Last night, a group of us went out for a schmanzy dinner to celebrate a close friend's birthday.
Table for 5: birthday girl, birthday girl's boyfriend, friend 1 (Casey), my partner and me. The 5 of us regularly socialise together so there are no group dynamic issues.
the meal was supposed to be our (my friend and my) gift to my friend. I'd asked my friend for ideas in advance and she had taken ages to respond. I then provided some suggestions and eventually she chose this place. It's a very nice restaurant which does quite a reasonable set menu. We agreed that we would pay for ourselves and split the cost of our friends' share and then the boys would pay for themselves too. We spoke to the boys who were happy with that and made the meal a surprise.
It was lovely - very special. However I hadn't anticipated drinks prices when I suggested it to Casey. At the meal, Casey suggested wine for the girls and picked it. I agreed and was prepared to pay my share.
All was going well until the bill arrived. We began to calculate what the boys owed and then it came down to Casey and me. She put in £12 less than her share (in cash) and I said I'd have to pay on card. Birthday girl's boyfriend saw me looking uncomfortable and quietly calculating and recalculating with my partner and even offered to contribute extra but Casey kept insisting that it was our treat. At this point it was becoming a little awkward as birthday girl could see us faffing with the bill and I didn't want to put a downer on her special evening. We all paid and left.
I'm really pissed off. It's an expensive place and it was originally one of my suggestions (though I hadn't anticipated the massive wine spend or the uneven bill splitting).
However Casey did pick the place (and a number of my other suggestions were cheaper).
AIBU to be annoyed at being out of pocket?