Well, I drink water. And soda. And juice. But I don’t drink alcohol, much (a glass of wine every few months, and every now and then a cocktail, but I really don’t drink very much alcohol.)
When I go out to dinner with people who do drink, it pisses me off that I always get stuck “splitting” the bill with people who drink A LOT. Night before last, I had dinner with my girlfriend and another couple, friends of hers, and mine came to about 21 bucks, call it twenty-five with a tip, and the bill for the table came to 150 bucks, with tip. I don’t like arguing over money, so I just paid “my” share, but I’m not going to dine out with people in the future, if I can help it. Not sure how to handle the girlfriend, outside of “get a new one,” but I really can’t take getting gouged like this.
I don’t understand why you can’t get separate checks. That’s what I’ve always done when going out with friends. It’s not like they’re business associates and etiquette is a huge issue.
Yeah, who does this? Every time I’ve ever been out with friends, it’s each person pays for their own. (Well, couples often pay together, but you know what I mean.) I’ve never encountered this “split the check” bullshit except when everyone’s bill is pretty damn even to begin with and no one wants to argue over who ordered which of the appetizers we all shared. And if I did, I’d feel pretty free to speak up and say “let’s pay separately,” since it’s not like I’d be bucking a social convention or anything, just suggesting we do it the normal way.
If you don’t want to confront them, just don’t give them the chance to suggest splitting it. When the check arrives, grab it first and start giving out figures: “Let’s see, you had the chicken and split the wine, that’s $47 each, I had the chips and salsa, fish tacos, and a coke, that’s $21. Don’t forget to add some for a tip!” I doubt anyone would have the gall to argue.
When you’re dining out with a bunch of drunks, it’s nobody’s fault but yours if you don’t grab the check and divide it up however you damn well please. They (well, we) are too preoccupied with enjoying the buzz to go over your math.
It can go either way, I’m fine with everyone just splitting it, or we figure out what everyone ordered and do it that way. If it is people that we go out with a lot, sometimes we’ll just pick it up and let them get next time.
It can get weird it it is people you don’t know well, though.
The people who like to drink a lot of alcohol (or fancy virgin versions), and who like to order appetizers AND a full meal AND dessert are the ones who want to split up the check by the number in the party. And sometimes they’ll insist on paying for the whole ticket one time, and say “You can get the next time”, and think this is fair. However, if my tab comes to $15 because I had the chef salad and iced tea, but someone else had the Surf’n’Turf, an appetizer, and several beers, then the other person’s bill is more likely to be $50 or so. No, that’s not a fair splitting of the tab, even if one person pays one time and the other pays another time.
I don’t mind covering for someone if they’re short. If I invite someone out, I pay. But if I’m meeting someone on a regular basis, I’d prefer to just pay for my own meal and drinks, and the other person can pay for his/hers.
I find that people agonize over this way more than is necessary. Either just ask for separate checks or volunteer to be the math person and tell each person what they owe. I’ve never had anyone whine about it in fact the check is now regularly thrown in my direction now to perform the division.
I used to eat with a group of guys that I worked with who preferred for various reasons to rotate payment and they always had beer with lunch and I didn’t. At their insistence they skipped me every 2 or 3 cycles to make up for that.
Pick the one of these you like the least and do the other.
I guess you could just refuse to go out with her friends again, but that’s a pretty passive-aggressive way to deal with a relatively small problem, and you’ll both end up pissed off and resentful. Unless your girlfriend’s friends are real assholes, you won’t actually be arguing over money. You point out the problem, they apologize, you do some quick calculations and everything’s fine. If it goes any other way, the problem isn’t bill-splitting: it’s that you’re dining with jerks (and your girlfriend is friends with jerks).
C’mon, suck it up and speak up. As a vegetarian who occasionally just gets a salad when everyone else is grabbing a much more pricey (meat-containing) entree, I’ve learned to do this. When the check comes, just say “here’s my share plus tip; I only had the pasta and some water” or whatever.
If you’re out with a group of people and most people order about the same thing, it’s a hell of a lot easier to split the check 4 or 6 ways or whatever. Much easier than figuring out what each person’s part is. If you do end up paying more, it’s usually not very much, and spending 15 minutes at the end of the meal trying to figure out what each person ordered and how much it cost almost always ends up with some mistake being made anyway. And the waiter easily gets stiffed, too, because of math errors.
That said, if people DON’T order about the same stuff, then yeah, it’s not fair. Ask for separate checks or figure it out. That’s fine.
