Q. I met a man at a dinner party and
we arranged that I would take him to a gallery opening to which I had been invited a few days later. He suggested that he would take me out to dinner in a rather expensive restaurant afterwards. I quite fancied him until the moment when the bill came and I offered, out of politeness, to split it with him and he accepted! Was this not very bad behaviour, Mary? I would not have gone to such an expensive restaurant if I had known I had to pay. How could I have gracefully retracted my offer?
T. H-D., London SW A. I happen to have some background to this incident and I am able to inform you that the man concerned was confused by your offer to split the bill. He interpreted it as code for ‘I don’t fancy you. We are just like brother and sister, each paying our own way.’ Being shy, he accepted your offer as he was embarrassed to have been ‘rejected’, as he saw it, by you. In order gracefully to retract your offer you could have stared at your bank card and then at him before saying, ‘Actually, on second thoughts, I insist — that you pay!’ then issuing a peal of girly laughter.
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