“Unsettling”: Grocery Shopper Hears Woman Ask Male Partner for Permission to Do Basic Tasks

A woman expressed how grossed out she was hearing a woman at the grocery store ask her male partner for permission to perform basic tasks, stating that encountering it gave her the "ick."

Gvizzle (@gvizzle_74) posted a viral clip they recorded from their vehicle in which they expressed how gross they felt watching this interaction.

And while there were tons of other commenters who said that they too were irked by hearing there are folks out there who act like this, some thought she just witnessed people role-playing their kink out in public.

"I need your opinion on something. I just witnessed a couple's interaction at the grocery store and I ... urrgghhh ... I haven't even left the parking lot I'm still in my car. I could not wait to get to my car fast enough to find out if it's just me and I'm reading too much into it or ..." she says, wrestling with the statement she's about to issue on what she just witnessed inside of the grocery store.

"Like if icks were Skittles, I just tasted the f------ rainbow. You know what I'm saying? And maybe I need to set some context, 'cause when my husband and I go to the grocery store together, which isn't often, it's 'can you go grab that thing for me over there please? I'll be back in a minute, I'm gonna get this thing over here,'" she said as a means to highlight the dynamic her and her husband have when they're shopping together.

The TikToker continues, "So this couple, they're beside me and she said 'may I go get the cake please?' And then she waited for him to say yes. And then she said 'may I leave the cart with you please?' And then again she waited for him to say yes and there was just some, like, urggghhh, oh I hated it so much, and if that's what makes them happy that's fine," she said, attempting to reconcile with it.

"Live your life, urgghhh, ewww," she says at the end of the video, intoning how much she didn't enjoy seeing the way this couple interacted with one another when they were shopping, with the woman in a seemingly subservient role to the man she was with.

Different cultures have varying practices when it comes to control dynamics in relationships, like in Japan, where, according to Science Direct, women typically are in control of finances.

It's a "family financial management system," referred to as "okozukai which means 'pocket money.'" The outlet went on to say that traditionally, Japanese wives generally control their family finances regardless of their work status.

So, maybe if you're chilling with a Japanese family that partakes in okozukai, it won't be uncommon to see a husband go up to his wife and ask if they've got enough money to grab a beer and plate of wings, and he'll wait there like a kid at Dave and Buster's who's wondering if his mom is going to load up his play card with more credits so he can get enough tickets to win a Nintendo Switch.

Submissiveness in relationships, usually a practiced subservience on a woman's part in relation to a man, is often associated with religion. It might be jarring for some readers, just like it is for the author who penned this commentary on a post from a modern Christian theologian who said that women don't need permission from their husbands in order to go to the bathroom.

Speaking from personal experience, I never trusted conservative relationship dynamics where there was a certain level of fear in the person I was with that they would be angering some invisible entity if they displeased me in some way.

The "ick" in having ownership of a person based in an external factor (that isn't rooted in their being head over heels for me and me for them) is what ultimately drew me away from the types of relationships or familial structures promoted by religious leaders I grew up listening to.

There are other folks who write at length about religiousness who acquiesce that the term "submission" is a controversial term that ruffles people's feathers.

But there were some people who commented under @gvizzle_74's TikTok video who didn't think that the grocery-store couple was part of some extremist religious group, but were rather engaging in playing out a dominant/subservient lifestyle.

"D/s play was my thought," one person wrote an another echoed: "It sounds like Dom/Sub behavior. For me, that is very ick as well. I think hearing that would bother most people."

Others said that the way they act with their significant other when they're out shopping looks very, very different: "When I go to the grocery store with my wife she takes off and leaves me like an abandoned child."

And it turns out that this commenter's way of interacting with their partner in the store is fairly common as well: "Me and my hubs play ‘Marco Polo’ in the store when we lose track of each other. The amount of people that ‘Polo’ back is insane."

While another replied they weren't about the dom/sub lifestyle: "nope nope nope.... it's 'hey I'm gonna grab this' and walk off... I'm not asking anyone for permission."