In a TikTok video, a content creator named Tripp explained that he bought an entitled stranger a drink at a bar to teach him an important lesson about consent. Tripp pointed out that men need to stop buying women drinks at bars under the assumption that it means the woman is indebted to them.
In many social situations, buying someone a drink is often just seen as a flattering move. It can be used as a way to break the ice or even signal that you’re romantically interested in someone, especially if you send them a drink from across a bar or restaurant to let them know they’ve caught your eye. The lesson Tripp was trying to impart was that buying someone a drink did not immediately create an obligation for the other person’s time and attention.
A man bought a drink for an entitled stranger at a bar to teach him an important lesson about consent.
“This one is for all the boys who think buying a woman a drink at the bar means that she should go home with you,” Tripp declared at the beginning of his video. “No, it doesn’t. She doesn’t owe you [anything].”
To make his point, Tripp recalled a recent outing when he was next to a stranger at the bar. He overheard the conversation between the man and a woman he had been flirting with. The guy was extremely frustrated and kept saying that he didn’t understand why the woman was refusing to go home with him. The woman replied that she wasn’t sure where he got that idea, and the guy tried to defend himself, saying he had bought her a drink.
The man bought the stranger a shot and then propositioned him to teach him a lesson.
“Obviously, that doesn’t go over well. She gets up and walks away. By now, I’ve ordered my drink, and I’ve also ordered two shots, one for me, one for the guy,” Tripp explained. “I slide it over to him. We take the shots together.”
“And then I lean in, and I say, ‘So are you gonna come home with me or what?'” Tripp said. In the comments section, people applauded Tripp for turning the situation around in a kind yet effective way.
He inadvertently forced the man to confront the flaw in his own reasoning by presenting it back to him. By putting the same expectation back onto him, he exposed just how ridiculous that logic sounded when reversed.
Buying a drink for a stranger never comes with an obligation.
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Consent matters, no matter which scenario you’re in. A kind gesture never comes with strings attached. When someone is accepting a drink, especially when it’s a woman letting a man buy her a drink, they’re simply accepting the drink.
As Becca Grimm, writing for GQ, noted, buying a drink for a stranger at a bar should be thought of as a “gift, not a transaction.” She went on to write, “You can’t get mad if nothing comes of it. Sure, some people make games of getting dudes to cover their bar tabs before leaving them hanging. It’s conniving, yeah, but women still don’t owe you.”
There should never be an expectation that a woman owes a man her time, attention, or anything else, simply because he bought her a drink.
No one owes anyone else continued conversation or even to go home with them just because they’ve swiped their card at the bar, especially if they’re simply a stranger. One of the things that more people should accept, and that seems to be mainly men, is that buying a woman a drink comes with the risk that she isn’t interested.
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.
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