The rule of etiquette is that (s)he who invites, pays. So a lot depends upon how the plans were made. Did the OP declare that he missed his friend and would be coming into town on Saturday for lunch? If so, and the friend doesn’t say "Great come by my place and I’ll cook for us "then it really is a question of the OP having suggested it and technically being the inviter.
Would it be lovely for the friend to then say “You’ve driven so far and gone to so much trouble, let me at least pick up the bill” well, of course it would. But the friend didn’t, and hasn’t, and presumably won’t.
So in answer to the question I believe is behind the question: no, OP, you absolutely may not bring this up in any way or suggest to your friend that he is under an obligation to you. Social obligations can not be conferred by the actions of one onto another. One can only incur an obligation by creating or accepting it. Issuing an invitation, or accepting one, incurs obligations to show up, to reciprocate, etc.
Leaving someone a message does not confer upon them an obligation to spend an hour on the phone hearing about your Aunt Maude’s cataract surgery.
So in the OP, your impetus, your idea, your obligation. Now, if the two of you went Dutch, then your friend has no obligation even to reciprocate. If, however, you had picked up the entire tab, then he would have. This is why in circles where etiquette is strictly followed, the suggestion to go Dutch is liable to elicit a gasp; it is tantamount to saying “I NEVER want to have to do this again!”
If I invite you to my house, then I expect to bear the expenses of the food, etc. But if I call you up and say “hey, you want to go grab a pizza and see the new Marvel movie?” I have not made the kind of invitation that traditional etiquette contemplates.
Relationships between friends who do things together are not governed by this supposed rule of etiquette.
Even then, in a typical friendship, it is sort of expected that even if I am coming to your house, I would bring a dessert, some beer, some wine, or whatever we typically drink or eat together. Or maybe not; I think it depends on each individual friendship, and also perhaps the financial situation of the parties. Maybe you heard that I just lost my job and you make a nice living so for the time being you pay most of the bills for our outings. I think it just depends.
But I think the OP is primarily concerned about the one-sided nature of the friendship. He uses the “pay for the meal” as a proxy to get some sort of indication from his friend that he is not his friend only when convenient. So depending on the level and type of friendship I had with him, I would: 1) nicely bring it up, 2) be confrontational and start telling him you are too busy to drive and you have driven the last 14 times, so why doesn’t he, or 3) just let it go and quit driving out there.
When I lived in Manhattan, people visited me all the time. Now that I live out in the 'burbs, I mostly visit other people.
I have a lot of friends who live in the city, and some of them don’t have cars, and pretty much can’t get to my house. I visit friends at their places far more often than they visit me at my home. It’s only 30-40 minutes for me to get to their homes, not an hour, but yeah, there’s a commute.
I’m not the one doing the work of making it happen, though. Often, someone else invites me. That’s the work that matters. A lot of those are group things, I suppose, but not all of them.
Anyway, no no one pays for my meal. That would actually feel weird and awkward to me. Friends only pick up my tab if we are in a relationship where I am going to pick up their tab next time (or possibly the time after that, if we both lose count)
Also this. If you are putting all the work into meeting up, every time, then I assume you want to meet up a lot more than they do.
Like someone said, when we moved to the Chicago suburbs, we assumed the majority of our friends would not be interested in driving out to the burbs - even if it was just to eat dinner in our home or theirs. Sucks, but not uncommon IME.
It never crossed our minds that our friends ought to subsidize our costs when we visited them. And, eventually, or decision was to reduce interactions w/ most of the city folk, and reorient our time and attention to people and things near us.
Maybe your friends just aren’t as good of friends as you’d wish, in that they are happy to meet with you at their convenience, but just aren’t that interested in driving to visit you? You wanna quickly ascertain if that is the fact - ask them to pick up your tab!
I suppose I might have fit into this category at one point. Back when I was married, my husband and I lived a good hour+ from where he worked. We were friends with many of his coworkers, who did not live close to us. Many of them also had young children, which made it pretty difficult to travel a good distance for something as brief as a lunch or something.
