# "Would you like separate checks?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 2, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-separate-checks/811680 "2018-04-02T23:53:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-separate-checks/811680/41 "2018-04-04T01:23:14Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > My husband and I are inter-racial. We’ve lived in CA, OR, and Missouri. We never get asked this, and we are rarely demonstrative. Truthfully, if it were racial, I would have expected it to turn up in Missouri. > [@Stonebow](#): > > Male half of an interracial couple, here. Currently in MO. And yes, we have had this happen, pretty much exclusively at local restaurants, > and it generally dictates where we choose to spend our money in the future. > I’ve tried to pass it off as SOP at a few restaurants, or the lunch rush if it’s just she and I, but no, it’s not that. She never gets it with white colleagues, male or female. I’ve inquired with my colleagues about it as well…nope. > It’s especially galling when we are having a family dinner, with our son between us, and he looks like a perfect mix of our us. And yes, it’s happened. > I am willing to chalk it up to this particular part (semi-rural) part of Missouri. Dang you Missouri. I lived in Columbia. It didn’t feel all that progressive, but I guess it was progressive for the state. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-separate-checks/811680/42 "2018-04-04T21:18:38Z")
Asian (in case my reputation doesn’t precede me around here) born and raised in Southern California in semi-affluent suburbs surrounded by Italian and Mexican Catholics, Welsh Mormons, Scotch and Irish protestants, Israeli Jews, Greek and German Orthodox Christians, and who-knows-what other neighbors of western European ancestry. We were all just mainstream people living in mainstream America. When I first went to Grand Junction, Colorado to visit the [Caucasian] woman who is now my wife, she offered to take me out to dinner with her kids and the kids chose a nice family diner – something like an up-scale Denny’s restaurant. When the waitress first arrived at the table, she asked, “Do we need separate checks?” I had somehow learned old-world manners in which the male always pays (that’s a different thread somewhere around here), so I shook my head and said, “No. I’m buying.” “No you’re not.” my host told me. She had learned a different protocol and explained, “I invited you, so I’m paying.” I looked at my host, at the kids, at the waitress, realized everyone was staring at me and the time was not right for an argument, then simply smiled at the waitress and nodded, “In any case, one check will work fine.” “Okay.” she nodded, “Drinks?” After the drinks were requested the waitress went away and it was the 9-year-old daughter who complained that the waitress didn’t seem to think we were together simply because I look different. * * * Another interracial incident that sticks in my memory occurred decades ago when I was in college. My girlfriend at that time, who was very proudly Scotch/Irish/Welsh, never pursued anything past high school. However, when she came to visit me on campus one day there happened to be a bazaar along the main courtyard and we went browsing among the booths. She stopped at one booth and said, “Buy me a ring(?)” and I looked at the stuff on the table and saw that they were simple gold electroplated trinkets selling very cheaply. She picked one out and a black man came over to write up a little receipt. While I was fishing in my pack for my wallet, he casually asked, “So what’s it like to be an interracial couple on campus?” Since my girlfriend wasn’t a fellow student I didn’t consider us to be an “On Campus” couple. We were not regularly seen as a couple there because our regular activities simply occurred elsewhere (San Diego is a huge town with lots of places to go and things to do well away from the colleges). So as I pulled out my wallet and handed the man some cash, I frowned and said, “I dunno. Why do you ask me?” The man frowned back, swapped the bills in my hand for the receipt he had just written and said, “Have a nice day.” My girlfriend and I wandered off toward the library. Suddenly she stepped in front of me, turned, put her hands on my shoulders to stop me, and announced, “I’ve got something important to tell you.” “Uh, what?” I asked, somewhat surprised by the confrontational tone and more surprised that she was stopping our walk. “You may not have noticed.” she continued, “But I’m white.” It still took me a minute to realize how my self-image and all my social assumptions completely failed to correspond to the ring vendor’s expectations. And then we just laughed all the way to the library. –G! Biologically, we are all one RACE 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-separate-checks/811680/43 "2018-04-04T23:35:13Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > As someone who lives in Georgia, yes I think there is a regional element - parts of the South (and not all country bumpkin) still aren’t all that good with interracial couples (I say this being in an interracial relationship, which is generally fine in Atlanta, but sometimes gets strange outside of it). Also live in Georgia, and am the white half of an inter-racial couple. He’s AA and lives in Florida. We are both in our 50s, have jobs that involve alot of travel, and we have dined and stayed in many places across various states. We’ve never been asked about separate checks in Georgia, Florida, or anywhere else. Maybe I am giving off a vibe as a chick who would never pay for her own meal? ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-separate-checks/811680/44 "2018-04-05T00:25:05Z")
> [@Grumbacher\_Red](#): > > Maybe I am giving off a vibe as a chick who would never pay for her own meal? I’ve got to get me one of those. Somehow I’ve got the vibe that gives the impression that says I will pay for everything. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-separate-checks/811680/45 "2018-04-05T03:12:29Z")
My wife and I, both women, are frequently asked if we want separate checks in non-business meal contexts. ---
**Author:** ![Arabella\_Flynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-separate-checks/811680/46 "2018-04-05T04:22:30Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > When it’s just the two of us, Mrs. Cups and myself are usually just given one check. It’s actually rather annoying because we would PREFER to have everything separate, but we don’t complain too much because it’s relatively obvious we’re married and it’s not the worst assumption to make that we want them separate. > > It blew my co-worker’s mind when we asked for separate checks one time. The fact that a married couple has separate accounts did not compute with her. Keep in mind, we’ve been married for, like, 6 months… Hijack: Two of my housemates have been married for nearly a year now. They still haven’t bothered opening a joint account. Their marriage license is stuck to the side of the fridge with a magnet, and their bulletin board still has post-its all over it that say, “reception???” They MAY get around to throwing the party this fall. 😃 They were de facto hitched before but had to get an official to write it down for insurance reasons, so that probably contributed. On topic: Others have suggested it’s because you’re in tourist areas, but you also might be in… less-affluent ones, I suppose? Not necessarily low-income, but where individuals don’t necessarily have scads of extra money on them at all times. My own experience is that if you look like a college kid, and are in a college town, and are eating at a place where college students collect, they will ask you if you want separate checks even if you’re practically groping each other. They are perpetually unsure whether any one of you can pay for the whole table, and have probably learned from experience that making a load of humanities majors do long division by themselves would just be painful. That wouldn’t be the reason they ask YOU, if you don’t look like a lost 19-year-old, but it might be habit if they ask a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-separate-checks/811680/47 "2018-04-05T04:43:04Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > tbh, that seems a little weird to me. **kaylasmom** and I have never been asked if we wanted separate checks. I’ve always put it down to the tendency to view the disabled diner as somehow an _accessory_ of the ACTUAL diner. And the women as accesories to the men, which for you guys goes in the same direction but for Broomstick ran in opposite ways. In the OP’s case, the assumptions are again opposed: woman is accesory to man, but darker is accesory to lighter. Out for lunch with white coworkers in Philadelphia we weren’t asked about separate checks; with a male black coworker, we were asked but then, I also was once asked if he was bothering me and had to remind myself that slapping cops is illegal (there was absolutely nothing about our interactions which looked like “bother”). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-separate-checks/811680.md?page=2)