His comment when the bill came ....

Well said. I always think it's more of a reflection of what's going on in their own lives and they project that on to the OP.

Which bit of her post was 'frothy mean girl'? Can you give an example?

There are a lot of them on here.

I suspect quite a few of those types of posts are from disgruntled men posing as women on here

And the same in reverse, and this post of prime example of frothy mean girl. Sadly it doesn’t work on line, and we aren’t kids,

Interesting how worked up, and to what great lengths, some posters get to “prove” OP is unreasonable to have been offended by her date’s clear implication that she was sponging off him. Quite frothy.

But I have noticed there is often a bit of a mean girl streak to some threads where posters will torture the text of the OP in order to find fault with the OP herself. It often happens when the commenters decide that the OP is somehow too needy, or too proud, or lacks the fabled stiff upper lip, or has drawn attention to a specifically female vulnerability. It happens a lot on threads where OP complains that her birthday/mothers day/new job/new degree has been ignored. Absolute indifference to need and being impervious to insult seems to be the implicit requirement.

Another interesting thing is that the anti OP comments generally follow the narcissist’s prayer:

That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

Just substitute “he” for I and you have all the comments explained.

You intended to split the bill - he asked whether you wanted him to pay or to split it.
Hardly as of he did a runner & left you with the bill, or started debating who'd drunk more of the wine.
Maybe stick to coffees the next time you meet up with someone.

Fear not. If I'd actually given it a bit more thought I'd have realised sooner why people were passive aggressively denying the passive aggression. It's obvious really! And look, still more here. "Froth"? That one's 500 years old.

People say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but I disagree...pass agg is so much lower. Level up.

@NonPlayerCharacter

"The guy was rude, blatantly and plainly. He did not simply express his wish to split, he insulted OP by effectively accusing her of expecting him to pay"

That's exactly what happened and it was clear as a bell from the first post.

He was accusing her of expecting him to pay.

And with absolutely zero expectation of that, I would be insulted as well.

Maybe he's had one too many dates where she sits on her hands like a dummy, but it was still rude, condescending and the dismissive wave of the hand put the cap on it.

Incidentally one of the most passive aggressive comments on this thread was one of the suggestions you made as to how he OUGHT to have phrased it. But of course since passive aggressive people “pretend it’s not happening” you probably won’t think that was.

Don’t overthink it non-player: some people just disagree with you.

And if you are looking for passive- aggressive motives in things that simply aren’t, it’s no wonder you thought his comment about paying was off.

People will disagree with you at times. You can’t work yourself into such a froth.

Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once. The man requested the bill, the waiter presented the bill, the man preemptively and rudely suggested that the OP was asking him to pay.

Pulling out her wallet before the waiter came would definitely have been classed as rude as it would have implied that she couldn’t wait to run. Grabbing the bill would have implied she was hosting him. She simply waited, politely, for him to address the bill before she offered her share.

I think if the OP planned to pay for her half she would have said that when he asked for the bill, or pulled out her wallet.

She made no attempt to pay for herself despite not liking him which is quite rude.

Thank you @NonPlayerCharacter —I also could not figure out what was going on in this thread snd you have dissected it —or vivisected it—perfectly. Now I understand!

You think? I thought it was pretty substandard, personally. Pass agg is very hard to do well. Not many people have the knack.

I don’t know, I thought the whole “Well I DO admire your heroic support for the OP’s feelings of insult, and I hope you are just as supportive of people with real problems” was a pretty good pass-agg dig at both you and the OP, with the requisite plausible deniability.

You think? I thought it was pretty substandard, personally. Pass agg is very hard to do well. Not many people have the knack.

But I think I now realise why so many people are pretending not to understand or see the pass agg. The point of pass agg is to create plausible deniability, because God forbid you have an open and direct confrontation, or take any accountability. So of course if you're pass agg, you're going to deny the existence of pass agg, most likely in a pass agg way.

I feel a bit more satisfied now I realise why so many people are pretending not to understand. It was obvious, really - pass agg people like pass agg but need to pretend it's not happening because that's what pass agg is! - but sometimes you have to sleep on it to see it.

Yup.

I do, however, applaud your tendency to stick up for op if you think it was rude - and I hope you take this approach when OPs are really down and genuinely vulnerable, because many people don’t.

Some truly fine pass-agg work here.

I truly don't mean to be rude, but I'm not saying any of this to get your admiration.

The guy was rude, blatantly and plainly. He did not simply express his wish to split, he insulted OP by effectively accusing her of expecting him to pay, and making her solely responsible for the decision on what to do with the bill.

It irritates me that so many people pretend not to realise this, because everyone knows it. There can't be any good reason for telling a woman she should accept insults from a man and that she's the problem. Everyone. Knows. He. Was. Rude.

And as before, if a person wants to pretend that they don't understand pass agg questions, they shouldn't use them while pretending not to understand them. God, it's whiny rhetoric 101. Basic training, people.

In truth, the conversation could have gone like this:

Him: “ So do you want me to pay for this, or what ?”
OP: “Oh … well, … that’s very kind of you, thank you.”

He wouldn’t have found it easy to unpick that.

Player I do admire that you are defending OP. Like you, I don’t like OP pile-ons when the OP has been poorly treated .

However, I genuinely don’t think what he said was too offensive. Hand on heart, I would have preferred his comment to your suggestion of “ … so that comes to £30 for me.” I would find that far more aggressive.

Which goes to show it is a conversation that we all have very different approaches to . I’m sorry I’m not thinking the same as you in this, but I don’t. I do, however, applaud your tendency to stick up for op if you think it was rude - and I hope you take this approach when OPs are really down and genuinely vulnerable, because many people don’t.

He evidently has no idea of how to behave. Asking like that was crass. If he hadn’t wanted to pick up the tab he could have said - nicely - ‘Shall we split it?’
I hope you’ve written him off, OP!

I've just answered that.

"Shall we split this?" or "OK, mine comes to £50" or whatever.

Again, as you absolutely 100% understand, the problem is that he didn't merely state his wish to split. Instead he asked a question about it that was designed to insult OP because it was based on the assumption that she was entitled and presumptuous.

You know this because you've just tried to do the same thing to me twice. First with a question that assumes I'm "triggered" and now with another that assumes I take "grave offence", ie, that I'm oversensitive.

Sorry, but if you want to claim you don't understand a manipulation tactic, don't use it yourself!

And I'm not interested in explaining what you fully understand any further.

What on earth?

If he didn't want to pay, all he had to do was say "shall we split this, then?" or "OK, I had soup and salmon so that comes to £30 for me" or whatever.

What he actually did, which of course you understand, was not simply state his intention to pay half. Instead he attempted to manipulate OP through a pass agg question that insulted her by essentially accusing her of presumption.

It's completely irrelevant that OP wanted to pay her half. She did not want to be insulted by a rude, aggressive question. And that's why he did it.

Which you know.

Yes I agree. Because I think when you think someone is a “test” there aren’t many ways of them phrasing the fact they don’t want to shout you for a date you’ve really not enjoyed ( especially when they have made it so obvious how very well they COULD afford it) that won’t grate. I’m thinking he did reasonably well- at least vis a vis @CountessWindyBottom and my suggestions!

And in this particular case, I dislike it especially because a load of people are doing it to try to pressure a woman into accepting rude and horrible behaviour from a man and see herself as the problem.

@NonPlayerCharacter, I really need you to elucidate what it is that should have been said that you deem appropriate in these circumstances. What should the man have said that wouldn't cause you such grave offence?