StarvingButStrong: The thing is, the traditional etiquette books were written by and for the Upper Crust,
Or maybe not true. Look what TruCelt just said. I have never given much thought to it.
Once again, I would like to point out that I am not “Upper Crust” and probably never will be. However, I have been poor at least once or twice in my lifetime.
Yeah, there is a bit. I almost made a jokey comment above about how I’ve never read an etiquette book in my life 
. Which is quite true, but I actually don’t believe etiquette is for snobs exactly. I do believe a fair chunk of formal etiquette is ossified and obsolete, but that’s different from dismissing it altogether.
However my own real point was mostly curiosity. Because honestly this as foreign to me culturally as it is to msmith537 (who is on the opposite coast from me) and others and I’ll admit I’m just a bit curious how widespread it is and if there is any regionalism to it. Less of an urban custom, perhaps? Or is it upbringing and class?
Regardless it is a bit of a hijack. IMHO the OP’s friends were being tacky re: that coupon business. I’m not sure if it is technically an etiquette breach or not, but it sure seems like it should be.
I raised my son with the message that there are two types of “etiquette” (or rather, “good manners”):
The kind that were created to be considerate of other people. For example, saying please and thank-you.
The kind that identify membership in a particular social class. For example, using the correct fork when your placesetting has two or three to choose from.
I told him that category 1 is essential and he should strive to know and follow those kind of good manners all the time. As to Category 2, he’s doing himself a favor if he knows those rules and when it might be worth employing them even if he personally doesn’t care. An example would be at a job interview. (When my then-fiance was interviewing for jobs with hot-shit boutique law firms back in the early 1980s, the firms used to take interviewees and their SOs to dinner at fancy restaurants, presumably in order to see if the candidate and partner knew how to behave.)
As to this thread, I suspect most of us would agree that there is no underlying, more ethical right or wrong to any particular expectations about check-splitting. It’s more like driving on the right side of the road or the left - one is not better than the other, but it certainly improves life if everyone agrees to the same set of rules.
She sounds like all she cares about is having money spent on her. Hopefully he dodged a bullet there and never went out with her again.
Yes it was a Brazilian steakhouse. Much more expensive than we typically can afford unless it’s a special occasion
It was a Groupon. I later found out what it was only after we got there. One coupon per table, so we could not also get one and use it. I didn’t know any of these details until after the fact
She sounds like a blight upon the females of the species. I can’t imagine the mindset that would lead to feeling that way - much less blabbing about it to other people. I cringe just reading the story.
I don’t think that’s what it is - I think it’s that people have different ideas of what “invite” means ( it’s not the same as “initiate” or “organize” ) and that some people have defined certain circumstances as being outside the bounds of this thread . If my boss invites me to lunch, who’s paying? ( and no, she can’t expense it ). If I were single and invited a man I’m interested in to dinner, should I expect to pay? What about if I invite my uncle to lunch to celebrate my mother’s birthday - should I be paying for my mother and uncle or should I expect the bill to be split three ways? Let’s say I told my daughter she can invite a friend to go to the movies with us - should I have expected to pay for the friend? It is entirely possible that for many people those are the only situations in which one person is inviting another and every other event has organizers rather than hosts. And nobody has said in this thread that the person who organizes 20 people to have dinner to celebrate Steve’s retirement should pay for all 20 people.
This. Very much this.
One isn’t reciprocating “dinner at fancy restaurant”. One isn’t exactly reciprocating a meal at all. What’s being reciprocated is ‘get together and converse with friends while doing something we’re all likely to enjoy.’
Except that then the standard is ‘you must have enough money to come to this social gathering’; and while certainly an exception can be made by a richer person offering to pay for the poorer person, if this happens more than very occasionally it starts to look like charity, and the poorer person may well feel they ought to decline.
There are lots of people who can’t afford a single $80 meal – that may be the grocery budget for the week, possibly for more than one person. It may be ‘keeping the electricity on this month.’
So, basically, ‘everyone pays their own way at all or most social gatherings’ works fairly well among people all at similar income levels – close enough so the poorer person can just order a cheaper entree or skip the wine, but still go to the same places the richer ones do and expect to be able to get something reasonable to eat. Otherwise, the poorer person has to choose among not joining their friends at all, going and ordering a cup of overpriced coffee and watching everybody else eat while they go hungry, or, if their friends decide to be “nice” to them, being treated by one of the others despite the fact that everybody in their group thinks the only proper thing to do is for everyone to be paying their own way.
So how often do you do this? Once a decade?
If you take turns four times a year, it comes out the same. (And if you all like such restaurants and all are at an income level that can afford to eat at such occasionally, then that’s how the reciprocating version can work.) If you can only afford that single meal once a year, it seems to me that you can’t afford it “without much problem”.
Maybe their options would never include fancy restaurants, and very likely also not include the friend group that goes to them, especially if that group thinks it’s the only way to have an evening out with friends.
There’s nothing wrong with a picnic as a social option; or a game night; or ‘let’s all go to the (free admission) arts festival and I’ll treat everybody to an ice cream cone at that great ice cream stand’. These are not lesser options than the fancy restaurant; they’re just different ones. The point is supposed to be the conversation, and doing something together that everyone might enjoy.
Hmmm. I wonder if that’s part of what’s going on here.
People who routinely eat nearly all their meals out may have a different attitude than people who mostly eat at home.
This may also be part of it.
But I admit to being puzzled that multiple people have come into this thread to say, not ‘that isn’t the way we do things’, or ‘we don’t consider that we’re inviting people as guests’, but ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing as being expected to pay for the guests who I invited!’
