Etiquette Opinions Wanted: Generous Friends and Lopsided Resources

In My Humble Opinion
1

Well, this is a pretty good dilemma to have, as dilemmas go.

I’m leaving for NYC to see my grandmother and go to my dad’s house for Passover on Wednesday morning, and have been trying to coordinate schedules with friends and family. The most difficult person to coordinate with is a very old and dear friend, the last of my college crowd remaining in NYC, who is a workaholic investment banker, currently a rather high-level person at a very old-school top firm in the biz (and whose wife, also a finance person, is almost as much of a workaholic as he is).

Given our respective schedules, the only available times we can meet up are between Saturday, oh, 6-ish and Sunday early afternoon before I fly home. He told me they have tickets for a play, and I am welcome to join them and then spend the night in the city before heading back to Dad’s place in Queens on Sunday morning - they can get me a ticket, but I probably wouldn’t be sitting with them.

So I looked up the play to see if it’s even anything I want to see - and it looks interesting, but a) it’s a Broadway show, which means $$$$, and b) the only tickets the theater has left are the super-expensive ones, unless I can find something through a ticket broker (or unless my friend has a connection of some sort), which probably means even more $$$$.

Now really, my main goal is to hang out with my friends for a bit - the play is not the thing. But if I don’t go to the play with them, that means my remaining choices are a) meet up with them late, after the play; or b) stay at Dad’s Saturday night, where I will be bored to tears (because Dad will go to bed by 9 pm, and my almost-17-year-old half-brother will think I am hopelessly boring and retreat to his room to do things I probably don’t want to know about), and meet my friends for Sunday brunch or something (which will probably also be a complete zoo anywhere in Manhattan, because Sunday is Easter). But in any case, we wouldn’t have much in the way of quality hanging-out time - an hour or two at most.

The thing about my friend, though, is that he and his wife are both filthy rich, at least by my modest middle-class standards (not estate-with-servants rich, but gorgeous-duplex-on-Central-Park-West-straight-out-of-Architectural-Digest rich, anyway, which might as well be the same thing as far as I’m concerned), and insanely generous. They never let me pay for anything, which generally makes me feel a bit awkward if it’s something like $15 for dinner, which I generally compensate for by sending them a thank-you gift afterward or baking them cookies or something. It’s sometimes a level of generosity which would be fiscally irresponsible for me, but which is an insignificant amount of money to them, but all the same, I feel like I can never quite reciprocate.

So chances are, if I tell them I do want to go to the play, they will get a ticket and then refuse to let me pay for it. Which could probably cost almost as much as my whole plane ticket to NY, and would make me feel really awkward, because let’s face it, it’s not something I’d spend that kind of money on if it were me buying. But really, I just want to hang out with them. So, any ideas?

2

Just tell them you won’t be available until later in the evening, so either way you could not make the play. Then meet up with them for dinner/drinks at like 9 pm.

I don’t know how close you are, or how often you get to see him, or when the last time you saw him was, but I don’t see why they can’t postpone the play and hang out with you instead. They could easily sell the tickets and see it another night, or totally forego seeing it. How is a play more important than an old friend? I know if a good friend of mine was coming in, and I didn’t get to see him a lot, I would definitely cancel the play.

Anyway, something to think about. If they cannot be flexible, then why should you be? And I think sitting through some play by yourself sounds boring and a waste of your time.

3

Well, we have been friends for going on 20 years, and I’m one of the two witnesses on their marriage license. This guy is busy like nuts - the last time I saw him (last June), it was late on a Thursday night as he returned from a 36-hour round-trip to London for a meeting; he got in at almost midnight and had to leave for a client at 7 am the next morning, and still stayed up late to hang out and chat. I’m in NYC once a year or so - my dad lives there - but I do see them every chance I get. I don’t mind being flexible - it’s not like my dance card that Saturday night is that full anyway.

4

Well, are you really going to miss out on that much time with them if you don’t go to the play?

If you go to the play, chances are you won’t be sitting with them. So - that time wouldn’t be spent with them anyway.

If you don’t go to the play, and simply meet them afterwards - won’t the amount of time spent with them be the same as you not sitting with them for dutration of the play and then meeting them outside the theatre afterwards anyway?

Or did I miss something? It’s been known to happen.

5

Well, I imagine if we went to the play together, we’d go to dinner first.

6

The other advantage of seeing the play (even if not seated together) is that afterwards you can talk about the play, which can be fun. Admittedly if you are good friends who seldom see each other, lack of topics for conversation may not be a problem.

I guess the real question to me is whether you would enjoy seeing the play. If so, accept the generous offer, enjoy your time with them and the next time that you are in the position to offer someone a treat which is not in their budget but is affordable to you, do so. If you would not care to see the play, the suggestion about being too “busy” before the play seems reasonable. I’m not sure whether that’s what I would do in your shoes, but if they are willing and able to pay, I don’t think you need to feel guilt for taking advantage of it. Sometimes people can get too caught up in calculating who owes what for time spent in company.

7

How uncomfortable would you feel by letting them buy your ticket? You’ve been close friends for so long - I’m sure they want to see you just as much as you want to see them. Your ticket won’t break them, and it sounds like they’d be perfectly willing to do it. That way you can go to dinner beforehand, and maybe drinks after the play. Even though you’ll be sitting apart, you’ll at least have shared the experience of watching the play, albeit not right next to each other.

