Dating in NYC
Gawker reports on a lawyer’s reaction to getting turned down after a date. He wants damages for breach of contract.
To: [X] Subject: Invoice 6/12/04 Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 17:15:59 EDT
Dear [WOMAN’S NAME]
On June 5, you agreed to accept dinner, paid for in full, by me, based on your stated offer that we would go out again. In that you have ignored all overtures to said follow up meeting, you are hereby considered in breach of contract.
To that end, you are being invoiced for 50% of the cost of the dinner, pursuant to the offer. For the record, the offer presented you with the option of not going out again and paying for half of the dinner, or going out again and not paying at all. You accepted these terms, choosing to go out again, as stated above, but have since failed to deliver your end of the agreement. In that this was merely a promise to meet, and not a promise to marry, the agreement is binding under New York law and does not require a written agreement (i.e. statute of frauds).
Furthermore, this is absolutely not a joke.
Your share is 50% of $74.51 which is a total of $37.25. Payment in full is expected within 30 days.
You may remit to:
[MAN’S NAME AND ADDRESS]
Issues about paying legal fees if this were to go to court aside, if you want to get technical (from the perspective of Aussie contract law), there’s the problem of whether there was any intention to create legal relationships. There’s a presumption against such an intention in social contexts (Todd v Nicol) and I don’t know what this guy’s idea of a social context is, but things don’t much more social than a date. Ok. Back to studying.
9:07pm (GMT +10.00) 
