Please send your etiquette-based questions to [email protected], subject line: “Ms. Proprietypants.” The archives can be found here.
Recently, I was traveling with my boyfriend in a foreign country. He decided he wanted to purchase a wedding present for two of his best friends who had very recently gotten married. We went to a lovely department store, and while I browsed in the stationery section, he spotted a beautiful set of bowls that he thought would make the perfect gift. They were green, hand-blown, cut-glass bowls that were unique, tasteful, a perfect wedding gift for dear friends in their late 30’s entering a new phase of mature domesticity, etc. etc. They were, he thought, within his budget (around $160; not inappropriate – some might even say generous – for a wedding gift, I do believe.) He asked me for my opinion, which I gave. We calculated the exchange rate together and decided the price was appropriate. He had them packed carefully. He paid with his AmEx. We flew back home, and he presented his friends with their lovely wedding gift, and all were thrilled and jubilant.
A few days after this denouement, my boyfriend was going through his accounts and realized, to his horror, that we had both miscalculated the exchange rate on those seductive cut-glass bowls. They had not cost $160, but $1,600.
What to do, Ms. Proprietypants? Should my boyfriend, in some subtle way, let his friends know that their wedding present in fact cost the equivalent to a return ticket to the aforementioned foreign country? Should he request them back for himself, keep them locked up in a wooden cabinet to present only at the most elegant and rarefied of occasions, and present them with a more cost-appropriate gift? (This does not seem a likely option – but what to do?!) Should he swallow hard, and quietly absorb the financial ramifications of his mistake without saying a word? Help!
For some reason, can’t think why, this made me think of the “math is hard” Barbie. Math, so important, right? Anyway, you are not going to like this, but I’m afraid it’s time to suck it up.
It’s true that the recipients would probably be horrified to learn the bowls’ worth. But that doesn’t change the fact that there is nothing you can do, it merely serves to make the situation extra excruciating.
What are your real options here? You cannot ask for the gift back. What would you say? How could the lovebirds politely respond? How would they feel?
Nor can you tell them how much the bowls cost in order to guarantee that they don’t go the way of the stoop sale, as is the fate of many a wedding tchotchke. [Let’s all take a moment to dwell on the full horror of the stoop sale scenario. Imagine the bowls languishing next to some ill-conceived sample sale trench coat and a pile of Barbara Kingsolver novels. Jkskdldldsldkdjdkdktl;adk!!!! My armpits are all prickly now.] Because, again, what would you say? How would you phrase it? And, more importantly, how could they possibly respond? You suggest that the information be conveyed in some “subtle” way. What do you have in mind? An anonymous tip mailed from [email protected]?
The reason that this predicament is so unsolvable is because there is no solution that would not put the newlyweds in an extremely awkward situation. This is why, in general, you don’t tell people what gifts cost–and this specific[ally horrific] situation is no exception. Because what are they meant to say? “Oh, no! You shouldn’t have.” [In fact, no, you really should not have.] “Oh, you mustn’t! Take it back, I insist!” [What will you say in turn? “Oh, uhkay.”] “Thanks ever so, you are too kind, we will treasure it always!” [What if they won’t!?]
This is your [collective] error and I’m afraid you can’t involve the recipients. It’s true that I might advise you differently if the error had been greater still–like, if you had underestimated the cost 100 fold. If your BF’s financial stability was seriously at risk, then steps would have to be taken, because [financial] benefit would outweigh the [social] cost. But if he can afford to travel to exotic foreign locales, I think he can probably afford to budget for a few months and pay off this grave mathematical error.
Here’s to sticking to the registry! (JK, JK, Miss Proprietypants doesn’t actually believe in that maxim, but your question sure is a real life PSA for doing just that.)
So I got very annoyed at my friends the other day. We were out at a restaurant, and one ordered only a side, and the other was like, “Oh, I just ate” and so didn’t want to order a main either. And I told them I didn’t know why they wanted to meet at a restaurant at dinnertime (they had proposed this!!!!) if they weren’t going to eat, and that it wasn’t ok that they were “ok” with my getting a main, because I didn’t feel like having them watch me eat.
Was I overreacting? And is it their prerogative to not eat?
It is weird and makes other people uncomfortable to not eat at a restaurant, yes, you are right. Restaurants are for eating. They are absolutely also for socializing, and some of them sanction socializing while drinking only, but eating is a key part of the “vibe,” if you will. I don’t know what more to say on this matter; if a very small group (three or less, say) agrees to meet at a restaurant at a mealtime, everyone ought to be up for eating something. But which party wins the Moral High Ground Award (henceforth MHGA) is dependent on how annoyed you got. It’s fair of you to say, “next time let’s meet for a drink or a line of coke or a walk in the park or a trip to the mall or a round of poker” but it is not fair to become angry and peevish.
Did you become angry and/or peevish? Please say no! Two wrongs don’t make a right, and while I am really very much in favor of emotional transparency in friendship, I am also (SHOCKER) a big fan of politesse. Conveying in a breezy fashion that you hope they don’t repeat this gaffe and pointing out that, for you and for many others, dining is not a spectator sport is constructive (i.e. it simultaneously prevents this annoying scenario from repeating itself and allows you to air your irritation), but chewing them out biliously is not. Two wrongs and all that; jerkishness ought not to beget jerkishness. (Obviously we are all human and sometimes you just get so mad you don’t know what came over you and you see unending shades of vermillion, but this column, like a lifestyle blog, is… aspirational.)
So you win in theory, but perhaps not in practice. Happy?? [Don’t yell at me if you’re not.]
What would the question be if I, say, invited my friend to happy hour but I didn’t drink alcohol? I still want to see the friend in question, but I don’t really drink anymore. I generally order an appetizer and a seltzer with lime. Is this acceptable?
yes
yeah definitely. I think generally when you invite friends to “drinks” it is acceptable for one or both of you to have an appetizer or small dish and water. At least I hope so. I always order bread.
Absolutely. Seltz away.
As long as you were happy to go round (of seltzer) for round (of friend’s beverage).
It depends on the nature of the relationship of course, but as the drinking friend I think it could be a lot of fun to lampshade it. “Barkeep! It’s been a rough week, so keep these coming, and don’t skimp on the lime!” (delivered playfully, of course).
Yes, totally acceptable, because you’re consuming some sort of food and drink. It would be much weirder if they consumed beverages/appetizers/whatever and you just sat there with nothing.
Also, whether you drink alcohol or not is a personal decision and no-one should socially pressure you into doing so.
I would say the same goes for food too no? I know sometimes I have issues with digestion and I feel no appetite or just feel bad, but still want to participate in a social situation, and so only order something small or light even if everyone else orders normal meals.
