'AITA for refusing to pay in full for a meal someone else took home from the restaurant?'

"AITA for refusing to pay in full for a meal someone else took home?"

I (20F) went out for dinner with a friend (20F) and her boyfriend (20M). By accident I ordered a dish that I couldn’t eat (this was my fault). When it came time to grab the bill my friend and her boyfriend asked if they could take my meal which was barely touched.

I said sure since I wasn’t going to eat it and it would be a waste otherwise. A couple days later her boyfriend reached out asking me to pay for my portion which included the food they brought home.

This caught me by surprise since again, they were the ones who ended up eating it all and it felt like being asked to pay for part of their meal. If they hadn’t done that I would have paid in full since it was my mistake for ordering the dish. I explained this to him and asked if they could recalculate the total. Her bf said he understood and gave me the new split, which ended up being 20 dollars less.

I paid the remaining ($10) but it seems like afterwards they weren’t very happy and have since refused to hang out. This is the first time something like this has happened and there have been times where I have covered the meal without really caring if I got the money back just because I wanted to hang out. Since we were already growing distant in our relationship I kind of just let it be.

When I brought it up in passing today a different friend said she disagreed with my actions and claimed that they were helping me by not wasting my food. To be honest I still don’t really see how this was helping me as either way I wasn’t eating it. I also think that by taking the food it was a choice they made that they should be accountable for. Again if they didn’t take the food I would have paid for it.

This feels like if someone ate your food and still asked you to pay for it. It’s not something I would do to anyone else and I don’t think it was wrong of me to voice my objection considering how the bf even said he understood. That being said, I feel bad at how the friendship fell apart over some dollars. AITA? Should I have just paid the full meal?

The internet did not hold back one bit.

QueenoftheUWS wrote:

YTA. Social etiquette can be challenging, especially in your early 20s when you are learning the ropes of dining out as adults and managing your own finances responsibly (obviously there are exceptions to this).

Your story involves several interactions where etiquette comes into play. Not wanting to pay for a dish you ordered but could/did not eat is valid, even if you were technically at fault for misordering.

If wasting the money had been your concern you could have easily told your server the problem — 99% of the time they will take the dish off your bill, regardless of which end (yours or theirs) the mixup occurred on! But you said this wasn’t the case, and your actions clearly demonstrated this to your friends.

Your friends tactfully waited until the very end of the meal when you did not ask for it comped and it would go straight to waste if they didn’t take it themselves. Beyond mere etiquette, it comes across as ungenerous and even stingy — you would rather pay for a meal that went to waste than let that meal go to a friend? Is there a financial element to this friendship you’re leaving out?

If I was hard pressed for 20 dollars I wouldn’t be paying 20 dollars and still leaving hungry. Your friends likely aren’t mad at you on principle so much as confounded why you would rather throw that money in the trash than treat them to a meal you were planning to pay for anyway…

(Also, why did you all wait several days to settle the dinner tab with each other?) Saying they should be “accountable” for their choice to…not let food go to waste….among friends, no less, is very bizarre. Do you feel competitive with this couple? That would shed some light on your disproportionate reaction to the whole scenario.

I disagree with your friend that they were helping you, I think that’s also the wrong choice of words — but why would you be unhappy to let a friend have a meal “”””on you””””? Moreso, why would you make that known to said friends that you felt this way? You keep reiterating that “if they didn’t take the food” you would have paid for it, but this is largely what makes YTA.

This is anti-social behavior in the literally sense of the word. The boyfriend probably said he understood because he didn’t know how else to respond to such a bizarre request and would rather just pay the $20 than spend his time trying to explain basic etiquette to someone with a concerningly low social IQ.

The closest you come to understanding why social etiquette matters in adult friendships is when you acknowledge (albeit without taking responsibility) that it is in fact silly to ruin a friendship over $20. Unfortunately, I think paying the $20 can’t fix the weirdness created, because it’s not about the money it’s about how your view is just plain weird.

prairiescary wrote:

NTA. I’m going against the grain for a couple of reasons. First, this should have been settled at the table when the bill came, not them asking you days later for more money. Second, I am imaging this happening with my friends. The bill comes and I go to pay for my share; my friends would never let me pay for the food that I didn’t eat and they were taking home.

Beautiful-Way-2259 wrote:

YTA. And how you don't see that amazes me. Of course you had to pay for it. You ordered it, you made the mistake so you couldn't eat. They asked to take it and you agreed. If they knew they had to pay for it why would they ask?

Gdobbs13 wrote:

YTA - you ordered the dinner and made a choice not to eat it (the reason why does not matter). You could have asked to take it home to give to someone else. You didn’t do that so presumably, the food would have gone to waste. Your friend is simply not wasting food that you didn’t want. You order it, you pay for it.