Clearly one persons $250 is not another persons $250. If the $ is not important or a big deal to you you might encourage your friend to support a local charity or non-profit in your neighborhood for that amount in lieu of paying you.
$250 goes a long way to a person or organization that is struggling for supplies to do good onto others.
It’s my personal beef, but I can’t zip my mouth and not point that out to anyone who might feel like they can wave $250 off without much thought. I realize our resources vary different here. But poor or needy is poor or needy in all of our communities and something to think about!
I generally see favors and mutual ‘doing for another’ as not having a price tag. I’d easily foot a large bill for one couple, who’s spent far more on us in home dinner invites, doing the driving, etc. But I don’t read that core reciprocity in OP’s situation. Don’t see that value in the relationship.
We don’t go to $$$ places just for the name. And frankly, the last thing I’d order at a top notch place is steak. But this thread isn’t about who dines cheaply or stays in. It’s about an expectation left unfulfilled. I don’t see any of this as a love message. Just the missing good manners.
It’s different if the other couple had been lavish in other ways. One friend invites us to her winter condo rental, defines a rough time frame, but says, stay as long as you wish. She doesn’t let us contribute to the rental cost, just, “You can pay for dinner one night or cook a dinner for everyone at the condo .” When we travelled last fall, I used hotel points in SF to seriously upgrade us at a primo location, it didn’t go into our later accounting.
In a close relationship, this works itself out, over time. But there were a lot of different things we had each paid for. What she did say was, “Want to set a meetup to reckon who paid for what?” We did that. (She owed me about 100, so it wasn’t chasing me.)
Maybe next time this person laughs over forgetting a check, OP can do that. “Want to set a time to meet for coffee and we can reckon up?”
Why is it so hard to be direct without feeling guilty when you are the one who has been disrespected? I have this problem myself. Maybe OP should call the woman or take her aside when she sees her and just say, “Listen. We gladly settled the bill when you needed to leave quickly, but it has been X months since then and you still haven’t given us your portion of the bill. It feels like you don’t value our friendship, don’t respect us, don’t realize this is rude behavior, or have genuine trouble remembering important tasks need completing. We can afford to absorb the expense but that isn’t the point- the point is you should have fulfilled your responsibility promptly, as I would have if we owed you the money. That is what real friends do.” If she doesn’t pay OP back, I’m wondering if she does this to other friends and no one speaks up?
I would certainly mention that it has been over six months. My sister always had excuses why she couldn’t give me one of mother’s rings. When I finally lost my cool told her it had been over six years since her death I had the ring in a couple of days.
I recommended a SASE in post 43. No personal contact needed, just a polite note that this will save anyone from having to remember, always harder as we age.
Whatever you would order at a top notch place is probably the last thing someone else would order. Not sure how that’s relevant. The OP never said anything about going to the restaurant “just for the name.” The steak only came up as an illustration of how easy it can be to jack up the price of a meal (someone said they’ve never spent even $50 on one portion). Fill in the blank with some other pricey food item if you prefer. Some posters have focused as much on the price of this meal as they have on the main point, which is that the “friend” has promised numerous times to repay the OP for their share, yet has time and time again neglected to do so when she has had ample opportunity. I personally think we’ve gotten sidetracked by the the price of the meal, when that is actually completely beside the point. Whether her portion was $25, $100, or $250, for me the biggest issue is the repeated broken promise and the entitlement or disrespect implicit in that refusal to keep her word.
Right. But others mentioned and we’re all recounting personal reactions. Right, the point is payback. And maybe you find it irrelevant that I would have piped up with an immediate “Let’s get the check pronto and settle it now.”
But OP understands this may be water under the bridge now, a loss.
A SASE won’t remind someone alliwing themselves to forget.
DH and I often go out with friends and one of us will pick up the check-the other party usually says “okay, we’ll get it next time.” That can sometimes be tricky in that it can be easy to forget whose turn it is. We went out Friday night with our friends. DH was certain that we should pick up the check, but the other party insisted it was his turn, I think because they were our guests at our D’s wedding two weeks ago. DH argued and it almost got to that point of being too much. I actually do think the best policy is to split the check. Major things like one couple not drinking while the other couple orders an expensive bottle of wine should also be considered.
