How repulsive. I’ve never heard of hosts asking their guests to pay for their food at a gathering. That’s about as rude and classless as it gets.
If I were you, I would rid myself of their acquaintance immediately. You don’t need friends like that.
How utterly rude, I cannot imagine how you managed to go along with everything and not sputter.
Hey, we’re not Latin, and all my friends and family bring/take dishes and beverages to one another’s parties all the time. We have also exchanged money at times, deciding to get a killer prime rib for an expensive change of pace, but it’s discussed well in advance.
I’d never be able to pull off the invite them and present a bill, but I might be inclined to invite them for dinner and ack suitably horrified if they then offered money. That plan rests on them trying to reciprocate, and if they didn’t I’d be angry all over again. Ugh, they’re just not worth your time.
Next time they invite you to a party, ask what the cover charge is…
Thats garbage.
One of the guests expected to pay. Maybe they just forgot to mention it to you when they invited you?
Totally innapropriate and rude.
If I invite you to my home for dinner, it can (and should) be assumed that the meal is on me. Some folks might want to ‘chip in’, (if you’re ordering out for a large group) but that is their choice and should never be solicited. I could not imagine that any host would do anything other than politley decline such an offer.
I have some friends who do this. I personally feel that it is very rude.
[devil’s advocate]Unless I’m mistaken, the host never asked for any money. Did every other guest pony up? Did they do it right away?
As stated in the OP, the hosts were the only people they knew - perhaps the other partygoers were friends for so long that this was something that was simply implicit among them.[/devil’s advocate]
Giving you a head’s up would have been common courtesy, but the funy thing about it is that, like common sense, it’s not that common.
I’ve never heard of it and wouldn’t have done it but don’t think it’s so terrible. I imagine host has mentioned what’s being served and someone’s gone “Wow, we can’t ask you to pay for all that. We’ll all chip in.” and ice1000 wasn’t informed.
Who knows. I just wouldn’t assume the worst. A few weeks ago I was at a mate’s place and we went out to pick up pizzas. I kicked in half the cost. He didn’t object and the other couple there contributed nothing.
If you’d been quick enough on the night you could have sorted the whole thing out. I would have tried:
“I didn’t bring cash…what plastic do you take?” or
“Does the $30 include the tip.”
Shit I’d ask the guy what goes on and I’ll bet you’ll feel better if you do. Just say “I really liked dinner the other night but I didn’t realise we were paying for the crabs. I would have been mortified if I hadn’t had enough cash. How do these things usually work with your gang?”
Oh… don’t go for dinner if they are serving The Sea and Earth salad featuring two types of caviar, black truffles and creel-caught langoustines.
Sorry, don’t ask, but that’s absurd. If the hosts can’t afford to pay for the dinner then they shouldn’t have invited anyone. And any guest who is stupid enough to think accept an invitation from people who they feel are too strapped to be able to afford to put on a dinner party should politely decline and know in their hearts that they aren’t contributing to the insolvency of the hosts.
Polite guests also don’t ask what’s being served. They eat what is on the table or simply don’t take any.
And nobody “asked” the hosts to pay for anything. If the hosts could not afford stone crab they could have served tuna casserole. Since they chose on their own to serve an expensive dish, they obviously feel they can afford it.
I served a whole beef tenderloin - try pricing it at your local butcher - for Christmas and if any of my guests had said, “Oh, this is too expensive, you can’t afford it so we’ll chip in” I would have been EXTREMELY insulted. It’s none of their g-d business how much money I make and for them to presume I am too stupid to know how much I can afford to spend on dinner is incredibly, shockingly rude.
If this happened to me I would pay, but I’d go back the next night and burn their house down.
“mildly appalled.”
“inexcusably rude.”
“tacky.”
Yeah, all that would seem to apply. Putting a guest on the spot like that – by expecting money, and not informing them beforehand – is rude BEYOND rude.
I’d go so far as to say informing the guests BEFOREHAND that they would be expected to pay for dinner would be kind of tacky… at least, I’ve never heard of such a thing at a private dinner party.
