Family didn’t pay

If we’re invited for a meal, it wouldn’t cross our minds that the invitee is paying for everyone. Strange and entitled behaviour. Just text everyone with their share and your bank account details.

Exactly this, I would always go with the expectation I was paying my share and, if no bill appeared on the table to divvy up i would say what are we doing about paying, other person would say my treat, I'd say are you sure, yes, well I'll leave a tip then but that's really generous of you thank you so much.

Not to say thank you is utterly unforgiveable - we split with friends but even then would always say thank you to the person who has arranged and booked.

Having said that, i have a parent who never ever pays when we go out for a meal, never enquires about the bill or says thank you. Now , we do ask her not the other way round but it really annoys me - but there are a lot bigger things that annoy me / chilhood trauma etc so I daren't open those floodgates!

Exactly - I think young people often mix with those from a variety of backgrounds (particularly if they go to comprehensive schools).

Adults tend to stick more to homogenous groups. Hence all the very polarised comments on this thread as many people seem unable to imagine that their social group is not representative of the entire country but likely to be more of an echo chamber.

I only know because DD has had a certain amount of angst about lots of birthdays all at once and how to afford them/what she's expected to pay for/whether she needs to transfer money between her bank accounts etc.

So I've started checking if she does have enough money, though I figure it's also a useful life lesson in budgeting and saying "no" if necessary.

I don't think young people are necessarily in social circles with others from the same background. My child's immediate social circle has two low income single parents and three middle class two parent households. More variation in the wider circle, including a previously looked after child.

@shepherdsangeldelight My ds is that age and I wouldn't have a clue how him and his friends are working it out! He just tells me he's meeting friends for lunch as it's someone's birthday, then where they went and what he had.

Most people mix in social circles with people similar to them.
So it's very likely that everyone in their social circle has the same views/attitudes.
It seems odder not to realise that "other people do things differently" than to assume that everyone must do things the same as you.

My DD is the age that all her friends are turning 18 in quick succession.
So she has been to lots of birthday meals recently. It's been really interesting to notice the number of variations on the "who pays for the meal" question.

Some people (well their parents) have paid for the whole thing.
Some people have expected everyone to pay for themselves.
Some people have paid for the food and expected people to pay for their own drinks.
Some people have paid x amount off the bill and split the rest.

DD's friends come from a range of backgrounds which I suspect reflects the difference in attitudes. Although interestingly the families that you would expect to be better off are not necessarily the ones offering to pay for everything.

As I’ve said multiple times, I don’t expect that at all. I do expect people to make it clear which applies and to recognise that different people have different lives.

I also know my own family well enough to know how things work for us.

I’m so sorry you aren’t able to recognise that not everyone is exactly like you and your family. Living with a complete lack of understanding of other people outside your own social circle sounds dreadful but you do you. I know some people are much happier living a limited life.

The fact you paid for it all without saying anything is weird. Surely just pass the bill round. They still shouldn't have assumed you'd pay buy by paying it quietly you have made it appear you were happy to do this.

How sad it must be to be invited out and expect that it means your dinner and drinks are going to be paid for and you don’t have to pay for yourself, not buying it though tbh. Doubt the people on here get invited out very often if an invite means their night is paid for.

How odd that you assume your social circle is the ‘real world’ and that everyone else’s lived experiences aren’t.

How sad it must be to have such a limited outlook on life.

MN is sometimes like a different universe. In my 45 years I have never thought if someone asked us to go out for dinner that they would pay. It certainly isn't the norm for most people, MN seems to have a thinking that unless you are rich enough to pay for everything you should never invite people out. Its absolutely ridiculous.

We often go out for dinner with friends to celebrate birthdays etc, everyone pays their own way, sometimes people may pay for wine for everyone or something but no one ever assumes. It's about £60 a head in most restaurants near me incl a few drinks so most people can't afford to pay for too many extras for dinner.

Yep, my family often invite me and my children out to eat does that mean I assume they are feeding me and my children? Never heard anyone assume this irl. Another MN thing that doesn’t happen in the real world.

