“I thought it was a joke”: Man baffles date with $3 Venmo request for half the fries
A Redditor would like to know if she’s wrong to feel taken aback after her date sent her a Venmo request for her half of their shared fries. It sounds like he was willing to pay for the meal, but the next day asked for $3.25 to cover half of the side dish, even though she left the tip.
The author of the Reddit post thinks this was a petty move, and many commenters agree.
Is $3 worth losing the chance for a second date?
According to u/Be4rp4wt00, she and her date shared a meal of burgers and fries, and seemed to be under the impression that she wouldn’t owe him anything. The next day proved her wrong.
“We got burgers and fries to share, and I offered to cover the tip since he paid for the meal,” she wrote. “This morning, I woke up to a Venmo request for $3.25 with the note ‘half the fries.’ At first I thought it was a joke, but nope, he was serious.”
“I declined it and texted him that it was petty. He responded saying I was overreacting, that ‘it’s about fairness’ and ‘that’s just how he is.’ Now I feel turned off and honestly insulted. My friends are split, some think I’m being petty too, others think it’s a red flag. Am I overreacting?”
There seem to be some contradictions at work here. If this man wanted fairness, then it stands to reason that they should have split the bill evenly, including the tip. Furthermore, if this is how he is, perhaps he should have mentioned that before he went on the date and paid for the meal.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to split costs on a date, but some folks prefer a more traditional approach. The issue of bill splitting comes up frequently on Reddit, especially after failures to communicate preferences. In April, one Redditor tried to get his date to pay for her half after the fact, and she came back at him with homophobic slurs.
In this case, however, the small amount requested set off alarm bells.
"It just shows how petty he is"
Commenters widely agreed with the OP that her date was being pretty weird over $3.25. This led other women to share stories of dates who demanded money after they were denied the ending they envisioned.
“Let me ask you this, did he at one point try to become intimate and you denied him?” asked u/Nekojita8. “I'm only asking because that's what I also experienced.”
“He even TWICE refused my offer to pay half of the meal while we were at the register.”
"Same thing happened to me!" replied u/master0jack. "Went out with this guy, had a great time. I offered to go Dutch multiple times but he insisted on paying the tab."
Others simply could not wrap their heads around someone ruining their chances with someone over $3 and change.
"It just shows how petty he is," said u/Ok-Soup-514. "Anyone with a brain knows that requesting three bucks back will 100% guarantee no future date. He's telling you that the $3 is more valuable than your company."
There is one more possible answer. One commenter suspected that he may have been testing the OP on how she would respond to the request.
"If he paid for the burgers, asking her to pay half of the fries is probably some sort of test," wrote u/ceciliameireles.
"A friend of mine went through something similar. The guy she was seeing asked her to pay him back like 5 bucks for a coffee and when she was taken aback by it he told her he was testing her to see if she was only after his money. Turns out the guy was a redpill weirdo."
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s newsletter here.
Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.
The post “I thought it was a joke”: Man baffles date with $3 Venmo request for half the fries appeared first on The Daily Dot.