'Dine-and-dash' dater could face up to 13 years in prison

[2mares]

Originally Posted by j7r6s

I wonder how many of those women were expecting him to cover the entire bill when they sat down to eat.

Originally Posted by budlight

What does that have to do with anything? The guy is clearly a cheap loser.

Everything. Going on a date does not obligate one to pay the entire bill. These women probably expected him to cover the bill, he didn't. Put your big girl panties on and pay the tab. Hopefully learn a lesson.
Jail time is over the top. Pay back the establishment for meals not covered and community service.

[budlight]

Originally Posted by 2mares

Everything. Going on a date does not obligate one to pay the entire bill. These women probably expected him to cover the bill, he didn't. Put your big girl panties on and pay the tab. Hopefully learn a lesson.
Jail time is over the top. Pay back the establishment for meals not covered and community service.

You contradict yourself. He is not obligated to pay the entire bill? He paid none of it and on one occasion he ordered two entrees. Now you are saying the women should pay the entire bill. Make up your mind. Do the women have to pay the entire bill but not the men?

Also you have no idea that the women expected him to cover the entire bill. That is your a$$umption.

[Reefmonkey]

Originally Posted by j7r6s

I wonder how many of those women were expecting him to cover the entire bill when they sat down to eat.

Originally Posted by DaveinMtAiry

100% of the woman I have taken to dinner in a date like situation, which this clearly was, expected me to pay. What's your point?

Originally Posted by ClaraC

I'm struggling with whether this is technically a crime.

Women do this with REAL regularity, either doing the exact same thing and feigning needing to go to the bathroom and exiting during a bad date, or indicating interest in the relationship and ordering lobster and steak and the most expensive bottle of wine, and then coldly leaving at the end. Is that the same?

What about when you get a group of 8 or so to go on a ski trip and split the lodge rental, and one person finds the ski lodge and pays upfront, and they go on the vacation but don't reimburse the person who put up the lodge rent. Is that a crime? I don't think so, although they could certainly sue in civil court and might win.

I see where people are going with this and I do think it raises an interesting side discussion. I remember back in my 20s, when I was single, I remember girls who would accept my offer to go out to dinner, or to buy them a drink, even though they had no interest in me, just because they wanted the free meal or free drink. I also fell into a social group where some of the girls bragged their Friday and Saturday night strategy was to get men to buy them drinks all night long so they didn’t have to pay anything. I even stopped offering to buy women drinks in bars because I became so disgusted by it – and yet I still met my wife in a bar.


The practice of women expecting men to feed them and cover their bar tab is sexist and objectifies men as well as women. It objectifies men because it reduces them to basically a source of income, and objectifies women because they are basically selling the opportunity for their company for the cost of a drink or a meal. It also puts the relationship on unequal footing – it is the man’s responsibility to pursue and woo the woman by lavishing her with drinks and meals, and reinforces the dangerous notion that now the woman “owes” the man for his “generosity.” And even in the bad old days, it was never good manners. If you read an old Emily Post or Amy Vanderbilt etiquette guide from the 50s, yes, women were not supposed to “pay” for a man as that was emasculating or other such bull, but if a woman accepted an invitation from a man and wanted him to keep inviting her out, she was supposed to reciprocate his invitations on a fairly even level by inviting him to do things – and the rules were that whoever extended the invitation was supposed to provide the entertainment and refreshments. So to avoid the appearance of “paying for the man”, women invited men over for a home cooked meal, or told the little white lie that they had “found” or been “given” theatre tickets. Now that we live in the 21st Century, women can pick up the check at restaurants too, and should be ready to do so as often as men do, if we really want gender parity in society.


Getting back to the OP, I certainly have been out in groups with cheapskates who have stiffed me when we were supposed to be splitting the bill. The common ploys are just paying for one’s entrée without factoring in one’s beverages, appetizers, tax, tip, etc. But it never once entered my mind that my dining companions had stiffed the restaurant, they had just stiffed me. In legal terms, the way I see it, when a group of adults sit at a table at a restaurant and everyone orders, everyone at the table has joint and severable liability for the whole cost of the bill. So, in the case of this dine-and-dash guy, if some of the restaurants chose to take pity on the dates and not hold them responsible for the full cost of the bill, that’s their choice, but their main legal remedy was to hold the dates responsible for the full bill, and if they chose not to avail themselves of that remedy, they’ve waived their right to seek anything from the dine-and-dasher.


Do the women have a legitimate criminal complaint against the man? If the man was approaching women under the false pretenses of asking them out on a date, which would imply he intended to pay, when all he really wanted was to get a free meal out of them, which is what his pattern of behavior indicates, then he has committed fraud, and yes, this is a criminal act. It doesn’t matter that women sometimes exploit men who ask them out for a free meal when they really aren’t that interested, that’s terrible manners, but not a crime, because it was already expected that the man was going to pay. But again, this guy, he lured women out under false pretenses, and with the assumption that he would pay or at very least go Dutch, and then left them with the whole bill, this is criminal fraud.

