To think you don’t get out of paying the bill because you don’t drink?

When I've been out for a meal with a group I've encountered both methods, the everyone pays for what they ordered and splitting equally. Splitting equally makes everything simple and guarentees the bill will be covered but those who ordered cheaper items will effectively be slightly subsidising those who ordered expensive dishes and/or were liberal with the alcohol consumption. Splitting by what everyone ordered is the fairest but it requires everyone to log what they ordered. I've been at one meal where we were paying for what we ordered, I gave my share to the host and left because I had a train to catch, found out later they were £20 short for the bill and the host ended up making up the difference out of her pocket. If you are going to use the system where everyone pays for what they ordered, hand out a pen and paper to everyone at the start of the meal so they can write everything down as they order it.

Quite.

Yeah exactly 🤷🏻‍♀️

🤣🤣

Since they now have each item on a bill just ask the server for you to all pay separately- it's just as easy, there is no reason why the food split should pay for soft drinks.
As to the dessert "I don't want to feel alone" , just refuse to be pressurised. On the other hand, in my opinion, whether you tip or not is a personal thing.

Why didn’t everyone just pay for what they had?

@fromthegecko thank you for pointing that out so nicely - it was meant to be yanbu but I was typing in a hurry! Think it's time I got the reading glasses I've been putting off for some time now. I can't edit it now so waiting for someone to yell at me lol. I was just sharing a situation where I think its reasonable to pay for drinks - the designated driver :)

The lady that drank all the cokes wasn't a designated driver. She just wanted everyone else to pay for her cokes (as well as their own drinks) and somehow managed to get her way. Do you really think OP was unreasonable to object?

WTAF? This is nonsense and a narrative you’ve created to justify not being generous enough to tip ! How do you think employers will magically be able to raise all wages to match tips in the current climate??!

As someone who is unable to drink alcohol I always pay for just what I had. I usually only have a couple of drinks so no way I’m going to sub everyone else’s drinks! We don’t tip where I live and quite often the driver gets free drinks by the restaurant or people being taxied around so we divide the bill by what you consume. It’s fairer that way especially if people eat a lot less or are on a budget. YABU

In this case her bill was slightly lower than the others’ @Trishthedish.

Doubt she drank 3 pints of coke tbh.
And I wish wine cost that where I am!!

I our local pub a pint of coke is £r4.40! A glass of wine is £3.80. She’s the cheeky one

You must be real fun at parties.

I agree.

Possibly this person was OP as she seems to have disappeared 😁

You can’t rely on that voting.

Mainly because OP actually asks two questions as I outlined upthread, so it’s unclear if people are voting to answer the first or second.
And it’s entirely possible to think the answer is YANBU to the first question and YABU to the second…so who knows what the voting actually indicates.

I think maybe they just didn't spot that she'd spent so much. I don't think it's odd for several drinkers to slightly subsidise one non-drinker if it saves a bit of fiddling about with the bill (we do this in my friend group every time, as a thank you for her sometimes being designated driver and for putting up with us when drunk ).

Split evenly or everyone pays for what they had. I often have a soft drink with lunch and it's rarely cheaper

I don't think it's that either. They said to take off the alcohol, the person who calculated it didn't take off all the drinks and get her to just pay for her own. They included her drinks in the split. Which is the fault of the person who did the calculation and not the person who didn't want to pay for the alcohol.

I haven't read the whole thread so this may have been covered but I don't really know how she managed to pull this off. When she stated that she wouldn't pay for the alcoholic drinks and split the remainder of the bill, surely someone out of the three of you said "ok, we'll pay for our drinks, you pay for your cokes and we'll split the food bill".
People can only get away with this rubbish if other people let them!

It may be strange, but it is what actually happened, with the result that CF ended up £7.50 to the good, at the expense of everyone else. 44% think this is reasonable, and I'm trying to work out why. I think perhaps that I will never know....

As someone who's worked in retail earning minimum wage, why should I when I don't get tips?

I agree. The difference is so small that it’s worth being flexible with a new group of friends.

You sound a delight!

Not sure where you're based. I'm in the UK and when a bunch of us were in Canada for a wedding for a week (about 15 of us) we are out/drank a lot... 95% of places we went asked straight away 'split bill?' Yes please! Not a problem for them to put through fifteen different tabs and add on as each person wanted a dessert or another drink! Then they went round the table at the end and gave bill/took payment from each individual. It was a good send. Wish we would do it more here, so easy. Nobody was 'done' and nobody felt guilty for ordering whatever they wanted. Although here if I was drinking and someone else wasn't I'd stick an extra tenner or something in or the equivalent of what I had. I've also been on the receiving end of split bills when the big eaters/drinkers don't put extra in 🙄 but in your case I think she was being a bit unfair, soft drinks can cost just as much these days. Maybe if she comes along next time and isn't drinking just tell her to asked for separate bill at the beginning?

it plays the violin on occasion