The Ice Cream Invitation Problem

Earlier this week I was at the mall with my friend "Dave" (not his real name), shoe shopping. The reason we were at the mall isn't important, but it sets the scene. We left the shoe store, Dave turned to me, and he said, "want to get some ice cream?"

I wasn't really in the mood, but I said yes anyway. Dave pointed me toward a new high-end ice cream shop in the mall called Scooped by Demetres, where two scoops of maple walnut on a cone cost me north of eleven dollars. Highway robbery. The ice cream itself wasn't even great (too salty, for a flavour that has no business being anywhere near salty). But none of that is the real story.

The real story is this: Dave didn't order ice cream.

I stood there at the counter, cone in hand, watching my friend who had just invited me to get ice cream not get any ice cream. I was baffled. Why would someone ask if you want to get some ice cream if they themselves don't want any ice cream?

Compare this to asking someone if they want to grab a beer. The beer isn't the point. The beer is the excuse for the conversation, the social lubricant, the reason to sit across from each other for an hour. If you invite me for a beer and order a club soda, fine, you're driving, or on antibiotics, or whatever. The invitation still holds up.

Ice cream is different. Ice cream is the destination, the star attraction, the entire reason for the trip. Nobody wanders into Scooped by Demetres to "catch up." You go because you want ice cream. So when you invite someone to get ice cream, you are, by any reasonable reading of the English language, telling them that you also want ice cream.

I said as much to Dave. He disagreed. He thought the wording was a little odd but maintained, with a straight face, that the invitation carried no personal commitment on his end. So I called a few other people on the drive home to settle it. Every single one of them agreed with me. When you ask someone if they want to get ice cream, you are ordering ice cream. Case closed.

Or is it? I'm still a little haunted by the confidence of Dave's position. If Seinfeld were still on the air, I could see George and Jerry having this exact argument in the diner, with Jerry incredulously repeating the phrase back at George until the laugh track gave out.

So here's where you come in. The new version of this blog has a comment section (the old one didn't), and so far it's been sitting there lonely, waiting for someone to show up. This feels like the perfect low-stakes question to break it in. Is Dave right, or am I? Tell me I'm not crazy. And if you happen to side with Dave, tell me that too. I can take it. Probably.