Q. Recently I agreed to a male friend of mine’s suggestion to take out a couple that we both know. I said that I would pay for half the dinner as the couple had entertained me many times. The male friend had recently joined an old established club and wanted to take the couple there, so I agreed. I told him to let me know discreetly at the end how much my half of the bill would be. I then arranged a convenient date with the couple as he asked me to do this. However, at the dinner itself, as the evening wore on, I became worried that the couple kept saying how nice his club was and it became clear to me that they did not realise that I was co-hosting the dinner. I waited in vain for him to mention it to them but he never did. For me to say it at the table was, I thought, the height of vulgarity (to use a phrase that my mother taught me). After dinner, as I walked up the staircase with the wife, I did say, ‘By the way, you do know I’m co-hosting the dinner.’ Mary, did I do wrong, and was I being childish in expecting him to give me some of the credit? Was there a more subtle way that I could have let slip this information?
Name and address withheld
A. You are a correspondent who is personally known to me and I am familiar with your own inimitable style, so I judge you would have got away with saying what you said and it would have been received with good humour. For readers faced with a similar scenario let us pretend the co-host’s name was Michael. After, say, the third compliment about the club had met with no elucidation from Michael, you could have replied, ‘Well, Michael and I wanted to take you somewhere you would enjoy because we’ve both been entertained very well by you and we owe you a good evening.
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