He and I would have found it perplexing if anyone we visited offered to pay for our meals. Not only did we not mind paying for ourselves, we completely expected to be doing that.
I agree with you that it isn’t fair that you have to do most of the driving. Even more unfair if others are being thoughtless and not caring that you do (I’m projecting, there).
But your “free meal” comments are a big red flag. How does money make the friendship more equitable?
Imagine telling a friend “I’d love to get together, if you pay me $25.” How much would make this friendship fair? $10 an hour? If you’re settling for a “free meal”, that might be less than minimum wage…
I agree, you should talk to this friend. Before you start resenting them. (But I really would NOT tell them it’d all be okay if they bought you stuff!)
Seriously. OP, your relationships with other people sound pretty joyless. Have you ever tried doing that thing where you just enjoy someone’s company, without worrying about who’s getting more out of the deal? Or maybe even take pleasure in doing something nice for someone you care about, without expecting anything in return?
Or, another way to look at it: the equation your consider shouldn’t be “who is getting more JOY of this lunch date?” It should be, “am I getting enough joy out of this lunch date that it’s worth it to me to put in the time and money to make it happen?” If the other party benefits even more, I see that as a small additional win, i am not only creating JOY for myself, but for my friend.
“Am I putting in too large a fraction of the work in this relationship?” is rarely a constructive question. It turns out different people care more about different things, and what like to me like an insignificant piece of work may be critical to the other person.
If you are finding it burdensome to travel to meet up with your friends, maybe it’s not worth it to you to do that. Next time they invite you to get together, you can say, "I’m not feeling up to driving this week, but if you’d like to come out here I’m game " And if they don’t want to travel, either, maybe that dinner date shouldn’t happen.
(Although see my comment in the other thread about the value of investing in relationships.)
Absolutely if I’m inviting someone to my house or to a party , I pay. But there are loads of things that friends do together that aren’t properly categorized as invitations - if I suggest to my friend(s) that we attend a baseball game , or go to the movies or on vacation together, nobody I know is going to consider that an “invitation” that obligates me to pay for my friend(s) simply because I suggested it. And if having gone to the movies or attended the baseball game together, no one would consider the person who suggests getting something to eat before, during or after the movie/game to be issuing an invitation that requires that person to pay for everyone.
There certainly are situations that require some level of reciprocity - for example, if someone offered me a free ticket to that baseball game, I'd buy that person a hot dog and a beer at the very least. And if someone drove me somewhere regularly and chipping in for gas didn't make sense under the circumstances,* I'd probably treat them to the occasional meal or coffee or something. But neither of those appear or anything like them appears to be OP's situation.
Chipping in for gas makes sense in a lot of circumstances, not so much for short, non-daily trips that don’t require any extra driving, like taking my next-door neighbor to the supermarket a mile away when I’m going anyway.
Yes, exactly. I tried to make this point as well. These formal etiquette guides contemplate “invitation” in a way that isn’t relevant to our casual relationships.
Coupla times a year I meet up with two old college friends. One lives less than a 20 minute subway ride from Manhattan. I work ( worked…pre=COVID… ) in Manhattan. The other friend walks to the train at a suburban town and spends…I dunno- $ 15 each way to get to Manhattan?
It’d never occur to me to offer to buy that friend dinner because of the expense of travel. Maybe it SHOULD. But none of us are rolling in it, and it’s just a few times a year.
Food for thought however.
When visiting someone’s home as a houseguest? My god. Mom would be proud of me/ us. Both my Dearly Beloved™ and I try very hard to be good houseguests. I happen to adore doing dishes and she’s a killer cook. We will discuss in advance of a 2-4 day visit somewhere if we can cook an entire dinner one night. We also show up with local snacks that are considered “exotic” where we go.
We’re old and old-school. Share the burdens, share the joys.
