This is as light hearted as it gets, I'm not actually fuming about this! I am interested in some perspectives though.
In 2017, five friends from East Anglia and I got an Airbnb in London so we could all go to a late night event nearby. I was the first to arrive (I live in London but was bunking in with them anyway) so I went to a supermarket and got a few bags of crisps, soft drinks and some small charcuterie type stuff - enough for everyone, but mainly because I like having this kind of stuff around while I'm getting ready to go out, so I paid for it myself. I figured the others could order delivery if they wanted anything bigger.
On my friends' group chat, I'd noticed a few references to a "pasta bake" and some requests for money over the past two weeks, but I'd skimmed over these.
When my friends turned up, one of the couples (who I barely knew) arrived with THE pasta bake. I was surprised as I thought it had been a joke - and practically speaking, it sort of was. There were two huge ceramic oven dishes full of the coldest, most wet and cheese-less penne bake I'd even seen, and they'd been sitting in the back of someone's car covered in foil for over three hours, all the way from Kings Lynn to Southwark. They were carried in with GREAT fanfare by the woman of the couple, who proceeded to re-heat this huge beige thing in the oven, and then ladle big, sad, stodgy bowls of it out to everyone (not what anyone wants to try to hold and shovel down while trying to put on makeup and get into a cocktail dress!!!). She talked about the cooking process and recipe too, as if we couldn't work it out. The way this woman went about it, you'd think she thought she'd rescued the whole night from disaster and starvation. I think I attempted to navigate my way around an undercooked piece of broccoli and watery pasta for a bit before hiding it in my room. It was honestly so bizarre to watch this performance happening while the rest of us were enjoying the vibe of getting ready to go to a quite expensive and elegant night out.
So far so bland. But the next morning, the woman went around telling everyone how much the ingredients (penne pasta, broccoli, not enough tomato sauce, and cheese In Name Only) had cost and calculating how much each person in the house owed them for the privilege of being involved in THE pasta bake. I honestly can't remember if I paid up or not - I think one of my mates who was closer to them paid for a few of us out of embarrassment.
This couple are divorced now, and I haven't seen the woman since the event. I've never brought it up with my friends, but I find myself thinking about this all the time. Was I being snotty about what was, in theory, a nice but misguided gesture? Am I overestimating how much small-towners know about food availability in Central London after dark? Or was this genuinely weird and off base?