Yeah that’s true. I think it’s just that (in England at least) it’s quite common for people who don’t drink to be pressured into drinking alcohol and judged if they don’t since our socialising is so deeply centred around alcohol. (This isn’t me I’m talking about – I drink – quite a lot in fact – but I try to be careful not to pressure people who don’t.)
Oh for sure, lots of pressure about drinking alcohol (I’m in the US, it is the same here in my experience).
The restaurant dilemma is the where the British pub wins hands down. Most pubs serve food these days, but they are still considered primarily a place to drink. But if you and your mates meet at the pub for some pints, and someone feels a bit peckish, they can order a bowl of chips, or even a meal, and no one is fussed; it’s all good, because — well, it’s a pub!
You DELIBERATELY put as many Britishisms in that comment as you could, and I admire you for it.
SORTED! PHWOAR! SOMETHING SOMETHING “PULLING”
Ha, yeah, I was just thinking, “but this is perfectly normal behaviour in a pub or a cafe-bar! Such confuse!”
Yeahh! I often do the ‘okay I need to eat, you don’t – let’s go to a pub that does food’ thing.
I’m genuinely curious to know how LW#1 planned to notify the recipients of the value of their gift. “They were such a bargain at only $1600 USD! I mean, other bowls like it would sell for like $2000 so what a steal.” You cannot ask for gifts back, period, full stop. Be more careful when calculating exchange rates.
Also, LW#2, is it possilbe that friends just wanted to order appetizers instead? I would hate to think that when I don’t want a huge meal and would rather just have a little salad or a starter of bruschetta or whatever, I’ve been committing some ridiculous faux pas. Yeah, you shouldn’t agree to go to a restaurant at dinnertime if you don’t want to eat at all, but why is only eating a lesser amount of food bad?
I wonder if, in LW#2’s situation, part of it had to do with the time of the meeting. I become an absolute monster when I haven’t eaten in The Proper Amount of Time (seriously, I need to feed about every 2 hours or so to remain a normal human with normal human decency), so if I agree to meet someone for “dinner” at 8, you can bet I’ve eaten something already. Maybe they thought they’d still be hungry when they got to the restaurant, and then found that they were not.
I am projecting a lot of blood sugar level-fueled implications into that second letter.
This is me! I feel so silly for always packing snacks, but it’s necessary.
Because I collect art glass, I would probably know the value of the bowls. But what if I didn’t, and used the bowls for something other than display? What if I used them in ways which might cause them to be broken? I think I’d want to be given the website of the artist who created the bowls, just so, at least, I would know how to care for them, but also, to look at other examples of the artist’s work. If someone bought me $1600 worth of bowls, though, I would assume that they could afford them. But if I knew they couldn’t afford them, I would give them back, and say, “don’t be ridiculous. Stop this right now.”
But if the gifter couldn’t return the gift anyway (in this case, because doing so would require visiting a foreign country) then the giftee may as well keep it. The problem is that the gifter spent more than he had expected, not that he was suddenly possessed by an urge to keep the bowls for himself – getting them back wouldn’t do him any good.
Yes, that’s certainly true; I’m just repeating something someone said to me when I gave them an expensive gift. I have manic/depression, so I tended to give gifts that happened to be expensive; and which the giftee would interpret as, “oh, you bought this in a mania. Take it back so you don’t destroy yourself financially” aka, “don’t be ridiculous, take it back.” That is not the problem here, I know. I think though that people can be aware of someone having given them an overly expensive gift and being concerned that the gift was either overboard or … something strange happened. In other words, I think friends can be honest with each other about money without trampling on feelings and social niceties. I know my friends are, although it’s more a sign of them wanting to save me from myself.
I don’t think I want to own $1,600 bowls. As was said, that’s the price of a roundtrip plane ticket to a faraway place. I cannot possibly appreciate any bowls enough for that price, let alone ever want to use them, and God forbid if they break.
I think this is by far the best option. Sharing the artist’s website (which sometimes doesn’t even share the price of the pieces) is a reasonable way to hopefully stop the bowls from being sold at a yard sale or thrown in the dishwasher. And if they manage to work out how much they cost from the artist and try to protest, you can say you got a deal on them.
Laugh airily and only mention the currency of the country where the purchase was made. “Can you believe we picked these up for a mere 385072 Hungarian forints? I felt like I was positively robbing the store!” This will make you seem worldly and cultured as well as rich.
Ah, I just figured out why your username had been flicking tiny bells in the back of my mind! I haven’t heard St Lawrence River in years!
I’m almost certainly reading too much into Miss Proprietypants’ stray remark at the end of her answer to the first letter, but: is sticking to the registry a faux pas for close friends/family members? Or is a gift from the registry always welcome?
I generally operate under the “gifts from the registry are always welcome or why would you have registered for them in the first place” maxim, but I have not gotten married myself and do not actually know.
Maybe not even a faux pas, so much. Is there some societal expectation that people who are especially close would not be bound by such quotidian concepts as a registry, because they know the happy couple so well that they will select The Perfect Gift That They Didn’t Even Know They Needed?
I may play it safe and just get something from the registry plus something personal but not-too-expensive.
Hmmm. I’ve never encountered that type of expectation, but I’m also in the habit of making people’s wedding cakes instead of dealing with gift registries, so I’m not the best person to answer this question, honestly.
Regardless! I think your strategy sounds more than safe and I’m sure the couple will appreciate whatever you get them.
I may play it safe and just get something from the registry plus something personal but not-too-expensive.
I have only been to two or three weddings in my “adult” life, but this is what I usually do. I think it’s a good compromise!
If I’m buying from a registry, my usual pattern is registry thing(s) + something(s) perishable/consumable to accompany them. For a recent wedding shower, I bought the bamboo steamer from the friends’ registry, then packed it full: packets of rice noodles and dried mushrooms, bottles of sesame oil and mirin, a tin of curry paste. I know her well enough to know her taste, but even so, it’s sometimes wise not to give people long-lasting objects that might not align with their aesthetic.
Or, if I find something I can’t resist for them, I might give that and a modest registry item. When I found (what I hope was) a ridiculously appropriate cocktail shaker for some friends, I also bought the inexpensive martini glasses they registered for, a bottle of gin, a bottle of vermouth, a jar of big fat olives (and tied a fancy ceramic spoon to the jar), some cocktail spears, and a pack of cocktail napkins. I don’t know if they use the shaker, but I’m sure they use everything else.
