“Honestly Insulted” — Woman Receives $3.25 Venmo Request for French Fries After Date

A 28-year-old woman was shocked to see a Venmo request from a 30-year-old guy she went on a date with, which she shared to Reddit's r/AmIOverracting sub. The woman, who posted under the handle @Be4rp4wt00, delineated what happened after their night out, which included a meal of burgers, and "fries to share."

During their outing, she indicated that she had offered to pay for the meal's tip as the man "paid for the meal." The following morning, she saw a Venmo request for $3.25 that had a note appended to it, indicating that the man had expected her to cover "half the fries."

At first, she thought he was joking about the expenditure, but soon learned "he was serious."

She outright declined the Venmo request and opted to directly text the man instead and inform him that she thought he was being petty. Her date argued that his request was "about fairness and 'that's just how he is.'" Unsurprisingly, upon speaking with him about the debacle, she mentioned that she was "turned off and honestly insulted."

Further compounding her frustration is that she reached out to her friends to get their two cents on the matter, and she mentioned that they "are split" on the issue. The woman penned, "Some think I'm being petty too, others think it's a red flag." At the end of her post, she asked other users on the platform, asking if they thought she was overreacting to the Venmo request.

Following her post, a number of people shared their own thoughts on the matter, which included a reply that received over 3,000 upvotes on the social media site. The fellow Reddit user speculated that the man's Venmo request might be retaliation for any intimate advances that were shot down by the woman, and they shared their own anecdote about a date gone awry.

They said that they went out on a date with a guy who wouldn't allow her to pay for a meal that they shared. Afterward, they went out to a bar, where the woman started feeling sick. She said that she ended up puking in the bathroom, which she attributed to food poisoning and not any drinking, as she hadn't even finished half of her alcoholic beverage.

The date, the Redditor stated, was exceedingly kind, accompanying her to a local pharmacy so she could get nausea medication, and ensuring she got home safely in a taxi. However, he attempted to go upstairs with her to her place, but the woman stated that she was in no condition to have company.

This is when the man's tone completely shifted. Upon learning that he wasn't invited into her place, he stated that the woman had led him to believe that he was going to spend the night. This is despite the fact that she had offered to pay for half of the cab ride that they had shared together.

After their argument, the woman headed back into her place and "continue[d] expelling liquids out of both ends for hours before passing out." Following this, she woke up in the morning to "numerous angry texts demanding $90 and an itemized payment request from some cash app." She went on to add that the man had "tried to charge [her] for dinner, the entire taxi ride, and the medicine" the man had purchased for her at the drug store after she had fallen ill.

According to the food blog Delish, first date etiquette rules suggest that the person who asks someone out to eat should be the one to foot the bill for said outing. Furthermore, the author of the article indicated that they had polled other people about this practice, and they agreed that this was "the most sane option of all, especially if you're unaware of the income level of your date."

In this instance, the golden rule of not looking a gift horse in the mouth applies. So if a person asks to take you out somewhere, then they're going to pick the restaurant, which means that they're probably going to select a place where they presumably don't have an issue with covering the bill.

However, when it comes to men and women shelling out cash for first dates, this 2024 New York Times article indicates men are often grabbing the folio at the end of the night. One woman quoted in the article stated that whenever she offers to pay for some of the evening out that the men she sees "get a little stiff when [she] offer[s] to pay."

The same piece cited a 2023 survey of 552 heterosexual college students revealed "that young men paid for all or most of the dates around 90 percent of the time, while women paid only about 2 percent."

However, as time progressed between couples, bill splitting became a bit more frequent, but not by much. The couples reportedly only went Dutch on date expenditures 8 percent of the time.

Moreover, the disparity in bill-splitting expectations was rather wide, with 80 percent of men stating in the study that they expected to cover date costs, with 55 percent of women saying that they thought men should pay for the first date.

What do you think? If a man and a woman are going out to eat, should the man pay? Or do you think that whoever suggests going out should be willing to put their money down, since they're the one asking for said outing?