How not to act on a date
 

Man invoices his date for half the cost of dinner

Subject: Invoice 6/12/04
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 17:15:59 EDT

Dear Dana:

On June 5, you agreed to accept dinner, paid for in full, by me, based on your stated offer that we would go out again. In that you have ignored all overtures to said follow up meeting, you are hereby considered in breach of contract.

To that end, you are being invoiced for 50% of the cost of the dinner, pursuant to the offer. For the record, the offer presented you with the option of not going out again and paying for half of the dinner, or going out again and not paying at all. You accepted these terms, choosing to go out again, as stated above, but have since failed to deliver your end of the agreement. In that this was merely a promise to meet, and not a promise to marry, the agreement is binding under New York law and does not require a written agreement (i.e. statute of frauds).

Furthermore, this is absolutely not a joke.

Your share is 50% of $74.51 which is a total of $37.25. Payment in full is expected within 30 days.

You may remit to:
Andrew Goldberg
720 Greenwich Street, #4d
NY NY 10012


This, apparently, is a true story. You can read all about it here:

http://prdifferently.typepad.com/my_...t_to_act_.html

They even have recordings of the voice messages that he left on her phone.

Re: How not to act on a date
 

Excellent...what a lunatic lol. Oooop sorry no K on the way gotta spread IOU :)

Re: How not to act on a date
 

She should have gone Dutch treat. :rolleyes:

Re: How not to act on a date
 

She did offer to pay. He refused the offer. No self respecting normal guy/girl would do this. This guy had a screw loose.

Re: How not to act on a date
 

He now claims it was a hoax:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/goss...p-367962c.html

Though -- the original letter says above his name is Andrew; the site says his name is Darren.

Though I could well imagine an attorney pulling this scheme. :rolleyes:

Re: How not to act on a date
 

Maybe but my wife reckons that American women would find going Dutch to be definite turn-off. Or, as she puts it, 'you'd never get anyone as hot as me in this country by going Dutch and not buying expensive gifts all the time'.

Clearly, he's a lunatic but what are the rules of dating here and how do they differ to Europe?

Re: How not to act on a date
 

If you go on a first date you split the bill. However if one person insists they will pay, you dont make a scene. If the paying person then acts like a freakin lunatic cos you dont call them for a second date you get down no your knees and thank your lucky stars that you avoided date 2.

Re: How not to act on a date
 

Don't bring him into it .... ;) :D

Re: How not to act on a date
 

Eh?

As a professional woman I work in a world where men and women are equals. I grew up this way in a very low-income family. I wouldn't feel comfortable with a man buying my dinner on the first date; or I'd want to buy the next dinner. If a man proposed a restaurant beyond my means, I might let him buy if he insisted but only after I'd proposed an alternative.

Sheeesshhhh.... if a woman insists on flowers and chocolates and free dinner on the first date, run away.

The Dutch are notoriously cheap and pinch every penny -- hard. Observant Jews believe that no one should pay a penny more or less than what they owe, because they would then become either a borrower or a lender, and that might create hard feelings. All seems sensible to me.

Re: How not to act on a date
 

who? :p

Re: How not to act on a date
 

His perfect date would be a tour of the Airbus factory.

Re: How not to act on a date
 

If I ask someone to dinner, That is, if I say, "Would you have dinner with me?" I would expect to pay. If, on the other hand, I said "Shall we have dinner together?" I would be ready to pay, but open to going dutch. I really don't think that status professional person or not makes any difference, it is in the asking. If in the first case, the invitee said "If we go dutch." that would be ok too.

Re: How not to act on a date
 

Exactly how I feel

a lot of american women want a free ride based on what I have experienced with my friends spouses.

We split our bills down the middle and have legally joint but operationally separate bank accounts.

She can spend what she wants on whatever crap springs to her mind and I can do stuff that she would have a problem with if we kept our money joint, buying mods for my car and investing in property.

I think this is far better than having joint bank accounts where one or both partners lie or hide purchases from the other partner who would not approve, these people invariably criticise us for keeping stuff separate - which smacks of hypocrisy

Re: How not to act on a date
 

....with followup Q&A press conference?

Re: How not to act on a date
 

I take it he didn't get a blowjob afterwards then.