Not going halves with friend on lunch

Hospitality manager here, trust me there are loads of the fuckers. If I had a pound for every time there was a row about it, I wouldnt need to go to work! Equally, refereed quite a few about people secretly paying the whole bill or insising on paying the full bill for everyone, so its not all bad!

You definitely weren’t BU.

How can she get in a sulk because on one occasion you declined to subsidise her lunch?

Bizarre.

When I go out, I generally don’t worry which way we’re doing it but I would never mind if someone said “let’s pay for our own”. I usually find it a bit of a relief to split it if I’ve spent a little bit more because I don’t like to freeload.

You must be the friend. There simply cannot be more than one of you out there.

She is being unreasonable. She is basically snubbing you for you refusing to pay for some of her lunch. If a friend of mine was broke and needed to just pay for what they had i would totally respect and understand that, not throw a strop.

She asked if you wanted to split the bill and you said no. If she was going to have a tantrum about it, why did she even bother asking you!? It’s a massive over reaction if she isn’t talking to you, are you sure it’s just about this? Or have you been tight about something else and this is the final straw?

Ah, she's cross that your regular small subsidy of her more expensive choices has now stopped.

IMO folks who are adamant about bill splitting and get pissy if you don't are the most entitled orderers. They don't hold back. They are generally the ones ordering extra sides, or a beer, or a pudding, or all these. And they never seem to notice that other people may have ordered less to keep their own costs down, or that an extra fiver adds up over time. But they are remarkably intolerant when anyone diverts from this arrangement. Almost as if they feel they deserve to take advantage. Once it's pointed out that there's a discrepancy, most reasonable people want a fair split.

Ignore her. You're not missing out.

Urgh I cannot STAND people like this.

But now at least you know that she isnt actually a friend but someone who just wants what she can get out of you.

I bet if you spend a bit of time thinking about it ,you will remember a lot of other instances that didnt seem much at the time but always ended up with her getting the better side of the deal.

This is why now when I go out with certain people I always say "I am going to be paying for my own, I dont eat much (true) so I will stick on my own" and I refuse to be peer pressured into doing it any other way. I cant eat big meals, so I am not having a starter as a main but paying for your three courses!

There was a thread on here about a works event where Billy Big Bollocks from another department invited himself out to the OP's department meal. Ordered loads of expensive food and wine and made a total pig of himself. When the bill came OP insisted that everyone should pay for what they had as the juniors earned far less and hadnt had as much as some others so it wouldnt be fair to have them subsidise higher earners. No one had a problem except BBB who had a tantrum and said that he wouldnt have ordered so much if he knew he was going to have to pay for it all!! OP was declared a Mumsnet hero! Iirc he had a habit of wangling invites all around the company and pulling this stunt. I hope word got around and he wasnt able to do it again!

The friend ordered a more expensive mains and a pudding.

It's funny how people on MN threads invariably get the arse when they are not subsidised.

When with my friends, paying individually is the unspoken rule, always adhered to. In this way offence can never be given or taken.

There's not going to be much difference between a hot drink and a small pudding ? What was the difference?

I lunch with two different friends and we always just pay for our own.

Why on earth should you have to pay for her food when you just had a drink? Madness. Not talking to you is ridiculous. I don’t think this woman is a friend. I split the bill with friends when we’ve roughly had the same. If someone didn’t drink, someone will always say you’re not paying for the wine as you didn’t have any. If someone says I’m watching the pennies at the mo, I’ll just pay for what I had, all good, no issue. Why would it be? She was not being reasonable on the day and is not being reasonable not talking to you now. I’d reflect on what she brings to your friendship as from what you’ve written it’s all about her and her expectation is you just fall in line. There are nicer people out there.

So what kind of difference are we talking? How much more was her meal than yours - £2 or £10 or more? Because if you split the difference of even £10 you would be paying £5 more. I couldn't get worked up over that with a friend because it all tends to even out in the long run. However, if this is a constant pattern of behaviour with her I would stop meeting for meals and just do coffee.

@Rachaelf37 No, of course YANBU. You'd already explained money was tight so why would she think you'd be happy to subsidise her meal? Why should you? (And you'd already got a discount for both of you with a card you had!) I'd love to hear her justification for ignoring you for weeks. I'm afraid you don't need friends like that.

I said unreasonable as in that situation I’d just pay or at explain it to my friend who would totally understand! She drinks. I do not.

Unreasonable of her to then not talk to you!!!

dep on how much we are talking about, both had a main herd slightly more, she had a dessert, you had a drink. Do you normally split? If so she may have subsidised you before, changing now seems wrong. If money is tight, why are you eating out at all

Seems a bit ridiculous to be upset about it weeks later unless there’s more to it.

If you usually split the bill and generally your proportion is higher, and this time you pay your own when your share is lower that would be annoying. This seems the most likely. Do you feel it’s been balanced in the past or not?

She might be feeling skint too and didn’t want to say.

🙄

Absolutely drives me nuts when people do this. No, if you’re going to order an extra course or an expensive dish then of course you shouldn’t expect to split the bill equally! Stand your ground, OP.

I would normally pay my share if I had had a course that someone else hadn't had. It wouldn't occur to me to ask someone else to subsidise my meal for me. I have sometimes said "there's only a couple of quid in it, let's split it" but only where it's me contributing the extra money and working out my share is a faff. But I have some friends who really can't afford to do that and I certainly wouldn't fall out with anyone who didn't want to do that.

With my friends sometimes we split, sometimes we don't. If someone said, I am a bit skint this month so I want to just pay individually then that would be fine. Would never dream of not talking to a friend over it. How bizarre.

Unless you usually order more expensive things than her when splitting YANBU

also she benefitted from your discount

I’d imagine the difference between a dessert and a coffee these days is about £3 - I feel embarrassed for you if that’s what you are quibbling over. Only time I don’t split is if one of us isn’t drinking alcohol but for food it’s swings and roundabouts and none of my friends takes the piss by ordering super expensive things.

I couldnt be arsed to not split over a couple of quid but if you don't want to that's your right and to stoo talking to you over it is ridiculous. Has she acted like this before.

Previously have you been ordering lobster and she's had a cheese sandwich?

Got to be more to this.