Every 6 months or so my girlfriends family all get together. We all meet at a pub and have a meal and a few drinks. My girlfriends uncle always pays for everyone. Throughout the night people will order food and drinks etc. We all met up at the weekend.
While there I had a meal and three drinks. When I ordered my third drink my gf asked what I was doing. I asked what she meant and she said I was taking advantage of her uncles generosity.
I pointed out I wasn’t and that it’s what everyone was doing and it’s not like I was eating or drinking more than everyone else. We were at the meal for 4 hours so I wasn’t just finishing drinks quickly then immediately getting another one.
She just said I shouldn’t be having that many and that it’s taking advantage. I again pointed out it’s not like I was getting more than everyone else.
AITA for getting three drinks and "taking advantage of my girlfriends uncles generosity?
Might be the wrong subreddit but
YTA. Cause you aren’t a family member. You’re just the bf of the guy’s niece. It is indeed impolite to eat and dine like everyone else when you’re pretty much an “outsider”. You’re acting too comfortable for comfort.
If he’s invited to the event, he’s not an outsider. Inviting the guy and covering everyone’s tab but his would be super tacky and rude.
That’s not what I meant and maybe I didn’t word it correctly. There’s a difference between having your gf’s uncle treat you to a meal vs having your own uncle, sibling, parent, in-law treat you to a meal. Like it’s ok if I eat as I want even if my parent is picking up the tab cause that’s the dynamic we have. It wouldn’t be ok for me to order extra drinks when my bf’s uncle is paying.
I agree with you.
I wouldn’t consider ordering more than 2 drinks and a mid-to-cheap meal because it isn’t my family (and I probably would do this if it were my own uncle), but this is how I was raised.
If I were you, I would take her uncle and her out to dinner once as a thank you in return.
YTA
Same. The way I was raised, if someone who is not a parent or something like that tells you they’re picking up the tab, that means you have to be considerate and not order more than necessary. How considerate you have to be is correlated to your relationship with the person.
YTA.. You definitely took advantage. Just because someone offers to pay doesn’t mean you keep ordering, especially if it’s not what you would’ve done if you were spending your own money. Next time the meal and 1 drink is enough, anything after that you should pay for yourself
Your defense is that everyone else is doing the same thing, so you’re not taking advantage, but it sounds like everyone is taking advantage. Would you all be ordering the same amount of food and drink if you were all paying for your own?
INFO: what were you drinking? Because there’s a vast difference between if everybody was drinking the same (or extremely similarly priced drinks) vs if everyone else getting a third drink was consuming soda/regular beer at 3$ a piece and you’d already gotten two 7$ cocktails and were ordering your third. The exact quantity of the drinks matters less then.
Ordering the 3rd drink didnt automatically make you the AH. When your gf said it was one too many, you should have followed her lead as she’s experienced with her family. Getting defensive and doubling down pushed you into AH territory.
You see the uncle picking up the whole tab, but you don’t know if family is paying him back afterward or if they have another tradition that makes the pub nights even among the rest of the family.
YTA
YTA for coming here and asking for judgement, and then arguing with and insulting anyone who says anything you don’t like. You clearly aren’t interested in what anyone has to say, so why bother posting?
INFO: how many rounds of drinks did the the host & party get?
In this sort of situation, you pay attention to the host and follow the tone they set. If you got a drink every time the host started another round, that’s perfectly fine. If you caught a server to ask for another on your own, that’s a lot more questionable.
Soft YTA. It’s a little dramatic of your friend to say he’s being taken advantage of. If the uncle didn’t want to pickup the check, he could simply stop showing up, let everyone know ahead of time that he wouldn’t be picking up the check, or let your friend know that you’re no longer invited. I assume everyone here is an adult capable of communicating.
OTOH, she may be communicating a sentiment from her uncle. It is super generous of her uncle to pay for as much food and drink as he already has. If you want additional drinks, you could always casually ask the uncle if he’s okay with you getting another one. He will undoubtedly say its okay (it would be awkward to say no), so I would really pay attention to body language/non verbal cues for the answer. If he seems at all uncomfortable, I would either refrain from drinking any more or just go to the bar and get my own drinks on my own dime.
I would say that no matter what, now that she’s brought it up you should limit yourself to no more than 2 drinks at one of these events, given that you are not family but a guest. She’s set a limit even if the uncle hasn’t.
I thought it was generally understood that you don’t get more than two drinks on someone else’s tab, but maybe it’s a cultural difference. If your girlfriend is flagging it to you, she either thought it was inappropriate or someone bent her ear about it and she’s trying to correct what they said was inappropriate. Either way, it’s her family so you should be following her lead. YTA.
NTA, and this comment section is WILD with the Y T A judgments. Some of you people should never offer to pay for a group dinner because it sounds like you’re going to get upset if people order anything other than bread and tap water.
If the cost difference between someone ordering two pints of beer versus that third is going to be both noticeable and upsetting to you, you can’t afford to treat people to dinner in the first place.
This wasn’t a one-off meal, this is a thing that happens at least a couple times per year and the uncle pays every single time. Presumably he wouldn’t keep doing this if he was upset at how much people were ordering.
You ordered three drinks in four hours, which was consistent to what both everyone else AND the host himself were doing.
And in ANY case, even if you were ordering your third beer while everyone else was drinking tap water, your girlfriend bringing it up at dinner and continuing to argue with you about it with everyone else around was not the time or place to do that. She could’ve brought it up to you privately afterward as a heads up reminder for next time OR she could’ve said something before you walked in.
But it’s rude and awkward to bring that up during the meal, especially because again – you weren’t doing anything out of line.