Last week, 23 year-old Amanda Burnett recieved an invoice weeks after a first date with the most entitled 23 year-old man in Indianapolis, Indiana, as reported by the Independent.
Image credit: Twitter
Apparently, Amanda didn’t text the dude back after the date, so he decided she needed to pay him for her food and drink from the night. Twitter blew up with support for both sides of the story; people who agreed that the jerk was obnoxious, others who felt he was right to request an invoice, and that Amanda must have been scheming for a free meal.
"Nice guys" from all over the internet crawled out to be sure their generalizations about women were heard. "Why do people (mainly women) want free rides?" I would appreciate free uber rides, tbh. "Wow this woman has no morals and can’t afford to pay for her own meal." Yes, refusing a text back is certainly the largest indication of unacceptable morals! “If you don’t have the decency to text the guy back he’s in every right to make you pay for the meal. Only fair!”
Let’s lay a few things out here.
Photo by Herson Rodriguez / Unsplash
1) If you offer to pay for something, don’t ask for reimbursment later.
I always split the check on dates and in relationships. I’d never expect my date to cover it. However, IF I offer to buy dinner in any circumstance, there’s no way I’ll be sending an invoice later. Would a business buy dinner for a potential client, then ask for a refund if the deal fell through? Absolutely not.
Photo by Allef Vinicius / Unsplash
2) Buying dinner for someone does not mean that they owe you.
Paying for dinner on a first date does not mean that your date is now indebted to you. You aren’t even owed a text. If you want to spend money with other implications, hire an escort instead.
3) A first date is not a relationship.
So she didn’t text him again. Who cares? It was a first date, not a relationship, and not a marriage. Not texting back after going out ONCE hardly qualifies as ghosting. After all, who would want to reply to the type of person who sends invoices after bad first dates? Based this other story of a dude who demanded repayment for a drink after being rejected by a woman, it doesn’t matter if you text back or not.
The date in question had the audacity to threaten sending the bill to collections if Amanda did not pay it. She responded appropriately with "hahahahaha f*** off".
Image credit: Twitter
I avoid all of this mess by splitting the check. If I wanted to be as petty as Mr. Entitled, I’d go ahead and send Becky from 2nd grade an invoice for the friendship bracelet I made her since we’re not on speaking terms anymore.
