I (M26) have been dating this lady (F23) for \~6-months now. As a way of doing something nice, I setup a reservation for the both of us this past Friday night at a relatively nice restaurant.
Eat food, have a couple of drinks, and have a good time, really enjoying myself and her presence. Time comes for the bill. I put my card down not looking at the bill and get a text from my credit card company for a \~$190 transaction to which I say, “oh wow, that was quite a bit of money”. Keep in mind we both make a decent amount of money working in the same field, so by no means are we hurting, but her response to my reaction was that it’s not that much money and she’s used to having to pay more for dinners with exes. Think to myself “weird comment but okay”, I really like this lady.
I get the bill back and go to fill out a tip when she states “put down 20”. Yeah, I’m good with that, service was decent, no issue. I start to pencil in $20 when she says, “No, 20%”. Excuse me? The service was good but \~$40 on top of what I’ve already paid? No thank you. I make the point that America is the only place where tipping culture exists and it’s kind of silly I have to pay a tip to begin with, but her thought process is that if you can’t afford a 20% tip, you shouldn’t be eating at that place… I’m dumbfounded and don’t really know how to defend myself. I stumble over my words and she tells me I’m giving her “the ick” for not tipping 20%. Ouch. I’m a little annoyed at this point because I just spent \~$210 on dinner, including tip, and I’m told I’m giving her “the ick” before I get a “thank you” for dinner.
I shut my mouth and tell her I’ll defend myself when we get to the car. Finish our drinks, head back to the car, and then get headed home. On the way home, I break the silence by telling her I don’t appreciate being told I’m giving her “the ick” after paying for what I thought was a relatively expensive dinner and that it came off as ungrateful considering she hadn’t said “thank you” up to that point, I also went on to state that I grew up poor and maybe thought the price of dinner was expensive relative to that.
Rest of the car ride was silent. Get back to our apartment complex (she lives in a separate unit), get to my apartment because we were supposed to hangout and play video games after dinner, she thanks me for dinner, tells me she’ll Venmo me for dinner, and then continues walking back to her apartment.
She tried Venmoing me the $210, which I adamantly declined and Venmoed back. She then sent this text: “I am grateful for dinner whether you believe that or not. I enjoyed it. I appreciate you planning, taking me, and paying for me.
Also, I am not wealthy fyi in case you think I’m loaded or am only interested in guys who are loaded.
Good bye (my name). Appreciate everything you did. Don’t send my money back. I’ll give you half.” And follows up by sending me $105.
AITA? Please be critical with me.
Edit: born and raised in America
Edit: seems like there’s an assumption that I knew tipping culture means 20% minimum. I must have been living under a rock because I honestly didn’t know that. Looking up minimum wages for servers in my state was a bit eye opening and explains why it’s looked upon poorly to tip less than 20% for good service. I’ll own that.
Writing up this post, I had it in my mind that I was more so in the right. Reading through the comments and looking up minimum wages/standard tipping practices is making me feel really dumb/putting me in my place. Appreciate the feedback from everyone. Thank you.
Reading this I get the sense that you come off as out of sync with societal expectations and feel a little resentful.
20% is definitely standard tipping in the US. On a deeper level my guess is that this is not the first time this dynamic has come up between you two – otherwise, she would likely have discussed this with you to try to make this work. Feels like you both put your foot down at the same time and there was a huge incompatibility in terms of how you want to live your lives
Why should tips be a % of the total bill ? Does the waiter/waitress work harder bringing your plates of food out whether the bill is $50,$100, $200 , $500 ?
We all participate in a system that we don’t like. I personally feel that restaurants should pay their servers a livable wage and not accept tipping. If that happened you would still spend $230 on that meal with zero debate.
But you choose to do something nice (dinner) and want to play by your own rules (tipping 10%) then you have to deal with how others view that. She respects that the server needs to make a living, you don’t. 20% is *customary* not excessive.
My point is this: you just traded in someone you care about over $20 because your “principled” view on a society you wish you had but don’t.
YTA. Before you even get to the tip, it’s incredibly tasteless to take someone out to dinner and then comment about how expensive it is. As for the tip, I likewise am bothered by tipping culture in the US, but it is the culture you are living in. Servers rely on tips as part of their income and cheaping out on that when you are on a date is definitely going to give your date the ick.
Appreciate the feedback. I can see how bringing up price would be tasteless. Another commenter mentioned how it’d make someone else feel like a burden which I thought was insightful
Also YOU choose the restaurant. You could have done more research so that you weren’t shocked and unprepared. Part of planning an activity is knowing you have the funds to support it. Go to an Applebees/diner/bar for apps&drinks if you’re concerned about your budget. You designated the nice place so you pay the price for upscale. You denigrated your own skills of planning and deduction by not being aware of the menus’ price points.
Yta but it seems like you get that now. Make the full effort- not just part of it. And then you didn’t even own your error in planning- you just passed the blame onto greedy restaurants.
YTA. You take your gf out for a nice dinner and then make a comment about the cost. That’s the first ick for me. Then you think leaving 10% is ok and try to defend it by blaming American tipping culture? You don’t have to agree with tipping culture… most people don’t, but we also recognize that that is how waitstaff makes a living. I would have done the exact same thing as your gf. There is nothing worse than a cheap man. Nothing. Most women would prefer that you take them somewhere less fancy that you can afford (and that includes a tip) and not have to hear about the cost or get secondhand embarrassment from your low tip. I’m not sure why she made the comment to make sure you tip “20” but likely it was because she didn’t trust that you would do that on your own. I would date a poor, generous man before I would date a cheap wealthy man.
