From booty call to ‘foodie call' — free dinner scammers flood dating apps as wallets tighten

Yahoo

6 hours ago

Love might be off the menu — but the lobster sure isn't.
With wallets tightening and a looming recession on the rise, some singles are turning first dates into free dinner scams.
Countless TikTokkers are proudly documenting their foodie finesse, using Hinge and Bumble like Doordash — to score meals on someone else's dime.
This is referred to as a 'foodie call' — where someone nabs a free meal with no plans to ever call, text or date the poor sap who picked up the check.
South Carolina graphic designer Katheryne Slack told MarketWatch in a recent interview that she realized she was out of coffee one Sunday and used a thirsty Hinge match to score a caffeine fix.
Outta beans and full of schemes, Slack hit up her suitor for a free cup o' joe.
The pair had exchanged flirty messages days earlier, but plans fizzled — until she pounced when the timing finally lined up. An hour later, they were sipping lattes at his expense at a café.
'As soon as I met him, I knew I wasn't into him. But I was already there and needed my coffee,' she told the outlet.
And she's far from the only one who sees things this way, TikTok is filled with cheeky clips of users bragging about 'dating for dinner' — a budgeting 'hack.'
In one recent video, user @jocelynaleenaa can be seen at a restaurant table. In white text over the clip, she wrote, 'when you keep going on dates for the free food & drinks.'
Another user commented beneath the TikTok, 'I did this for 2 weeks straight once I was never hungry.' One other added, 'Girl I feel you.'
Some are joking that back-to-back dates are their version of meal prepping. User @alanarixonn filmed herself dancing last month with the caption, 'off on my 2nd date this week cos I cba to meal prep x.'
One viewer wrote under the video, 'the fact that this isn't a joke.' Someone else replied, 'It's like a meal voucher because you are putting in the work. You deserve it queen.'
An additional supporter chimed in, 'This is low key genius' as one other noted, 'Love doing this #thinksmarternotharder.'
Dating with the intention of nabbing a free bite to eat isn't new. A 2019 study published in the 'Society for Personality and Social Psychology' journal dove deeper into 'foodie calls.'
The study found up to 1 in 3 women admitted to going on dates for free grub.
As per the researchers, anyone who thinks it's cool to dine and dash emotionally are more likely to show signs of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism — aka the 'dark triad.'
With sky-high rents and an endless lineup of buzzy eateries, NYC could be seen as a foodie call free-for-all.
East Village local Olivia Balsinger once scored a five-course feast at swanky seafood hotspot Catch in the Meatpacking District — all on someone else's dime.
'If I had been forced to pay,' she told The Post, 'I probably wouldn't have been able to eat for weeks afterward.'
Overall, while 'dating for dinner' isn't entirely novel, it's hitting harder now as tariffs bite into wallets, recession jitters grow, and job security feels shakier than ever.