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My Girlfriend Cried After I Spent $100 On Dinner

Lessons in dating someone from another country

Tom Kuegler
4 min readOct 6, 2020
Photo by Stefan Johnson on Unsplash

₱4,500.

That was my bill last night for dinner. That’s 4,500 Philippine pesos, which is about $100.

It was dinner for three. I had no idea that fajitas in the Philippines could be worth $16, and after four drinks from the bar came over for us, our bill reached epic proportions.

I didn’t mind that much. It was dinner for my girlfriend and her sister. We had a good time — that’s all that matters, right?

Four hours after dinner ended Lara asked me what the bill was. When I didn’t tell her, she started guessing, and once she hit 4,000 pesos, I let her know that was the right answer.

It was like I could hear a pin drop in the room.

Then she started crying.

“Babe, you know that’s too much,” she said.

“No Lara, it’s fine. It’s just a special dinner, I’m okay with it,” I said.

“No, you don’t understand. You know I make 5,000 pesos for 15 days of work?” she asked

I didn’t know that. I knew her earnings were low. I knew she was being taken advantage of by her employer because she’s a young teacher, but I had no idea how bad it was.

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Tom Kuegler
Tom Kuegler

Written by Tom Kuegler

Travel blogger. 30 years old. Currently in Mexico. Subscribe to my Substack: https://mindofawriter.substack.com/

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