I didn’t register and who loved seeing the free-for-all flavor of stuff we got; not everyone digs that and I can respect it. I do have a box full of objets d’art given by friends and loved ones: stuff I can’t bear to give away—and in few cases, stuff that’s so one-of-a-kind that I can’t give it away without risking them seeing it in the wild somewhere—but I just can’t display. Some of it is just not our look; a couple of pieces flat-out give me the creeps.
You sound like a fantastic gift giver. I am envious both of your gifting skills and the gifts your friends get!
Aw, thanks. I do think long and hard about gifts (i.e., I have a tab open right now in which I’m brainstorming Christmas gifts), but of course I don’t often tell stories about the less successful ideas and presents.
yay! I am glad you said this.
at the wedding of a close childhood friend, they had registered for all sorts of dishes that were SO EXPENSIVE. like, $23 for a teacup expensive. So I bought them two teacups and then because that seemed like kind of a meager present, but I am a grad student who doesn’t have a lot of spare money, I got them a sampler of tea from this nice local shop. Incidentally, I hadn’t actually thought of it at the time, but she’d first introduced her fiance to me at that very tea shop. So it was kind of personal, even.
my mother was horrified because “you shouldn’t give consumables for a wedding present.”
I think it was fine.
That sounds like such a nice gift!
I get the logic behind not giving consumables, the idea that the wedding gift should be treasured for their whole life together. But I remember several of our consumable gifts as fondly as any durable gift I’ve used dozens of times, and I’ve already broken (and cried over) at least one irreplaceable durable wedding gift.
Despite our traditions, objects don’t really last forever. But the memories can.
Damnit, now I regret ordering gift-wrapping for the glass jars I ordered off my brother and his fiancee’s registry; I could have put other things inside them. Wedding registries feel really odd to me, like I’m just filling an order somebody put in.
I think what she was saying is that it is not rude to go off-registry. Some people think that you should only ever buy things off the registry, in order to ensure that you get the happy couple something that they actually want/need. Other people find registries limiting and often joyless (e.g. my mother, in shopping for the wedding of a friend’s daughter, did not feel that anything on the registry was nice enough, as she is from the era where the point of registering was so that people would know what your china pattern was).
So, no, sticking to the registry is not a faux pas if you are close to the couple. But getting something that you feel suits them well or that you know they want but didn’t register for is also perfectly fine.
ETA: If you are close to them, don’t forget that anniversaries come every year, which give you ample opportunity to give non-registry gifts, should you feel so inclined.
I agree … sometimes I come up with cute/creative gifts that are more appropriate & curated to my friends’ tastes than, I don’t know, a set of mixing bowls from Target (plus I like the idea of buying things of Etsy and supporting small artists), but when in doubt, registries are there for a reason.
My general guideline: if I know them well enough to ask “Hey, would you prefer me to stick to the registry or can I go rogue picking your present?” and expect an honest answer, I follow their preference. If I don’t know them that well, I stick to registry + consumables.
Not at all! No! The registry is great–we registered for stuff we needed–and we received plenty of gifts off the registry by close family and friends. And we were very happy to receive it!
There’s enough nonsense about wedding gifts as it is. There’s certainly no requirement for close friends to go fishing around for a super-meaningful-personal gift unless they really want to. Registry is fine! Non-registry is fine! Money is fine! (I mean, all of this within reason–maybe don’t buy them a giraffe farm unless you know they really want one, but you know.) It’s all good, forever, amen.
I tried to get you a giraffe farm but they were out of stock.
YOU KNEW WHAT WE WANTED YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE TO A DIFFERENT GIRAFFE FARM
YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE GETTING MARRIED WHEN GIRAFFES WERE OUT OF SEASON
Do giraffes have a season?
Never mind, I am clearly unqualified to own a giraffe farm.
Giggled, thought “’tis the season of giraffes”, googled it and really found exactly that. http://www.connectmidmissouri.com/news/story.aspx… (this looks weird. Can’t embed links. Can google, though!)
END OF NOVEMBER.
CAN’T BLOODY WAIT
As a person who lives in a city of small apartments and high rents, physical size is definitely my main suggestion if you are thinking to go off-registry. I’m all about the “it’s the thought that counts, and even if this gift misses the mark of my taste slightly it’s a sweet gesture” philosophy, but if you get me a GIANT PAINTING or even something as large as a fancy serving tray, I am going to say many more curse words behind your back than if you, say, just happened to get a nice scarf in a color that doesn’t quite suit my complexion/rest of the wardrobe.
Just out of curiosity, where did you register? We went with The Bay and it was a lackluster experience. A few of the items we’d registered for were discontinued shortly after and they didn’t bother notifying us – I found out from friends who had tried to buy said items and got an error message saying they were no longer being carried.
We registered at Bed Bath and Beyond and Target. There’s no Bay where we live, but I’ve heard that from other people too–it was kind of crappy. But I was able to do both of those places right online, the only thing I had to be careful about was not doubling up on items. Easy!
The registry – always a safe choice! Non-registry stuff – not as safe, but often delightful surprises for both givers and recipients.
Nope, the registry is welcome. If people get mad that you got them something from the registry, they should not have registered for it. If they are putting expensive things on the registry just to return them and get money (which apparently happens), again, it’s their problem. Not yours.
Something I only learned a few years ago: lots of registries offer “completion discounts.” For a set period of time after the wedding date, the couple can buy things remaining on their registry at an automatic discount. So if friends have, like, a jillion-dollar TV or a sofa on their registry, it might not be that they hope someone will buy it for them but that they’re looking forward to buying it themselves after the wedding. That made me feel a lot better (and for better, you can read less judgmental).
Yup, that’s what some friends of mine did. Well, not the jillion-dollar tv or anything like that, but they put a lot of expensive kitchen gadgets on their registry for the post-wedding discount and weren’t shy about sharing that fact. They were saving for it specifically, I believe. I gave them a gift card to help them out with their goal of the most tricked-out (but still discounted!) kitchen imaginable.
Oh, that’s why we put a Kitchenaid mixer on there. I get that, totally. But I have heard of people registering and intending to return things for cash later. (Admittedly, on sites like Etiquette Hell and not personally, but I have no problem believing it happens sometimes.)
My sister did that for her baby registries (I’ve never been in a situation where I had something to register for so that’s my closest experience). My Grandma was so upset that she registered for a fancy double stroller because she thought we would all have to go in on it together and there would only be one gift. Instead some people, mostly friends of my mom, bought an assortment of things from the registry, and her friends bought a mix of registry items and personal gifts. My mom and I (and I think some of the in-laws) bought a personal gift and also gave giftcards to help with the bigger registry items.
My thoughts on off-registry gifts–
One of our relatives is a gifted quilter, and we got lovely quilts for both our wedding and baby shower. We LOVE them!
