AITA for booking a tattoo with another artist even though my boyfriend is a tattoo artist?
AITA for booking a tattoo with another artist even though my boyfriend is a tattoo artist?
My boyfriend is a tattoo artist. Recently I booked a 5-6 inch tattoo with a female artist whose work I really like. This is only my second tattoo and it’s my first “bigger” tattoo. I paid the deposit and told my boyfriend about it because I was excited.
His reaction was basically: “Your boyfriend is a tattoo artist and you go book with somebody else?” He later told me not to expect him to ever tattoo me and said he had a “one rule” about tattoos that he claims we discussed before, but I honestly don’t remember that conversation.
For context, he has never directly asked to tattoo me before, never shown interest in tattooing me, never planned a tattoo for me, and we never had an appointment or design in the works. I also wasn’t trying to hide anything from him, I told him as soon as I booked it. We’ve also only been together 5 months.
I’m thinking I could be the asshole because I didn’t talk about the idea with him. I just booked it and told him after the fact. But I had been expressing to him before that I wanted to get a tattoo and he never showed much interest.
I told him I still think he’s an amazing artist and that I’d love a tattoo from him someday. I even offered to cancel my appointment because I felt so guilty, but he didn’t respond.
I understand why he might feel a certain way about it, but I also feel blindsided because I genuinely didn’t think this would be a major issue. I honestly didn’t realize it meant that much to him.
AITA for booking with another artist?