'AITA for going on a date-night with my wife's friend after picking her up from the airport?' UPDATED

Eating dinner alone with someone doesn't have to be a date, it's all about the vibe and framing.

"Am I wrong for going on a date-night with my wife's friend?"

TL;DR: My wife asked me to pick up her friend at airport, and we had dinner on our way. She posted photos on Instagram and my wife was not happy and accused me of going on a "date-night" with her friend.

I went out for dinner with one of my wife's friend last week when my wife was out of town. I wanted some honest opinions on if I did something wrong here and how big of trouble I am in. So, to give full context, my wife was away for a week visiting her parents. She has a friend Amanda who she has been friends with for many years.

Amanda has had a rough patch, where she broke up with her boyfriend and also lost her job. My wife has been supportive of her. Last week, Amanda had an interview and asked my wife if she could give her a ride home from the airport. As my wife was out of town, and my office is near the airport, my wife asked me if I can give her a ride on my way back from work.

I did not have any plans and agreed. Amanda and I are not really friends, and I only interact with her when we meet socially. I told Amanda to message me when her flight gets to the airport, and I can pick her up. I picked her up around 6pm and we were driving home. We were just having small talk about the new company she was interviewing at and her work in general.

Amanda told me she does not have any food at home and if we can stop by at a drive thru so that she can pick up some food. I was also hungry, and I suggested we can stop by somewhere and have quick dinner before I drop her home. She agreed and started searching for places on the way. She punched in an address to a restaurant on the way and we drove to that place.

We did not know this, but this place was pretty fancy Italian restaurant. She said, this looks too fancy, and I said we are already here, so let's eat. I messaged my wife we are getting dinner, and she said ok. We had a pretty fun evening and a nice dinner. She had a few drinks, and I did not since I was driving. We generally never talk much, but she opened up to me and we had a very nice chat.

I never knew Amanda and I had so much in common and liked the same music and movies. I did not notice, but we were at the restaurant for one and a half hour. Amanda was taking pictures during dinner and also asked the server to take our picture at the end of the meal. I dropped Amanda home, she gave me a quick hug and said thanks for such a nice evening.

I called my wife; told her I dropped Amanda and am heading home. She seemed busy and I just let her know I reached home and said good night.

This is where things got a bit weird. Amanda messaged me around 11pm saying thanks for the ride and she had a good time. She sent me our picture together.

I saw the message, and just liked it to acknowledge it. Later that night, Amanda shared some of the photos from our dinner on her Instagram, including our photo together and captioned it as dinner with friend. I am not friends with Amanda on Instagram and did not see it. Next morning, my wife called me and asked me how my "date night" with Amanda was.

I laughed it off and thought she was teasing me. But my wife sounded pissed off and kept on asking me about all the details like when I got home, which I was happy to provide. That night, my wife called me again and told me that Amanda told her about the night before. The issue was Amanda made the dinner sound way nicer than what it was.

She kept on praising me for how I was a gentleman, and treated me better than most of her dates, how I am a good listener, paid for the whole thing, etc. I feel Amanda also added fuel to the fire by telling my wife all the wonderful things I did for her during the evening. My wife feels I should have asked her before inviting Amanda to such a fancy place for a romantic dinner.

She was also pissed that hundreds of people liked Amanda's post on Instagram and she feels disrespected that her husband is going out on "date night" with her single friend when she was out of town. She also jokingly asked me how our goodnight kiss was, and I told her it was just a hug. That seemed to make her angrier.

I have not even told her about the late-night message from Amanda, and me liking the picture with a heart emoji, because I am too scared at this point. I wanted to ask if I was wrong to invite Amanda for dinner, when both of us were starving and it was dinner time. Do you think my wife is wrong and overreacting to all of this?

I was just being nice to her friend (who she asked me to drive home). I also communicated with my wife all through the night and she seemed ok with it at the time. She only got offended after she saw Amanda's insta post. Should I call Amanda and tell her to talk to my wife and explain it was just a friendly meal and I was not being inappropriate?

People had a lot to say in response.

Significant_Beyond95 wrote:

YTA - Would you be okay if your wife went to a nice dinner out and had drinks with a single male friend of yours, not hers, hugged him, took pictures, all without asking you if it bothered you and not telling you what happened and you found out from social media? The fact is casual observers interpret you going on a date with a woman that isn’t your wife. Getting drive-thru is one thing, this is another.

OP responded:

I just went for dinner with her. I was expecting to go to a diner or something but was a nice meal anyways. Yes, I understand if my wife would have done all those things, it would have bothered me.

