Equal bill splitting annoyance

You can't imagine a friendship that is about more than the cost of meals out and car journeys to get there?

I can’t imagine a friendship that’s give, give, give while my friend take, take, takes. Only an absolute doormat would tolerate such an uneven ‘friendship’. If you’re more than happy to keep generously overpaying while your friends keep taking from you, you might consider that your friendship isn’t very valuable to them and they are just using you for cheap nights out.

You can't imagine a friendship that is about more than the cost of meals out and car journeys to get there?

When I think of the to and fro, give and take of my friendships, they are about both parties generously sharing their time, money and attention on each other, sometimes unevenly, over the course of many years. If I took out a notebook at any particular moment to jot down the transactional cost of any single evening out, I would kill the friendship dead in an instant.

"What about that ice cream you bought me on holiday in the 2000s when my cash card got lost in the machine?"

"You still owe me for the flowers I sent you when your Dad died."

"Remember when I picked your kids up from Brownies because you locked your keys in your car? I don't think you ever gave me a contribution for the petrol..."

I wouldn't.

I generously overpay in these situations so this bad feeling doesn't occur.

It might not be premeditated, but it does very much sound like they're happily taking advantage of the situation as they see how things pan out. It's usually very obvious when you're going at it on the spirits, cocktails or fancy wines and somebody else has a coke or half a pint of beer or two.

When we have this situation, my OH will go up to the bar on way to the loo etc, pay for our share then when they bring up the bill at the end, he says he has paid for ours. But we do also have some friends where we have like a tit for tat going, and we take it in turns, or we order a det menu so it is always same price pp.

As a single Ive often found that drinks in pubs can work out unequally when you socialise with couples. There are two of them to be bought for but often they only buy one round between them. So they with their dual income are buying me one drink and I on my single income am buying two drinks. Having a kitty also works out unfairly for those who prefer soft drinks. I have always paid for my own drinks in these situations and usually gone to the bar and returned with two at a time to save frequent trips. Drinking in bars is too expensive anyway. I think a lot of people have made this decision looking at the number of pubs that have closed.

Op your right and they happy for you to pay it too. Its def tricky if people dont drink but again this should be said at the start.

Charge your drinks at the bar to the table, also I won't subsidise much heavier drinkers than myself- working or not working, if you allow people to get away with this they will always do it, it will get even worse and it will be too late to mention it- deal with it now.

Right. It's standard everywhere I've been to, but suppose it's not?
Ask for the menu and calculate what you owe.

I don't agree with this take at all.

I went out on a hen do once - I was pregnant. I had one mocktail. We had food and most of the other people were drinking. They all had lots of actual cocktails. I ended up paying an extra £50 as my 'share' of the drinks bill ... I was really pissed off about it but too afraid to speak up.

The problem is, as I’ve just said, that not every restaurant does this. It certainly is not ‘standard’. It’s something that you have to specifically request, and they may or may not agree to. The standard is to present a bill for the whole table.

No, I go to restaurants quite a lot, live in the UK, and seperate billing is standard. You get an itemised bill, so what's the problem?

Not sure how common this is in the UK. I’ve been to a restaurant before where someone asked for a separate bill and the restaurant refused, saying that they can only bill by table. I don’t know why tbh, separate bills should be the standard.

Had this conversation with DS who is currently doing a lot of socialising in a new city with new flatmates and new workmates. He says it's now pretty common for them to order/pay separately, and they particularly seek out restaurants with "app" ordering to make that easier. They all get on their apps, place their orders, and payment is automatically independently sorted. In places where they don't have ordering apps, they have a "sharing app" where they each enter their individual costs to share the bill properly.

The potential problem with that, though - if indeed certain people are being CFs and trying to get their money's worth - they'll just realise that they need to switch their tactics to filling their boots with their food consumption rather than with the booze.

Sounds good.

Something like this is better

Hi everyone! For future meals, can we split the food equally and each pay for our own drinks? I think that works out more fairly for everyone. Thanks!

I agree, @AWeeCupOfTeaAndAnIndividualFruitTrifle! No need for an app. The bill comes. It's itemised. This is what I had, this is what I pay for.
That's all!

How do these apps work? Do they somehow synchronise with the menus - of bigger chains, presumably; likely not small individual places? Even then, surely you'd still have to keep inputting every item that somebody orders; and if they don't already 'know' the (up to date) prices, you'd have to input those too?

Genuinely, what benefit do these apps add above your phone calculator and a notepad? Even with that, isn't the whole point/excuse of splitting the bill because people find it onerous and a bore to have to keep a track of everything that everybody orders?

Moreover, the concept of shared bottles of wine and large sharer dishes make it potentially even more fuzzy - which the CFs often capitalise on. Effectively, they gleefully seize on a common time-saving system whereby people are willing to potentially overpay a pound or two in exchange for the faff of having to track everybody's spending, but then deliberately exploit it to make others pay £10, £20, £30 or more extra... which rather makes that 'faff' seem not such an onerous task after all!

Not to mention the whole ridiculous tipping system, which I would love to see abolished nationwide in favour of restaurants actually transparently charging the full price that they wish to be paid for each item ordered, as shown on the menu and the bill, without any drama.

That's how these people work. Relying on everyone else not wanting to say anything. I don't mind a couple of pounds over but I'm not paying for cocktails, wine, spirits that others have been liberal in ordering

If you are the one who leaves earliest chuck in what you owe with a tip and leave. Simples!

There are phone apps for this. Splitwise is one. Let's you input who had what. Not used it myself. Note that CFs will probably be outraged you are using this and call you a CF

👏

Says someone who splitting the bill will favour them!

Why would you expect friends to subsidise your alcohol?