FREE LUNCH

My friends and I have a mutual acquaintance in common. Let’s call her the Mooch. She never RSVPs to formal dinner invitations, yet halfway through the meal, she ambushes the restaurant we’re dining at and winds up at our table. She stares longingly at our plates and always inquires as to what we’re eating. Someone usually breaks down and offers her a fork. By the time dinner is over, she’s managed to finagle an entire meal out of the situation. Now here’s the ultimate dilemma. When the bill arrives, she never offers to pay. We’ve seen her devour everything…from an entire pizza to a sushi platter to the last of our crème brûlée. We want to address the situation without hurting her feelings. Do you have any suggestions?

—A La Carte Blanche

The Sales Guy says: No offense to womankind, but this type of behavior would never happen at a dinner gathering of hungry dudes. Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say it would not happen a second time. The life lesson learned after the first incident would surely remove any questions a male mooch may have concerning any further breach of dining etiquette. We males may have some innate flaws but failure to be brutally direct about other’s hands in our food is not one of them. If we offer, fine, but never assume. Also, keep your hands off of our women, money, and recently polished motor vehicles…and the remote, of course.

Walk Away Renee says: Isn’t it clear? You send her an invitation to, say, Rue Franklin or Oliver’s, and when she fails to RSVP the rest of you decide on the spur of the moment to go somewhere else. Maybe she can find someone lonely and rich as she waits at the bar, and then she’ll be his problem, not yours.

The Practical Cogitator says: I suggest next time Grabby Greta shows up to cram your table, whomever she sits next to should offer up a little cough, or a simple ah-choo…Out of concern for Greta’s health, you can explain, you’d never want her to catch your oncoming cold, and politely suggest that she keep her fork to herself. Then graciously wave the waiter over, and alert him that you have a newcomer to the party who’ll need a beverage and something to eat, and in fairness to the rest of the dinner party, would he please make a separate check?

The Gay Perspective: This mooch is an amateur. How about the friend who, when you are ordering a drink at a bar, adds a drink (typically top shelf) to the order, ostensibly to buck the wait for a bartender, but actually in order to stick you with the tab; or the “friend” who calls you the day before leaving for two weeks out of town asking to leave his car in your driveway in order to avoid parking fees at the airport and then leaves a message in your voicemail saying that “Mom’s sick” and he won’t be back all summer? We all know the person who never has his wallet, never has correct change, always needs a ride, never has his own cigarettes, etc., and these people are counting on the basic non-confrontational nature of most people, and on our great desire to be polite. Why spare her feelings? That’s how she is manipulating you. Be confrontational. Call her out. Cheerfully tell her she’s a freeloader and skinflint to her face in front of others and refuse to budge. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that one confrontation will cure her. It won’t. Generosity comes from the heart, but cheapness is embedded in the DNA.

The Straight Skinny says: Here’s a tale of two friends, who were regulars at a weekly table for six or eight at a local diner: One was a notorious freeloader, dropping three dollars in the kitty at breakfast when he owed closer to ten, forgetting his wallet, or—the ultimate cliche—opening his wallet and saying “All I’ve got’s a hundred dollar bill. Can you get me this week?” One Sunday, the other friend had had enough. The cheapskate dropped a five on top of the bill, and the frustrated friend said “Wait.” While the rest of us looked on, struck dumb and secretly thrilled, he tallied the cheapskate’s breakfast tab: with two glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice, about $13. He then took the cheapskate’s hundred-dollar bill to the register to make change.

For the rest of us, it was liberation—like a brand-new, perfectly awesome national holiday. We had all suffered the cheapskate too long, and would have continued to suffer his parsimony, but for the act of one brave man who’d had enough.

One of you must be bold. No passive-aggressive games, no setting snares that might backfire or be eluded. Just let her have it, in front of the whole table.

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