Greetings.
I’m in quite of a pickle here, and just thinking about it will get me nowhere.
.
I attend a group hobby weekly.
Quite often we go for a follow-up hang-out in the local bar. I recall everyone else buying a drink and coming to sit down to have a chat.
I don’t buy anything. I wait for the first of us ordering and then I follow them to the table.
One of our attendees has commented on my behavior twice so far.
First she said that I’m a bum. That I use the bar’s staff and the place for my own benefit. There’s a chance that she said that in front of someone else.
Last night she commented that I’m still doing this (we two sat alone for a while). She’s afraid that they’ll throw us out because of my behavior.
I explained that I rarely buy stuff from bars.
On the second comment I said that I’ll probably continue this behavior to the end of times and they won’t throw us out because everyone else spends money. And that my friend said that she or her friends do the same thing quite commonly.
I could have felt her loathing upon me.
I don’t have the money to buy pricy consumables.
I have my own water bottle and sometimes snacks from a market to keep my belly full enough. Or then I don’t eat anything and eat later.
I’m there because of the company.
The employees haven’t commented anything about my behavior. I don’t know, would they even care.
.
Thoughts?
Am I unfair or is she?
I’m thinking about asking her next time that should I just leave if I’m such a bother to her.
I’m also thinking about suggesting us to talk about this as a group.
.
EDIT: I don’t think this is about alcohol. I believe most of them order something else cos it’s late Monday and most people go to work the next day.
EDIT2: We don’t have the tipping culture here.
EDIT3: Thanks for all the comments! You give my mind and feels some peace 💗
Gut shot, I’d say it reads as mooch behavior.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my friends liked to hang out in a place called Coffee Talk.
It was this home that was never demolished in an area that long before was redistricted as industrial.
I’d go along. I had no money.
It was a cool cozy place to be and I enjoyed chilling there with the company of my friends.
They had a little money.
None of us were inclined to caffeine (the thrust of the revenue of a business called Coffee Talk).
Regularly, the crew would file in and would buy a 5 dollar red bull each that usually wasn’t even opened, and then chill for HOURS.
I went through similar conversations. Most stressing “I feel the need to buy an extra drink to make up for you being here, and I don’t particularly like paying your way.”
Coffee Talk wasn’t a youth center. It wasn’t a YMCA. It was a crew of about 7 working hard to host a cozy chill spot funded by coffee sales with an open mic stage to resist this landmark being demolished and turned into annex parking for one of the neighboring office buildings.
My ass dirtied the seats. I disheveled the board game room many times.
I hadn’t yet learned to have the situational awareness to see the difference between hanging at home, or at school, or at Coffee Talk.
A big part of me getting my first job was so I could pick up an “antique” from Coffee Talk for 5 to 12 bucks since I had no desire to purchase a coffee from Coffee Talk, but i wanted to be at Coffee Talk with my friends, and it was a business, not a community center funded as charity by a mysterious benefactor.
So… you can be a mooch, but your group doesn’t want to be told to fuck off because they are taking more than they are giving, so you risk getting dropped off the invites.
Sometimes it pays to not go looking for problems.
The staff at such places can decide whether they want to ask a group to move on. Respect their choice to do so and stop trying to police your friends’ behaviours over your own fears.