Man Who Brought A Bell To A Restaurant To Get The Staff’s Attention Is Offended When His Embarrassed Girlfriend Walks Out
Anna Ayrapetyan | UnsplashA woman posted to the AITA subreddit asking for advice on whether she's in the wrong after walking out on a dinner date with her boyfriend when he brought a bell into the restaurant, which he intended to use to get the staff's attention.
She began her post by explaining that she's been with her boyfriend, Rhett, for the past four months. The two live in different towns, and he usually visits her on the weekends. During this particular incident, she decided to visit his town and eat out at a diner for their date. However, the night didn't turn out exactly how she expected. He was offended, and she was embarrassed.
The woman's date brought a bell to dinner to 'grab' the staff's attention.
"Rhett was already there when I arrived to the diner, we talked some, checked the menu," the woman wrote. "When it was time to order, he pulled a small bell out of his jacket pocket, lifted it up, then started shaking it." The sound of the bell immediately made the woman's ears hurt. She was also confused, asking him what he was doing with the bell, to which he responded that he had been trying to get a waiter's attention.
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"I said it was embarrassing, and he should stop right then, but he kept shaking it. I can not begin to explain the looks we received from everyone," she continued. The woman repeatedly asked him to stop ringing the bell, but he refused until someone came over to take their order.
She even threatened to leave the diner and cancel their date if he wouldn't stop, but that didn't deter him as he continued to ring the bell. "Someone came already, but I'd already gotten up, took my purse, and started making my way out," she wrote.
The woman's boyfriend followed her out of the diner, arguing with her about her decision to walk out.
She told him she was embarrassed by him, and he got upset, saying that he didn't understand why ringing the bell was such an embarrassment. He tried to explain that it was a "perfect solution" for not having to sit and wait for a waiter to come over and take their order. "I asked if it was acceptable to do this in [America] and he said 'yes, because it's a free country and people there usually don't give a [expletive],' but I said it's inappropriate and [embarrassing] here."
He continued, telling the woman that she was being too sensitive and overreacting over nothing, insisting that they go back inside the diner, but the woman refused. The two of them ended up leaving, and the woman's boyfriend kept telling her that she'd ruined dinner by canceling it and that she'd offended him by acting like his behavior had been shameful. She shared, "I said I had a right to give an opinion on what he's done, even if he thought what he was doing, but he basically told me to get off my high horse and stop calling his 'genius' idea embarrassing."
The woman ended her post by writing that her boyfriend has been "sulking for days," and wants her to apologize. "Maybe I overreacted. Maybe it's nothing where he lives, but here it's just unacceptable," she wonders.
The man's actions provide insight into his true personality, and people agreed that this insight is not promising.
"American here who worked in restaurants for over 10 years. People do not do this. And a few of the places I worked at would 100% kick a person out doing this," one person wrote. Though their job is to serve you, waiters are not servants. There is certain etiquette people should follow when trying to get a restaurant's staff attention, none of which includes ringing a self-supplied bell.
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Unsurprisingly, many people believed the man's commitment to ringing the bell was a relationship red flag, and they might be on to something. It's widely believed that the way a person treats wait staff reveals a lot about their personality. As Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson has said, "A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person."
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
