Separate checks! SEPARATE CHECKS!

The BBQ Pit
1

This is not so much a rant as a desperate plea to the dumbass waiters of the world.

A few months back, I started dating a girl from school. As a good, conservative Southern boy, I bought dinner (or whatever) the first dozen or so times we went out. No problem. Eventually, though, we got to that point in the relationship where we were hanging out so often and doing so much stuff together that I simply couldn’t afford to foot every bill–as a broke law student, I realized that we were either going to start going Dutch or I was going to give up my apartment and start living in my truck. I mentioned it to her, she wondered why I hadn’t earlier, and life was good. Unless it was some kind of “special occasion,” we agreed to act like grownups and pay for our own freakin’ burritos.

If only it were that easy. Probably 50% of the time we go out to eat, the waiter/waitress plops the check down in front of me without asking whether that’s appropriate. I am then put in the awkward position of either negotiating a split with my girl, asking the waiter to divy up the check, or just paying the damn bill. As a good, conservative Southern boy without a lot of dough, I don’t really want to do any of those things. What I really want to do is scream and pull out Monica the Idiot Waitress’s hair.

Yes, Monica, we are together. Yes, Monica, we hold hands and giggle and coo and do all of that other ridiculous crap that people do on dates. And yes, Monica, we want separate checks.

It’s not difficult at all to just ask us if we want one check or two. So do it. Please. I will be happier, your tip will be larger, and my blood pressure will go way down.

2

Sorry, TB, but there’s a rebuttable presumption at restaurants that parties want a single bill. If you don’t specifically ask for seperate checks, you have no right whatsoever to bitch and moan when you get it all on the same bill.

Goddamn, you’re a whiny one, ain’tcha?

A perfect 0.0 on the rant-o-meter.

3

You already had the balls to talk to your GF about splitting the bill and she agreed, why not just negotiate the split from one check?

Unless your GF has suddenly taken control of your balls, I don’t see the problem.

4

But it’s this big imposition for you to say “Seperate checks, please”? I take it back–this rant deserves a rating below zero.

5

So you want a waitperson to go out of their way to make their own job harder when someone could just as easily blow up at them for asking if they want seperate checks?

Awful considerate of you sir.

When you order, pause a moment and say, “Oh, could you please put this on seperate checks?” Or, if you forget, divide the check in half at the end. (if you’re truly anal you are welcome to go through the math of price then tax, but I’m lazy.)

And if someone not reading your mind about the check gets your blood pressure up, I hope you have warned your girlfriend about your horrible and irrational temper.

6

Take turns!
“I pay tonight, you catch it next time we go out.”

If you’re both agreeable to split the bills anyway, why not do it that way. Just so long as the same person doesn’t keep getting the “expensive” nights, I don’t see a problem.

7

Gosh, now I don’t know how I made it through high school and college outings with friends of both genders, almost never asking for a split check, yet somehow quickly working out a satisfactory split payment each and every time.

Use them mental math skills, boy. Or, as Grizz said, just take turns.

8

Buy a pocket calculator, if the pennies are that important. Math won’t kill you.

9

Damn, you people are quick to leap on someone and criticize.

In most decent restaurants I’ve been to, the waitron asks if it is to be on one check or seperate checks. I do think he should ask for seperate checks if they don’t offer, BUT a good waitron doesn’t assume.

10

Speaking for myself, I am glad that waiters and waitresses don’t ask. Depending on who you are there with (a first awkward date, my grandma who thinks she has to pay when I am treating, etc.) it could make things a little uncomfortable.

Really, how hard can it be to just figure the bill when it comes or else ask the waitress?

11

Guys, while I agree this guy is coming off as a twerp, I don’t think the problem is that he is counting pennies, or that he is cheap. I think hte problem is that he thinks it is unbearably tacky to even mention money around his girly, that it took all his courage to allude to the subject even once, and that he can’t fathom bringing it up every single time by taking the initative to ask for seperate checks every time he dines out with her–it sounds like hte first thing he wants to do when he sits down is make it clear that he isn’t paying for her.

I suspect he needs reassurance that we don’t all think a guy who can’t afford to wine and dine a girly 7 nights a week is less than a man. So consider yourself absolved on that one. I doubt many people think you should pay to feed two people, both of whom are starving law students. Now that you and your GF have agreed to this set up, it is OK to talk out the details: “You want I should ask for seperate checks each time, or do you want ot alternate, or what?” She is NOT secretly thinking you are a cheap bastard every time you bring it up. Take this as a challenge: if after six months you can’t have a frank and open disscusion with her about this, you need to spend more time talking and less time eating and cooing. I think that once the two of you have a plan you worked out together, you will feel more comfortable telling hte waitress “two checks, please” when you give her your drink order.

