I have such cheap friends. My roommate turned thirty this past Saturday and for that, he naturally decided to make a celebration of it with his friends. He created the event and hosted it himself. That's important to note: This was not a surprise party or a party being held in his honor, this was an event that he had created and he was hosting.
I'll admit that I didn't even want to go and was still feeling that way right up until the last minute. Remember, I'm pissed that he isn't looking for work and that he does nothing around this apartment despite being here the whole day. Occasionally he'll do the dishes...but only just as I was about to do them. He did that once with the bathroom too. I set everything up to start and then and only then did he volunteer to do it (and do it poorly as he did not clean the floor - why else would I have taken out the floor cleaner? --- he didn't clean the wall tiles in the bathtub or the sink or the outside of the toilet bowl either...). I'm also not happy with his masseur business and the fact that he brought clients home without telling me for a time (he also brings guys home for anonymous sex too that he meets online...this I'm not happy with either. It's the same thing as his clients. Just because he's not getting paid [or paying them] doesn't change the fact that he's bringing a person home who has not been vetted). All these things played into me wanting to ditch him on his birthday last minute: It would be the only time I could effectively hurt him. But I talked myself out of it, got up early like I was supposed to, and went to the event all the while carrying a nagging suspicion.
The family-style restaurant we went to was loud. For some reason, acoustics are not factored in to these places. This is the third restaurant of three that I've been in that I can't hear anyone (even those sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME) when it's at capacity. These places should be designed like music studios with sound absorbing walls, but instead it's wood or stone or any hard flat surface that easily reflects sound. I guess they do it because they had a sense of décor in mind but while it might look beautiful, it creates a bad conversational atmosphere. Thankfully one of the roommate's friends (whom I've met before) is easy to talk to and we kept as good a conversation as we could given the atmosphere going throughout the time I was there. Our groups need a roundtable format, seriously. There were fifteen of us, but I was only in range of three. The only good thing about the night was my schadenfreude over the seeming fact that the girl I was seated next to seemed to be playing my usual role, the wallflower, that night. Who knew I could ever be anywhere but at the bottom of the social totem pole?
Dinner was lacking. There was salad and bread as appetizers but I'm not a salad guy. I eat few vegetables as is and salads inevitably have ones I won't eat and are covered in oils which I would prefer not be on my healthy foods. The main course was lasagna and two variants of chicken...all of which were meaty and salty. I desperately needed a vegetable chaser like corn or green beans but none was to be had so I ended up eating very little.
I still had to work that night so I had to leave before dessert arrived. Thankfully I wasn't the only one leaving so I was able to secure a ride to work (though I was still late...funny how the only times I have ever been late to work was when I got a ride there!). As I'm leaving, the roommate calls me over and asks me for forty dollars to cover my share of the meal. I gave him the money while restraining my inner unhappy surprise.
Really?! I had to pay? Understand, I'm not saying this because I am cheap and fuck you if you think I am. You don't host an event and expect the attendees to pay. That's just rude: It's a violation of basic etiquette. I'd like to say I've never heard of this before, but in 2008, I got the same thing from another friend in my college group.
She had her birthday and like my roommate created the event (posting the invitation online) and hosted it at a Korean chicken restaurant in Manhattan. I and my roommate (who mentally, I was still on good terms with) went out together to go see her. Forgetting for the moment that the acoustics in this place were particularly bad (I couldn't hear ANYBODY the whole night) and the $25 minimum order (what the fuck is that?), at the end of the night we were both expected to pay for ourselves and for her. That irked me then. This current event irks me now.
Who the hell does that? When I had my 30th birthday, my Mom hosted the event. Outside of immediate family, I invited six people (only two of whom showed...). Guess what? Mom paid for the whole thing and not because she's generous but because that's what you're SUPPOSED to do when you host an event. Even impromptu stuff, the host paid be it my Mom, Dad, me, my best friend's parents, my best friend's grandparents, my uncles, my aunts, etc. etc. etc. because that's what you do. So many of my and my brother's friends have gone to movies courtesy of my Dad and never had to pay (they got popcorn and soda too). It infuriates me. No one in my family is well-off: We're all decidedly working class...but that's what you do.
I rarely host events but I have and will continue to do so. I tend to keep such events small because I can't afford to do much. But it's a simple metric --- if I invite you out to a planned event, you're not paying. If you invite yourself along, you're paying; but not the other way around [e.g. if I were to mention that I was going out to see a movie and you wanted to come along, you're paying but if I invite you to come see a movie with me, you don't pay. Get it?]. It doesn't bother me to do so. I figure what goes around, comes around. If I invite you out, you will invite me out at some point.
Oh well, once bitten...twice shy. I should've known this would happen because seriously...how could he have afforded such a place on his Unemployment Insurance? There's no way he's sucked enough dicks for money to cover it otherwise... Either way, if he could not afford to host a dinner party, he should not have had one. Hosting one anyway and expecting your attendees to pay is just plain ignorant and selfish. I just can't go out to events hosted by my college friends anymore...
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ADDENDUM: I should note that my roommate left me a note with thirty dollars writing on it that he felt bad that I ate so little (I think he thought this was so not because I was sated on what I had eaten but because I had to leave so soon into it and the dinner started later than planned). This in of itself does not negate the previous entry. I would NEVER have gotten thirty dollars back if we were not living together. I just would have had a $20 piece of lasagna and a $20 piece of chicken parmesean.
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