Huh, okay. I would honestly consider it beyond presumptuous to assume that someone was going to pay for my meal.
In my world, paying for someone’s meal is a nice gesture and not part of the social contract. I have some friends who I go back and forth with, surprising each other now and then by paying regardless of who invited whom. I have some friends who I never pay for and would not expect them to pay for me. We just like to eat together sometimes.
I’d hate to live in a world where I literally have to pay for the privilege of having a dining companion.
From what needcoffee is saying, I must be old now. I guess that happens from time to time. If I would say, “I’m popping next door for a sandwich. Want to tag along?” and I had no intention of paying for the other person’s meal I feel I would be compelled to append the question with, “But you own your own when it comes time to pay.” or something similar before we even left for the sandwich shop.
Same here. I’m not particularly young (I’m 55), but I’ve never been aware of a “if you invited, you pay” point of etiquette or social contract, and I’ve never seen a situation where there’s been any misunderstanding about this – and, prior to COVID, I regularly went out for meals with various friends and family members.
Yes, sometimes one party will pay for the other, but it’s either stated up front, or it’s a surprise at the end of the meal, when the check comes, and someone says, “I’ve got this.”
Note: I totally believe those of you who have replied that, in your experience, “yes, it’s totally the expectation that, if you invite someone to join you for a meal, you’re paying,” but in my Midwestern experience, it’s truly not the norm here.
In the olden Emily Post days, it was the way things were done. I think it died out in the '60’s or so. In some upper crust sets, it might still be a thing, but I doubt anyone else follows it anymore.
Huh. News to me that it’s died out. I have learned to clarify, because different people seem to be following different sets of rules; and I don’t want to again wind up spending the week’s grocery money on one dinner that I thought I’d been invited to as a guest. But I think people issuing invitations had better learn to clarify also, because IME there are still a lot of people who think that the host is responsible for the costs; just as the host who invites people to dinner at their house is responsible, barring clear statements to the contrary, for providing dinner.
Don’t know where Ynnad lives; but I live in upstate rural New York.
ETA: This may be one of those situations where people each think the other is being rude, because they’re following different sets of rules but each one thinks their rules are the only ones in existence.
From Arkansas but I have been working in northern New Mexico for quite a while now. The same rule (person inviting pays) seems to also be followed by my younger Hispanic coworkers.
It occurs to me that one of the things avoided by host-pays rules is the mess in the OP. If the host pays, the guest isn’t necessarily even going to find out whether they paid with a coupon, and, traditionally, isn’t supposed to pay any attention to how the bill is paid.
If the couples have a standard arrangement between them that each pays for their own meal, then it doesn’t seem to me to be any of the business of one couple how the other one manages it.
Good questions. I guess that if someone invited me out because they had had some good fortune and wanted to share my company, I’d also hope they wanted to share their good fortune by footing the bill. But if you feel otherwise, that doesn’t strike me as wrong, just different.
A lot seems to depend on cultural expectations, but I was raised to believe that good manners are: (1) the inviter generally pays; and (2) the invitee offers to pay their share, and if the inviter accepts, they pay without complaint or concern. However, if it’s two (or more) old friends who have their own procedures that work for them, anything could be considered polite, as long as everyone is comfortable with it and their expectations are generally met.
I spent a large part of my adulthood in Indonesia and am pretty well acculturated to what is polite there. For Javanese, at least, there are some circumstances where it is almost insulting to offer to pay your share if you’ve been invited out; it’s almost like saying, “I think you are too poor to afford this, so let me offer you some charity.” That would be the case if the inviter was clearly the senior individual. If everyone is more or less on equal footing, the polite thing is for everyone to fight over the check and insist on paying, until finally one person wins.
To me, both of these can mean the same thing. Especially when, as Chronos said, the restaurant is expensive. You don’t invite someone to join you at an expensive place and expect them to pay for emself.
It’s different if it’s a routine get-together at an inexpensive place at which it’s already established that everyone pays for emself.
You don’t ask someone else to spend a whole bunch of money, is the point. If you are inviting, then you should be paying. There shouldn’t even be a question about it. When the bill comes, the inviter should snap it up and not even give the invitee a chance to “stare at em like an asshole.”
Apparently, I, and all of my social circle, are lifelong assholes, then. I’m truly serious when I say that the assumption with, literally, every one of my friends, every one of my family, for my entire life, has been “going dutch” unless stated otherwise, be it a run to McDonald’s for lunch, a stop at Applebee’s before a movie, or a nice night out with friends at a French bistro.
If I’m going to ask someone (well, more precisely, if my wife and I are going to ask another couple, or whatever) to go to an expensive restaurant, and our intention is that we’re buying, we’ll say so up front when we make the invitation: “it’s our treat.” And, truthfully, I do that fairly often (as well as offering to pick the bill up at the end of the meal).
But, speaking only for my personal experience, in my social circles, it’s not the expectation if it’s not stated by the invitee.
Just gotta say, the wife and I are in our 60s, and have gone out to eat with other couples probably twice a week for what, 40 years? So, thousands of restaurant dinners.
NEVER ONCE have we, or any of the couples, assumed someone else would pay for them.
It seems so entitled… “Oh, yes, my companionship is worth other people paying money to spend an evening with me.” Wait, here’s a conundrum: how could you order something expensive, suspecting someone else would have to pay for it?
And do you wait until the check comes to find out if your friend is indeed paying for yours? Or do you do that thing that’s always so awkward on sitcoms from the 60s, where the two Alpha Males fight over the check?
(The only problem is that my mom, a holdover from those days herself, has been known to grab the check … clearly an Alpha Female thing. So when we invite her out we offer to pay, she says no, she’ll pay, so we compromise and agree to “go dutch”, long before we get to the restaurant.)
I also go out to the bar with a group of guys, basically whoever in the 'hood is going to watch The Game at the local pub. The waitress always brings separate checks, or just says “Okay, you had the Bistro Burger, fried pickles and two beers… $22.” If I said “Oh, Miss, I’d like to pay for Doug’s dinner!” it’d be… weird.
I think as a one off it’s OK to use that coupon for one’s own meal, or offer it for share, but not as a regular thing at which point it should be shared.
Also though I’ve heard the if you invite you pay, but have rarely seen it.
However I have seen many times the host that invites get’s their meal free.