First, $10-$12 is a usual quick lunch (not sit-down). I consider it a good day if I come in at 8 or under (and I’m not starving at 3:30pm). However, I work in midtown Manhattan.
Second, I marvel at some poster’s abilities to read into the OP, such as taking a simple aside (the sushi comment) and blowing it way out of proportion.
Lastly, as several others have pointed out, best bet would have been to go and have a salad or soup or something of that nature. That said, hindsight is usually 20/20, and if you are feeling snubbed and don’t have long to think about it, it is hard to come up with an alternate strategy.
In conclusion, $10-$15 is not a “tony” meal anywhere in the U.S. You were put on the spot, and while you didn’t handle it in the best method, it’s understandable why you weren’t able to quickly turn adversity back to advantage.
I have spoken. You may now close down the interwebs.
Ooh, where was it? Was it that place that’s downtown on Hwy 7… and I can’t think of any other descriptors? We almost went there last week, but settled on Rolando’s instead, and I’ve never been to the place that I’m thinking of, but would love to.
It was Belle Arti’s downtown. It’s just down from the intersection of Spring and Central. I recommend the Eggplant Parmigiana and the black currant iced tea! It’s a romantic little place.
In my view, the point of going out to dinner with friends is the “friends” part, not the dinner part. If you want to eat cheap then invite them over for ramen and crackers, if they were your friends, I don’t see what the problem would be. I lived on C$30/week max for food, but I’ve never bothered to look at the bill for a dinner with friends. My friends are worth a lot more to me than $10 worth of slop.
Usually, my system is that we take turns paying the bill on nights out. Everyone ends up well fed, drunk and happy, there are never any awkward moments about the bill, and the overall cost spread over a couple of nights out is actually quite low.
That’s not at all true. Ever look at a chain restaurant’s web page? Notice they rarely show prices? It’s because they’re different depending on location.
It’s not just chain restaurants either. There is a significant difference in restaurant prices between Boulder, CO (where I used to live) and Podunk, UP (where I live now.)
The whole deal is sad. If the OP can’t afford but $5 for a meal and the group went to a $15 place, I know me and most of my friends would have pitched in $10 so the $5 person could come along. That’s what being friends is about.
I’ve been in the situation where $5 is the most that can be spent and where $20 for the meal is inexpensive. You have to be very clear that you mean $5 is your budget, and suggest that meeting after lunch is exceptable if they want. You can’t ask freinds to never eat out for $15, but they’ll accomidate you on this if your clear. At one point all I could afford was $20 in groceries a week, so $10 can be way to high in some cases. I’ve bowed out on some weddings and other events, because of no money to spend. I wish I had had money at the time of the last family photo shoot, to buy some nice clothes. Instead I bowed out and the picture from ten years ago has everyone but me.
The OP would not have accepted the generosity of her friends. She posted that even if they had offered, she wouldn’t have taken them up on it. It’s not her friends’ fault that she’s cheap, nor is it their fault that she places such little value on their friendship that she wouldn’t let them treat her or ask to borrow a couple of dollars. The way I read it is that she got upset because they wouldn’t bow to her demands and now she’s bitching about it.
Now that’s sad. Don’t you think your family notices that in the picture, as well? Can you really imagine that they would have possibly cared what you were wearing, as long as you were in the picture?
You don’t want to admit that your having a tough luck streak to people. It is sad, and that’s why I posted it. Maybe some people will relize what is going on with somebody they know that seems to decline doing stuff that they would love to do. At the time I had a couple worn pants and shirts, and not much else. I would say so now to the family, but the past is the past, and never to be lived again.
Forgive me if I missed it, but I don’t think the OP asked what the average cost of dinner in anyone else’s part of the world is, nor if they find it acceptable or not. I’ll go ahead and jump on that bandwagon and say that there are plenty of places that have meals under $10(I’m in the Tampa Bay Area) that don’t have godlen arches out front. She also said that the *plates * were $15, so that doesn’t include tax, tip or beverage. But that’s not the point.
I don’t think they intentionally snubbed her;I think that they just weren’t in tune with her situation. She’s referred to herself as cheap, but I think she just has a very limited budget and has to choose her luxuries wisely. Maybe she could have made her wishes known. Maybe they could have been a little more understanding. I know if I had somewhat special plans with friends and one backed out at the last minute, I’d be concerned and would want to know why. Did none of them find it strange that she suddenly couldn’t make it? Did no one think to press the matter? I hear a lot of talk about how she selfishly skipped dinner with her dear friends. Could not the dear friends have altered their plan? True friends don’t see compromise as “bending to the demands of another” if they care about that person.
Why should a group of people have to alter their plans because one of their friends is cheap? She wouldn’t even let them treat her or borrow a couple of bucks from them.
Her friends would not have found it strange if she didn’t want to spend $10 on dinner since, if they are friends, they obviously know she is cheap. That she would snub them for a lousy $5 may have prompted them to ditch her.
Well, in my circle of friends, knowing each other’s quirks and liking them enough to work around them sometimes is kind of important. I think it comes down to someone making the sacrifice and it seems you’re of the opinion that since the OP is in the minority, she should be the one to do it. I think it’s more about people making the friendship a priority as opposed to what they were going to eat that night.
Well, true friends can also dig a little deaper into their pocketbook to pull out an extra $10 for dinner.
Fact of the matter is that while true friends are understanding of each other’s situation, it’s very hard to stay friends with someone who can’t roll with you to the places you like going to. It causes tension in the relationship as the wealthier friends will get annoyed at having to sacrifice their plans and the less wealthy friend will get resentful that he/she can afford to partake in the same activities.
Eventually it will weaken the friendship as the less wealthy person won’t be sharing in the same activities and will eventually fade into irrelevancy.
Well then the wealthier friends can go buy some new friends with the same degree of wealth and shallowness that they themselves enjoy. Problem solved.
Sarcasm aside, what if cheapness wasn’t the OPs issue, but rather the true inability to afford the more expensive dinner?Should she still be left out?
Catsix has already hit the points I would have. I’ve been in the Pittsburgh area a long time, too. IME, it’s no cheaper to live here than in any other comparable sized city. With that said, I think the OP is actually the one who used economics as an excuse to ditch. It seems she had money to attend the convention. Money is, apparently, not an issue when having sushi. Yet a few dollars was enough reason to ditch her friends.
This is very true. You can make time to be together occasionally (if you have time to save up for an event) but people tend to acquire more expensive tastes as they get older, and if you always take a pass, eventually they won’t bother calling anymore. That’s been my experience, anyway.
My husband has much simpler ideas of what constitutes “dinner out” than I do. I tend to do these things with his sisters or his ex-wife or my father, because he always whines about how much it will cost for “one lousy meal.”
I’m a little dumbfounded that everyone thinks you can’t eat out for $10. This is definitely not true everywhere. I’m used to $8 for an entree at a reasonably nice place.
That said, the OP should have splurged and her friends should have offered to go somewhere else.
