I still remember the time my bf and I were invited out for a special meal with his uni friends to celebrate two of them getting engaged. They’d all graduated the year before but bf and I had stayed on to do masters. So we were utterly broke while the others all earned graduate salaries. Restaurants weren’t really in our budget but he wanted to join the celebration. So we checked the menu and figured we could get pasta for £10, a free glass of water and skip dessert.
Of course on the night his friends had a real party and over indulged in shots, bottles of wine, jugs of cocktails, multiple courses, steaks, ordering anything and everything. Then when the bill arrived they wanted to split it at a cost of £50 each. We simply didn’t have the money.
The reason it sticks in my mind is because of the reaction when bf took the organiser aside and quietly said “Here’s £10 from each of us, it covers the food we ate. We don’t have any more money because we’re still students”. The organiser absolutely exploded and started shouting angrily that we shouldn’t have come if we couldn’t pay our way. Bf explained that we hadn’t touched the sharing platters or cocktail jugs because we couldn’t afford it, we had literally just ate our pasta. By this point everyone was staring. The organiser announced that everyone needed to pay an extra fiver to cover our share because we don’t have enough money. At which point they all started shouting about how disgraceful it was, we were taking the piss to come for a meal when we couldn’t pay, we were ruining Bob and Jane’s engagement party, let’s just pay our share and walk out leaving them with the rest of the bill. I was literally in tears. The organiser summoned the waiter and told him here’s the money, it’s not enough because they haven’t paid theirs (pointing at us). So the waiter fetched the manager and we had the same argument - we’ve paid for what we ordered, we can’t afford to subsidise others who have paid less than what they spent. It was getting nasty and some people (who had paid much less than what they spent) had already left, muttering “I’m not paying any more, I’m going”.
In the end I was just like - we don’t have any more money so we’re leaving - and I dragged bf out. We were told later that Bob paid the difference and was absolutely furious. I dated bf for two more years and we were never invited out with his uni friends again.