Another relative fancies herself a bargain hunter, and each time went off-registry to get us a cheaper version of something we’d registered for. So, we ended up with two tea kettles, because someone else DID get us the registry one, and ended up selling the cheapo one at a yard sale for $2.
…not sure what my conclusion here is, other than people register for what they need/want, so it’s okay and not impersonal to just get something from that?
Ooh, I think this really gets at what can be so irritating about a certain type of off-registry gift — it can carry an implication that the giver knows better than the recipient what the recipient really wants or needs, especially when it’s something that’s close-but-not-quite to an item already on the registry. Like, if I have a specific brand and model of teakettle on my registry, it’s probably safe to assume that I have put some thought into which teakettle I want. I don’t object to off-registry gifts in general, of course they are often lovely and thoughtful, but I think a good general rule is: if you’re going off-registry, still look at the registry and use it as a guide to your friends’ tastes and preferences.
Oh, yes. We eloped (I mean it; got married first and told the family afterwards) and therefore didn’t have a registry, but a lot of folks very thoughtfully sent us presents anyway–overwhelmingly money and gift cards to places like Target. We weren’t expecting anything, but we were grateful and got things we could use for our place together.
…Except my husband has an uncle he calls Crazy Republican Uncle whose emails “mysteriously” started going to his spambox c. fall 2008. Crazy Republican Uncle and his wife sent us a massive family Bible (King James Version, natch) personally engraved for us. Sort of. This weighty tome reads, let’s say, “John and Jane Doe,” even though we are “John Doe” and “Jane Diaz.” THERE IS NO JANE DOE. JOHN’S MOM TOLD YOU WHAT MY NAME WAS. But oh, they know better.
That is RAGE INDUCING!
Surprisingly, neither of us felt that much RAGE–though husband is agnostic-to-atheist and I’m one of those groovy peace-and-social-justice mainline Protestants where we ordain women and gay people and EVEN QUEER WOMEN, GASP. He just said, “Oh, that’s so him, isn’t it?” and I said, “I’m pleasantly surprised I haven’t gotten more crap about keeping the name, honestly,” and we shrugged and rolled our eyes. It’s still sitting on the shelf among the D&D books, because juxtapositions are fun.
I don’t quite know how to get rid of it, because it has the man’s name on it. Giving something personalized to Goodwill, even if it’s incorrectly personalized, seems like it could bite a person in the ass.
I only had ONE case of “someone got me an off-registry version of something I had on the registry” and it was frankly really irritating, because I’d registered for a very specific brand of skillets, and someone got us incredibly cheap skillets, thinking “oh they just want some skillets!” The trouble was that we already HAD cheap skillets, we were using the registry to hopefully try and upgrade to nicer ones. We ended up returning the cheap ones and getting the nicer ones ourselves. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it just kind of got my hair up a little bit, because there’s a reason we put a specific brand on the registry, you know?
I remember when friends got married, (and they were old-school, hadn’t lived together first) a bunch of their older relations had the “registry is so impersonal” view. So this couple ended up with 11 crystal wine decanters and no towels or sheets.
I took that statement as a response to the mostly misguided idea that getting people a lovely, thoughtful gift that happens to not be on the registry is, in fact, Super Rude and The Worst. (Assuming you know the couples’ style/space considerations well, aren’t regifting, etc…)
I think registry is always fine, but for really close friends, I too favor the registry item + personal addition that you and Elsa Is Emily mentioned above!
The only time I went completely off registry was to club together with my boyfriend to buy a signed print by an artist that we knew that the bride really, really wanted (and the groom liked) and which she very nearly bought but decided, at that point, was too indulgent.
All other times I just followed the registry but also added a more personal something as anon210 and Elsa is Emily do. This worked brilliantly one particular time when I brought a big bunch of flowers in addition to the gift. It turned out that after I’d brought some peonies for their engagement party a year before, the bride had cultivated a sentimental attachment to them and specifically requested them to be included in her wedding bouquet but the flower shop messed up and didn’t have any. So she was ecstatic that she’d got her peonies at her wedding after all.
Weirdly, I think we’ve basically done registry items for less-close friends and cash with personal notes for close friends/ family. Mostly because the close friends and family tended to be living in tiny apartments and/or in other countries and could use the money more than towels. Or used the money to buy their own towels, I don’t know.
I would feel a little bad about the not-eating friends at the restaurant, just because it’s dinnertime and presumably the server would have liked a table with 3 entrees versus 1. But there’s no shame in eating dinner at dinner, so eat well and heartily and don’t worry about that part. Tip well and maybe don’t linger so the restaurant can turn over the table to a more lucrative bunch (if there’s a crowd)?
I would like to see Ms. Proprietypants advise the main character from Maupassant’s “The Necklace.”
That story will upset me until the end of time.
I should have picked up on this, since it’s Nabokov and everything is an allusion, but having read Ada very recently I had thought “La rivière de diamants” by Ada’s governess was something Nabokov completely made up. Nope, it was him slamming a French author I’ve never heard of (until now).
Nabokov is always slamming somebody.
Nabokov is always slamming somebody.
Word!
I did think he made a good point that a true bourgeois would have found out the cost of the necklace, even if that meant admitting they’d lost it in the first place.
HA! I thought this exact same thing (poor Madame Loisel: she suffered way too much for wanting to borrow a little bling/dress above her station)
I always did wonder what the rest of the conversation was after that revelation. “So sorry to see your life is ruined, but thanks for the necklace?”
Oh my gosh! LW#1, your boyfriend should call his credit card company asap and make sure the mistake was your and not the store’s. This happened to us in France once: My husband and I had a lovely splurge-y lunch that we thought was around $150 but when we got the credit card bill we were charged $1500 — not once, but twice! It was a $3000 meal (I had no idea our credit limit was so high). We called our credit card company who (after a medium-to-large degree of reminding, hassling, nagging, etc.) contacted the restaurant and it turns out it was a new employee who made a mistake, tried and failed to void the mistake, then re-made the same mistake.
I mean, math is hard, but if you spent more than a couple of days in the foreign country it is hard to imagine a currency conversion mistake of an order of magnitude. Somewhere, surely, your brain was comparing the cost of the bowls to, e.g., the cost of your hotel in local currency and making appropriate judgments. Surely?
True–if you were there more than two days and still underestimating the currency by a factor of 10, surely you would have more problems than a pair of bowls, yes?
Maybe they were staying in a really fancy hotel.
I thought of this as well. Does the boyfriend still have the receipt? Maybe check the store’s website or do a little googling to check the price of the bowls.
