Life is uncomplicated when you go it alone – you pick a place to eat, choose what you fancy on the dinner menu and on the wine list, enjoy them in the company of the person you have known, trusted and loved for your whole life, and pay the bill.
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Turns out, the law is also uncomplicated – there is simply an implied contract between you and the restaurant, formed with your promise to pay for what you ordered at the menu price and served to you. If you don’t pay, the restaurant can sue you under the contract and the police will charge you with making off without payment under section 18C of the Theft Ordinance.
One day, you start craving a partner in life, and you start searching, screening (aka swiping), and at one magical moment you secure a dinner date. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to complications, in life and in law.
You pick a place to eat, acutely aware of the impression you give in the choice; you choose not the food and drinks you fancy but what you think will make you fanciable; you enjoy them in the company of the person you meet for the first time in the flesh (if you are both lucky, they may resemble the person you saw online in a flash).
Then the bill comes, and assuming neither of you has conveniently disappeared into the washroom, who pays? Has the wine, or champagne for that matter, given you Dutch courage to ask your date to go Dutch?
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“What does the law say?” Well, be prepared, you may have to stay in the washroom suspiciously and worryingly longer trying to figure it out.