To hate splitting bills at restaurants?

[AtticusFrost]

We socialise a fair bit but do not have a high income. We do this by being careful about how we spend our money. So I absolutely hate it if in a restaurant at the end of the night someone says forcefully we should just split the bill.
No! I know it is easier. But myself and DH have chosen cheaper options so we can afford this. And it always people who have spent loads who say this.

we pretty much always do this in our groups, and sometimes there really are a lot of us. I have never ever seen anyone scrabble around to pay €30,44 - since the convention would be to round up anyway. If we pay cash everyone chucks something in the middle and we add up together, and changing notes and everything is fast, efficient and as we're friends not CFs nobody gets cross.

Or the waiter goes round and marks what people ordered off the bill, they are used to doing that and it's not an issue. Everyone else is talking or finishing their drinks, not watching Waiter Arithmetic as a spectator sport.

The only time we split it by numbers is the big blow out we have before christmas where we really do push the boat out. But we all eat/drink a lot and it's just how we like it.

I have never ever seen anyone scrabble around to pay €30,44 - since the convention would be to round up anyway.

Yes, I think some of the people on this thread (as well as the bill-splitting public shamers) are imagining - or claiming - people are quibbling over pennies. In fact, in some cases, people's bills double or treble or more, when the bill-splitters' subs kick in.

Also, I don't get people suggesting that everybody's bills at the same restaurant will be much of a muchness; unless it's a 'restaurant' like McDonald's, there will still be a big range of cost options on the menu, particularly with the drinks. Even if a place only served one meal and one drink option, somebody could still have two of them and then owe twice as much as everybody else!

I don't get to go out for meals very often, so when I do, I have a huge blow-out slightly more than an elegant sufficiency. Of course, I chose to spend more, so I pay more: that's a given. I can't begin to understand people who don't just not insist on paying more for their own extra costs but actually insist that others must.

Why the need to be upfront? Surely your companions aren't planning on relying on a split as a way of taking the piss.

When I go out for a meal with friends, we each add up what we've had (rounded up to the next note) and it covers the bill and tip. No calculators either, we just do it in our heads.

It is not pennies. For example as a couple we went out with another couple. Our bill was £55 and the other couple was £75. We all had 2 courses and drinks. I can imagine some people claiming we had both eaten about the same, but the other couple have lots of money and order expensive food and drinks. It makes a difference.

I went on a hen do while pregnant (I was a bridesmaid so I had to go). I'd been really unwell with HG so I still wasn't eating much. I ordered a starter and fries as my meal, and just had water.

Others went all out with starters and puddings, and shots and cocktails (like I wish I could have!) but then wanted to split the bill.

Usually I'm fine with sticking up for myself but in the moment, with people I didn't know, on a night out for my friend, I just didn't say anything. I didn't want to make it awkward for anyone.

Luckily, my friend's auntie told them absolutely not!

It's the wildest thing I've ever heard because I don't believe there are people who would make friends with others purely to be able to stiff them with the bill.

It's all as simple as your financial circumstances.

None of my friends are on a tight budget and neither am I, so we split the bill when out as no one cares about the odd £10/20 discrepancy.

If you do have to watch the pounds / pennies, of course you want to be more precise.

It's not tricky.

It's the wildest thing I've ever heard because I don't believe there are people who would make friends with others purely to be able to stiff them with the bill.

But as somebody pointed out upthread, there are various scenarios where you might dine out as part of a group - not just close friends. Work colleagues, distant family whom you (unsurprisingly) rarely see, friends of friends of friends etc.

As people have said (especially the Irish MNers!), it's common to want to treat/help out/not care about imbalanced contributions when it's your loved ones; but the issue tends to arise when you're dining with acquaintances or colleagues.

They don't make friends to specifically stiff them, there are probably other reasons why both parties ended up in each others social orbit, it is just a cheeky fucker characstic that they will chance their arm if the opportunity arises and they will perform all sorts of mental acrobats to morally justify their actions in their heads. It is pretty shameless behaviour and they will rely on the long standing British tradition of people not wanting to make a fuss or create a scene. in order to get away with it. These are the people who take crap wine to a dinner party before piling into the better stuff that someone else had brought, they are the CF's who ask to share a taxi home as they live around the corner from you but don't contribute to the fare etc. Away from money, they are often perfectly charming folk, they are just tight.

That's not the situation you were alluding to here though, is it?

