Not going halves with friend on lunch

Not a friend.

What is tacky is expecting others to subsidise your meal. As for the 'British' thing, you're right and it's something I hate about this country, our stupid 'don't make waves' mentality. Other countries are not like that, usually.

There's only three possible scenarios here -

1. The friend is bonkers - but no indication from OP that this is the case. Who would stop talking to a friend for not wanting to split bill? If this is indeed what's happened, then rhe friend is bonkers, case closed, no thread required.
2. The friend has in fact NOT stopped talking to OP, but is instead going through something, has lost her phone, has been kidnapped, I don't know.
3. There is a MASSIVE backstory...

Also, we don't know if this is an ongoing this with OP. The fact she had to mention she bought her pal a bracelet "once" to prove she is not mean speaks volumes.

No the difference was £7 in total so £3.50.
I didn't say the OP didn't want to get her friend a discount, I said the OP had no choice but to use her discount card for the whole bill, so it wasn't actually doing her friend a favour.

I was referring to the fact that she was overdrawn

She's a cheeky nasty cow.

People who are entitled are probably not really worth keeping as friends.

@Cosyblankets

It really isn't having a dig to point out that you don't spend money you don't have.

But she did have it, enough for what she ate.

And yes I think anyone telling OP she should have not gone/done something cheaper/done something free and basically telling off is a bit off in my book, . She can spend her own money however she chooses as can everyone else on here.

I took the £7ish to be possibly more with the discount added. But it doesn't really matter, OP was trying to be careful.

Sorry, I have a kneejerk reaction and I always feel 'urgh' when I see 'HTH' but it seems to be on MN a lot. It's not coming from a friendly place IMO and I would gladly see it consigned to the MN bin along with 'hun'. But then I am a grouchy old fart.

Those who can’t see that 3.50 can be a real issue clearly have more money than sense

I think this comes down to personal budgets and choices.
So if you take turns paying, if you usually have around the same foods.Not such a problem.
But if it’s consistently one person choosing more expensive foods and expecting to split a bill, I’d notice that, particularly if I was on a budget. And I did notice someone ordering most expensive items when they thought bill was to be split.

Oh come on now. You think OP didn’t want to get her friend the discount as well - where has that come from ?
And yes it’s £3.50 plus a more expensive main so let’s say £5 in total. I agree it’s not a lot of money, but OP had already said she was short that month and ordered less than her friend. Friend should have automatically offered to pay the extra that her pudding cost, not refuse to and get in a strop about it.

If £7 signifies the end of a friendship, it probably wasn’t worth having in the first place.

I realise it was hyperbolic, but the suggestion that somebody is being tight because they can't/don't want to pay extra for an unrelated adult to get a discount off their bill is just bonkers.

It's nice that you aren't in the position to have to stick carefully to a budget (which can indeed include an occasional treat), but not everybody is that privileged.

How do you arrive at the idea that OP is checking up on how much her friend's order costs? Surely she was carefully choosing how to spend her own money on a limited budget - very standard for most people in shops/restaurants etc. - and was then asked to pay more than that, which made it instantly obvious that her friend had spent more on her own order.

I'm sure if OP had a crystal ball she wouldn't have. How was she to know how her cheeky friend was going to react?

As for people saying about warning somebody that you can't split the bill and can/will only pay for your own... I would be hugely offended by this, as it clearly insinuates that I am expecting them to sub me, rather than - of course - being fully prepared to pay my own bill. It's basically a way of calling you out in advance for being a CF, and telling you bluntly that your CF tricks will not work, even though you had not the faintest notion or intention of ever being a CF in any way whatsoever in the first place.

We're not talking about toddlers here, who see the ice cream van in the park and demand one, even though they have no money of their own; this is about adults apparently having to be warned that, if you order items from a restaurant, that means you have to pay for them!!

I bet that loads of people would have kept quiet about the discount and told the others to give them half/their 'share' of the full bill and then go to the till to settle up, using the discount.

Honestly, any decent friend, even if surprised, would understand. I don’t think you need to worry about being unreasonable. I really feel for you, these sorts of conversation can be so uncomfortable. X

Yep you can ask a friend not to split the bill. Weird of her to fall out with you over that even if she did think it was a bit petty.

If you can't afford to pay for your own food, don't go to lunch.

If £7 is the end of a friendship, don't go to lunch.

I am British, and I wouldn’t dream of even asking someone to split the bill if I had bean tucking into extra courses! Especially not if they were struggling financially! I can’t get over some of these posts.

I think it’s a bit tacky to split things accord to what you ate unless it’s a big difference eg £15 vs £45.
I think it’s good etiquette to split the bill and just move on. Perhaps that’s the British spirit of just not dwelling on money, just seems a bit bad manners and cheap. If yours is £15 and hers is £20 just split it and be done with it! It comes back in swings and roundabouts

You were not tight at all, you paid your way.

The friend who expected you to pay for her meal is the tight one here!

It doesn't matter how small the difference was, you are never obliged to subsidise someone else's meal .

Not unreasonable at all.

It really isn't having a dig to point out that you don't spend money you don't have. And conversations do evolve. We're on page 8. Rarely do the answers just go yes or no and get to 8 pages. You're questioning what's it got to do with me and you're finding HTH snarky! Other people have suggested walks etc. Is it nothing to do with them either? Should they not contribute?
Yes if I was her friend I would have paid for her. When i go out with my friend sometimes i pay sometimes she does sometimes we split.
Friend ordered a slightly more expensive meal and had a small dessert and coffee. I'm taking this to be one of those joint deals where you get coffee and cake for a fixed price. It's usually about 2.50 ish more than a coffee. OP also had coffee. Then the bill was discounted and split.

That is a really stupid comparison but I'll tell you what I would not do... I would not look at the menu to check if my friend's main was a few pence more than mine and clock it, then refuse to split the bill because I didn't have a small dessert.
In other words, I would not embarrass myself over £3.50.