Date got me to pay for expensive dinner - bin?

[Jonesjonsy]

Met a guy online. First date, walk in the countryside near to where he lived. Seemed a really nice guy with great interests and gorgeous dog! Stopped at a cafe and had sandwich lunch about £8 each, no alcohol or anything. Very kindly he offered to pay and I accepted. no kiss or anything like that.

Second date he said he was going to be working near me and would I like to do something. I offered to book a pub dinner near to where he would clock off. Again it went well I thought, but conscious on seeing the prices on the menu I knew I wouldn’t want him to pay for me particularly as he had bought me the sandwich. At the end of the meal when he asked for the bill, I said you paid last time so I don’t want you paying again. He misconstrued this as me saying I would settle the whole thing (what I meant was we just had split it) and I guess I was so flummoxed that this had happened I just paid especially since the waitress was kind of hovering over us… I was embarrassed to talk about it. Bill was £110!

I guess I just wonder if this is a major red flag. I don’t know him well enough to determine and honestly it’s put me off I don’t think I want to meet up again. Yes I can afford it as I’ve worked really hard to build up my own business. I didn’t tell about money at all and am not flashy but I did talk about what I do and maybe he just made a assumption? AIBU?

He let you pay that much because he bought you a sandwich last time? Well out of order.

Gymnopedie: Men are regularly accused (often rightly) of misogyny, but there's more than a whiff of misandry about some of these replies.

Yep.

The OP is a grown up. Its silly to wind up feeling resentful because you got yourself into a tricky situation which was easily remedied with honest communication. Men are not mind readers. Yes it can be uncomfortable but if you front up, they tend to appreciate it.

What does the laughing emoji mean, you must be lost for words.

That is bonkers, I don’t know any pubs that are that expensive (maybe the Heston Blumenthal place?) but he was ordering cocktails and wine, maybe the OP wasn’t, clarification would be good.

Given the first date was £8 or so, I’d expect anyone with a bit of decency to at least offer to go Dutch. Saying that, I think the OP was very unclear saying she didn’t want him paying and not saying ‘the whole lot’.

Yeah, of course I have WAY back. So what? Every woman has... What's your point? I know plenty of other women who have been subjected to mean and miserly tight fisted twats too when dating men. It's no life. Rather be alone than with a mean, tight fisted man who is always shit in bed too.

Before I met DH 30 years ago, I met quite a few losers who expected me to pay for my own shit. They'd ask me on a date, and sat there and paid for themselves only... I did the right thing and told them to fuck right off.

My now husband did the right thing, asked me out and paid for us both. He did it for the first 5 or 6 times, and then we started to split a little bit more on day trips and nights at hotels and stuff like that. He has always earned more though... so obviously pays more. He has always been generous, so he gets to stay with me. I am very generous too - with him, in many ways.

SOME women on here are happy to take any old shit from men. I am not, and never HAVE been. You do you.

So he had a cocktail and 2 large glasses of wine

Or you both had one glass each

But yes you said you would pay this time

I'm sure various men will pop up to tell me I'm wrong, but in my experience, men like to pay if they like the woman. They don't like paying if they don't. Or if she doesn't want to see them again, but that's fair enough.

Men who get angry at the abstract idea of paying (ridiculous; if you're on a date and don't want to pay, then don't pay) are really angry because they generally pay in the hope of getting sex. They think women are vending machines where you insert cash and sex falls out. They're angry because they know it doesn't really work this way. So rather than paying because they want to, or not paying because they don't want to, they pay to stay in the sex-getting game.

They have been around long enough to fail to get sex many times this way and it's made them bitter. But as they can't possibly be at fault, it's obviously feminism that's to blame, even though they're a shrieking klaxon as to why feminism is still necessary.

I think men have it tough nowadays. Dammed if they do, dammed if they don't. Maybe he was being careful not to give you the wrong idea or trying to suss out what you really wanted.

He sounds like he does like to set things up to make things easier for him - meeting up near his home or near where he's working that day. You also seem to be doing all the organising.

I think you want to start how you continue.

Maybe try to have the next date to suit you - maybe a cheaper date - coffee and walk or something? Are there activities you both enjoy?

In terms of paying for the meal he just may be oblivious that you expected him to pay half. My husband is very generous but would likely just accept it if I said I would pay when we started dating. He'd think it would be rude to insist on paying. Maybe you could have a chat about how you pay for stuff going forward?

