A group of us gathered for a friend’s birthday dinner last night. Everything was delightful up until the moment the bill arrived. It’s been several years since I’ve had such an awkward bill splitting experience.
There were a few ‘complications’ going into the process. First of all, there were many ’shared’ items at the table: multiple bottles of water and many appetizers. There was also the case of it being a birthday, which I’m used to pitching in for (but not everyone feels that way). There were vegetarians at the table as well as non-drinkers (for just us, Chris is a veggie and neither of us drink alcohol these days). Back to the appetizers, many of these were ‘meat based’, so the vegetarians couldn’t really partake in many of the communal appetizers.
Still, I was content in splitting the bill in equally around the table (minus the birthday girl).
This was an issue, though. A big issue that seemed to ruffle more feathers than necessary. Thrown into the mix, the ever-generous Stowe Boyd has come up with a ‘bank’ system that he believes solves these sorts of problems (but I suspect made it more complicated) whereas he says everyone throws in what they think they owe based on their own philosophy and he will cover what is left over.
I asked aloud, “Well, why don’t we just all throw in the equal amount around the table?”
Which was met with protests of: “We don’t drink” and “Some people didn’t eat as much as others”
So, (perhaps too) boldly, I offered, “Neither Chris nor I drank, either. And Chris is a vegetarian, but we are of the philosophy that in the grande scheme of life, it all balances out over time, so we don’t mind pitching in equivalent numbers.”
More protest. Grumpiness. Bad feelings.
“Well, what if someone is having a bad month and they really watched what they were eating?” came from the Birthday girl herself.
Nobody spoke up. I wanted to offer, “Well, that person could make it known and we can all pitch in a few more dollars to balance it.” but I thought I’d shutup while I was ahead. I could tell my opinion wasn’t the popular one and I felt I had made enough of an ass of myself.
So…we paid our 2/12th’s, the vegetarian/non-drinking couple across from us paid their 2/12th’s, the 2 glasses of champagne, but hardly a nibble on the appetizers woman kitty corner paid her 2/12th’s and the other side of the table seemed pissed. I’m sure Stowe got the short end of the stick.
In my experience, dinners where you calculate your contributions down to the dime end up short changed 95% of the time. People forget to pitch in for their contribution to the appetizer or forget to calculate the tax or their portion of the tip (and we all tip differently). With a communal throw-in, the bill gets covered and someone may throw in $20 more than they owe (usually the difference is much less).
Stowe’s bank system is generous and I admire his sacrifice to make the peace (I wonder if he is Libra?), but I can’t see anyone really feeling good about it. Stowe may be the only one. I know I felt awful thinking about what he had to make up for.
There were two strong philosophies there:
- Pay exactly what you owe - Individualism
- Split the bill in equal portions - Communalism
Stowe became the United Nations. The uneasy middle ground between dichotomous philosophies. This is his solution to the delicate balance of respecting all philosophies. But were there other options? Could have there been a democratic vote? Maybe an equal split with room for individual protest (Everyone throws in $80, but John Doe protests that he only ate $40 worth of food, so everyone throws in an extra $5 to help cover John…I mean, what is $5 on $80)? Perhaps we should have requested individual checks at the beginning of the meal and agreed not to have any shared food/drinks (as it seems that we started with one philosophy then tried to impose the other one)? Perhaps the group should have just imposed its will on the individuals?
A simple dinner turned into an interesting study of the struggle between individual and community that I’ve been studying lately.
I was just reading about the way World of Warcraft deals with the diversity of gamer types: through realms. For those who just want to gain personal points, there is a realm for you and others like you. For those who are really into the community role playing aspect, there is a realm for you and others like you.
Now, I already know why that doesn’t work in real life. Plus, I think we all need to feel uncomfortable from time to time and have our ideologies challenged.
I can’t say, “Before I agree to dine with you, I should know what your bill splitting philosophy is.” LOL. Although this does tend to happen naturally over time with the way we form groups of friends. Enough awkward check moments and the amount we go for dinner will taper off.
For me, the communal check splitting seems the most reasonable (and I’m the first to speak up if I see a member of the table who deserves to jump out of the tally), but I’m also a very community-oriented person.
Perhaps others can offer me their perspectives on this one since I’m not as familiar with the experience of the individualistic perspective on this one…
:: Stephanie (aka The Birthday Girl) has responded
:: Stowe has responded
what a funny thing…
47 Comments
I’m with you on the check splitting side. I just don’t like to spend that much trouble at a dinner solving that kind of problems. Since I don’t usually drink, I’m in better position to offer that deal, cause I consumed less than the average. Between friends that usually settles it.