The OP’s scenario of a quick retreat does seem strange. I can’t see why taking just a few extra minutes to settle the bill would have truly impacted their babysitting scenario (absent anything like an injury or health crisis).
I recently took an all-women trip with some college friends which included lots of restaurants and bars (New Orleans). A few days ago, I got a check for $10 from one of my friends in the mail. She didn’t include a note and I had no idea what it was for so I texted her and she replied that I had paid for her drink at one of the places where you just walk up to the bar to order and pay. I vaguely remembered it after she told me but honestly didn’t care about the $10 because first, it’s only $10, and secondly, she could just pay for my drink the next time we got together if she was concerned about it.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, I began to worry that I might possibly owe money to one of the other women who had summoned all of our Uber drivers and so I texted her and asked about it. She replied that we were square because I had paid for her breakfast one morning but the whole experience made me realize that some people keep much closer track of expenditures than I do and that next time we travel together, I really need to be mindful of this, even though I owed nobody any money.
That said, I would be completely mortified to learn that I owed anyone even $50 and would rush to reimburse them the moment I realized it. If someone owed me $250 and indicated that they knew they did, and then failed to pay me, I would feel MASSIVELY disrespected. There is simply no excuse for that and I really wouldn’t care how my husband felt about it. I would really resent having to be forced to mention it and would seriously reconsider that friendship because it would have shown me a side of this woman that I hadn’t known about previously. I would always have that in the back of my mind.
We had a customer owe us a bit of money for longer than expected and when they finally paid in full they sent us a $125 gift cert for a local restaurant by way of saying they were sorry it took longer to pay. That was unexpected and a nice surprise. If I were OP, I would also have a hard time letting it go completely, too. Since your husband has moved on (and mine would have too) next time she brings it up I would say “Why don’t you just make a donation to X charity instead and have them send me the receipt”.
My H would erase this from his mind also. Sounds like the guys are more willing to let this stuff go.
It’s a shame to hold onto stuff like this because if you really do enjoy someone’s company for dinner then it hurts you to cut them off.
And H might be getting more from the experience than you which is why he’s willing to overlook it. It’s not just OP cutting someone out—she’d be making that decision for H too.
As a guy, I have to chime in and say that while guys may be more willing to let things go after a certain amount of time has passed, we’re also much (much) more willing to outright ask for what we’re owed so it doesn’t get to the point of dragging out in the first place.
In my case I would probably have setup venmo or whatever and let the other party know to pay me via that medium along with a texted link to instructions on how to set it up. Or simply said something like, “Hey I’m in your neighborhood tomorrow, want to meet up for a cup of coffee? Great, I’ll come pick you up and you can write me a check while I’m there.”
Alternating turns buying meals works for me, but in OP’s case since it’s been 6 months then clearly they don’t eat out together often enough for that to work.
Well, I hate to say it, but I think you will just have to accept that you value her friendship more than she values yours. You and your husband must really enjoy this couple and if your DH wants to let it go then there is that to consider, too. Personally, I’d never forget and it would alter my giving nature towards her.
A “friend” frequently forgot her wallet and then asked to stop for a coffee that included food for her D.
I resorted to pulling out $10 or so and showing her that was all I had to spend. I grew to resent it.
She also stiffed me on theater tickets. We are no longer friends.
I would send an email with the Venmo set up and include my mailing address as well.
I would simply say that I want to clear this up before we go out together again.
IF she suggested we go out I would clarify that they would be picking up the tab.
These things do not go away until they are addressed.
I think if I would go out with them again and when time comes to pay the bill, I would say that I figured their turn to pick up the tab since we got it last time. If they did not or could not then that would be the end of it for me. In the grand scheme of things not that much money to see what they would do when presented with the opportunity to pay up.
I would not wait until the bill comes as they could pull the “gotta go- we’ll pay you back” stunt again. Better, IMO, to square up first, then going forward, separate checks. And NO, do not pay theirs if they have to “rush out”. Reminds me of Bluto and Popeye “I’ll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today”.
