'I refused to pick up the tab for a girl I am casually dating - she's dumped me'

Figuring out roles in dating and establishing boundaries for both men and women is a huge part of the early stages of getting to know each other. It can be a bit of a minefield especially if one person doesn’t meet the other’s expectations. It’s a dead giveaway that the pair might not be all that compatible or that someone just isn't that into the other if they date for months and it doesn't seem to progress to more than just a casual status.

A man took to social media to ask if he was an a** h*** for not picking up the tab for a girl he was casually dating, in a group meal setting. He did however pick up the tab for his sister and her friend making his crush feel somewhat excluded.

The 28-year-old said he’d been getting to know a girl called Lisa, 26. They met through mutual friends and casually dated for about three months. Over that time, they’d only met three or four times, usually for drinks after work. He explained: “The first time we met we paid for ourselves as we were in a group setting. I paid after that and it was very minimal. Maybe £8 - 12 ($10-15). It was very casual.”

One evening he was with his sister and her best friend when Lisa messaged to invite him to join her and her friends at a restaurant. He asked if his younger sister, 21, and her friend of the same age could join too and Lisa said, ‘The more the merrier.’ He added: “We met up and had good conversation food and drinks.”

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When the server asked about how they wanted to divide the bill at the end of the meal, the guy said he’d pay for himself, his sister, and her friend. But opted to leave Lisa to pay for own meal.

He wrote: “Lisa looked surprised and asked, ‘Are you not going to pay for me?’ I said no.” He went on: “She then pushed and asked why and I bluntly told her we are not at that stage where I will shell out that kind of money for her. I silenced the table.”

In spite of Lisa’s reaction, the man stood in his conviction that she was already going to the restaurant with her friends and invited him along last minute. She would have had to pay for herself if he couldn’t join her. “I invited my sister and her friend to come with me so it's only right that I paid their tab," he said.

“Her friends tried to give me a hard time but I did not budge. I asked Lisa why she was not offering to pay for me since she invited me to this dinner and why did she expect me to pay for her?” After Lisa had been publicly shut down for making such a scene in front of all her friends, he revealed that all she could offer as a counterargument was that "a gentleman would pay."

He continued: “I told her I was a gentleman but no pushover. I paid my share and retrieved my sister and her best friend from the dance floor and we left. She later sent me a text saying that I embarrassed her.” He admitted that Lisa was upset he’d spent over £237 ($300) on his sister and her friend but refused to do the same for her.

He finished: “It annoyed the living hell out of me. I told her that we were casual she was not my girlfriend and told her to find another sucker to wine and dine her. I then blocked her.” In his rant on Reddit, he revealed he had spoken to his 21-year-old sister’s best friend, who said he was ‘in the right’ for not paying for Lisa. Yet, he knew Lisa’s friend thought he was the opposite of a gentleman for publicly shaming her that way.

Wanting to know if he was in the wrong, he finished: “I paid for her drinks before but now she expected me to pay for her very expensive dinner. Am I the a**hole?" While most commenters agreed he shouldn’t have to pay if he didn’t want to date her seriously, others urged him to see it from Lisa's point of view.

One person wrote: “You were slightly rude to her with some of your replies, but she had it coming.” While another person offered: “The embarrassment came when you paid for your sister's best friend but not her. Probably because, as casual as it is, she considers you guys to be dating. If it was just your sister, then that wouldn't have been a thing. But then you also paid for her friend, who you are not dating, and not her, who you are dating. I don't think anyone is the a**h*** here. I think she just thought the relationship was more than you did, that's all.”

One more said, “You were correct. This was not a date. She was already going out with friends and would have covered her own meal and drinks if you had declined.”