'Costanza' fakes allergy with girlfriend but secretly loves peanut butter and it feels like a Seinfeld plot

Six years ago, a man who goes by u/Creepy-Desk-468 on Reddit went on a date with a woman who was “obsessed” with peanut butter and kept trying to push him to try the peanut butter smoothie she had ordered. Not being in the mood for it, he did not want to refuse outright for fear of coming off as rude, so he invented a lie on the spot. “Oh, I can’t—I’m allergic,” he blurted, not thinking too much of it at the moment because he was pretty sure that they would not meet again. Six years later, he’s still with the same woman and has lived to regret the lie every day, even today.

During the first instance, the girl, sincerely concerned, asked him several thousand questions about the allergy, eventually introducing him to her friends’ group, which still knows him as the “allergy” guy. To date, these friends call ahead to warn a restaurant not to bring peanuts anywhere near their table; they thoroughly check the ingredients of anything they consume; and one of them even “threw out a peanut butter cake someone brought to a party ‘just to be safe.’” In his post, he called it a “big mistake,” confessing that he has always loved peanut butter but no longer knows how to correct a deeply entrenched 6-year-old lie.

The worst part is that he now has to eat his favorite snacks in secret, hiding from his innocent girlfriend and her friends’ group. He even has a stash of these snacks in his office, where he can eat them free from any surveillance. One day, when his best friend expressed sadness over him never being able to taste Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, the man could do nothing but solemnly nod. The crisis reached its peak when his girlfriend proposed moving in together.

He wrote, “She’s super cautious about food. I’m terrified she’ll find my peanut butter stash and think I’ve been lying to her”—which he has, in fact, been doing for over half a decade now. “Do I fake a ‘miracle recovery’?” he asked the internet, “A medical misdiagnosis? Or do I just keep the lie going forever?” As per the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI), approximately 1-2% of the US population is allergic to peanuts, which translates to about 3-6 million people. The allergy becomes apparent the very first time a child is given peanut butter in any form, and this is why the first occurrence cases are usually those of infants and toddlers. 

To his relief, u/Calculagraph replied with a well-thought-out plan: “This is the perfect time of year, actually; start sniffling, find some irritant to make yourself sneeze occasionally, fake a pollen/ragweed/air allergy, and complain loudly about either the symptoms or the side effects of the Claritin you are 'definitely taking.' Use that as your excuse to get allergy testing, where you are going to test negative for a peanut allergy, which must have worn off as you got older, and because you and your friends have been so careful to avoid exposure, you'd have never known if not for that seasonal allergy that popped up.”

u/Cybernut93088 wrote, "It would be so ironic if he goes to get tested to cover up the lie only to find out he actually IS allergic to peanuts." u/4jules4je7 wrote, "Your next step is telling her you’re seeing an allergist whose been micro dosing peanuts for you to get to eat them and voila, CURED. It’s actually a thing, and what’s one more lie. Dude come clean or do it quick before she marries you and has access to your medical records." u/Sinifican wrote, "Just stop eating peanut butter. You made your peanut butterless bed, now lay in it."