Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think my friend is a tight arse???

575 replies

FataliePorkman · 15/04/2017 18:20

Just been out for lunch with three friends and our DCs- the children all had the same (lunchboxes with a carton drink and then a small crispy cake) but us adults ate/drank varying amounts. Two of the friends are a couple and the other is single like me. Let's call her Joan.

3/4 of us shared a bottle and extra glass of wine and 2 soft drinks. Joan didn't drink as she lives further away from the pub than us so was driving.
We all had a starter and a main course and then we got a chessboard to share between us- but only me and the couple had some. Joan had 3 DC with her, I have 3 DC and the couple have 1 DC.

Anyway the bill came and friend from the couple suggested we split the bill 3 ways equally. I was fine with this, as were the couple. Joan refused and said she would only pay for what her and her DC had.

Awkward tension followed- Joan paid for her meal and her DC while me and my other two friends split the bill.

AIBU to think she is a bit tight??

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
RufusTheRenegadeReindeer · 15/04/2017 22:27

jean

I would put money on the fact that the other adult ate and drank at least the equivalent of two children's meals

At least

Basing that on an average cost of a kids meal being £5 and an average adult main meal being £10 (so plus the wine and cheese board)

Anyhoo

As others have said..,the cost is not the problem its the fact that Joan is being seen as tight for just wanting to pay for her own family

melj1213 · 15/04/2017 22:28

YABU #TeamJoan

Going against the grain here but I think when you go out with friends you split the bill equally.

Why should that be the blanket rule? Does that mean if we go out and you order a salad and a soft drink and I order lobster, steak and dessert with a magnum of champagne then you should suck it up and pay for it regardless, because you didn't announce that you couldn't afford to shell out a hundred pounds to cover my meal before we ordered?

When I go out with friends we generally split the bill but we tend to all have the same amount - starter/main/dessert/bottle(s) of wine to share etc - so it works out to be less than a couple of pounds difference between individual shares so we save ourselves the bother ... at worst if it's say £40.63 between two of us, then one will pay £20 and the other £20.63 to save the hassle, no way we'd be working out anything more excessively specific.

The only time we don't split the bill is when we have members of the party who aren't drinking (or if there is significant differences between what people have ordered) and in those cases, if someone in the group mentions about splitting the bill, one of the drinkers will usually pipe up with "Sure, but Joan didn't have any of the wine so split the food four ways between all of us and the wine three ways so she's not subsidising our raging drunkenness Grin" before the non-drinker even has a chance to object. And if nobody does pipe up most of my friends are close enough to be able to say "Hey, I have no problem splitting the bill but since you all had the wine/cheeseboard/expensive crap I didn't partake in can you pay for that separately, or I'll just pay for mine and you can split the rest between the three of you?"

SemiNormal · 15/04/2017 22:29

Team Joan and rounds in a pub can fuck off too! I'm more than happy with my half a lager and yet with a group of friends and their jagerbombs, G+Ts, fancy cocktails etc saying let's do rounds ..... nah, fuck off with that shite.

Jeaniusly · 15/04/2017 22:31

Don't go out for a meal anymore with friends. It is obviously too financially traumatic.

GrandDesespoir · 15/04/2017 22:32

Wasn't the chessboard a bit crunchy? (Not sure whether the typo has already been commented on...)

And I'm Team Joan, too. It annoys me that the people who are being frugal are often expected to subsidise the people who are being extravagant.

NoSquirrels · 15/04/2017 22:36

The OP/Joan is conspicuous by their absence but Jean is quite invested... fess up!! Grin [lighthearted etc etc]

mimishimmi · 15/04/2017 22:37

I went out for dinner with a young up and coming fashion designer whom I had done free makeup on a shoot for (we did end up getting photos a good 7 months later at least). All the team were there(models, photographers, runners, stylists etc) and she organised it to thank us and tell us about her crowdfunding plans for her label. I ordered a small dish as did most of the others thinking I didn't want her to pay too much as she was obviously on a shoestring budget. Then she ended up ordering loads of dishes and wine for all of us and I had a sinking feeling she was never intending to foot the bill. Which of course she wasn't - she cheerily announced we should all split the bill and whilst it wasn't an outrageous amount , it was about 3 times what I would have paid for my own dish.

At least the food was good (although couldn't eat half of it as I don't eat pork) .

Darbs76 · 15/04/2017 22:37

When someone isn't drinking we remove the alcohol and then split it - but soft drinks can add up to. I always offer to split and I don't drink - but I would offer non drinker opportunity to pay less

HardcoreLadyType · 15/04/2017 22:37

I would normally have been happy to split the bill, if I were Joan, but equally, if I were the OP, then I wouldn't think badly of Joan for saying she would only pay for her bit.

I think to start the meal by saying "I'm only paying for what my family eats, by the way" as Jeaniusly suggests is a bit weird, though. Surely you are all enjoying the food and company, and it's not the time to be talking about money, then. And why would people later be surprised to have to actually pay for what they consumed.