However, I was messaging my wife thru the night, and she never once raised a flag that she was uncomfortable. I also talked to my wife after I dropped Amanda. I think her problem started the next morning after she saw the Instagram pics.

hick_rick wrote:

Feels like ah, nta all at the same time. Seems like there’s a level of naivety around the escalating situation. The early portions of your story are definitely innocent and honestly what a lot of people would do for close friends of a SO. But how could you not see this escalated into an awkward situation?

Fancy romantic dinner setting, potentially intimate conversations, bit of PDA towards the end. At no point in the evening did it occur to you “this feels like a date?” Probably owe your wife an apology regarding the misunderstanding.

OP responded:

I will be honest here. I was slightly annoyed I had to pick Amanda at the airport because I had my whole evening planned out. I was going to go home, get drunk and play Sea of Thieves with my friends. I really did not notice we were in restaurant for such a long time.

The dinner was not romantic at all, but you know how pictures on insta can look. In hindsight, I know why my wife is mad at me, and I am just scared at this point for the fallout. Help!

Complete-Design5395 wrote:

Bro why the hell would you want Amanda to talk to your wife and convince her it was an innocent, friendly meal? Amanda is the one asking for pictures, hugging you, late night messaging you, AND posting on social media. Are you dense?

Amanda is stirring the pot and not acting like a friend to your wife. Stop talking to Amanda. F Amanda (figuratively). YOU talk to your wife. Ugh, side note: asking waiters for pictures is so cringey imo.

LeaJadis wrote:

Your wife’s friend played you like a fiddle. Every choice YOU made was reasonable given the circumstances. However, Amanda is clearly stirring the pot. taking pictures, posting them online, and drinking heavily…those texts afterwards.

And you should never EVER text Amanda. I’d tell your wife that Amanda’s text after dinner and her Instagram post made you uncomfortable and regretful for doing Amanda a favor and you should block her.

Snoobeans3499 wrote:

You what? Want to call Amanda and have her smooth things over with your wife? Your level of stupidity is mind-boggling. You muppet!

The next day, OP shared an update.

I made a post yesterday about going out for dinner with my wife's friend when my wife was out of town visiting her parents last week.

She posted our photos on Instagram and it would be an understatement to say that my wife was not happy about it. I have been getting cold treatment from her since the incident. A lot of the comments made me believe that I something really horrible. However, I knew in my heart that I did not have any wrong intentions and decided to just be honest with my wife.

She came home yesterday evening, and I went to pick her up at the airport. I went on my charm offensive and got some flowers and chocolates on my way. While my wife was happy to see me after two weeks, I could see she was a bit annoyed by me. I asked her if she wants to stop by for dinner at a restaurant and she gave me a look, and told me to keep driving and we will order takeout.

She also asked me to cut the bulls**t and be normal. After we reached home, we settled in and I got the dinner ready. I decided to be direct and asked her why the incident is really bothering her. I told her that I know she is not an insecure person, and she also knows I would never put myself in an inappropriate position.

While I understood why she would be annoyed by the situation, I would not expect her to doubt me. She was the one who trusted me to pick up her friend in the evening from airport. As it was dinner time, and her friend said she was hungry, it would have been rude of me to not offer to get food for her. Also, my wife knows that I always offer to pay for dinners, irrespective if it is my friends or hers.

It is just the way I was brought up and we have fights during family gatherings on who gets to pay. I asked her what was the thing that was exactly bothering her and why she was ok during the night when I kept her updated about everything, but got upset in the morning. My wife told me that the whole situation smelled funky to her. She told me that she does not doubt me one bit that I had any wrong intentions.

However, the optics of it all was really bad for her. She said that she is not upset at me getting dinner for her friend. She would expect me to do that, and Amanda also appreciates it. She said that the issue started early morning when her mom barged into her room to show her Amanda's post. Her mom thought I was going out with Amanda behind my wife's back.

My wife told her that she knew I took her out for dinner and told her about what happened. She then got a lecture from her mom about how naive she was, and this is how affairs start. My wife said that it annoyed her a lot. Her mom also looked up the restaurant and told my wife that it was a very pricey place and was voted "Best Place for Romantic Dates" by some magazine.

She said her mom completely freaked out after seeing my picture with Amanda. So, my wife looked up our credit card statement and realized I had spent a lot on the meal. She also said that Amanda has a huge social media following on Instagram and posts a lot. I think she is like a fitness influencer or something, but I don't really follow her.