12

I have never, in the course of my life, in dives or five star restraunts, as part of a couple, family, small group, or any other combination besides the large group, been offered (or given) seperate checks for my meal. The standard in America seems to be one check per table.

13

Whoops, forgot a point.

Remember that these days many people carry no cash at all, just a debit card. So spliting the check once it comes to the table isn’t really an option.

14

Sure, Hastur, if you’re there with a bunch of people who obviously aren’t one family, some waiters or waitresses will ask if you want separate checks. But expecting them to do so every single time more than one person occupies a table is ridiculous.

Besides, you’re missing the hypocricy here. TB says “Monica” should ask whether they want seperate checks because “it’s not difficult to ask.” But by the exact same token, it’s not difficult for him to ask. And considering the dramatic toll a single check is exerting on his blood pressure ( :rolleyes: ), you’d think he might have figured that out by now.

15

If anybody knows how to make a stellar Pit debut, by God I do: :smiley:

Yeah! Who’s with me?! Operating on the (probably fallacious) assumption that things can’t possibly get any worse, I’m not giving up. Screw it. Press on, ye foolhardy. :smiley:

As I probably should have pointed out in the OP, this problem only arises when both of us are planning to use plastic (which seems to be pretty often these days). I’m not an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole, and will cheerfully split a check if I’ve got the cash money with which to do it. God knows it’s not a question of pennies, nor of my ability to do math in my head. And I’m cerainly not asking anybody to read my mind–quite the contrary, I’m asking them not to.

As to the question of whether there’s a “rebuttable presumption” that parties want one check: Hogwash. I can’t even imagine going out with the guys and a waiter just bringing one check.

Even if this were the presumption, though, it would be an unwarranted and unnecessary one.

Unwarranted because parties so often don’t want one check, as I’m sure even my staunchest detractors out there could agree.

Unnecessary because it’s not a significant time or effort savings for the server. Does anybody really believe that uttering the seven words “Would you like one ckeck or two?” is a crushing burden on all of waiterdom? If you can take the time to ask me what kind of dressing I want on my salad, you can ask me this, too.

Surely the Dopers, known the web over for their social savvy, understand what I’m getting at. If you ask me whether I’d like separate checks, I can either graciously say “One, please,” or unobtrusively ask for two. Asking, as opposed to making me ask you, allows me to save some face.

And since it’s probably too late to do that in this thread, I’ve gotta do all I can IRL.

16

Sure it is. It’s very easy to say “Put twenty bucks on the Visa and the cash is for everything else.” I’ve done that with my friends dozens of times.

17

Why would this prevent you from asking for a separate check before the bill is drawn?

“Separate checks, please.” is less than half as many words and just as easily uttered. You want to save face? Why not do what has already been suggested and take turns buying the entire meal?

Really? When out with friends or co-workers we get one check but pay our separate portions with cash, check, and plastic. Never had any problem at all.

18

Manda JO pretty much hit the nail on the head (well, except for the twerp bit :))

You’ve got to keep in mind that we (the GF, not Manda JO)both come from places (and to a lesser extent, families) where the guy paying is de rigeur. Yes, that’s stupid, and yes, we both realize it’s stupid. But it’s ingrained in our psyches as surely as the importance of college football. Given that, and the snooty looks I still get when asking for separate checks (remember, small town in the south) I do think it’s tacky to have to mention money–i.e. to have to disclaim that I’m paying–every damn time we go out.

The SDMB has a proud tradition of embracing alternative relationship traits, be you a foot-fetishist or an S & M afficionado. Just think of us as the people who get off by not talking about money, and I’m sure we’ll get along famously. :smiley:

19

I can’t imagine going out with a group and having the server automatically bring separate checks without being asked, or presuming that we want separate checks without being told so. I waitressed and bartended for more than 10 years and when a group came in together, the assumption is that they are on one check unless they say otherwise. They’re all supposed to be friends, right? Or, it should be no problem to split the payment methods; servers get asked that all the time (and if any of them say it can’t be done, politely request to speak to the manager).

I’ve never heard of “the guys” going out and all expecting separate checks as a matter of course. Even if you are each paying for yourself (a completely fine arrangement), don’t you feel somehow cheapskate-ish by wanting separate checks? Is it that big a deal among friends if one of you pays a dollar more than you really should? I don’t know; things must be different out in your neck of the woods.

Also, if you two are cooing at each other, the server is going to think you are on a date or somehow otherwise involved and is going to be even MORE inclined to believe you would naturally want only one check, no matter whether you’re paying or the woman’s paying.

I have waitressed in the South, by the way, and nobody ever presumed I would give them separate checks as the default option.

20

Assuming that you can talk openly and honestly with your girly, perhaps you could ask her to ask for seperate checks? That way the waiter sees a progressive woman, not a selfish bastard.