Something I don’t understand is why tipping is talked about in pp rather than the nominal amount. Why do servers at a cheap restaurant automatically ‘deserve’ a lower tip than those working at an expensive one? I don’t live in the US so I might be missing something.
It’s because of the expected service. For example, the expectations of a server at the Cheesecake Factory or your local Thai place vs a server at a Michelin star restaurant are wildly different.
The local place severs just need to be nice and take your order. At a Michelin star restaurant, they need to know the dishes, the ingredients, the sourcing, accommodate preferences etc. It’s all about the experience and hence you get what you’re paying for.
YTA. “Tipping culture” is bad, but you know it exists, and you agreed to dine in a restaurant under that social contract. By not tipping appropriately, you’re only punishing the other people who struggle under this system: the working class servers, bussers, food runners, bartenders, and hosts who depend on those tips to make a living wage. The restaurant owners will continue to profit off of others’ labor and won’t notice the slightest bit of difference. This decision reflects on your character, and your date was right to take notice of it.
In the future, if you object to the practice of tipping so strongly, get takeout. Or, if you’re ok to tip but don’t have the budget to tip 20% on a $200 check, don’t go to a place that charges those kinds of prices.
ETA: I appreciate your edit. those with the most resources in our society want us all—working-class and (what used to be) middle-class—to fight among ourselves, and that’s a huge part of what tipping culture does. but our real fight is with them, the ones who profit off of our conflict. advocate to end tipped wages, by all means! but until that’s done, don’t punish your fellow workers because they’re trapped in the same system you are
Don’t take women to places you can’t afford. The minute you said ‘wow, expensive’ you effectively expressed regret for inviting her.
Next time take your lady for burgers because that’s clearly more in your comfort zone.
If you’re in America, YTA if you don’t tip.
Servers rely on tips to make their wages. Yes, it’s a cruddy system that needs to be done away with… but until that happens, you need to tip (unless you received truly god-awful awful service).
10% is not an adequate tip. Servers are expected to make a certain amount in tips: mostly to make up the difference in their wages, but also because many places split tips or share with the back of house and other positions. And if the server is receiving bad tips or no tips, it reflects badly on them, even if the poor tip was just because of a stingy customer and not the fault of the server.
The restaurant wants servers who get good tips, because 1) that means the restaurant is less likely to have to pay them more (restaurants are required to pay the difference if the server doesn’t make at least minimum wage after tips), and 2) good tips mean more money for everyone else if tips are split. So if a server received poor tips (again, even through no fault of their own), then in the restaurant’s eyes that means that server is a liability and could cost them money. Restaurants are more likely to just let that server go because of ‘poor performance’ than to pay them more because they aren’t making enough in tips.
Bottom line: if you’re not willing to pay $40 in tips, don’t go somewhere where dinner costs $200. If you can’t afford dinner **plus** the tip, then you can’t afford to eat there.
There’s two totally separate things going on here. One is about the rights and wrongs of tipping. Another is about the interpersonal thing between you and her.
On tipping, I’m bowing out. I have my views but there are cultural standards and expectations. Some people care about that; some people don’t. I’m not American and it’s not my place to comment on American customs.
On the interpersonal aspect though — giving this a lot of thought, I’ve got an ESH. On your part, as the host, commenting on how expensive a meal that you’re paying for is gauche. You know how expensive it’s going to be from the very first time you looked at the menu. That’s a surefire way to make your guest feel, at best, awkward, and at worst attacked.
Her reaction to that also sucked. Comparing you to exes is a weird thing to do. My guess is she felt a little caught off guard by your weirdly commenting about how much the meal cost, and so she felt like she was being attacked as a gold-digger and responded defensively, but she also managed to do that in a pretty graceless way.
The fact that you then both got into an argument about tipping, right there at the restaurant, is just bizarre. I’m not a ‘go along to get along’ person, but I am a ‘pick your battles’ one. You both put being right about tipping above how your behaviour was affecting one another, and how you wanted the evening to progress.
You both then start to improve a bit — you addressing the issue honestly and explaining that you felt unappreciated was great, at least if it came out as reasonably as you wrote it here (although doubling down on both the cost and the tipping was def not great). Her text was also great, she clearly recognised how you felt and didn’t want to take advantage of you.
If you like each other, give yourselves a bit of time to cool off, and maybe reach out with a ‘hey, let’s just put that behind us, and try again’. I’m sure you can both do better than you managed that night.
Gonna give you some advice. First, don’t be cheap on a first date or set the standard lower with a less expensive date. The cheapest, coupon loving penny pincher I ever dated still knew to not act that way on our first date. But we also went to a less expensive establishment.
Second, don’t date your neighbors. I was given that advice many decades ago by a guy who was hiding in his apartment trying to dodge the neighbor he didn’t want to hook up with anymore.
YTA for using “tipping culture is toxic American BS” while still going to restaurants. Stand by your convictions and don’t participate or shut up and pay. Right or wrong, American or universal, it’s not a surprise fee.