(Three attributes of likable characters, on Jared's Inkwell - JMG)
Story Sent in by Jeana:
Andy and I were out to Sunday brunch on our first date. He had left the table to go to the bathroom about three times before our meals were served. I asked him if he was okay.
"I have diarrhea," he said.
I asked him, "Are you going to be all right?"
He pointed a finger at my face and said, "I need stool hardener. Will you wait here for me while I go and grab some?"
"I–er, okay."
He put his napkin on the table, stood up, and left.
When he came back, the food had been served, and I had waited for him, just to be polite. He said, "You didn't have to wait for me."
"I wanted to. Are you okay?"
"I took stool hardener, but it'll be a little while before it works." Finally, we began our meals, but not a minute later, he stood up again.
This time around, as we had already started, I didn't feel as bad about continuing my brunch without him, so by the time he came back, a lot of my meal was gone. However, I felt bad for him, and I wasn't going to rush him through his meal. It was a little strange that he had agreed to go through with our date, given his condition, but whatever.
On his return, he gave me a nasty look and said, "Oh, so just go ahead and eat without me."
I said, "We had already started eating together. If you're this sick, then why don't we just see each other some other time?"
"Don't you tell me what to do! Who do you think you are? You're a little girl! You don't talk to me that way, little girl!"
That shut me up, but soon, something happened for which I didn't even realize I had been praying. After he gobbled down some food and drank down his orange juice, he rose up to use the bathroom again, without a word.
This time, I called the waiter over and said, "He'll be back to pay the check once he's done in the bathroom. I'm not feeling too well, so I'm going home."
Thankfully, the waiter took my word for it, and I left Andy to pay the check. It was probably one of the rudest things I had ever done, and my face had never felt so hot with... I don't know. Rage? Humiliation? Didn't matter. I left there, and no amount of angry phone calls, texts, or emails from him would convince me that I had done the wrong thing.
Should I have done any differently?
You should have paid for your part of the meal.
ReplyDeleteI think it was perfectly fine to walk out on this guy -- even if he really was ill he had no call to speak to you as he did. What I don't think was fine was for you to walk out without paying. How do you know the guy didn't come back and the waiter got stuck with your bill? A compromise would have been to wait until your date came back to the table, then left. Whether or not he paid at that point, the restaurant could see him at the table and then deal with it (you could leave money for your part of the meal on the table as you left him, if you wanted to.)
ReplyDeleteYes, you should have done something differently....and that thing was NEVER ask commenters what you should have done differently!
ReplyDeleteThat being said, you should have paid for your part of the meal and he should have taken "stool hardener" instead of "stool softener".
PS. How the hell could you eat with all this going on? Talking about diarrhea tends to put me off my eggs and french toast.
I'm with the OP here. I don't think she should have paid for her half. The guy was an asshole and deserves to be treated like an asshole (no pun intended).
ReplyDeleteHowever Jody makes a good point that it's possible the waiter got stuck with the bill. In hindsight I would have probably given the waiter my half of the bill as a 'tip'. But in the heat of the moment, especially being that angry, completely understandable to just walk out.
Yeah, you want to prove to him that you are a "little girl," passive-aggressively walk out without paying for your own food. If it's not-a-date (or turns out that way), everyone pays their own way.
ReplyDeleteYeah, when the story continued on after that, I stopped reading. I came straight to the comments because OP sounds like an idiot.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure I agree with the OP not paying her portion of the meal.
ReplyDeleteI don't think women should automatically think men should pay for the meal or drink when you go out.
Regardless if he's a complete dip shit as he obviously was in this story. Handling it the way it was handled doesn't make the OP any better than him - just saying.
While I wouldn't have stayed either, I would have paid for what I ate or ordered as I highly doubt I would have had any appetite after him being so blantly open about his bowel movements on the first meeting.
Shut you up? If someone, ANYone talked to me like this and called me "little girl" I'd have immediately left and maybe even slapped him.
ReplyDelete