Even though most of the pictures in her post were of food, the last photo of me and her looked like a "boyfriend reveal" as we were sitting next to each other. She told me I won't understand as I am not on Instagram, but this is how people announce they are dating someone now a days. As the day went on, Amanda got more than 1K likes on the post, while a lot of people commenting and saying we looked nice.

She was annoyed Amanda did not correct any of them. So, she called Amanda in the evening to ask her to take the last picture down. However, Amanda kept on praising me and how I was charming and fun. Amanda told her that for all these years, she felt I was snobbish and pretentious (I am a huge introvert, so I come off that way), but she was wrong.

My wife said this was annoying because she has never seen me be charming with any of her friends before when she is around. Amanda was talking about all my favorite bands, and how we should all go to see a concert sometimes. Amanda told her she posted our photo because she has never been treated to such a nice place before and wanted to acknowledge me in the post.

My wife never asked her to take down the picture because of that. She then had a lot of questions for me as to when I dropped her off, why I walked her to the apartment building door and when I got home. I told her I can show you exact times and receipts for everything, but do we really want to be that couple who questions each other about every little detail.

She can check when we got the credit card charge, the messages I sent her after dropping Amanda and our ring camera in garage and come to her own conclusions. She asked me if she thought Amanda was flirting with me during the night, and I told her that was not the case.

In fact, Amanda messaged me our photo at night, and I just sent an emoji instead of engaging in a conversation (mostly because I was busy with my video game). That chapter was closed for us and neither Amanda nor I messaged each other after that. Amanda is my wife's friend and I do not intend to be close friends with her anyways, as I have my own friends.

I also insisted to her that Amanda was not inappropriate in anyway during the night and maintained proper boundaries. So, this incident should not affect her friendship with Amanda. Infact, if Amanda had any bad intentions, she knew my wife was out for the rest of the week, and would have tried to message me again. But, she forgot about the evening and so should we.

Overall, my wife seems to be back to normal after the conversation. My wife is not an insecure person. I could see why she would be annoyed by the situation. However, I know in my heart that I will never disrespect our marriage and I had no reason to be sneaky or lie about the situation to her. I am glad we talked it through, and I was able to answer all her questions. Thanks again for all your suggestions.

The comments kept coming in.

Flynn_JM wrote:

How much was the dinner?

OP responded:

It was around 300 dollars overall with tips and stuff. The food was pretty good though.

Flynn_JM wrote:

300? How many courses did you get?

OP responded:

Five I think. We skipped the desert course though coz it was too much food. I remember the song because it is one of my fav bands. It was "Every Little Thing" by Police.

Flynn_JM wrote:

Five? So an app, a pasta, a meat? What else? Did she keep ordering or did you? That's def a romantic song. No wonder her followers think you're her new boyfriend. Lol. And she's just letting then think that? When you go to that concert, get ready for her to maneuver some pics with just you. You know, for the fans. 🙄 What music went over the insta post?

CavyLover123 wrote:

This sounds like Amanda might not have done anything inappropriate with you- but she is an influencer and she benefits from the online attention. And she’s milking it- at your and your wife’s expense. That's selfish. She knew what she was doing. She played it for follows/ likes.

Jayseek4 responded:

Also, there’s taking your wife’s friend to dinner ‘cause it’s dinner time & she’s hungry—and there’s taking her to a pricey, romantic restaurant and letting her take multiple photos for SM posting. Would influencer Amanda have done that if the restaurant was less ritzy? Probably not. I would be annoyed…not for lack of trust; by OP’s lack of common sense.

Usernameisphill wrote:

It's great that this worked out for you man, but be sure that your wife will NEVER forget this interaction. Amanda and her relationship are forever changed because of it. As is her perspective towards you and how you and Amanda operate together. You would do well not to mention Amanda for pretty well any reason again.

BodyElectric1334 wrote:

The one thousand likes bugs me a wee bit mate, I like my privacy I’d have something to say about that kind of surprise publicity. Is she a PR rep or something? She should have asked you if she could put you like that in front of one thousand people you don’t know.

I’m only saying as a man this is a weird overstep for a woman to make, especially on a non-date. I would ask her to take the photo down out of respect for my privacy since she doesn’t seem to know what that is. Simple as. I don’t fault you at all really - Amanda needs to dial the desperation down a wee bit. I have a really low tolerance for clingy types.

I don’t have social media for that reason, I don’t like to be shown off like an accessory, you know, ‘look what I own now’ no. That’s the only part that I’m annoyed with. The night wouldn’t have been weird if Amanda didn’t put you on the front page of her very active IG account. Glad things worked out with your lass though.