A friend of mine who lives far away has come to stay with me for a few nights. We went out for a meal together last night (which she insisted on paying for at the end as a thanks for hosting her, if that has any relevance).
When we sat down I had a brief panic, thinking that I didn’t have any cash to pay for a tip at the end of the meal and rummaged through my handbag. She said not to worry as she had cash, but it turns out I had enough anyway.
We then had a conversation about tipping and she told me that she very rarely does and I was surprised, and told her I always pay at least 10% and would feel embarrassed not to. I also told her that my partner and I usually end up arguing about tipping because he is against it and when I put money down he has in the past picked some back up, saying that it’s too much. I told her this really pisses me off and embarrasses me.
Anyway when the bill comes she hands over £2 for the tip and I go to put mine down too, she raises her eyebrows and says something about it being a lot as I’m counting pound coins to put it down, so I feel pressured to match her and only put £2.50 down, the meal was £58 so this is less than I would like to tip. The service was good.
Sometime later when we are almost back to the car she says ‘you’re going to kill me’ and laughs, telling me that she picked up the tip money so we didn’t leave any. I obviously didn’t look impressed and she said she did it to annoy me and to ‘be funny’ and offered me my money back. I said I don’t want it, it was intended for the person who served us. She asked me if I was pissed off and I said yes.
The atmosphere on the way home was a bit awkward but I tried my best to just ignore what had happened and talk about other things, but I got the feeling she thought I was being humourless and there was definitely an atmosphere afterwards. AIBU to not see any humour in what she did?