Yeah but are you all rich enough that a couple of hundred pounds wouldn’t make any difference to anything?
I have no idea if the Op is well off or insanely rich but you can see why people wouldn’t expect to pay if invited by someone they know is loaded. Especially when the invite is for their other halves birthday and they do actually sneak off and pay for it all before the end of the meal.

It’s not ‘they are loaded, they can pay’, it’s that the OP did everything a person does when they are intending to pay, nothing a person does when they don’t intend to pay and is now displaying performative shock when her DH’s family were silly enough to believe her.

The fact that this is unlikely to have been the rent money does matter a bit but the OP’s actions matter more.

I find the idea that 'oh, they're loaded so they can pay' shocking.

Many people look wealthier than they actually are in terms of disposable income. Owning your house does not mean you have loads of cash, for instance.

I once heard the presenter Chris Evans thank some celeb or other on his show because they'd once been out to dinner with loads of people who, one by one, disappeared from the table without paying and so leaving Evans with the bill. But the celeb pitched in 50%. They may have both been wealthy but that wasn't the point.

Why would you not expect your parents to at least ask or pay? They're most likely to be able to afford it.

Toot toot! ⛵️⚓️🏴‍☠️

That is all. I love this thread.

@nocalorieleftbehind I’m sorry but just because you and your family don’t thank each other doesn’t mean that it’s not good manners to say thank you for dinner/thanks for a lovely night. I do the latter even if I’ve paid for my own meal. It’s common courtesy.🤷‍♀️

It's a strange old world on MN. When I contact my family and ask if they fancy getting together for a meal at a pub, not one of them would assume that means it's on me. Ditto getting a group of friends together.
Op - if you wanted your lot to pay it would probably have been better to suggest that you stuck it on your card, then everyone could take a pic of the receipt and transfer their share after. We do this all the time and it's easy. But - my family aren't chancers and would never let me pay for their meal without at least saying thank you.

Exactly this

Yep, this.

Among my group of friends, it's always clear if a meal out is being paid for if we're all covering our own.

Well, no.

A nice 3 course meal with expensive ingredients at home (and I cheat and buy in prepared food for at least one course) and a nice meal in a mid range restaurant (not a super expensive one where you pay for the experience) aren’t that much different and the restaurant is much less hassle.

The last bit (about turning it down if too expensive) requires the person making the arrangements to make it clear it’s ’pay your own way’ since, particularly with family, standard (admittedly old-fashioned) etiquette is that the person doing the inviting pays.

The OP didn’t do that and deliberately settled the whole bill but expects the guests to somehow ‘just know’ she expected them to pay (but not all of them - only the sister and her family). Apparently different people at the table were meant to draw different conclusions from the same actions.

I fully accept the rules are changing / have changed so people often split the bill but because it’s not currently clear, the invitation needs to say which applies. I’d be interested how the OP (or her DH) phrased the invitation. I always work the cost in if I’m not paying.

So the OP is by most people’s assessment rich (if she can afford a £100,000 boat) but apparently can’t afford to follow normal etiquette and pay for her husband’s birthday party.

On top of that, she did everything possible to make it look like she was paying and in many social circles (particularly with family) it’s completely normal to pay for invited guests. Instead she expected the family to psychically know that she expected them to pay.

This is looking more with every post like a deliberate attempt to separate her husband from his birth family by making them out to be greedy spongers.

It’s a pity she decided to ruin her husbands’s birthday by having ‘discussions’ like this afterwards.

I would presume I was paying. However, seeing as you have paid a conservative minimum of 100k for a boat and could easily add a zero to that, the assumption is you’re very comfortably off.

Presumably they don’t have the disposable income you do or maybe even enough to easily pay for the meal. How much per head? Having previously had a lot more disposable income, I did live in a bit of a financial bubble and thought little of spending £150 plus for 2 a couple of decades ago whereas I’d balk at that amount now.

I can only imagine for you this is is little stuff. Don’t sweat the little stuff.