The worst I could think of would be expecting to be invited to dinner at YOUR house someday, after having you over to dinner at MINE… I could kind of see THAT… but… money?
Some people just have TOO much class, you know?
Exactly.
Their behavior is simply bizarre. Charging guests for food is tasteless and rude, not normal at all.
Wow. I guess if I ever live in the states i will have to remember that everyone is really, really tightly wound.
If I complained about everything my friends did, of this magnitude, I’d have the friends I deserved …none.
I love this
I like all my friends including the poor ones. We let them stay in the social circle.
Sorry I don’t want to be snotty but…
We’re talking about some pathetic social faux pas…the host didn’t ask to f*ck all the wives in payment for the crabs
Surely everyone thinks the adult thing to do is clear it up rather than decide how inapropriate the host’s behaviour was
What is achieved by labelling the host? Can it improve relations?
In 6 months I will have forgotten this thread and the OP will need reminding. Who wants to make life difficult by being right?
I seem to be in the minority here, but could it be that you misunderstood the exchange between the host and the other guest? Were you actually asked to pay for anything?
Here is one possible scenario:
Guest #1 looks around the table and realizes that he did not bring anything to contribute to the dinner. He sees that you brought some very expensive items, perhaps sees others who brought a bottle of wine. Guest #1 starts to feel guilty for either forgetting or neglecting to bring something, so offers to do the only thing that he can, which is offer to offset the cost of the dinner. Granted, the host should have declined and the guest should have offered in private. Without knowing more about the relationship between Guest #1 and the host I have no way of knowing if this is something that is regularly done between them or not.
Scenario #2:
Guest #1 is actually a co-host and is sharing the cost of the party. They were merely asking the host what their share of the party came to. Again, without knowing more about their relationship I have no way of knowing if this interaction is normal between them.
I know that between certain groups of my friends, there is behavior based on long associations that can seem outright rude to others, unless they know the underlying assumptions. Close friends tend to cut through a lot of the protocols that are normal in “polite society.”
So, again I ask: Were you, in fact, actually asked to pay for anything? Or did you make that assumption because someone else offered to pay?
It is possible that pitting the host may be a little harsh. Of course, it is also possible that he deserves it. If these are friends that you otherwise enjoy spending time with, give them the benefit of the doubt.
Just my $0.02, $0.035 with shipping and handling.
Regardless of where you live, expecting a guest to chip in for the cost of a meal served in your home is rude, unless it was made clear well in advance that this is what was expected and the guest agreed to it.
Rude: “Please come to my house for dinner” and asking for money after dinner has been served and eaten.
Not Rude: “We have a holiday thing at my house every year. Everyone chips in for dinner and we have a pretty elaboarte feast. We’re doing stone crabs this year and everyone’s chiping in $30. I’d love for you to join us.”
Do your poor friends expect everyone else to pay for the dinner that your poor friends serve at their house? Or do your poor friends, when hosting, serve something within their budgetary range?
The point is not whether these hosts could afford stone crabs or not. Dinner parties are about the company, not the menu. The thread is about the etiquette of inviting people to dinner without advising them ahead of time that they were expected to pay for that dinner. There is simply no question in my mind that expecting someone to pay for the meal you serve them at your house without informing them with the invitation that this is expected is a breach of etiquette.
Further, I humbly suggest that if reading threads in which people’s manners or lack of same is at issue bothers you that you not click on thread titles which include the word “etiquette” in them.
Quoth me:
Oops, this was not posted in the pit. That is what comes from having too many windows open at once.
My apologies, ice1000, I did not mean to imply that you were pitting the host.
Yeah, Otto I get all that stuff. the difference is my friends fck up all the time. One of then lied to me and cost me $5000. He thinks he was right, I think he was a dckhead but we’re still friends.
The OP is talking about friends he went to dinner with. I agree, I think asking for money was wrong but had it happened to me I wouldn’t be getting upset about it. I would find out what I ahd failed to understand and let it go.
You fight your friends over $30 without asking how it came about and I’ll stick to my method.
i agree. one of the guests expected to pay - we simply have insufficient information to pass judgement.
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them”.