Friend left before paying her round.

[Sophiehoney]

Hi everyone,
I need a sanity check on a situation from my local tonight, as DH and I are completely disagreeing on this.
We were out at the pub with a large group of 9 people. We were drinking in rounds. 7 people had bought a round, and it was down to either this one woman, let's call her Sarah, or one other person next.
Suddenly, Sarah announced she had to leave immediately because her babysitter had an issue and needed to go. She said a quick goodbye to everyone and dashed out. However, she didn’t mention the rounds at all, didn't offer to leave any cash, and didn't mention sending a bank transfer to cover her share. She had consumed several free drinks at this point.
After she left, the rest of the group talked about it and everyone agreed it was incredibly rude to "ghost" the round like that, especially when she’d benefited from 7 other people paying.
When DH and I got home, he said the group was being far too harsh on her because it was a childcare emergency and her mind was probably all over the place. I disagree, I think even in a rush, you could text the group chat from the taxi to offer to send money or even just acknowledge it in some way before you leave by saying you will sort it next time. Leaving the remaining people to cover the deficit feels out of order.
So, AIBU? Was she a CF, or should she get a free pass because of the babysitter emergency?

That many rounds is stupid. Is everyone expected to stay stuck there and not allowed to leave early for any reason? YABU.

Just ask her to get the first round next time. I would never do rounds in a group of 9 though… you were all going to have 9 drinks? And I really don’t mind if I’ve bought someone a drink and they don’t get me one back unless it’s a repeated issue

I agree if she had a childcare issue, she wast thinking about the rounds at the time

I cannot imagine being able to drink 9 drinks, it's insane to me that OP sees this as normal. I get everyone has different viewpoints on drink, and I'm not objective really as I very rarely drink but sorry 9 drinks, so a range of 18 - 25 units perhaps, depending on if it is wine / spirits / beer etc. Whatever. It's massive and shouldn't be normalised.

(But on the specific question, she was unreasonable to rush out, without acknowledgment of the situation unless it was seriously an emergency).

I wouldn’t be able to walk after nine drinks. I had seven glasses of wine once at an all day funeral, never again, it wasn’t until the next day that I realised how drunk I was. Big memory gaps.

I drink a lot more than most on MN deem acceptable but having nine rounds is daft. Surely you just do 3-4 or whatever and then different people the next time?

Depends on whether she has form for this or not.
If not, this wouldn't have even registered with me tbh. Not with true friendships anyway.

Well people generally stay for the entirety of a pub quiz, which goes on for about two and a half hours, and we are usually in the pub at least an hour, maybe two beforehand. You wouldn't usually leave your team before all the quiz rounds were compete and you'd found out the winner.

I go to a lot of pub quizzes. I've never ever, ever been in a situation where we've ordered 9 rounds.

That's really not a normal pub quiz thing to do.

Not sure why so many people are virtue signalling passively aggressively suggesting OP check in on her friend's "childcare emergency" when op clearly said it was nothing to do with her friend's kids, the babysitter just had to leave for whatever reason.

Fair enough to check on her if it was one of friend's own kids was sick or whatever but asking for the specific details of why a complete random op has never met had to leave early is just nosy!

Out of interest but seems like you do - do you and DH both buy a round each or do you buy one as a pair and then she has to get everyone a drink back?

Can you clarify if she has form for this please OP?

I'm guessing that she does but the other possibility is that she doesn't at all but the person leading the assassination DOES and is furious that they got 'caught' on a round while she 'got away with it.'

As you're a regular group if this is a first offence I'm very unimpressed with the reaction from everyone.

Have you questioned her about it today?

Op said its often halfs, wine spritzers etc which are 1 to 1.5 units. So could be more like 9-12 units.

Still quite a lot and yeah personally it seems like a lot of getting up and faffing to the extent I would prefer to split it and alternate every other week etc., but the equivalent to about 4 pints over 3-4 hours , with food, is not quite the level of dangerous alcoholic people are expressing on here!

There's some serious lightweights in here fucking hell 🤣

But actually, a lot of you don't really know how rounds work (which actually isn't surprising since a lot of you don't appear to go into pubs and drink much).

It's not necessarily a drink for everyone every time and everyone must keep up, that's not how it works. And 9 people being there all buying rounds doesn't mean everyone is having nine drinks. You're with a group of people - in this case 9 of them including yourself. You want another drink, you see other people's are getting low too, you stand up and say right, who's ready for another? Maybe 6 people will say yes please, two won't and will wait for the next round, so you buy the 7 drinks for everyone including yourself and you sit down. That's your round done. You might catch a round where all 9 want drinks, you might catch one where only five do. That's the luck of the draw. Doesn't matter, you bought your round.

Skipping out on your round is a serious breach of British pub etiquette. Don't do it unless you have declined drinks from others every time.

Yeah exactly, it's really not the big binge drinking session people are making it out to be!

I’d give her the BOD unless she does it again

We buy separately or one of us buys twice.

This is why I avoid rounds. Next time I’d be making sure she bought the first round, and then everyone suggest no more rounds!

Nine people buying rounds?!! All compelled to stay to the end, whether they want to or not?

I really struggle to believe anyone wants that many drinks. It’s inevitable this daft system will fail. Surely run a tab then divide. Or split into two rounds.

And yes she was distracted. She buys the first round next time.

Exactly this. Everyone getting so hung up over "NiNe DrInKs". It's rarely actually nine drinks each and even if it was, I didn't ask for opinions on how many people and how many drinks 😄

People are staying to the end because it's a pub quiz, with a clear finish time, people know how long they are going to be there.
Noone has to join in if they don't want to. You don't have to accept the first drink and get yourself into anything. And you certainly don't have to accept the second, and the third...

Spending the guts of £100 on two rounds (~2 x 9 x £5 ) ?

She didn’t know she was going to have to leave early when she accepted drink 1, 2 and 3 did she. Or are you saying you think she did?

Surely if it’s a regular event it’s fine, she starts the round next time.

Friend seems a loose term here.

This.

If Sarah is your friend whom you socialise with a lot and presumably know well and actually like and this is the first time you've ever noticed her doing something like this then why wont you give her the benefit of the doubt?

This person is supposedly your mate. Yet you immediately jump to her taking the piss and getting angry that she is apparently accepting multiple drinks whilst plotting the entire time to leave early?

Either she isnt as good a friend as you say she is or there is a some huge back story you arent sharing here...