I’d like to know if somebody else invited you.
Who were the other people relationship wise?
Do you dine out with them occasionally and then switch off on paying the bill, or does he always pay the bill? Was your turn that meal, but he paid for the guests?
It matters about it being rude or not.
I don’t have more information. We were there from out of town. One of the other couples was from out of town. My mother-in-law is from out of town.
It’s honestly not a big deal that he didn’t pay for our meals, just the way it was announced seemed disconcerting. But I don’t know if there was really a better way, given that he wanted to pay for certain meals and not others.
Yes, but what was their connection with your brother in law? Certainly if you were at a table with 3 relatives and 6 strangers, it must have come up who the 6 strangers were?
If you really don’t know who they are, then, as mentioned, I would assume there was some reason your brother in law was hosting them. In that case, the problem isn’t the check, the problem is that no one was polite enough to introduce themselves.
How do you not sound rude, when the waiter walks up and publicly announces it like that?
Having never been in a similar situation, I don’t know. In general, I think I’d either pay for everyone or no one since it avoids singling anyone out, but given that he wanted two checks, how else to handle it?
Well, if I were the guy paying, I would have only invited the people I wanted to pay for. It’s much less rude to not invite someone to dinner in the first place than to invite them and then single them out for separate checks when everyone else is being treated.
Now that I know that the host is your husband’s brother, I am really beyond my own ability to be shocked. If I had had the money, I would have told the waitress “no, one check is fine, bring it to me” just to humiliate him.
If I don’t like someone enough to pay for him and his wife when I am taking other 7 people to dinner, then I just don’t like them enough to have them at my table at all. He should have just excluded you from the dinner and avoid making such an inexplicable offense.
Beautiful.
jsgoddess, could your husband have told his brother beforehand that he’d pay his own way? Did you ask your husband why his brother did this?
In the absence of ANY other information (you really have no idea who the other people were? huh!?), I’d say it’s the trifecta of odd/rude/awkward. But there’s clearly more context that you’re intentionally witholding by saying things like, “I have no idea who the other people at the table were or why we were eating with them.” What!? More info!
Was he joking? Regardless, I think weird, awkward, and rude. But I’m just curious as to his motive to say such a thing?
I said I don’t know them. That isn’t even roughly equivalent to your paraphrase.
They were complete strangers to me. We were introduced by name only. We didn’t talk about how everyone knew everyone else. We talked about baseball, graduations, the weather, the food, etc.
No, he didn’t tell him anything, and when we talked this morning he said he had no idea.
We see his brother once a year, so I don’t know him well. In the past, he and my husband have taken turns picking up the check, but that has just been when it’s his immediate family plus us.
Well, I’d say: meh. This is not that weird to me, not that odd/rude/awkward, and honestly, I doubt that I would have even noticed it.
Maybe it’s because I have brothers, and if they did this to me, I wouldn’t feel bothered in the least. Or maybe it’s because I’m just insensitive. But I don’t think it’s a big deal at all.
Sure, but what was the context of the dinner? “We’re going out to dinner with my brother-in-law and his friends.” “We’re going out to dinner with my brother-in-law, my mother-in-law, and people from their church.” “We’re going out to dinner with my brother-in-law, my mother-in-law, and people from my brother-in-law’s workplace.” “We’re going out to dinner with my brother-in-law, my mother-in-law, and the community softball team that they’re members of.”
He’s reading this thread and saying: Jesus, why did I tell her I had no idea!? She’s brought it up before those damn Dopers and they’ll set her onto the truth like a bloodhound before they get to post 50! I need a new angle…c’mon, think, Mr. jsgoddess, think!
I’m pretty confused, too. What does any of this matter? Is it not awkward if it’s the church group but awkward if it’s the softball team?
I knew four people at dinner: My brother-in-law, his wife, my mother-in-law, and my husband. That’s who I know. The other people weren’t introduced with anything other than their names, and nothing else came up. I don’t grasp why this is so inconceivable.
Interesting idea.
I think I’m the one regretting bringing it up!
It sounds like you had no expectation of BiL paying your tab when you went to dinner, so there’s no reason particularly to think it’s odd that he didn’t. It’s sounds like the real question is why did he pay for everyone else’s dinner. We still don’t know what the relationship or social context of the rest of the group was in relation to the BiL but there are any number of hypothetical scenarios which could explain waht was going on without any intended slight to the OP and her husband. For instance, he could have lost an office bet and was taking some of his coworkers out to dinner. It doesn’t take that much imagination to come up with all kinds of innocent possibilities.
If it was one of my brothers, I might ask him later why he was paying for everyone else’s dinner. Did he lose a bet or something? I wouldn’t think to be insulted, though. My brothers don’t bother with being indirect. If they want to insult me, they’ll insult me directly to my face.
maybe you’ve haggled a little over what you were responsible for when it came to splitting the bill, and he wanted to avoid the argument afterwards, but it seems unlikely given that you say that previously you guys have taken turns with the whole bill.
maybe he knows you weren’t going to order as much as everyone else, and wanted to let you off the hook for everyone else’s expensive dish, —except he paid for everyone else.
I’m gonna go with he had a certain amount to expense through his job and didn’t want to go over his budget. 
Yeah, damn him for treating you and your date to dinner! Damn his soul to hell!
If you want to head this off, speak to the host(ess) as you’re being seated and explain that you want the check given to you. The server should then place the check in front of you at the end of the meal, which presumably should be out of reach of your evil dinner-buying brother.