Dating in your twenties is essentially a minefield where you have to dodge ghosting, catfishing, and people who think “can I buy you a drink” is a legally binding contract to finance their entire friend group’s night out. We have all heard stories of bad dates, but one guy on Reddit just shared a tale of a bar encounter that went from “shooting his shot” to “dodging a nuclear missile” in record time.
The story starts innocently enough with our narrator, a 23-year-old guy, hanging out at a nice bar in Toronto with his friends. He spotted a girl he thought was attractive and decided to make a move. They talked, they danced, and things seemed to be going well. He did the gentlemanly thing and offered to buy her a drink. Note the singular nature of that offer. A drink. One beverage. For the person he was speaking to.
But this girl apparently saw him less as a potential date and more as a walking ATM with a pulse. When they got to the bar, he ordered himself a beer and told her to get whatever she wanted. Instead of ordering a cocktail or a glass of wine, she promptly ordered four double shots of 1942 tequila. For those who aren’t liquor connoisseurs, that is top-shelf stuff that costs about 75 dollars a shot.
She didn’t even try to hide the grift. She openly told him they were for her friends and patted him on the back like he was a good little puppy who just performed a trick. She racked up a bill of over 300 dollars in less than thirty seconds without even asking if he was okay with buying a round for strangers he hadn’t even met.
Most guys would have frozen in panic or awkwardly paid the bill while dying inside because they were too afraid to cause a scene. Not this legend. He looked at the bartender, slapped a single ten-dollar bill on the counter for his beer, and told him that the lady would be covering the shots. Then he just walked away.
The girl was understandably furious because her plan to get hammered on a stranger’s dime had just backfired spectacularly. She yelled insults at him, but he kept walking. It was a masterclass in setting boundaries and refusing to be taken advantage of.
You would think the story ends there with him escaping into the night, but the universe has a twisted sense of humor. It turns out the narrator’s mom works with this exact girl. In a moment of small-world chaos, the mom showed the girl a picture of her son, and the girl instantly recognized him as the guy who left her with the hefty bar tab.
Instead of being embarrassed that she tried to scam a nice guy, the girl snitched to his mom. And in a twist that defies all logic, the mom actually took the girl’s side. She called her son an ahole and demanded he send the girl 325 dollars to cover the cost of the drinks she ordered for her friends.
I am sorry but what planet are we living on where the victim of an attempted scam is expected to reimburse the scammer? The narrator laughed in his mom’s face, and he was right to do so. The girl thinks he is a douche, and the mom agrees, but the rest of the internet is standing up and applauding this man.
So is he the ahole? Absolutely not. Offering to buy a drink is a social contract for one drink. It is not an invitation to abuse someone’s generosity. This girl played a stupid game and won a very expensive stupid prize. Maybe next time she will think twice before trying to treat a date like a corporate expense account.