I’m thinking that maybe the bad-math bowls could be addressed a couple years down the line? You’re over at their place drinking wine, and the subject of the bowls or travel or gift registries in general comes up. And you can casually be all like, “so, official confession to this amusing anecdote time”. Which, by then, the math error will be a thing of the past. So it’s easy to really soothe things over if they feel bad about it (“No, seriously, that credit card balance was paid off yeeeears ago!”), and everyone gets to just see it as “oh, man, maybe for sure download a currency conversion app when traveling, hahaha!” But they also get to know not to stoop sale them in the future (if they haven’t already).
If they have already yard sale’d them out, though, the looks of horror on everyone’s faces would be a sight to behold.
True! “Oh, you mean the bowls we left hidden in a cupboard in our old apartment, hoping the new tenants would enjoy them more than we did? Those bowls??? …Oh.”
Even more reason to confess, then >:D
Great idea. If they’re still good friends with this couple a few years from now, that is definitely the time to bring this up as a humorous anecdote, about which they clearly expect nothing to be done.
(As long as it doesn’t coincide with the timing of their own wedding a few years down the road, that would be tacky and seem like an obvious ploy for an equally expensive gift.)
I also second the double checking of the credit card charge recommended above.
Yep. Time will absolutely smooth over the awkwardness of financial mistakes (assuming by then you’re not flat broke and the conversation reads as a plea for help).
That was my thought, too, though I thought “10 or 20 years” rather than “a couple.” In a decade or two, this will be a hilarious story of one’s youthful errors. For a year or more, it’s going to be pretty fresh for everyone. Time will mellow the sense of loss on the LW’s part and the sense of guilt on the recipients’ part.
It doesn’t help with the stoop-sale problem, but I don’t know that there is an answer to the stoop-sale problem… because we don’t have the luxury of telling people what to do with our gifts.
Maybe LW2’s friends suggested a restaurant because they thought LW2 might be hungry, even if they knew they wouldn’t be? I actually get really cranky if it’s meal time and people suggest somewhere that only serves snacks/appetizers. Plus at least one of them ordered a side, so it’s not that they weren’t eating anything, they just weren’t eating very much. I think the thing that would bother me the most in that situation would be that I always feel kind of weird just drinking at a place that’s clearly more of a restaurant than a bar (although I guess if you order enough drinks the tips work out either way).
I agree with you–in this situation I would totally be LW2’s friend and suggest meeting at a restaurant around dinnertime because it’s a convenient time and I would assume they’d be hungry. However, for various hideous allergy-related reasons, I often can’t eat…anything…at restaurants, so I’m often the person not eating. I don’t feel like I should have to explain why I’m not eating to anyone, nor do I think a good friend would judge someone for eating or not eating–on both sides.
Yes to this. I can understand a fleeting stab of annoyance that things went differently than I expected (whether due to an honest miscommunication or due to the friends misrepresenting the plans somehow). But really, if they are your friends, there shouldn’t be judgement going on about who’s eating or not eating what.
My anxiety about eating in front of people has never been at all proportional to how much they’re actually judging me. Well, okay, active judgment might increase the stress level, but I can also be plenty anxious about it all on my own.
There’s a whole lot of human history, all across the globe, tied up in Eating As Communal, Social Ritual (including in the modern US of A). So while anxiety doesn’t have to have a logical cause, I really don’t think LW2 is coming out of nowhere here.
Yeah, see, for me, it would send me straight to eating disorders. The people not eating in this scenario may very well not have any! But years of girls explicitly known by all to be anorexic bringing in brownies for everyone else to eat and then doing crunches while we ate them; girls having competitions as to who can take smaller bites/eat something more slowly; girls hiding from one another in order to eat lunch in peace…well, it’s taught me to think in certain ways.
I agree with your last sentence, but I am kind of uncomfortable being the only one eating, even if there is no judgement. I think suggesting a restaurant implies you, the asker, will be eating and as the friend would be a little annoyed when that turns out not to be true. If you suggested meeting somewhere that only serves drinks, I would just eat beforehand or make some other arrangement. Why not just ask your friend what they would prefer instead of assuming?
Etiquette question of my own: we got an after-the-fact wedding announcement from a friend (they had a small private ceremony). Do we just send a card with a nice note? They got us something for our wedding, but they were also guests at the ceremony/reception. I don’t want to be stingy, but also don’t want to go overboard and make it weird.
I know gift cards are generally frowned upon, but maybe a gift certificate to a favorite restaurant/drink spot or something similar? Fits easily into an envelope, isn’t crazy, but also acknowledges the occasion?
Seconded. I love the idea of “here is a date night in an envelope, go have fun, buy yourself a $40 steak or whatever makes you happy.”
I used to be one of those stuffy doesn’t-give-gift-card people. Then we were given two great wedding presents: a book of passes to our walking-distance local movie theater and a gift certificate for a favorite local restaurant that just happened to be on the way there. Two different sets of friends arranged for us to start marriage with a series of date nights. It was great.
We had a wedding very similar to this. It won’t be weird either way, trust me. A lot of people we sent announcements to sent cards, other people sent gifts. All were appreciated!
Taking up a seat at a restaurant at dinner and not ordering anything is awfully unfair for the server, who was probably counting on the tip. A three-top at dinner just ordering a single main and a single appetizer is probably an appreciable hit on his/her take for the night. I am sincerely hoping that the group substantially over-tipped to make up for the server’s lost income.
This is a gentle plea to please remember that your server counts on tips.
And a gentle, gentle plea for this to not turn into a discussion about the philosophy of tipping.
Yeah, maybe it’s because I’m A Canadian and super concerned with not inconveniencing others but this was my first thought RE: LW #1 as well. I’m always secretly mortified when my friends do this precisely because I feel bad for the server who expected a table of three each ordering a meal instead of 1.5 meals.
Cosigned.
If you aren’t going to eat, have the grace to order many, many drinks.
Question: I actually did this a couple weeks ago, when I got dragged out to lunch unexpectedly with my family after I had just eaten twenty minutes earlier. (This was lunch, not dinner, the restaurant wasn’t crowded, and I was the only one not eating out of a party of five.) Does the fact that I ordered a ten dollar cocktail make up at all for the lack of an entrée, from the server’s perspective?
Nope! That ten-dollar cocktail was probably more annoying to make than any other order at the table.
…none of which the server presumably made, though, right?
I think in that case, it probably affected the server less. Serving 4 out of 5 possible entrees is a lot better than 1 out of 3. And at least you didn’t keep your serving running to refill the one glass of water you ordered.
