Okay, so I have a friend who is a single mother to two boys. Her job doesn't pay very well at all, and so when we go out, I'll often just pick up the tab, maybe 5 times out of 10. Then maybe 4 times out of 10 we'll go halves, and once every 10 times she'll pick up the tab. I'm fairly comfortable but not loaded. Over the years it has slightly grated on me that she often wont make any move whatsoever to reach for her wallet. She also does stuff like pinch my smokes but in such a nice way I camt say anything. She can also do some stuff that i frankly find weird, such as the time people sent her cheques for her sons communion, she didnt cash them, then two years decided to cash them and called everyone to ask them to write new ones 😂👀👀👀
So anyway, she helped me move house, and we went for lunch that day (I paid). I also bought her a bouquet from a proper florist (not garage flowers) to say thank you.
So a few days later she was in town for something, and I said why dont we go out for a bite to eat once you're done (note the phrasing), it's on me.
She comes around later and in the meantime I had had some fuck up with my flat and was quite frazzled. I quickly got my phone out and googled for something nearby (I didnt know the area yet). I found an italian and thought great, pizza would be just the thing.
We get to the restaurant, step inside and are instantly whisked away to table, all while I'm clocking the place and thinking "oh fuck". This wasnt the mom and pop pizza and pasta joint I had expected at all, it was a proper posh italian restaurants with white tablecloths and osso bucco, convoluted risotto etc.
We sit down and I immediately say to her "fuck, this is much higher end than I expected. I'm massively underdressed" (I was wearing clothes I'd been cleaning the flat in).
The waiter comes over and she proceeds to fucking go wild! She orders an Aperol spritz as an aperitif (okay...) then when he comes back, she proceeds to order a starter and has already aired thoughts on dessert after the main, too. The final straw for me came when the waiter said what would you like to drink with your main?
She orders a bottle of prosecco!!! I'm not even going to get into how wrong it is (IMO) to have prosecco with your food (isnt that a kind of aperitif wine? Anyway, off topic). At this stage I'm quite pissed off, mainly because she wouldnt be ordering any of this if it was her paying. I'm frustrated with the flat, frustrated with me not having checked the restaurant properly beforehand and also frustrated with her.
So I said: "Look this is way higher end than I expected, and it's also way more than I thought you would order, so we're going to have to go halves this time". Because I was angry I said it in quite a cold way.
She looked fucking crushed, so hurt. I felt terrible. At the end of the meal, I just paid for it all. I felt so bad. I felt I had really been mean and ruined the evening. Even though I ended up paying for it anyway, I still feel bad like I didnt have a generous attitude.
So what do you think?
And by the way, for the covid detectives on the early shift: this happened between lockdowns.