Final edit
Thank you everyone for being so generous with your advice, views and insider knowledge on love, sex, friendships, women, money, traps and cats. Much appreciated.
I'm broke, there's not one single hooker in sight and I'm having a beer with my mate. Life can't get any better than this. We can close this thread now.
p.s:@GaryQ thanks for the link mate.I might have found a way to earn that $400 back after all ;)
Let's say you have an unlikely friendship with a colleague at work. You are a happily married man and he is …well.. a slu-erm-someone with a very active sex life. You are half-horrified by the things he gets up to over the weekend and half-fascinated.
Out of the blue, he tells you he's getting married to a woman who is stunningly beautiful and rich but quite cold and insipid and may or may not have made a pass at you the first and only time she's met you.
Anyway, you are invited to the official buck's night, which is being organised and paid for by the father of the bride.However there is also an unofficial buck's night and you get an invite. The rules are:
1) You do not talk about the unofficial buck's night
2) you do not talk about the unofficial buck's night
3)tell your SO that you're going away for a 2-day business trip.
4)You're also required to contribute $400 to go towards the night's 'entertainment'.Flights and accommodation are extras, although he has kindly offered to let you stay at his cousin's place.
Your wife is cool with strippers (because she trusts you) but way less cool about one giving you a lap dance.Fair enough.
Unfortunately you find out after agreeing to go and handing over the money,that the step-father of the groom-to-be has 'donated' $8000 so that the strippers can be upgraded to hookers.
So what do you do?
1)Ideologically, you're a feminist and the father of a little girl, so you really don't want to have anything to do with that 'event'. You ask for your money back( $400 can buy you a hell of a lot of stuff on ozbargain) and you don't care that you're going to look like an uncool, fun-hating, tight-assed miser.
2) As a happily married man, who wants to remain a happily married man , hookers are your natural enemies. You keep away from them the way a mice would keep away from a big tomcat. However your mate is not a yet a married man and the women who will be involved in the 'event' will be consensual adults.You can't go but what the heck? You can shout your mate a free hooker for his stag night, can't you?
3)You have full faith in your ability to stay out of trouble while being drunk and with lots of nubile, naked women adept in the art of seduction flocking around you. Technically that shouldn't be hard cos you're madly in love with your wife but there's that saying about how the way to hell …
Edit
TL;DR: This is NOT a moral dilemma. I am not asking if I should have sex with a bunch of hookers. That's not happening.I'm married and I don't pay for sex.
This is an ozbargainer's dilemma. What do I do about the $400? Do I ask for it back? Do I give it to him as a present (we're also giving him and his bride an official wedding present)? Do I go because I've paid for it?
Edit 2
The Wife comes across this thread. She kisses me,says " Go! my faith in you is totally justified" and smiles sweetly at me. She SO TOTALLY reverse psychologying me! …unless she's reverse, reverse psychologying me? o.O so that she can use this 'event'like a sword of Damocles that will hang over my head for the rest of my life! Hard to tell with women. They can be so devious sometimes.
I come out of the shower this morning and who do I find sitting there on my kitchen floor, playing with my kids and having a friendly chat with the Wife? My mate from work! The one who is soon to be getting married to a stunning,insipid, flirty blonde and the reason for my dilemma. He looks like shite: good-looking, expensively dressed, nice-smelling shite, so neither me nor the wife has heart to kick him out.He invites himself for breakfast and later stands by the door with me, cradling my cat, who appears to have taken quite a liking to him, and waves my wife and kids off.
I close the door.He puts the cat down, hands me 8 X $50 notes,laughingly says "I knew you'd chicken out, you wimp." and gives me a friendly tap on the shoulder. He's not wrong.
Anyway, he's currently sleeping in my guest bedroom.I'm quickly packing my stuff to go to work.The Wife will deal with him when she gets home. That sounds bad but in my defence,
i)I did ask the mate if he was under the influence of drugs, alcohol and/or is wanted by the cops and he promised he's not;
ii) and the Mrs has a degree in a pschology and is a social worker. So she's highly qualified to deal with people in emotional distress. I, on the hand, I'm socially inept.
Thanks everyone for your inputs. I'm off to work.
He's not a bad bloke.He's funny, witty, intelligent,charming …yes, he's also a womanizer and likes sex. Think a younger version of Barney from How I met your mother. The Mrs likes him.she's met him a few times at work-organised events. He cracks her up. He's really good with my kids too and is always on his best behavior around them.