Unless OP told him upfront that she wanted to pay for the full cost of the meal there was no way for him to know he wouldn’t be paying for it. So whatever he ordered, steak, wine, the one bloody pudding I assume he thought he would be paying for the full meal or at the very least his half of it. So I don’t think he was being a cheeky fucker in that sense.

He even asked for the cheque himself, even if only did as he had to leave for his train he still asked for it so I assume he was willing to pay for it all there and then.

OP changes her story of what she actually says to her date about paying the bill, but
whatever she said to him there was a massive miscommunication on OPs part and he thought she was offering to pay.

I will admit that he should have know the bill would be costly, much more than the sandwich he paid for. Maybe he was a cheeky fucker not insisting to pay half, but since OP admits her communication skills aren’t great he could have just thought okay, that’s cool I’ll get the next one. I don’t know!
I don’t think it would be an immediate red flag, I would give him another chance if everything else was good.

I guess you need to be clearer with your communication OP, but I suppose what you really wanted was for him to pay the full amount and you to play the damsel in distress.

Yeah u should of been clearer, just think tho this will be a funny story in a few years time if it works out between you both! Defo dont bin him off for not offering when u offered in the first place

Can’t be arsed to read the whole thread but for next time the phrase you want OP is “Shall we split the bill?”

Up to you if you see him again, but if you do I’d expect him to pay and if he doesn’t offer just say “Your turn I think?” When the bill comes.

So is everything split 50/50 and you do all the housework and childcare?

Where do you get she ‘pays him like a prostitute’……….?

And I don’t see why you need to pity her? She sounds just fine. As do you.

@CrazyArmadilloLady

Not a lot. But it's the whole vibe.

If I had a second date with a bloke who:

• didn't have the initiative to organise a date and left it all to me

• squeezed me in between work and catching a train

• knocked back a series of alcoholic drinks on a second date, when we are all usually on our best behaviour.

• sat there while I paid for the privilege instead of saying 'I paid for a sandwich and this is a three course meal and drinks, let's go halves' or even 'alright but I'm treating you to dinner next time'

I'd wonder if he was the right fit/if he was that into me/ if he had a drinking problem.

We see on here all the time 'I do all the work with DC while DH is drinking every night' and without fail there are comments asking why she didn't notice his drinking before getting married/getting pregnant.

6 ish standard drinks (at least- pubs tend to pour wine generously), in a short period of time, on a second date, on a weeknight - would not be a deal breaker for me necessarily but I would be paying a lot of attention to his drinking habits following that.

Fair enough explanation @SunRainStorm

He definitely doesn’t sound like a keeper to me, either although DH had some seriously boozy dates in the early days.

And I agree with PPs - men who bang the drum about it being sexist for men to pay for dates are ABSOLUTELY silent/complicit/enjoying themselves while earning more money than women, doing fewer chores than women, watching their partners put their bodies through IVF, pregnancy, birth, c.sections, breastfeeding and then getting to the end of that and saying they are not comfortable with having a vasectomy so she now has to be responsible for contraception as well.

They will happily let their partners reduce their paid work to the detriment of their pension to care for shared children, without topping it up from their own income.

That's all fine, but buying a woman a plate of pasta is archaic and wrong.

These men pick and choose when they want gender equality.

Unless these 'equality' seeking men are equally engaged in equality issues that are for the betterment of women in society- I call absolute bullshit of their wish to not pay for dates being based in any kind of modern thinking.

You don’t sound tight! I was on a second date, a casual lunch at a pub where you order sandwiches and pay at the counter. I ordered first and my date then quickly moved WAY over to one side to show that he wasn’t paying. I’m a very generous person and that put me right off.

There was just such a difference I guess I felt it was weird he accepted with such ease.

I'm with you. It is not a good sign that he did. He knew he had a cocktail before and two wines, and then dinner and dessert. It's not a sandwich. At the point you said, you paid last time, he ought to have said, "Let's split it."

OP, you have to report back on your third date.

It is a bit of a red flag. There’s a hell of a difference between £16 and £110 and he knows it.

Exactly; this is what I took from the whole tale of woe, too. Quite disingenuous.

Rubbish.

Some women can be very independent and get offended if a man won't let them pay.

She said she'd pay so he may just have been trying to do the right thing and not patronise her by inferring she can't pay herself!