If You Extend Invitation, You Pay

Dear Miss Manners: I met a very handsome, charming lawyer when I was his client. He told me I was beautiful and that I looked like a famous movie star.

I instantly fell in love and left him a note after my case was finished. He called, and I invited him out to dinner. He accepted, picked me up at my house, and we went to a French restaurant I had suggested.

We had a great long dinner with heavy flirting, but then the check came! I thought that because he was a lawyer and thought I was beautiful, that he should pay. He thought that because I was loaded and had invited him that I should pay, although he didn’t say that directly.

I looked at him and he stared at me and after I did nothing, he very reluctantly got out his gold card and said, “I’ll pay - this time.” For the entire walk back to the car, he kept staring angrily at my designer handbag, and he hasn’t called me again.

I don’t want to have won the battle but lost the war. I sent him a card offering to buy him dinner sometime, only if he wanted, but he hasn’t responded at all. Should I mail him the money for dinner and a note saying I’m sorry, or just forget everything and try not to kill myself?

Gentle Reader: Fortunately, Miss Manners is not professionally bound to defend her clients zealously; when they are in the wrong, she is free to attack them. So duck.

You violated the first principle of hospitality, which is that of providing for your guest. Who pays is not a question of gender and occupation, as you seem to believe, although the one that lawyers pay is a new one on Miss Manners, as she imagines it is on the profession. Nor is it a matter of means and designer handbags, as you seem to believe he believes.

Miss Manners is not enthusiastic about approving the manners of a lawyer who makes flirtatious personal remarks to a client while doing business, but he is certainly right if he believes that your inviting him means that you should pick up the bill. She is afraid that your then saying you would buy him a meal only insults him again with the idea that you recognize his having driven a hard bargain.

Although Miss Manners doesn’t hold a lot of hope for this romance, she believes that the last desperate measure is to plead insanity. Write the gentleman a letter saying you can’t imagine what you were thinking of when you allowed him to assume the responsibility (no mention of money - this is a time for euphemisms) for the dinner to which you invited him, but you would be grateful for the opportunity to make it up to him.

Dear Miss Manners: We are a couple of non-drivers and need favors at times - rides to the store for groceries, to the doctor for visits, etc. We are good friends with a person who drives and she is very gracious about helping us, but she has a hard time receiving any thanks; she is embarrassed. We try to thank her once in a while with a lunch and a gift. Why, if we can accept a favor, can’t she accept our thanks? She does come into our homes and accepts a beverage, but even that embarrasses her. I notice she never invites us into her home for a fast stop off. What is her problem?

Gentle Reader: Perhaps it is the discrepancy between doing an occasional favor, for which thanks supplemented by a present or lunch is gracious recompense, and providing a service, for which reciprocation requires something more.

Driving two friends to the grocery store, visits and doctor’s appointments sounds to Miss Manners like a fairly steady job. Because the lady is a friend and a gracious one, she would of course resent being paid as if she were an employee. But she may also resent being short-changed in the friendly exchange of favors.

Is there a return service you could provide for her? If you cannot think of welcome assistance you could provide just as regularly, Miss Manners suggests that you make it a point to keep this lady’s tank supplied with more gas than she requires just to ferry you around.