Get individual bills and pay for what you ate?
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So my last post in this thread was a little... strange, but there is a point I presume I was trying to make beneath the senseless abuse.
Basically, I'm usually happier to split the bill evenly, but that's assuming people aren't taking advantage, or there aren't other considerations.
If money is really tight for someone, but people have insisted on meeting for dinner, then I'm happy for someone to pay for what they ate, or for everyone else to pay for them. Same thing goes if someone joins late, I'm not expecting them to subsidise everybody else's three course meal.
If you're all having one course and a few drinks and someone's sitting there picking the most expensive things on the menu and ringing up a big drinks tab, then I wouldn't expect everyone else to pay for. If you have the kind of friends who would try to take advantage like that, you need better friends.
It does annoy me when people look at the bill and start figuring exactly out how much they 'need' to pay - but that's usually because it's only a few quid either way most of the time and it seems petty to me.
So my last post in this thread was a little... strange, but there is a point I presume I was trying to make beneath the senseless abuse.
Basically, I'm usually happier to split the bill evenly, but that's assuming people aren't taking advantage, or there aren't other considerations.
If money is really tight for someone, but people have insisted on meeting for dinner, then I'm happy for someone to pay for what they ate, or for everyone else to pay for them. Same thing goes if someone joins late, I'm not expecting them to subsidise everybody else's three course meal.
If you're all having one course and a few drinks and someone's sitting there picking the most expensive things on the menu and ringing up a big drinks tab, then I wouldn't expect everyone else to pay for. If you have the kind of friends who would try to take advantage like that, you need better friends.
It does annoy me when people look at the bill and start figuring exactly out how much they 'need' to pay - but that's usually because it's only a few quid either way most of the time and it seems petty to me.
That seems fair and it's probably a culture difference. One of the negative things about the "split the bill" method though is suddenly you have to think about what you are getting in terms of being inexpensive enough for the group to bear the cost. That sort of thought process would most likely keep a guy like myself from getting whatever I actually wanted on a menu and instead settle for something that I didn't really want, but its cheaper so whatever.
FYI it makes everyone at the table seem like cheap poor fucks when everyone gets out their phone to do math and starts haggling over the bill...
Wow at some of these posts, ^ ^ this post is exactly what was going through my mind when people said they split it up down to... down to outright separate bills, I mean maybe it's the different culture speaking (you're all americans obviously, westerners etc, basically non-Arabs right) but why not get separate tables while you're at it, separate friends, separate everything? Really am amazed and surprised at some of the responses, this must be culture shock.
Well, to westerners, the sight of seeing two people arguing over who pays the bill is probably amusing. In Chinese culture, people will almost push each other to hand in money to the waiter first. Bickering ensues.
All restaurants these days can split a bill into individual bills, so I don't see why people would equally split a bill regardless of what they got.
I usually pay for everything with the company credit/debit card for tax write offs lol.
Everyone else pays me later whatever they want. Some end up paying more than they need to, some pay less than they should. In the end it kinda evens out
Pay for what you had. Any other way defies logic unless you're in the mood for some charity or selfishness I suppose.
I make a conscious effort to only dine out with people who are like myself and will fight over who gets to pay the entire check.
There is one cheap son of a bitch and his wife who I HAVE to eat out with every once and a while. These two always run up the bill more than anyone else and every time want to split the bill evenly. They never ever offer to pay the entire bill even though they have been covered by everyone a number of times. These are the same assholes who would gladly come to my house and drink all my expensive liqueur and then tell me byob next time I go to their house. Why do I even bother with these two? Well, unfortunately we're related.
FYI it makes everyone at the table seem like cheap poor fucks when everyone gets out their phone to do math and starts haggling over the bill...
I'm with you on this, either be nice and pay for it all or just split the bill evenly. If you're eating out with someone I'd assume they're somewhat of a friend in which case I'd never haggle over a few dollars with them.
It's not a matter of not wanting to pay my own bill, it's a matter of not being such a cheap ass that I hound my friend for 6 bucks because he got steak...
Be honest about it, people are opting to pay their own bills to save some money in most cases.
I've never done an even split with anybody who walked away laughing to themselves because they paid a little less than they 'should' have for a meal.
In my opinion, splitting a bill by itemising and assigning everything according to individual orders just says 'I'm assuming you people are trying to rip me off, so I'm just covering myself'.
every time I eat with friends we all just pay more or less for what we had. It's generally agreed that dividing the bill equally is a bad idea cause someone inevitably has an expensive meal.
If it's with a person I usually eat with often then we tend to take turns paying the bill and treating eachother though.
@achilles614: Everyone paying for their own meals is not the same as hounding a friend for money. WTF are you on about?
I'm not going to break out a calculator and divide up the order to make sure my friend pays that extra few bucks for his pricier meal is what I mean. To me that is incredibly petty.
thegerg don't get your hopes up, this is the only post of yours I'll reply to in this thread. I don't feel like starting a quote chain 20 posts long because you enjoy being dense on purpose.
My friends and I get individual bills because it isn't hard to do. We rarely split checks unless the restaurants make a big fuss about separating checks.
Sometimes we play credit card roulette.
I'd impress them by offering to pay a 20% maybe 25% tip for the bill if the others paid the bill and the service was ok. In New York City for example a 25% tip is not unheard of from what I've read.
Depends
Generally split
But if one person orders 47 cocktails and the rest of us are drinking water
Might divide it a little differently
yeah we usually split in half unless someone drinks a ton or orders a feast. but if its one drink more or something like that we just split evenly. me and my gf take turns paying for bills tho, she works full time and i just work part time and pay for college(no financial aid) so i'm usually pretty broke lol.
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