GinSwigmore · 15/04/2017 22:38

Did the OP ever come back?
I'm with Joan.
Unless her surname is OfArc and she wanted to martyr herself subsidising the Wine Wink Am impressed she spoke up, good for her, no is indeed a complete sentence.

RufusTheRenegadeReindeer · 15/04/2017 22:39

I have asked at the start of a meal how we were splitting the bill

More so in a large work group rather than couples

Jeaniusly · 15/04/2017 22:42

@ Semi,

When I had the energy to go to the pub (long time now since lol) we would put a fiver each into a glass and go for it. Worked fine, a kitty it was called, if you want me to say it out and proud!

And it was topped up when required.

I understand if you were drinking soda water or that, but in general it worked out fine for us. TBH non drinkers were subbed from the kitty except for a pound.

We are house martens now, generally, so it doesn't matter too much anymore, but even on the rare occasions we meet friends when my brother is playing in his fab band locally, it is a fiver in the pot.

I honestly couldn't give a shit if someone is having a vodka compared to another cheaper drink. Friends do not do that. IME. And the vodka drinker would offer another fiver usually. And accepted with lots of insistence by the vodka drinker. Thank you love.

That's the difference with friends isn't it.

TizzyDongue · 15/04/2017 22:45

Wonder what cheeses where on the board.

HarryPottersMagicWand · 15/04/2017 22:47

I hate bill splitting. It pisses me off because I don't always drink much and feel I'm subsidising those who knock back bottles. Why should I. It's really not a faff to keep track of what you ate, how much it was and calculate accordingly.

It's never the ones who eat or drink very little who want to split, always the ones who have loads isn't it.

And this is totally a reverse. If it's even real at this point seeing as 'Joan' hasn't been back.

Jeaniusly · 15/04/2017 22:50

@Rufus.

Good for you, best option with colleagues/strangers. They can take advantage for sure sometimes.

A different dynamic though with close friends I would have thought.

Sybil59 · 15/04/2017 22:53

Where I come from we buy rounds and split bills so I would find this weird.

RufusTheRenegadeReindeer · 15/04/2017 22:53

jean

Would agree but sometimes it takes going out for a meal to realise what your friends are like when the bill comes round

I would usually clarify on a first night out and assume for further ones

To be honest that would only work for me with even numbers so families of 4/5 or couples

SemiNormal · 15/04/2017 22:54

We are house martens now, generally, so it doesn't matter too much anymore, but even on the rare occasions we meet friends when my brother is playing in his fab band locally, it is a fiver in the pot. - My friends drinks cost roughly £12 a time (cocktails) and my drinks are about £1.80) .... a fiver in the pot wouldn't cover one round if we did them. If I was willing to pay £12 for a drink then I'd have one myself, as it is I begrudge paying £12 for a drink when I could almost get a 70cl bottle of spirits for that!

feathermucker · 15/04/2017 22:57

Why were you asking Joan to split it 3 ways when there were 4 adults?!

She's absolutely within her rights to say she wanted to pay for only what she and her DC had eaten!

Questioningeverything · 15/04/2017 22:57

On the plus side some good came from this thread. Team Joan is now like the Maui thread in terms of mumsnet... it will forever be mentioned.
But more importantly, it reminded me of my cheese board. So that got eaten.

Minnie747 · 15/04/2017 22:58

You go Joan!

hellejuice91 · 15/04/2017 22:58

I get really annoyed when people sit there with their phone calculator and figure out everything they have had.

That being said if there is a major price difference. So if she's sat drink tap water and you've had a £25 bottle of wine it is a little different.

Is her financial situation different to yours?

Ps my DP does not drink and I drink very little. When we go out with other couples we always just split the bill, but sometimes it can be a bit of a joke paying for a half a bottle of wine, alongside pints, whiskey, coffee and cheese. When we've had started main and a diet coke each

dustarr73 · 15/04/2017 23:00

hellejuice91 there is no way I'd split a bill that was in someone's favour.Alcol should be paid separately.

MargaretCavendish · 15/04/2017 23:01

Where I come from we buy rounds and split bills so I would find this weird.

Me too, but there are (unspoken) rules. You don't order a disproportionately expensive drink in a round (you can't have a £12 double G&T if everyone else is having £4 pints - or you can, but you need to opt out of rounds and buy your own drink) and you don't split the bill if it's completely unfair. Three people drinking and having an extra course and one not quite clearly pushes it past that line for me. I will concede though that this system is quite subjective and so probably quite open to conflict - for instance, I would say that you can have a £7 glass of wine in a round, and just the cheeseboard would have been fine and made splitting still ok - but I imagine others would disagree!

Jeaniusly · 15/04/2017 23:01

Rufus,

I take your point. It is not an easy gig when others might decide to take advantage.

But onwards and upwards. I think we will tolerate family and similar thinking friends. It is the strangers to us who leech that I have a little problem with TBH. But I am getting better at dealing with that now.