Dinner + tip is not $200, parking is not $50, I live in a city lol
I've gotten the "Parking is too expensive and hard to find" from friends when I try and get them to come into the city to hang out. No, come to my apartment, park in the plentiful free protected street parking right out front, and then we'll walk the 5 minutes to the center of downtown.
There are different ways of approaching doing something:
"To do X requires me to do this and that. So heres how I'll do this and that to get to X. "
"I can't do X because it requires me to do this and that. "
There's a big difference between the 2. The latter is a lie, they just don't want to do what is required to do that. Its a way of phrasing things so people don't feel bad and they don't have to admit they don't want to do something.
Start looking for it and you'll see it in a lot of exchanges.
Of course, if you live in the kind of city where the above is true, then a very delicious dinner + tip can usually be had for $50-75, it just won't be as fancy.
It was framed as ‘Every Activity’ costs that much though which is just not true.
It is legitimately expensive to go out to places here. I just pay it because I can, but to act otherwise is burying your head in the sand.
But as someone lucky enough to be able to eat out almost every day at a variety of restaurants I have no trouble staying under 35/person without drinks. That place is not an outlier.
And like, fancy cocktails are nice but I don’t think you can say that it’s impossible to go out and do anything without spending $500 like OP claimed.
And, no food isn't that cheap in the city.