Disclaimer: This situation in particular is really resolved I guess in that we argued and then stopped arguing and moved on and I'm not really holding a grudge. I just really.. don't know if I was right in my feelings on the matter.

Last week me and my boyfriend went to dinner before a large event in town. My boyfriend had been sliiightly irritable earlier in the day, but we both have a handful of mental health issues and work so that happens semi-often. He was fine when we left for dinner.

At dinner (Red Robin's btw), there was a football game on one of the TVs. I think it was the Patriots and the Packers? He was watching on and off while we had conversation. We arrived at the topic of sports, and then sports mascots, and how a lot of NFL teams aren't even real mascots.

He mentioned it would be funny to found a team and have your mascot just be some incomprehensible creature, and I was like oh, that's a thing, let me show you a picture! The Philadelphia Phillies (Baseball) have a mascot just called the Fanatic who is... weird. No discernable creature.

It took me like 10 sec to unlock my phone and get to pulling up the pic. Without looking at me (he kept his eyes locked on the TV which was behind me) he said "no". I said, oh, it's just a picture, and he repeated himself "no". I would like to also say he said it semi-hostiley, not super aggressive or yelling, but sounding annoyed.

I was really confused, and kept insisting, and moreso asking "but why???" and he just said "because I don't want to!" and I continued to be like, but. WHY???? We went back and forth and he said "I'm saying no and need to respect me when I say no even if I don't have a reason".

Now, we fought more after this and it escalated. I definitely (probably?) overreacted by getting really frustrated and upset by this and threatening to leave dinner (which is not what I'm asking about BTW, that was probably an asshole thing) and after maybe 15 min we both calmed down and returned to dinner.

While we argued though he made it about me "not respecting him and his no" which... I don't feel like I have to say the weird things that starts to imply (which I brought up to him afterwards), when, to me... It was just rude??? Like, ok, yes, I guess, in general, if somebody does not want to do something I should not and try not to make them do it.

But how is it NOT rude to just... blatantly refuse to look at a thing COMPLETELY RELEVANT TO THE CONVERSATION and give literally NO CONTEXT AS TO WHY?? He eventually "explained" it was because he didn't like me being on my phone at all while we were on a date (which is totally fair but nothing he had ever brought up beforehand) but... isn't there at least a much nicer way to go about this? Even a "no thanks, not right now" or "I'll look later" or "actually can you please not be on your phone right now"???

AITA??? I legitimately don't know. I usually feel confident in our arguments whether or not my feelings are legitimate but... I honestly cannot tell this time.