If you INVITE people to a party/celebration/whatever, you are the HOST. If you are the HOST, you pay. You do NOT invite people and stick them with the bill.

And if that means you have hot dogs and Keystone Light in the park because that's what you can afford, that's what you do -- it's just as Massengill-y for a guest to complain that the host isn't generous enough with the food and fixin's as it is for the host to expect the guests to pay.

Precisely, It is rude to expect others to pay when you are the host. It is just wrong to invite a grad sudent to dinner a a TriBeca steak house and stick them with part of the bill when he'd have eaten on his own for less than his porton of the gratuity. MY cheapskate widowed 75 y/o aunt, who has millions, had a housewarming party when she moved into her new, snob-addressed condo, and then had the assembled revelers, caravan to Applebees and followed that up by identifying for the server who was together for the check distribution; she was alone and had a single check.

If you host a party, unless it's a neighborhood potluck, you pay for it.

Hear, hear!

It's actually assumed, in Germany, when someone asks you to join him or her for a birthday that they are treating.

But I can well relate to the author's misery. My husband and I were graduate students well into our 20s and ended up far too many times either paying more than we could afford, or being the killjoys who insisted on separate checks. We tried to avoid birthday dinners, but very often we'd be out with a more affluent group of friends, order sparingly, and then at the end of the meal someone would announce a milestone -- "I got a promotion!" "I'm pregnant!" at which point someone else would say, "well, that's great, then dinner's on us!"

What's startling to me about thi story is the very idea that anybody would assume they'd have to pay to play, so to speak. I've always found it assumed here in the good ol' USA that if I invited somebody somewhere -- to a party, to a game, on a date, whatever -- that I was paying; and vice -versa. Is this more a Northeast thing (I live out West)?

Yeah, I don't get this either. I've never been in a situation--and not just birthday dinners--where it was expected that one check would be divided up amongst those at the table. We always get separate checks. Why would everybody go in together?