'AITA for giving a friend a bill after hosting him?'
"AITA for giving a friend a bill after hosting him?"
dainsiu
A friend came to visit my country for 10 days and stayed with me and my partner. To show his gratitude, he brought us 4 bottles of wine , around €6-8 each. We drove him for over 1,000km for a few days to take him on adventurous trips around the country.
It’s usually expensive to rent a 4x4 and hire a tour guide here. We were essentially his driver, tour guide and host. We prepared a guestroom for him with toiletries in his own bathroom, made all bookings, and prepared camping gear for him. I thought the wine he brought would even out our “service” for him, and we picked him up at the airport at 4:30am to be a good host.
However, every time I took out my card to pay for our meals, he sat silently. I was happy to treat him for the first meal or two as a host, but after 6 days (like 7 meals), his silence unsettled me. The same when we had to pay for attractions, gas or groceries. No thank you, no offering, nothing. Just sat silently.
I admit I was never upfront with him about finances. I just assume as an adult in his 30s with a professional job in Germany, he would offer to pay for his share, chip in, or take turns to pay for meals.
He also never mentioned paying us back for the hotels we paid for him. I consulted him on the prices before booking, so he should know he had to pay. He only brought $200 cash here, and his hotels were already over $200.
He didn’t seem to plan to pay us back in cash. I was antsy. He also rented a sedan for city sightseeing in between but the car rental was at the airport. We gave him a ride to the airport at first, and he hinted he wanted more rides from us to take him home after he dropped off the car, and a ride to the airport for his 4:20am flight.
I told him to take a taxi, it’s less than €6. On his last day, a few hours before he flew, he still mentioned nothing. We presented him with a bill for his hotel, meals and groceries. He seemed taken aback. We told him we spared the gas in exchange for his wine.
AITA for giving him a bill that listed out all his expenses? As a host I should be more gracious, or upfront if I were transactional, but his silence, not even a thank you, upset me and made me give him a bill. This person is not close to me. We met on a trip 8 years ago and hadn’t seen each other for 6 years. He was interested in seeing my country.
Edit:
A lot of you asked why I paid for his hotel upfront. We got special discounts as residents so it had to be under our name, and in another booking we not only got resident discount but also added him to our room (an extra bed) so he could save more.
I communicated clearly, told him we got him a discount, and he asked how much the rooms cost. He knew he had to pay. On day 6, we asked him how he would pay us back for the hotels after knowing he didn’t have the cash for us, he said transfer. We hoped he would take the initiative to make the transfer before he left, but he stayed silent the whole time, until we asked again on his last day.
My partner and I felt it’s bad manners to make the host ask you twice about payment, so we ended up being blunt with him about the bill to draw boundaries. As for meals, we often ordered a family plate/few dishes to share so it’s hard to have a separate bill.
I didn’t invite him to come. He saw my photos on social media and planned to come with his girlfriend, but then they broke up and he came alone. If they were two people coming it’s more obvious we would split bills 50/50, and they wouldn’t have stayed with us for this long. We felt pity for him after his breakup and wanted to be nice.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
TapTheMic
ESH: He's an ungrateful user and you and your partner don't plan well or establish ground rules.
The reality is you should have had a discussion around costs before you invited him out.
Unless you establish that there is an expectation of payment for allowing him to use your home and what not, it doesn't hold up to request repayment after you have already given him those things. Would it be kind and polite for him to pay you back? Absolutely.
The fact is you never had that discussion with him. If you actually did push the issue with him he'd simply argue it was a gift because you never established beforehand that you were going to expect repayment for anything.
perpetuallyxhausted
OP also could have just stopped paying for his guest at any point in the trip. Either by outright saying "I'm only gonna cover my own", asking the waiter to split the bill or by just paying for one meal/ticket/trinket and then moving aside for the friend to move up to pay his own.
embopbopbopdoowop
You kept paying and never brought it up for TEN DAYS, then presented him with a bill. He may have found it odd as well, but perhaps assumed it was a cultural thing, that you wanted to pay and considered it part of hosting.
You said you’d bring out your card then look at him - easy to interpret that as “I’ve got this” rather than “last chance to jump in and pay instead”. ESH for not just talking about it.
neogeshel
Paying for him at all was completely bizarre to me but I suppose it's different in different cultures with hospitality.
laughinglovinglivid
ESH. He should have offered to pay for things, or at least said thank you, but you never established any kind of payment or terms with him, then dumped a huge bill on him.