What not to do: go out to lunch with a group of 8 or 10 people. Everyone orders stuff that comes to about $8 except you, you order something that comes to $5. At the end, insist that you’re not going to split the check because your thing was $3 less, and when everyone looks at you and says “OK YOU figure out what everyone owes because it’s a ton of work and we all are OK with splitting it” refuse to do that. Just keep insisting you only owe $5 and that’s all you’re going to pay.
(yes, I know someone who did that. I think I got so frustrated I just grabbed the check and said “lunch is on me!”)
Yeah, you pretty much have to just speak up and only pay for you own share. We run into the same thing sometimes - I almost always have only water to drink, and we rarely have appetizers or dessert, so our share of the bill is not the same as the people who had all those things plus a carafe of wine and coffees and teas after.
I’m with the OP - I’d rather just not go out with these guys at all. Why THEY can’t pay their fair share I never know but you try to get half-drunk people to admit their fair share. It doesn’t work as pretty as you all pretend it does.
Splitting checks is an idea, but all too often restaurants don’t want to do it, or the rest of the group says “it’ll be fine”.
Anyone who expects me to subsidize their drinking I just don’t go out with anymore.
I don’t continue to go out with people who don’t find a way to equitably share the cost. Seperate checks is a lot of trouble, so it’s easier for one person to pick it up this time, someone else next time. Or someone picks up the check, and someone pays the tip, or someone pays for the meals, someone pays for the drinks. There’s a lot of ways to split things up easily, and change who pays what the next time. There are times I go out with people less well off than I am, and in those cases I find an excuse to cover the bill that doesn’t leave them feeling like cheapskates. But if you don’t cover your fair share over time, I just decline to go out with you.
When the server is taking your order, politely, and discreetly, “May I have mine on a separate check please?”
Problem solved. If your friend’s question why, make any excuse you like (debit card only, tracking my spending, need a receipt, my accountant…) or just smile and say, “Don’t worry, it’s all taken care of!” Done. No need to drop dining out with your friends, or changing girlfriend’s!
With 6 (or 20) people there’s a problem with separating the bill: it’s a faff, and everyone forgets how much they had and underpays, etc, etc, so it can be awkward deciding what to do if splitting equally isn’t fair. But with two couples who know each other fairly well, I can’t see a problem with just asking to put in what you each owe.
There’s also the problem that it depends on people’s stage of life. If I was buying <£1 ice cream with someone, I wouldn’t care about the cost at all, I’d just not worry about it. Some people would put a £20 meal in the same zone of “not worth worrynig about”, other people wouldn’t. (Not always according to how much money you have, but how much you mind being taken advantage of…)
Don’t listen to any of these people. Continue nurturing your resentment and brooding over how you have been wronged. Those people cheated you! They took your kind, generous heart and stomped all over it and you have a need, no…a right, to anonymously obsess on a public message board over the ten dollars or so those grifters buttfucked you out of. Go for it!
Or, you could grow a pair and ask for separate checks.
Or, Why wait? You could pick out a spot now at the counter at your local Denny’s and start eating there, alone, and muttering into your breakfast slam.
If this is a problem more than occasionally, I would say you are either 1) excessively shy in asking for what you prefer; 2) trying to be excessively courteous (probably mistakenly so); or 3) trying to make a good impression by appearing to be less concerned about money than you actually are.
With my closer friends, I don’t usually have this problem because we generally order similar things and if we tried to calculate what everyone owed it wouldn’t come out to more than a few bucks different than if we just divided it equally. I do, however, have some friends who prefer ordering wine by the bottle (while I buy beer by glass, which is much cheaper), so they always pay for their wine separately.
Whenever I go out with groups in which there is a wide range in cost in what people may be ordering, then we either ask for separate checks, or (more commonly) pass the check around and everyone throws in what they owe. This usually works out ok. (In fact, the wait person often gets a pretty good tip since most people seem to throw in a bit more than they actually owe.)
Asking for separate checks is the simplest way to go. Yeah, the wait person may act inconvenienced but it’s part of their job so go ahead and ask. If they refuse, consider not eating at that restaurant again. In my experience most will do so without a problem.
Failing this, as others have said just grab the check and put in what you owe and pass it along. Most people worth being friends with won’t think anything of this. You shouldn’t have to “argue over money.” If you’re contemplating never dining with them again because you’re pissed off because you paid too much of the bill, there’s no downside to suggesting dividing the bill equitably.
In this situation, people can’t take advantage of you unless you allow them to. If you feel that your cut of the bill is unfair, it’s up to you to be assertive about it.