My name is Eric, I’m 30, and I live in Seattle. Last weekend I met up with a friend at one of those trendy coffee shops that seems to specialize in extremely complicated drink orders.
You know the kind.
Every item on the menu has about five descriptive words and costs more than lunch.
I had already had coffee earlier that morning, so when we got to the counter I just asked for tap water.
My friend, meanwhile, ordered something that sounded like a science experiment.
It was an oat milk latte with some kind of house-made syrup, cold foam, and a sprinkle of something the barista described as “seasonal spice dust.”
The total for his drink came out to $12.
We grabbed a table and sat there talking for about an hour.
He drank his latte, I drank my water, and everything seemed completely normal.
Then when we got up to leave, he said:
“Hey, can you Venmo me six bucks for the coffee?”
At first I thought he was joking.
So I laughed and said, “For what?”
He said, “We split the order, right?”
I pointed out that he had ordered the latte and I had literally just gotten free tap water.
He responded by saying that since we had gone to the café together, it made sense to split the cost evenly.
To be clear, I would have had absolutely no problem paying for my own drink if I had ordered one.
But I didn’t.
I had water from the self-serve dispenser.
I even grabbed it myself.
There was nothing on the receipt connected to me.
When I pointed that out, he said something like:
“Yeah, but it’s about the principle of splitting things when we hang out.”
I told him that principle usually applies when two people actually share a bill.
Not when one person orders a drink and the other person drinks water.
The conversation got slightly awkward after that.
He insisted it wasn’t a big deal and that it was “just six dollars.”
Which made me wonder why it mattered enough for him to bring it up in the first place.
Eventually I said I wasn’t going to Venmo him for half of a drink I didn’t order.
He shrugged and dropped the subject, but the vibe was definitely a little weird after that.
Now I’m curious what other people think.
On one hand, it’s a small amount of money.
On the other hand, the idea of paying for half of someone else’s latte when I drank tap water seems a little ridiculous.
So I figured I’d ask.
AITAH for refusing to Venmo my friend for half of a coffee he ordered when I didn’t order anything?