I used to meet 3 or 4 times a month with a particular group of friends. We always went to one of 6 favorite restaurants, all in the same price range. I did not always have a meal. However, I always put the same amount of money on the table, no matter what I ordered. It was the price of 2 drinks, an entree, and a dessert. That’s how I budgeted for those evenings. That server worked just as hard the nights I was not hungry.
Oh! Plus 25% to cover tax and tip!
Yeah, my rule in this situation is to tip outrageously well on my measly little drink or small-plate total. It’s not ideal for the restaurant, but that’s a long-term problem; it solves the short-term problem of not shorting the server’s income for this shift. I think of it as “renting my seat.”
A coffee-shop server in Chicago remembered me and greeted me fondly a full five years after I moved out of town, and I assume her fond welcome when I visited was largely due to my habit of tipping her ~100% on cheap cheeseburger-and-Coke lunches—200-400%* if I only ordered coffee—on long, slow afternoons when I’d sit at that table in the near-empty diner and read or write.
*edited to add: which sounds staggering, but coffee/Coke was ~99¢, so I’d sometimes leave a few bucks or a fiver.
“renting my seat” Perfect! Thank you for that.
I think LW2 has a point.
One, because I am a planner, and it will throw off my whole evening if I am told we will be doing Activity A and then everybody’s like, nope, we’d rather do Activity B, and I end up mountain biking in a swimsuit or (horrors!) not eating when I need to eat and becoming a hangry bitch.
Two, the restaurant would probably prefer to give the table to people who are going to, you know, PURCHASE FOOD.
Three, never be ashamed of eating in front of anyone. If your friends try to make you bad for eating a meal, then these are not nice friends.
Likewise! If you have planned a social activity, either do the activity or notify people in advance that you would like to change the plan. Don’t let people structure their day around a plan that will not come to fruition.
Is there a way to non-awkwardly give a wedding present several months after the wedding? My co-worker/friend’s wedding, and the gift is money.
Send it in a card and write something like, “Feels like your wedding was yesterday! I had such a fun time [or, if you had to miss it: I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to join you!] Hope you’re loving married life.” Nobody is going to be annoyed at the lack of explanation for a gift of money, so no need to address it directly. I’m sure they’ll be delighted that you’re still thinking of them, not irritated that it wasn’t as timely as it could have been.
From what I understand it is consider acceptable from an etiquette standpoint to give a gift up to one year after the wedding. I’d probably mail it to them with a card.
Just send a card with the check in it. It’s fine. They will be delighted.
Just a thought that isn’t addressed in L2, but maybe one or both of the friends had suggested going to a restaurant, but on the day of the get-together, found themselves short money, and weren’t able to order food or were only able to order a small amount and thought that brushing it off with “I already ate” was less embarrasing than “I can’t afford to eat here”. Not that something similar has ever happened to me…
YES!
also it sounds like they ordered appetizers or sides, so WHO CARES? why do they have to eat a main course? sometimes you don’t want to eat a huge thing. it’s not like LW#2 invited them over for dinner and cooked a meal only to be brushed off – it’s different in a restaurant.
it just isn’t really anyone’s business what i eat/drink/how much and if someone is going to get angry at me because i ordered a side and not a main course when we went out to eat i would have to let that be their problem and not mine.
I wondered the same thing, or if maybe LW2 picked a restaurant that was just way out of their financial comfort zone- it really sucks bringing, say, $30 for a night out and ending up someplace where that’ll get you a glass of water and a few crackers.
I was that friend for a year. It suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked. I wanted to go out with my friends, but my closest friends in town were a young married couple, no kids, both with relatively high-paying jobs. There was a lot of “hmm, I can manage to set aside…$5 for splurging this week. Who wants to get bagels?”
Getting bagels is a delightful activity!
Not if everybody would prefer to be at brunch having mimosas and smoked salmon, it’s not.
Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Because this is most often me. Probably somebody shitty is going to say “well if you don’t have enough money to order normal like everyone else you can’t go out.” But you know what? I order an appetizer or something small/cheap, so that pathetic as the amount I can spend is, it still allows me to tip the server well. I’m not going to use my poverty as an excuse to shit on another poor person.
I am clearly in the minority here, but oh I feel for LW2. When I’m socialising (i.e. not with partner or family) I feel really weird if I’m the ONLY ONE eating a proper meal (snacks are shareable, so I don’t feel weird eating those, even if I do eat the whole bowl myself). I will claim not to be hungry rather than being the only one eating. Which is fine, weird, whatever. I just make sure I eat beforehand.
But if we are meeting for lunch or dinner – i.e. CLEARLY EATING TIME – and no one else wants to eat, I would get pissed off too! Eat, dammit!
I have been known to take that “share-able snacks” theory to the EXTREME.
Ie, order a bunch of finger-foods, acknowledge that I’m taking on the bulk of the cost when it comes to bill-time, then strongly encourage others around me to help me maintain my illusion of collective eating experience. I’m mostly over being self-concious about this around good friends, but the “work happy hour starts at 6pm and everyone is standing and not ordering dinner” is totally a thing.
I also hate when I want a full meal and everyone else just wants to order snacks to share. When I’m hungry I don’t want to politely hold back on how much I eat because we’re sharing, I want a big ol’ plate of food that is MINE. But I feel like such a misanthrope/glutton combo when people are like ‘let’s split the oysters!’ and I’m like ‘uh no I am eating a hamburger and not sharing any of it’. Tapas restaurants are my nightmare.
I am mouthy and don’t have any trouble saying, “I would rather order my own thing, thanks.” I had to do this at an upscale pizza place last fall when the 4 other people I was with decided they’d order 5 pizzas and share, and every last one they wanted had either mushrooms or something else I can’t/don’t eat on it. I mean, what else can a hungry girl do, when everything everyone else wants to order isn’t appealling enough/big enough?
Once on a trip to Scotland, two of the people I was travelling with and I decided to go out to eat. They ordered beer with no food and I ordered fish and chips; when my food came, they proceeded to reach across the table and take some. I said (more politely than was warranted, really), “This is my dinner; could you please not do that?” And they looked at each other and one said, snottily, “We ALWAYS do this when we go out to eat.” So I never went out to eat with them again.
LET’S BE IN THE MINORITY TOGETHER
I dunno, for everyone who says “well maybe they realized they couldn’t afford it that day and were too embarrassed to cancel” – clearly my friends and I are comfortable enough with each other to say “Yeah I’m totally broke, can we make it another time/go to my place and order mozzarella sticks instead?”
I’ve also had weird food issues i.e. had a group of toxic friends/coworkers who totally judged what I ate if they deemed it “inappropriate” (i.e. if I ate “fat girl food” while they ate salad and tiny non-fried appetizers) so I get super uncomfortable if I’m the only one eating because I feel silently judged.