[ClaraC]

Originally Posted by Reefmonkey

I see where people are going with this and I do think it raises an interesting side discussion. I remember back in my 20s, when I was single, I remember girls who would accept my offer to go out to dinner, or to buy them a drink, even though they had no interest in me, just because they wanted the free meal or free drink. I also fell into a social group where some of the girls bragged their Friday and Saturday night strategy was to get men to buy them drinks all night long so they didn’t have to pay anything. I even stopped offering to buy women drinks in bars because I became so disgusted by it – and yet I still met my wife in a bar.
The practice of women expecting men to feed them and cover their bar tab is sexist and objectifies men as well as women. It objectifies men because it reduces them to basically a source of income, and objectifies women because they are basically selling the opportunity for their company for the cost of a drink or a meal. It also puts the relationship on unequal footing – it is the man’s responsibility to pursue and woo the woman by lavishing her with drinks and meals, and reinforces the dangerous notion that now the woman “owes” the man for his “generosity.” And even in the bad old days, it was never good manners. If you read an old Emily Post or Amy Vanderbilt etiquette guide from the 50s, yes, women were not supposed to “pay” for a man as that was emasculating or other such bull, but if a woman accepted an invitation from a man and wanted him to keep inviting her out, she was supposed to reciprocate his invitations on a fairly even level by inviting him to do things – and the rules were that whoever extended the invitation was supposed to provide the entertainment and refreshments. So to avoid the appearance of “paying for the man”, women invited men over for a home cooked meal, or told the little white lie that they had “found” or been “given” theatre tickets. Now that we live in the 21st Century, women can pick up the check at restaurants too, and should be ready to do so as often as men do, if we really want gender parity in society.
Getting back to the OP, I certainly have been out in groups with cheapskates who have stiffed me when we were supposed to be splitting the bill. The common ploys are just paying for one’s entrée without factoring in one’s beverages, appetizers, tax, tip, etc. But it never once entered my mind that my dining companions had stiffed the restaurant, they had just stiffed me. In legal terms, the way I see it, when a group of adults sit at a table at a restaurant and everyone orders, everyone at the table has joint and severable liability for the whole cost of the bill. So, in the case of this dine-and-dash guy, if some of the restaurants chose to take pity on the dates and not hold them responsible for the full cost of the bill, that’s their choice, but their main legal remedy was to hold the dates responsible for the full bill, and if they chose not to avail themselves of that remedy, they’ve waived their right to seek anything from the dine-and-dasher.
Do the women have a legitimate criminal complaint against the man? If the man was approaching women under the false pretenses of asking them out on a date, which would imply he intended to pay, when all he really wanted was to get a free meal out of them, which is what his pattern of behavior indicates, then he has committed fraud, and yes, this is a criminal act. It doesn’t matter that women sometimes exploit men who ask them out for a free meal when they really aren’t that interested, that’s terrible manners, but not a crime, because it was already expected that the man was going to pay. But again, this guy, he lured women out under false pretenses, and with the assumption that he would pay or at very least go Dutch, and then left them with the whole bill, this is criminal fraud.

Well, that IS the way it was. The man had to demonstrate that he was able and willing to support the woman. Dating was for the purpose of finding a partner, and in order to be considered, the man had to be able to support her and their future children. And yes, for his "generosity", she owed him a consideration that she may choose to accept a relationship with him.

Because that was very typical. Women had little chance to support themselves, and most at that time desired to marry and have children.

So back in the 50's and before, the man paying for the pleasure of her company was a good way to run things.

[Soccernerd]

Those women probably won’t be in a hurry to go on any dates anytime soon.

[Mr. Ryu]

Joe Biden's niece does a credit card scam and racks up 100K of debt and she faces no jail time and is on probation. If this guy goes to prison then we have a serious problem.

""Using a borrowed credit card, the blonde Caroline Biden set up an unauthorized customer account at Bigelow Pharmacy on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, and racked up the six-figure bill over the course of a year"

https://nypost.com/2017/06/09/joe-bi...dit-card-scam/

[eddiep83]

i mean was this really a crime?

Let's say you meet a woman online, you have dinner reservations. she looks nothing like your pictures and you just want to get the hell out of there and bounce after you ordered food. That makes you a dick sure, but a crime? Where's the crime? what if you forgot your wallet and she had to pay the entire bill? Where does this end?.

If you do it a 2nd time, is it THEN now all of a sudden a crime?

The guys a dick yea, but being a dick isn't a crime and 13 years of tax payer money going into this guy would be ridiculous but I wouldn't put it passed our court systems...lol.

if this is really being judged as a crime, sentence him to community service! make him pay for us, not the other way around!

[Mr. Ryu]

The judge should find him guilty and create some sort of punishment for the offense.

Pay the ladies who had to pay for the dinner
Pay the restaurant that paid for the dinner since they felt sorry for the lady.
Do community service
Be ban from using online dating sites for 1 year.

If he does the above and doesn't do the same crime again within a year then he is good. Otherwise, 1 month in prison and call it a day.

[2mares]

Originally Posted by budlight

You contradict yourself. He is not obligated to pay the entire bill? He paid none of it and on one occasion he ordered two entrees. Now you are saying the women should pay the entire bill. Make up your mind. Do the women have to pay the entire bill but not the men?

Also you have no idea that the women expected him to cover the entire bill. That is your a$$umption.

I'm not contracting myself. You agree to go out to diner with someone they are not legally obligated to pay for your food nor should you assume they will pay for yours or theirs. Always be prepared to pay for yours and theirs. That's a good rule of thumb.


That being said, when a man asked a woman to dinner women generally assume they guy is picking up the tab. Dating has changed since my day and younger women seem to no longer make this assumption, paying the bill is moving towards dutch. That these women were taken aback that they had to pick up the tab indicates they assumed their date would be paying the entire bill.

[budlight]

Originally Posted by 2mares

I'm not contracting myself. You agree to go out to diner with someone they are not legally obligated to pay for your food nor should you assume they will pay for yours or theirs. Always be prepared to pay for yours and theirs. That's a good rule of thumb.


That being said, when a man asked a woman to dinner women generally assume they guy is picking up the tab. Dating has changed since my day and younger women seem to no longer make this assumption, paying the bill is moving towards dutch. That these women were taken aback that they had to pick up the tab indicates they assumed their date would be paying the entire bill.

No, that is your a$$umption. How about paying at least his half of the bill?

Well, either way, Romeo will be paying more than he bargained for.