8

Ley them buy the ticket. They want to see as much of you as possible, and if they couldn’t afford it, they wouldn’t have offered. How would you feel if the tables were turned–that he made excuses and ended up not seeing you because he was worried you really didn’t want to be generous to him and was worried he was mooching?

If you lived in the same city, you’d have to work this out into a system that allowed you to maintain your pride and he to not have to pretend to be less wealthy than he is. That’s what friends that see a lot of each other do under these circumstances. But you don’t see each other much, there is no chance of this setting a precedent either of you are uncomfortable with maintaining, and you want to see each other. Just thank him and pretend to be ignorant about what it cost.

9

I say let them buy it. They want you to come and they want to sit with you.

But do firmly try to pay for the pre-show dinner and at least a round or two of post-show cocktails.

10

I don’t see the problem. You feel bad about letting them buy you a ticket?

If they want to buy it for you, you reciprocate not by giving them money or baking them cookies, but simply by accepting and sharing your shining personality with them. They wouldn’t offer if they didn’t enjoy your company.

11

This is Manhattan we’re talking about - the dinner and cocktails could easily cost more than $100 for 3 people!

12

I understand that you feel awkward, but really, you shouldn’t. If your friends, instead of being filthy rich, were filthy poor and you invited them to a cheap show or restaurant, would you want them to refuse? I presume they don’t mind footing the bill the slighest bit, and ideally, as long as they don’t (and don’t make a big show of it, which, I assume, they don’t) you shouldn’t, either.

13

Under the strictest etiquette, your obligation to a couple who has entertained you is to (offer to) entertain them back. The balance is in the invitation, not the price tag.

That’s the high society rule. The low society rule followed among my kind of riff-raff, interestingly, is much the same: if one party is substantially poorer than the other, there’s no shame in the richer party treating the poorer one to something the richer party can afford. (This is partially lubricated by the fact that who is richer and who is poorer has a tendency to vary week to week.)

Therefore, do not let the fact that you couldn’t entertain them in that kind of style prevent you from accepting their invitation. That’s the entertainment to which they are accustomed. You owe them an invitation to entertain them in the style to which you are accustomed.

And if someone were offering to foot the bill for my New York dinner and theatre, I’d be in there before you could say souvenir Playbill. Come on!

14

That’s what you do when friends visit you- you take them out, buy or make them dinner, go for cocktails etc. It’s called being a host(ess).

If you feel bad about it, perhaps rather than going out for Sunday brunch, suggest you could come over to their place with brunch fixings, and make them something yummy in their own home. Of course, this idea only works if you’re a good cook and you do all the cleaning up afterwards!

Show up with bagels, smoked salmon, eggs, cream cheese, hot cross buns, easter eggs and Bloody Mary ingredients- that way you get to spend time with them, not spend vast amounts of money, avoid the easter crowds, and still feel like you’re not taking advantage of anything except their hospitality.

15

Can you do the dinner before and the drinks afterwards, skipping the play in between? It’s not like Manhattan is lacking for things to do or see in the meantime (although it might be an awkward use of your time). Like you said, the play (tho’ nice and a conversation piece) seems to be the black hole in the equation - you won’t be able to sit with them during it, thus you’re not really spending the time with them you’d like to.

16

Oh, that was my original plan - it was easier, though, when her sister lived near here, and so they were in my neck of the woods once in a while. The last time they were here, they wanted to take me to a Thai place, and I figured how expensive could it possibly be? Imagine my surprise, then (not to mention my sticker shock) to discover that yes, in fact, Chicago does indeed have a Thai haute cuisine restaurant.

(After that dinner, I promised the next time they were in town, I’d have them to my place for dinner - I love to cook, and was tantalizing them with visions of an Azerbaijani lamb kebab recipe that I had just tried out, in pomegranate, garlic, and mint marinade, grilled on my back porch. But then her sister moved across the country, so I doubt they will be out here anytime soon. Which is really too bad.)

17

Well, the first time I had the debate with him was age 19, on my first “Let’s Crash on our Friends’ Couches Tour” of western Europe (he is Italian, from Milan - he was an exchange student in my dorm my freshman year of college). I was there on Easter and stayed at his mom’s place, and she cooked a fabulous zillion-course traditional northern Italian extravaganza. (In her spare time, when she wasn’t working as a TV producer.)

A couple of days later, when I had to argue with him over whether I could pay for my own sandwich in a local cafe, he said that actually his mom had given him some money and told him to take me out somewhere, because she was sorry she hadn’t had the time to cook anything special. Sigh…he had already visited with my family, and I fear we couldn’t hold a candle to them, hospitality-wise.

18

Well, I do love to cook, and I’m told I’m not half bad at it. Food for thought, so to speak.

Well, not that my dad and stepmom are hugely observant (and I’m not at all), but I might draw the line at spending Passover there and making Easter eggs and leavened bread with symbolic crucifixes on it. ;j

19

Sorry!
You can skip the easter eggs and hot cross buns then- I think Italians eat sheep’s heads for Easter though…

20

No apologies required - this is NY after all, and anyway, his wife’s Korean. (I feel like if the three of us go out onSaturday night, it’ll be like the beginning of a bad joke…“An Italian, a Korean, and a Jewish agnostic walk into a bar…”)

I’m here now - Seder prep is the first order of business, then I will recommence our game of phone tag.