Yeeeaaaahhhhh, long history of eating disorders/those who have them in my life, and that’s always where my head goes in this kind of situation. Like, even if the non-eating person(s) involved clearly does not suffer from one. I just learned at an early age that food behavior is power behavior and I don’t know that I’ll ever manage to shake that. (Cue flashback to a classmate telling me with great relish about how she took a huge bite out of her burger RIGHT IN THAT ONE ANOREXIC GIRL’S FACE, HA! Oyyyyyy.)
Yes, exactly. I don’t like being the only one eating. It happens, especially since I’m in a foreign country and sometimes in other foreign countries and don’t always understand everything, but it bugs me each time. I’ve now been known to ask if I should eat something beforehand whenever we meet up somewhere. (Dutch people eat super-early so this is usually warranted.)
I once got a gift for someone I was dating—a first edition of a children’s book signed by an extremely famous children’s book author—that is worth a fair amount money. I got involved in a bidding war for it and paid probably more than I would have for a gift for someone that I hadn’t been dating for very long. We broke up, of course, not too long after that. And to this day, I wonder what has become of it. It’s worth a lot of money! Does she know? Is it mildewing in the back of a closet? As Ms. Proprietypants notes, there is literally no good way to discover this information, so it will likely forever be a mystery.
Nor can you tell them how much the bowls cost in order to guarantee that they don’t go the way of the stoop sale, as is the fate of many a wedding tchotchke.
If stuff like this never happened, Antiques Roadshow would have to go off the air, and that would be a TRAGEDY.
L1 is going to give me nightmares.
Oh, I sympathize with LW2 – I would have pretty annoyed as well, especially when it was their suggestion to meet at that time/place. But I think the advice is right on the money – if you flipped out overly in proportion to this minor transgression, it makes you more jerky than your friends.
I have some notoriously (in our group) cheap friends that make dining out a somewhat unpleasant experience. They leave an embarrassingly small tip (‘But I only had a soda!’ Well, you also took up a table and had 5 refills…) or eat only the free bread basket, and when they actually order something they calculate the total owed down to the cent but always seem to forget to account for tax. So now I just try to steer our outings to coffee or movies or ‘just drinks’ – anything that leaves out the dread ‘splitting the check moment.’
(Also, not trying to bag on people watching their budgets – these friends often suggest the outing/place or veto suggested cheaper options. I think it’s more of a mindset than a necessity.)
Am I the only person who often vastly prefers gift cards as gifts? I can buy exactly what I want! I eliminates that really awkward moment of “Oh, what a THOUGHTFUL present!” as you stare down the mouth of some hideous plaster of paris creation that the gift-giver will now look for every time they come to your house! I had a friend who refused to give gift cards because they were impersonal, and insisted on finding the personal gift instead. They were nearly all terrible gifts.
Your position is absolutely the logically defensible one, especially when you ask an economist. (Although you really should go the next step and declare cash as even better than gift cards, especially for us ditzy folk who often misplace the gift cards.) http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal…
But as in so, so many cultural institutions, logic must compete with emotional and social imperatives. Which are often not completely inexplicable, even if that terrible “vase” from grandma ultimately is.
I LOVE gift cards! The family birthday gift tradition since I moved far away has become Amazon gift cards, which I always gratefully spend on something frivolous and wonderful that I can’t justify spending real, earned, grown-up money on.
I love gift cards and luckily many of my friends are of the same mind. Even better is the combination ‘bottle of wine/beer’ + gift card
I love gift cards too – giving and receiving. I think the idea that some types of gifts are inherently more thoughtful than others is silly. The only thing that makes a gift thoughtful is the amount of thought and care that goes into it – it doesn’t matter if it’s a gift card or physical item.
I disagree with Mrs. Pants. If my close friend accidentally spent too much money on a present for me I would be horrified if she wasn’t brave enough to tell me her mistake. I would be very happy to give her the present back so she could try to get a refund so that she could afford her bills and food. No present mistakenly given to me is worth her suffering. I wouldn’t be mad or upset if she needed it back, I would be happy our friendship didn’t have anything to do with the material cost of goods and we could laugh about what great taste she has! Punishing yourself $1600 worth because a mistake in adding would mean committing a social faux pas is really not necessary between true friends.
I’m not sure returning it would be an option, given that they bought it in a foreign country. I also didn’t get the impression it was going to mean he couldn’t buy food, or yes, I’d agree that maybe they should try and get it back so they could sell it on Ebay or something, but it doesn’t sound like the LW is even considering trying to get that money back.
I thought the same–mostly stemming from the fact that if he got the bowls back it would be to display at his own home.
As I was reading the question, that’s what popped into my head, too, until I realized LW & partner weren’t hoping to return the bowls (and indeed probably can’t return them since they were purchased on an overseas trip). The choices LW presents are:
Should he request them back for himself, keep them locked up in a wooden cabinet to present only at the most elegant and rarefied of occasions, and present them with a more cost-appropriate gift? […] Should he swallow hard, and quietly absorb the financial ramifications of his mistake without saying a word?
Returning the bowls and reclaiming the needed money isn’t on that list, which makes me think the right answer is to say nothing for the next twenty years, then share the story with a laugh in 20 years.
Does anyone else physically cringe at Restaurant Language, e.g. “do you want some appies to go with that main?” It makes me feel like what I’m eating is not precisely food; it’s a corporate experience. (And I so very much hate the way “drink” has become a noun, as in “Would you like a drink with that?”)
…was “drink” not a noun beforehand? Did people not already say “I need a drink” or “a drink of water”?
Drink has been a noun for quite a while. 12th century according to Merriam-Webster.
The general noun is beverage. Drink can be used as a noun in a somethingsomething clause, ie “a drink of water,” or to refer politely to an alcoholic liquor-containing beverage without specifying that boozification is involved. Dictionaries may disagree with me, but that’s their fault. They lack subtlety.
I’m going to start saying “that’s their fault; they lack subtlety” about anyone who disagrees with me. And…pretty sure “drink” is an acceptable noun, but I start twitching whenever anyone uses “gift” as a verb, so I can’t be too judgey. Also, judgey.
I have never heard an adult human say the word “appies” and I hope I never do.
HA HA HA HA fine I’ll concede “would you like a drink” as long as I can raise disapproving eyebrows when servers ask “what would you like for your main?”
I agree that sounds super-corporate, but then, I almost never ever hear that from waiters. Is that a thing that they say at the super-chain places? (I don’t mean to disparage those places, it’s just that there aren’t any of the sit-down chains in my neighborhood.)
