Woman Upset Friend Asked to Split the Cost of Groceries for Dinner

One dinner between friends didn’t go as planned.

In a post on Reddit’s Am I the A—— forum, a user explained how tension bubbled up between her and a friend after the friend moved into a new apartment and invited her over for a dry pot dinner.

“For those of you who don’t know, dry pot is a stir-fried medley of veggies and meat, all mixed up with a bunch of fancy spices like star anise and cardamom,” she wrote. “It was a cute idea and my first time visiting her for dinner, so I accepted and asked if it would make sense for me to cook something too (it’s a small kitchen).”

In response, her friend suggested she bring a bottle of wine, but things took a turn when the friend also asked her to pitch in for the cost of ingredients and spices.

“Now, neither of us are strapped for cash,” the Redditor explained. “We both live in a high cost-of-living city but have very good jobs and financial stability. I’ve also hosted this friend plenty of times at my apartment, not for dinner, but for cocktails.”

The Redditor added that she used to work as a bartender and now has a full bar setup at home — over 20 bottles of liquor and bitters, homemade syrups and infusions, clear ice molds and an assortment of glassware. “Since then, my place has become a go-to spot among my friends for a pre-dinner drink,” she wrote. “I’ve never asked anyone for a single cent, nor did I feel like that would be the right thing to do given that I was the one hosting.”

Given that context, she said, it felt “odd” for her friend to ask her to pitch in, especially knowing her financial situation. However, her friend got upset at the pushback, arguing that dry pot is expensive to make and that she’d be the one doing all the cooking and cleanup.

“As of this post, she’s spent nearly $80 on specialty spices and still plans to buy another $100+ worth of imported groceries from H-Mart,” the Redditor said, adding that the dish was expected to make 5–6 servings. “That feels even more odd because I was just planning to be there for dinner and wasn’t counting on leftovers, and you can control how much you cook at one time, so you don’t have to make that much food if you don’t want to.”

“My take is that if you’re offering to host and cook dinner, buying the food and putting in the time to cook is part of being a good host!” she continued. “Her PoV is that my making drinks for her throughout the years isn’t equivalent to cooking a full dinner, and that it’s very normal to ask someone to pitch in for the cost of food, and that if I’d asked her to pitch in for liquor at any time she would’ve happily done so.”

She concluded the post asking, “AITA for being disgruntled at being asked to split the cost of the groceries and spices?”

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Since posting, hundreds of people have chimed in on the comments to share their thoughts on the drama.

“Just decline the invitation and don’t have her for cocktails anymore,” one person wrote.

“This is such a bizarre set up and is so inconsiderate to you,” someone else replied. “If the plan was to split the cost of ingredients evenly between you two, that should have been the first thing she brought up. And if that’s the case, you need to have equal say in how much gets spent and on what. Especially if it’s just you two, there’s no reason that dinner should cost ~$200 in ingredients.”

Another user added, “Pull out of dinner and never accept another dinner invitation. Don’t invite her for cocktails again if you can avoid it. This friendship is cooked.”