I wonder if some of them even deliberately seek out less well-off acquaintances to eat with, safe in the knowledge that they will thus cut their cloth and so be a perfect mark for subbing theirs, when they demand to split, with a side-order of shaming if you protest. If you also can/will push the boat out as much as they do, there's no saving for them to make.

I was simply saying, that no one is seeking out people to eat with based purely on their income. That's insanity.

@DanseAvecLesLoup someone suggested that people 'deliberately seek out less well-off acquaintances to eat with'

That ludicrous.

I have never had that happen in any group where I have done that - friends, colleagues, whoever.

But if it does happen, then it suggests people are "rounding up" by quite a long way, in which case it's their own responsibility for choosing to pay more than they owe. At least no one can say they were tricked or pressured into paying more than they could afford.

No, it's the last person who is a cheapskate, using the tip/ rounding up for friends to subsidise their own meal to the detriment of the staff who miss out on the tip. Surpised you think it's perfectly alright and just the risk you take by rounding up/ offering a tip. Maybe you are the person who always volunteers to pay last, hey!

someone suggested that people 'deliberately seek out less well-off acquaintances to eat with'

That ludicrous.

OK, maybe I didn't phrase it very well. I'm not saying that people would routinely seek to make friends purely on the basis of being able to grift them by enforced bill-splitting, but that they would seek to exploit work/social/other opportunities that may present themselves in order to claim a maximum subsidy.

Maybe the same kind of attitude that some meat eaters will have at a buffet: deliberately grab the vegetarian food first, before the veggies have a chance, in the knowledge that the meaty things will then be left over, so that they can have double whilst others get none. I'm not saying that food that happens to be veggie is verboten to meat-eaters (like me) at all, but there are definitely people who will deliberately calculate that way and seek to take grand advantage at other people's expense.

You don't need to discuss this with your friends! Just tell the waiter when you are ordering.
Or, go out less!

Do people do that deliberately? Or is it thoughtlessness and greed rather than calculating based on what will be left over (risky, other meat eaters may just take more, there may be no leftovers at all!)

are you sure you aren’t assuming deliberate calculation where actually the likelihood is it’s thoughtless selfishness? The outcome is the same, of course

are you sure you aren’t assuming deliberate calculation where actually the likelihood is it’s thoughtless selfishness? The outcome is the same, of course

I think both probably happen. If it's just something like bread or salad, it's obviously a free-for-all; but I'm talking about where they have two 'identical' dishes next to each other - one made with meat and one without.* *

I don't think it's unreasonable to pay for what you've had. I personally prefer to split the bill, or we pay this time, and they pay next time.
I have a huge problem though, when people want to pay less because they've not had alcohol. At a large gathering of around 12 for a friend's birthday dinner, I shared a bottle of wine with 4 others. The wine was £10 - meaning £2 each. We each had a small glass. When the bill came, another woman grabbed the bill and said "right, so it's £20 per head for those who had no alcohol, £25 for those who did". The 5 of us who had wine had just a relatively cheap main course, no sides, no starter/dessert, no other drinks. The woman who worked out the bill had had a starter, main course, 2 side dishes, dessert, several diet cokes (£3 each), and a coffee!!

Yes it’s funny how they never add on a tip or cover a service charge.

Totally understand this one so ask to have tour stuff on separate bill. Generally I jabe no problem with splitting the bill but would feel guilty ordering a steak so normally end up choosing cheaper stuff on the menu and then someone else takes the piss😂

I went for a meal recently and one couple ‘shared a meal - but where we all had one meal each they shared a salad and 3 starters - same price as 2 meals and only paid for one person when bill was split - tight wads. I HATE counting what you’ve had and whose sausages was a pound less that whose fish - it makes me cringe. Pay for your own booze and split the bill evenly. Those who only want to pay for what they are are always the ones to slip off early and conveniently ‘forget’ the service charge too.

This post has showed me there is a huge amount of tight people about, who love to get their friends to pay - or part pay - for their meals. Regardless how the bill is settled.

Perfect - instead of dodging the service charge at the end and making everyone else feel uncomfortable.

One group of my friends always does this with food and rounds of drinks and I don't mind. Another group never does and I find it awkward sat there with a calculator working it out.

How on earth does taking a few seconds to work out what you had 'ruin the atmosphere'??? How is it embarrassing? And no, it is not 'inevitable' that someone forgets something they had.

Mumsnet truly is Bizarro World at times.