringing very loud, £20 now may be innocent enough but the next ask could be for a larger amount. Its so sad we have to look on the dark side but so many have been taken in and lost a lot of money. What a sad world we live in!

Ps further to my previous comment don’t let it put you off dating in future - our family has only come across one person who I would call toxic and to be avoided at all costs.

To all those saying give him a chance to pay you back, of course he'll pay you back - but well done ILE35 for listening to your instincts here!

If he's doing the grooming thing it's obvious he's not going to live off £20 per person he dates. He'll pay back the £20 so that you get used to him occasionally borrowing and repaying smallish amounts, then comes the sting with the large 'unexpected bill' and that's when he disappears with your money! He just didn't give it much time before he started with it only being a second date, but I suppose people like him have learnt to move quickly in these COVID times.

Walk away now, he's only known you five minutes and asking for money already. That's how it starts, the odd £10 or £20 and it escalates. There was a good programme on BBC not long ago and some ladies had taken loans out and given £30,000 and £40,000 to men they had never met but promised the earth. They always made excuses and always had money coming to them or in the bank they couldn't access.

Id have said no, im afraid.or at least just lent him a fiver for enough petrol to get home..He sounds like a waste of time.Dump him now.

Terrible what a cheek he had. Just forget about him and call it a day.

I agree with all comments here. I got suckered in and ended up marrying mine after falling for his sob stories and excuses.

These people are confidence tricksters. They are good at it.

My husband told me just before we split up that the silliest thing he ever did was marry a woman with a conscience !

Someone suggested you ask him to mail it to you. Please don't do that, because then he would have your home address!!!!!!!

This man may be innocent and genuine. However this is a grooming scenario too. If he's grooming you he'll give you the £20 back on Monday and keep romancing you. Then in a few weeks time he'll ask for £200 and he'll pay you that back. In the end you'll get used to loaning him money and feel secure because he's always paid you back. Then he goes for the large amount and disappears or simply fails to pay you back then asks you for more. You give him more because he'll have a really good reason why he needs it and until the last time he's always paid you back. This will continue as you get dragged further and further into the scheme and hand over more and more money. Eventually you're in so far that you feel you have to keep giving because he's now telling you that he needs the money to make enough money to pay you back. As you were groomed and hooked a long time before you give him it and keep giving until you have nothing left.

He actually asked you
“how are you for money?” So you said ok , which put you in the position of feeling unable to refuse. What a trickster!

alarm bells! asking for money full stop - let alone on only second date............nah, wave goodbyse

Don’t wast anymore time on him !

This may sound mean but...
I would find it deeply unattractive that a guy I had just met didn't even have £20 to his name for petrol to meet me. Why would he want you knowing that?
Any normal person wouldn't, and would instead be borrowing it from their neighbour or a friend to conceal the fact. So there's plenty wrong with him

Mmmmnn, furloughed on FULL PAY, obviously he can’t manage his money month to month, probably has no savings hence no card, do you really want to end up with a man who has no money, savings and can’t manage his money. Alarm bells would be ringing loud and clear as to who would be treating who etc?

You hardly know him and he had the cheek to ask for money,
what a cheapskate. If he had no fuel in the car he should have waited until he had money to top up his car and then suggested another date. It's not a crime to be a bit short of money but asking you to help him out is too soon in the grand scheme of things. I would move on and fast about it.

You need to be going out with someone who is solvent. It’s a basic criteria isn’t it. Sounds like a whole lot of trouble to take on. Don’t get involved further

What a drip! How could he!

Difficult, because I have just been in conversation with someone who is as honest as the day , as she was a tenant of mine for 5 years.
She text me in some excitement as she thought she had met the love of her life. She was furloughed and struggling to keep up with him as he was employed. He was buying food and motoring a reasonable way to stay with her. However she was struggling with bills and petrol money. She was too terrified to tell her new love her problems as she didn’t want him to think she wanted sympathy or money. She was desperate to see more of him but she couldn’t. She was asking my advice and certainly wouldn’t accept money from me.
So not all is as it seems.
He recently dumped her anyway.

Whoa - tread carefully here. There are so many con artists on dating sites at the moment. It’s very unusual that somebody comes out on a date without any money and you need to ask yourself if he’s borrowing money this early in your relationship how do you think it’ll work out in the future. Move on to somebody who is more solvent.

5 hours walking and no stop for coffee or anything to eat? Odd. Everyone has credit cards and so he didn't need cash to get petrol. As others pointed out he knew how far it was and how much he had. A first date. Not a chance he is genuine or decent. I actually would have said I could not lend him any as haven't got cash on me and although I'm managing it is a bad time for me, lots of bills just needed to be paid. I'm pretty sure he was able to get home. Not your problem if not. To need help from a date the first time you meet? No.

So you were walking 5 hours and didn't even have a coffee. Not saying he should buy both but that sounds like a cheapskate to me anyway. And then he asked you for cash! I do think if you hadn't lent it to him you might not have seen him again, or he might have turned nasty. All you actually know about him is what he has told you - it could all be rubbish. And the £20 sort of means he has a ready-made reason to meet you again even if you didn't want to. I think go with your instincts and don't meet him again, say he can keep the £20 and block his number.

OH lent a fairly newish friend money which we didn't see again. Not a fortune, but we had a young family and it was a lot for us. Turned out, when he disappeared, that quite a few people had lent money to him. I didn't like him much anyway so decided the money was the price we paid for getting him out of our lives and put it out of my mind. I think £20 is a reasonable price to pay for getting this man out of your life.

This is a scam. It isn’t unheard of for men to extract quite a large amount of money from women they met on a dating site. Then they move on to the next victim.

Yes, call it a day and tell him to keep the £20. I think if you carried on and kept seeing him you could end losing more money than just £20. There are loads of nice guys out there so I wouldn't let it put you off going on the dating sites again.