January 14, 2025 at 11:49 pm

College Student Joins Friend’s Dinner After Being Pressured, Then Gets Hit With A Venmo Request For Groceries She Didn’t Expect To Pay For

by Heather Hall

Source: Reddit/AITA/Pexels/Kampus Production

Generally, when you split costs with friends, it’s something that’s discussed ahead of time.

What would you do if a friend invited you over for dinner, insisted you come after you’d already said no, and then sent you a bill for the groceries? Would you just pay them the money? Or would you be hesitant because you weren’t expecting the request?

In the following story, one college student finds herself in this exact situation and is unsure what to do. Here’s what happened.

AITAH for being hesitant to pay my friend for dinner SHE invited me to?

I (19F) have a friend (20F) I’m really close with at college. She’s one of those extremely rich international students, and sometimes she acts out of touch, especially with what she did recently.

Basically, she wanted to have a “cooking night” at her apartment and invited me and one of her friends to join. The plan was that we all cook dinner together and eat.

Honestly, I wasn’t feeling up to cooking because I had a super long day with classes. So I told her I wouldn’t be able to come.

Later, she sends me photos of them cooking and then photos of the food prepared on the table.

After dinner, her friend asked for payment.

She then called asking me to still join them. I was reluctant, but she was insistent, so I decided why not.

So I go to her apartment, and the 3 of us have a good dinner. It was actually fun.

However, it got weird after I went back home and immediately received a text from her asking me to “Venmo her $9.42 for groceries used.”??

My first thought was ***? I thought I was invited to dinner with my friend, not a restaurant.

She’s very confused and trying to make sense of the request.

If I had known I was being charged for dinner, I would have had even more reason to stay home. It’s even more frustrating because she’s eaten dinner at my apartment before, and it never crossed my mind to “charge her for it.”

IDK if that’s just because I come from a low-income background and was taught to be kind when it comes to money.

I’m trying to make sense of why she’s charging me, and the only thing that comes to mind is that I didn’t help them cook and still ate. I highly doubt she asked the other person there to Venmo her.

Like I said, she’s very well off- like she dropped $53,000 on her car – all cash. So it’s not like she’s in a desperate situation for $9 – which makes it more confusing that she would do this. I really wanna know if I’m wrong by being hesitant to pay. I definitely will pay because I still value the friendship, but I find this kind of weird.

Eek! That’s awkward, to say the least.

Let’s check out what advice the fine folks over at Reddit have to offer her.

As this person points out, for someone with money, this girl lacks class.

Source: Reddit/AITA

Here’s someone who thinks she should explain her POV to the friend.

Source: Reddit/AITA

This person thinks the relationship may be ruined.

Source: Reddit/AITA

For this person, it’s all about principle.

Source: Reddit/AITA

Maybe it’s a big misunderstanding.

She mentioned that her friend is from another country, so it could be customary where she’s from.

Either way, if $9 is that big of a deal, she should sit down and talk to her friend about it.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.