I’ve never thought of “drink” as lacking the possibility to be a noun. Maybe it’s a regional thing? (I’ve also never heard “appies” ever.)
I have also never heard “appies” and I worked at chain restaurants throughout high school and college. However, due to this experience, I always call it “spin dip” and a friend of mine joked when we were last out to dinner that it made me sound like Michael Scott.
Re LW2, I can see why she feels a bit self-conscious but you know they’re not actively *preventing* her and sometimes people just aren’t that hungry.
BUT I do get annoyed (though never show that I do) when we’re staying somewhere for a long time and the other person either buys nothing or just gets a cup of tea because then I feel under pressure to keep buying stuff to justify us using up a table.
If I budgeted $160 for a gift and accidentally spent $1,600, I would be on the gift receiver’s front porch immediately explaining the situation and asking for the gift back. A new gift could be given and every attempt would be made to return the original bowls (the LW said they were purchased from a department store, surely these could be returned even internationally? Maybe with the credit card’s help?). Or they could try to sell the bowls locally to to recoup some of what they spent.
I am not emotional about gifts, if I found out that someone made such a mistake with a gift given to me I would be horrified that they kept it secret due to “etiquette” and “awkwardness”. $1,600 is two of my mortgage payments so maybe I’m just more staggered by this story than others. In conclusion, DAMN.
I thought that too! I wouldn’t want to be the receiver either in that situation. I’d hate for a friend to go through that for me.
I would never want to be a receiver of a crazy expensive gift at all. If this happened to me and nobody ever told me that I owned something super expensive, I am sure I would break them at the first opportunity and then …. I dunno, cry, or something, like, a lot.
HOWEVER if this happened to me and then my friend was all “Dude, crazy story,” I would probably laugh so hard I cried, and then tell that story over and over again for the rest of the week.
Sell the bowls, split the profits. Each party gets $800 (although if I was the gift-receiver again, I would probably be gracious enough to let you keep all the profits, because I have a humanities degree and live in a city, and that’s a crazy amount of money). Or donate some of it to charity. I dunno. Don’t keep quiet, whatever you do.
[But also, seriously, check with your credit company about verifying the price.]
Seriously, I would be a little horrified to own bowls that were actually $160! Considering what happens every time I attempt to keep wine glasses alive in my home.
$1600 is about 2/3 of a single month’s rent here (in crazy expensive city). So, yeah, I can see it tipping towards “tell them” in another locale where cost-of-living is different.
But if he was already planning to spend $160 on the gift and was comfortable with that, I’m betting they’re closer to my end of the “how much is $100 worth” spectrum.
If I were LW1, I would first call Amex and try as hard as you possibly can do to get the charges reversed and/or make sure there wasn’t an error. Then I’d ask a busybody mutual friend or relative (isn’t there always one??) to diplomatically tell recipients. Like, “Oh, recipient, I know that LW1 doesn’t want me to tell you this, but I really think you should know… Maybe you guys should return it and all go on a vacation together? Or just return it period…? I don’t know…” I guess it all depends on what recipient’s personality is…
All I can think about is what $1,600 bowls must look like. I simply can’t imagine it.
A tale of an expensive glass wedding gift gone wrong: My husband and I had a ten month old son at the time that we got married, and he started walking at nine months and was running and climbing by ten months. Around the time of the wedding, I received a package in the mail with a wedding gift and when I opened it, it contained two beautiful handblown blue glass salt and pepper shakers. My son immediately climbed up on a chair to get a better look, snatched them, and smashed them against one another. I owned them for perhaps two minutes total. I was so guilty about it, too! It was a lovely and thoughtful gift that perhaps did not consider that we were people who should under no circumstances be trusted with fancy glass things.
A tale of an expensive glass wedding gift gone wrong: My husband and I had a ten month old son at the time that we got married, and he started walking at nine months and was running and climbing by ten months. Around the time of the wedding, I received a package in the mail with a wedding gift and when I opened it, it contained two beautiful handblown blue glass salt and pepper shakers. My son immediately climbed up on a chair to get a better look, snatched them, and smashed them against one another. I owned them for perhaps two minutes total. I was so guilty about it, too! It was a lovely and thoughtful gift that perhaps did not consider that we were people who should under no circumstances be trusted with fancy glass things.
I only had ONE case of "someone got me an off-registry version of something I had on the registry" and it was frankly really irritating, because I'd registered for a very specific brand of skillets, and someone got us incredibly cheap skillets, thinking "oh they just want some skillets!" The trouble was that we already HAD cheap skillets, we were using the registry to hopefully try and upgrade to nicer ones. We ended up returning the cheap ones and getting the nicer ones ourselves. It wasn't the end of the world, but it just kind of got my hair up a little bit, because there's a reason we put a specific brand on the registry, you know?
I just can’t quite wrap my head around how someone knows they have dinner plans at a restaurant with friends but still decides to eat a full meal instead of waiting ’til they’re at the dinner they planned.
I just can't quite wrap my head around how someone knows they have dinner plans at a restaurant with friends but still decides to eat a full meal instead of waiting 'til they're at the dinner they planned.
If LW1 and her bf were so unaware of the conversion rate that they mistook 1600 for 160, how did they buy *anything* in this country? How did they eat? They must have either thought they were getting everything at an *insane* steal (75 cents for a drink!) while actually spending a normal amount of money, or have spent just absurd amounts of cash.
This is me! I feel so silly for always packing snacks, but it's necessary.
LW2! I am mostly with you! Especially if this is the sort of thing that happens to you frequently–and if it is, then you need to stop making dinner plans with these friends and start doing drinks or coffee or activities unrelated to ingesting stuff altogether. Plans made for dinner time at a restaurant definitely indicate that everyone is eating, and it IS uncomfortable to be the only one doing so, especially in a public setting. (I have no trouble chowing down in someone’s apartment as everyone else sips drinks around me) And as others have mentioned, it’s really tough on your server when a table of three only gets one entree.
BUT if this is the first time it’s happened, I think you have to write it off as a bad coincidence. I’m guessing that if the three of you had gone out and two of you ordered full meals while the third just had drinks or a side salad, you might have raised your eyebrows but it wouldn’t have been a thing, in the end. It just so happened that both of them on the same day ended up not eating and that made it weird. Sorry about that! Probably it won’t happen again!
If it DOES happen again, though, definitely make sure not to blow up at them. Maybe ask gently if the restaurant choice is too expensive? My friends and I are quick to say if we can’t afford to eat somewhere, and then plans get changed or we come out next time when it’s the beginning of a pay period and not the end, but I know some people have a much harder time talking about money and it’s possible that’s what’s going on here.