In a viral thread involving an age-old debate, commenters were quick to side with the thread's author, who explained that they always pay for their girlfriend and their friends whenever they go out.
Posted by u/SweatingOverStocks in Reddit's widely-popular r/AmITheA**hole subreddit, the thread is titled "AITA for telling my girlfriend that I will no longer be paying for her friends," and has received more than 11,000 votes and 2,700 comments in just four hours.
Writing that they feel like "the ATM of the group," u/SweatingOverStocks explained that every time they go out with their girlfriend, whether it's date night or a night out with friends, they are responsible for picking up the tab.
"What happens is, one of us pitches going out, and about 50% of the time its date night, just us two. 50% she texts these friends and it becomes a group event," they wrote. "What can also happen is date night turns into a bar hop which becomes us meeting up with her friends."
"Last Monday, don't ask why because it's non-sensical, the dinner bill was $667," they added.
One Google search will show that the debate over who should pay for dinner out or a night on the town is as heated as ever. There are thousands of articles and online forums discussing the very topic and based on the wide variety of opinions expressed across the internet, there is no definitive answer.
However, in 2018, Elaine Swann, founder of The Swann School of Protocol, told the Chicago Tribune that the easiest way to determine who should pay is to determine who invited the rest of the party out.
Swann explained that if one person invites another person, or a group of people out, they should be responsible for the bill at the end of the night. But if a couple and a group of friends mutually agree on a time and place together, Swann says everyone should be prepared to pay for themselves.
According to u/SweatingOverStocks, neither their girlfriend nor their friends agreed with this line of thought. Writing that they told their girlfriend that they would no longer be paying for her friends' dinners or drinks, the Redditor said she responded poorly, and accused OP of being "unwelcoming."
"[She] feels as though I'm being unwelcoming to her friends and worries that if she tells them that their food and drinks is on them, that they'll resent her for it," u/SweatingOverStocks.
In the post's top comment, which has received over 22,600 votes itself, u/Smhlhhach told the original poster that their girlfriend and her friends were using them for money. Echoing the same sentiments, u/Mykiedawg encouraged u/SweatingOverStocks to take a closer look at their relationship.
"If her friends resent her because her boyfriend no longer buys them everything, they are sh*tty people," they wrote. "If she cares more about that more than she cares about your feelings, well... that might be worth reevaluating the relationship."
Other Redditors assured u/SweatingOverStocks that they were not the a**hole in this situation, and thousands more reiterated that it was unreasonable for their girlfriend to expect them to pay for her and her friends every time they went out.
While u/SweatingOverStocks responded to a handful of commenters about their girlfriend's financial contributions in other areas, the response to their viral Reddit thread seems to have pushed them to a major decision.
"Guess I can cancel my plan to go ring shopping," u/SweatingOverStocks wrote.
