Woman stunned as invite to friend’s dinner party ends in ‘weird’ payment request

A woman has been left scratching her head after a friend invited her over for dinner at her home before charging her $20 for the meal. Photo / Amber Nelson, Instagram

This story was one of Herald Lifestyle’s most read in 2022

A woman has been left scratching her head after a friend invited her over for dinner at her home before charging her $20 for the meal.

Los Angeles woman Amber Nelson was excited to go over and visit a friend and catch up.

They tucked into "a couple of servings" of homecooked pasta and thought the night was going well.

After leaving her friend's house for the night she then received a message requesting payment for the meal.

Taking to Twitter, Nelson wrote: "Got invited to someone's place for dinner and they charged me for it ... this is weird, right?

"This makes me not want to accept offerings in the future."

What made Nelson more stunned was she showed up with a bottle of wine to enjoy with their penne alla vodka before she was told about the dinner charge.

It wasn't until she left, her friend sent her a Venmo payment request for the dinner.

"I just paid and haven't spoken since," Amber said.

Got invited to someone’s place for dinner and they charged me for it….this is weird, right?

— Amber Nelson (@AmberSmelson) March 10, 2022

Nelson said the incident happened a month ago but decided to post about it this week after she was gradually "peeved off" by it.

"It's kind of funny in retrospect," she added, laughing.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Amber Nelson (@ambersmelson)

Her post went viral and has been liked more than 395,000 times with thousands weighing in and sharing their own awkward dinner incidents.

"I went to a dinner party with lobster once and after dinner, they asked everyone for $75 each. It did not go over well," one man wrote.

Another said: "This happened to me, the guy even wanted to charge us for the spices he used to make the food. He broke down the cost for us to see."

A third added: "A friend once invited me over for dinner and wouldn't offer me a drink because I didn't bring my own booze.

"My bad, I guess for not being a polite guest and showing up with wine or something, but still feels weird ... ? I just sat there drinking water while she made herself a cocktail."

Some have since told Nelson to follow up the payment with an invoice of her own for the bottle of wine she took over.