Note: I’m not saying those people genuinely haven’t heard of it. I’m just surprised. I’m surprised by human behavior with some frequency. I’ll have to rethink what I thought of the person who left me scrambling in my wallet for enough to pay for the event I thought she’d invited me to, and which, because I couldn’t afford it, I would certainly have declined if I’d known I wasn’t her guest; maybe that was a genuine cultural difference. (Though she said something later that night on an entirely different subject that put her beyond the pale for me, so the long-term effects would have come out about the same.)
Quite possibly. I mean if I take someone out for their birthday, I absolutely expect to pay for them. And I am in a real sense inviting them to a celebration in their honor.
But if I call up a buddy and say “hey, you want to do something this weekend?” and he replies “sure, want to grab some breakfast at that place?”, I don’t actually consider that to be the same thing at all. It’s just meeting for casual socializing over a meal. And that probably covers the vast majority of my dining experiences with folks. Special occasions are rare relative to how often I eat out (or used to before the Great Plague).
A date is sort of in the middle. I would always offer to pay when the check came if I asked someone out. But it is always couched as an offer, because there is a sense that assuming is potentially offensive. I know a few folks that are a little touchy about being paid for by others for whatever reason.
My vote is that it’s tackoid to ask someone to join you for dinner at an expensive place and then keep the discount for yourself.
What would be really uncomfortable is if it turned out that you were awarded the discount because your last dinner at the place was complicated by wretched service and/or food poisoning.
I worked most of my life in high end restaurants, and not a single one took coupons.
No two for ones, ladies nights, or happy hour specials.
In my experience, at least around here, those two things definitely do not go together!
Colour me surprised, what city is this in?
Maybe thorny_locust is on to something. I almost never eat out at a restaurant and I am firmly in the ‘person who invites always pays’ camp. Maybe someone should start a poll or survey or something.
Has anyone here gone out to eat with another couple, where the guy is a Type A Alpha Male? My wife is friends with a woman whose husband fits this stereotype.
Before we even get to the dinner he asserts dominance… by picking us up in his latest Euro-Luxury Sedan, pointing out each feature on the way.
And he’ll do That Thing where he has to be the last to walk into a restaurant, guiding you ahead of him with a hand firmly pushing you between the shoulder blades. I tried holding the door for him once and he got flustered that I was usurping his role, and he almost shoved me off the door ahead of him.
This guy will pick up the check every time, and if you try to, he’ll almost sneer “YOU don’t have to do that. I’ve got it… I SAID, I’ve GOT it [snatches check]!”
We’ve tried reciprocating. We’ve even talked to his wife beforehand, asking if we can treat, or split the check, but she just rolls her eyes and shakes her head resignedly…
My father was the same way, even pushing/guiding you through the door the same way. So I’d much rather go out as equals, and split the bill.
On the occasions when we eat out with friends, it’s often pretty ambigious who did the inviting. Someone says something about getting together, someone else agrees it’s a good idea, suggests a time, second person has a conflict, suggests an alternate, alternate is accepted, there’s some back and forth about where to go. . . .
At the end of the day, who invited whom?
Generally we always pay if someone is visiting from out of town, even if they initiated every step of the process (hey, we will be in town, want to get together) because it feels like we are the host because it’s our city. Is that also a faux paux? Because I feel like that’s what happens when we visit too.
The vibe to me is, “Hey, you’ve been driving or hassling with airports or whatever and we’d love to treat you, weary traveler. Let us take you out.” Being the inviter (who is going to pay) and the person who knows your town, you pick the place. You know some good, not too expensive restaurants and some fancier places…you can pick what you’re comfortable with.
Love me some Brazilian but ditto: it’s a rare treat due to the cost.
So the restaurant applied it for the friends but not for you? 
I guess since there were two credit cards involved…?
We don’t use Groupons often but I remember taking one to an Ethiopian place. The woman (cook + waitress + owner all in one, maybe) didn’t seem happy. I assumed Groupons encouraged people to try businesses they ordinarily wouldn’t in the hopes that your repeat business would pay off in the long run but she acted like it was a losing deal for her. The food wasn’t great, the service wasn’t especially pleasant and…thanks but we won’t be back.
My first reaction is that the Brazilian steakhouse just lost my business forever. They could have applied it for me but chose instead to charge me full price. Fool me once, shame on you. My second reaction is, “But dayum it’s good food!” Got another Brazilian restaurant nearby for when you’re jonesing? Before you burn that bridge… And my third reaction is, maybe the ship has already sailed but perhaps a private word with the manager would elicit something.
Hopping into the time machine, friend could have said, “Hey, I’ve got this Groupon and it will cover the table. We’ll put it all on one card but settle with cash on the side, capische?”
That’s the sort of situation where I would say no one invited anyone.
It’s not a faux paux to pay- but if they said “we will be in town, want to get together” , IMO you wouldn’t have been incorrect to treat it just as you would if someone in town said “want to get together?” . Which for a lot of people ( me included) does not involve anyone hosting anyone else.
I’m pretty sure it’s not the restaurant’s fault. It seems to have been “buy one, get one free. One coupon per table” . If that’s the restriction on the coupon, then that’s the restriction. It was the other couple’s choice to divide the bill in such a way that they got the full benefit of the coupon, not the restaurant’s.
I think this sort of situation covers 99% of eating out for all the people that are saying “host doesn’t always pay, what are you, crazy?”
So I guess for the host always paid crowd . . .does this sort of set up describe the events where you feel that one person really should pay?
Hmm, I guess I misunderstood that bit.
So to clarify: the couple with the coupon got 50% off. By virtue of using a coupon, they precluded the OP from also using a coupon (supposing OP had one, which Sigene didn’t)—one per table. Technically, OP might have had one and could have used it if they sat at a different table, but… The groupon didn’t allow “Buy (another) one, get (another) one free.”
Yeah, the wording matters. Sorry, carry on.