I was dining at a restaurant outside some months ago with a friend when a beggar woman approached me mid-meal, baby in hand, telling me she’s hungry and asked for my food. I had the waiter pack up all the leftovers for her but yeah… it obviously made me feel uncomfortable and like shit.
I can’t help but think it was somewhat manipulative of her to approach me at this moment, making me feel guilty over the fact that I can afford food. I know her problems are much worse than mine and I can empathize with that… but it’s not like I’m some super wealthy snob that needs a lesson in perspective - I work all day, and earn every penny of my middle-class income. I was trying to enjoy a restaurant meal, something that I can’t exactly afford every day.
I don’t want to sound like a heartless a-hole, I guess if the roles were reversed I would do what I could to get by.
What I’m saying is, I was made to feel guilty but did nothing wrong. And I feel it was kind of an inappropriate tactic on her part.
Would this bother you if it happened to you?
I might be a jerk, but I really don’t want to hear about her situation while dining and would have complained to the restaurant’s staff.
I assume anyone begging with a kid is using him/her as a prop and you can bet that the beggar knew exactly what she was doing by causing you to feel maximum guilt. I never give money to beggars but do give money to charities that help the homeless. I also never make eye contact or respond to begging. Giving to beggars just continues the cycle.
Sad situation for her but you chose to feel guilty. I worked at a restaurant that had two patios during the summer months. As staff, beggars was something we had to deal with, asking them to move along and not bother our clients is something we did routinely. We had one customer come to us and told us someone had reached over the fence and took his filet mignon right off his plate as he walked by.
I stopped giving money to beggars when I gave a guy a roll of pennies (50 cents). I heard “wutizzisshit?” as he threw it at me, hitting me in the eye.
It doesn’t really matter if it was manipulative or inappropriate because you rewarded her behavior, thus reinforcing that regardless of how shitty her actions were (and they were) she can get what she wants by acting shitty.
I never would have given her even a bite. There are proper ways to go about getting help and impeding my enjoyment of a meal I earned is not one of them.
This, precisely.
The plight of the homeless is quite bad, but just giving away handouts to individuals is widely acknowledged to not solve the problem.
I’m probably more sensitive because I don’t live in a place where I’m often approached by the homeless, but if someone was asking for food, I’d give it. Money I’m skeptical about, but food, sure. They’re not going to be reselling my pasta for crack.
Would I want to be approached while dining? No. Would I do it to someone else if I was starving? Yes.
I drove by a man once who had a sign posted on the back of a wagon saying he was a war vet with a dog. I was on my way to my parents’ house and they have dogs so I made him a sandwich and grabbed a good sized storage bowl of dog food and went back to track him down. He had found shelter - it was raining - in a little coffee shop in town so I approached his wagon intending to leave the food there without saying anything.
I stopped to pet his dog a bit and he noticed me and came out. I told him I didn’t want to bother him, I just wanted to leave him a little something. He didn’t notice the foil wrapped sandwich so couldn’t bitch about that but he immediately criticized the dog food, telling me all about how his dog preferred soft canned food and blah blah.
- My parents have chihuahuas so the food, while not canned, is tiny and relatively soft anyway. 2) If that’s not good enough, mix it with a little water, which is free, and mash it up. 3) Hey, how about go fuck yourself instead of being a douche to somebody who is only trying to help your damn dog? If it really can’t possibly work for you, maybe STFU about it and pass it on to somebody it will help.
So, yeah, I don’t bother anymore, either.
Right. I would expect the restaurant to handle this sort of thing.
When we were renovating our old home, we often had a lot of grunt work that needed to be done. Things like we had a load of dirt that needed to be spread out on the lawn, or bricks moved from one area to another. We also used to have people standing about 1 block from us, holding signs “WILL WORK FOR FOOD”. We lived near the intersection of a freeway and a major road. We often tried to get someone with one of those signs to come work, we offered food AND a fair wage, but none were interested. We were told, flatly, that they needed money, really, not food so much. See, the thing is, they’ll ASK for food, and some will accept food. Most, however, will want money.
Eventually we quit trying to hire these people, and contacted Manpower or a similar service. We even paid out less money than we were offering to the guys holding the signs!
I was approached by a woman while leaving an ATM who had a sob story about needing bus money to get to the next town to visit her sick mother (blah blah blah, bullshit). I thought THAT was manipulative - obviously I have cash if I just walked out of a bank machine - and I actually gave her a few dollars knowing full well that it was for crack or whatever. What can I say, I felt intimidated. I learned later that “panhandling” within a certain number of meters outside an ATM is illegal. I don’t give to beggars anymore - unless they’re doing something constructive like playing an instrument or holding the door for you at Timmy’s, or maybe if they have a funny sign.
Yes, it is. I give when I can, but never, ever when I am approached while eating or something like that. I was on a public telephone years ago, and a lady approached me, stood right in front of me, looked me in the eye, and asked for “spare change, please?” I was only checking my voice mail, but I pretended I was in the middle of a conversation, and said to the robot, “Hold on one sec, please.” Then I quite loudly asked her “Can you FUCKING wait until I’m off the FUCKING phone?” She then proceeded to berate me for being impolite.
:smack:
It can solve that person’s most immediate problem.
I think that the particularly obnoxious part of the OP’s situation is that when you’re eating at a restaurant, you’re a captive audience. You can’t just get up and walk away without abandoning your meal. That would really remove any pity for the person in my mind because I’d feel cornered, which makes me angry.
I was 15 years old in Toronto once and some guy actually stood around and waited for me to get off the pay phone to ask me for money. WTF. He was a big black guy too and I’m a little tiny white girl, so of course I felt intimidated. I couldn’t believe the number of adults who approached 15-year-old me that day asking for “spare change.”
Reminds me of a glurge-y story I read once about a little boy who bought food for “the homeless man who asks me for a quarter on my way to school every day.” The point of the story is supposed to be how considerate the little boy is of the poor but all I could think is “Whoa whoa whoa - a grown man is asking a little kid for money? Oh hell no.”
Agreed. I will usually give beggars a buck if they are standing at the intersection with the ‘please help’ sign. I feel sorry for them. I would hate to be in that position.
But they better not hit me up when I am trying to eat. The beggar, then the restaurant manager would get an earful.
I’d tell her to bugger off and if she didn’t, I’d start throwing dinner rolls at her. If she’s that hungry, she’ll catch and eat them.
I spent the last year living and working in areas of Philadelphia where there were a lot of beggars. I’m not generally someone who gives them money, but my rules are different if someone is asking for food, especially if they are asking for my leftovers or something. That to me speaks of true desperation/hunger, and while I do not make a ton of money, I make enough to feed someone hungry a meal here and there.
But it was totally inappropriate for her to approach you while seated, eating, at your table. I’ve got no problem giving these people tough love, and I would have told her that I didn’t appreciate her cornering me and to please leave the area. Then I probably would have given her food as I was leaving. 
I’ve also worked on the outdoor patio at a restaurant downtown, and it was my job (as the waitress) to make sure homeless people did not beg from or otherwise harass my customers, which they would absolutely try to if they weren’t told firmly to leave as soon as they started lingering in the area. Of course, I could not be hovering every second to make sure no tables were not being bothered, and I’m also not an intimidating person, so I had to call for backup sometimes - but I did my best, and the restaurant is at fault here if they were not also making their best effort to.
Where do you live that the restaurant is completely unfazed by this behavior?
(This sounds like an “only in Seattle” moment, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.)