Stowe is close but I much prefer covering the whole check and tip (yes I said that dirty little word), then letting people sort out their own mess as I go to the bar and drink.
Last Monday we had some Friends in from Australia and NYC, with a small function of 6. The server was impeccable and the liquor flowed and flowed and flowed. The bar tab alone was worthy of a pre-launch 8gb iPhone on eBay.
With the liquor and knowing there was a cheapie at the table, I decided to play the game and let the bill sit while I ran for shots (and to talk to the server) needless to say I walked back to $80 from one couple and nothing more.
The “Well, why don’t we just all throw in the equal amount around the table?†theory is simply the best philosophy. Somehow there is always one who does not get it.
We are all in this together. Drink, don’t drink. Eat or don’t eat. Give what is appropriate. They know what they did. The rest just naturally comes out in the wash.
But if someone has to watch their cash that closely they should not be going out to dinner anyway.
That’s one of my biggest gripes when eating out - luckily the majority of my friends share my philosophy of eating out karma - when you split the bill evenly, sometimes you get ripped off but it all evens out over time. Maybe you didn’t drink this time and you pay too much, but the next time you go out you probably drink a lot so it’s all even in the end.
I hate the whole “but I only had a main and didn’t eat dessert” thing with getting calculators out.
Hmm I solve this simply - I don’t eat out with people who are going to ruin the experience like that.
Either pitch in an amount proportionate to the group (what you can Chris did) INCLUDING a good tip, or ask for a separate check if you feel that your preferences would have you overpaying consistently with proportional splits.
Stowe’s solution is gracious, but it ends up enabling cheap, whiny people. It’s one thing if someone is short of cash and doesn’t have a credit card - I’ll carry a friend no problem. But someone who tries to cheapen out by saying “i didn’t eat as much” can frigging stay home.
I don’t think of it from a libertarian vs. community mindset, but one of process efficiency, having said that, I’m far from socialist. Splitting evenly is the only way to go, unless someone is paying for the whole thing. What are the other options? Split checks at the beginning, and be a pain in the ass to the waiter (if they allow it at all), or wait until the end and have a ridiculous no-fun math problem on your hands?
So some people may pay a little more than they ate, if they didn’t have fun, then don’t come back! Squabbling over the bill is not fun for anyone. Not to sound like an ass, but if someone only gets a salad and makes no effort to get a separate bill and also thinks everything will work out fine, maybe they need to spend some time eating out with other people.
That’s an interesting perspective. You bring up a good point about what we are paying for.
We aren’t merely paying for the food and drinks…we are also paying for the experience…hmmmm….very good point, indeed!
With my group of friends and colleagues the check usually gets handed to me, the math girl, and I sort it out. I also usually end up being Stowe and adding more of my own funds, as I believe in a generous tip and others may not.
Even when other’s are picking up the tab (family, etc.) and I know they are a bad tipper, I will wait for them to go to the bathroom and slip the server a $20 or more. This pays off when one goes back to the restaurant in question.
Hmm, I guess I didn’t realize I was in a minority feeling that way
I think mostly what you’re paying for is the whole experience, and also paying a little to keep everyone happy. Eating at home is cheaper, but way less fun, right? And maybe that system will encourage your teetotaler friends to drink up 
I prefer to split things evenly, however I try to be sensitive to what others want to do, particularly if I don’t know them well because:
* I’m usually one of the drinkers, and I’m definintely an omnivore.
* I’m most likely to be the one to suggest appetizers and wine.
* It’s very common for me to make more money than others at the table.
So, what do I do?
* If someone proposes splitting it, great. I’m game. If I happen to owe less than the average, I’ll be the one to propose it.
* I’ll say “let me get the wine/drinks and let’s split the rest.” This often goes over well.
* I stay quiet, then propose everyone put in what they owe, then graciously offer to “do the math.” Magically, everything comes out fine and I take care of the bill.
Just to say up front, my philosophy is strongly individualistic. With that out of the way, I want to point out that since any collective is made up of individuals, collective decisions should be made through the consent of individuals. In my opinion, philosophically speaking, you can go from individuals to collectives and keep things fair through freely consenting, but if you attempt to go the other way around people feel alienated through coercion of authority. For example, a smaller group of the whole can decide to pay collectively while allowing others the right to opt out and pay only their share of the bill. If you attempt to enforce collectivism over a group that dissents then there is implied hostility. You can go from individualism to collectivism without splitting hairs, but going the other way requires eliminating peoples free choice.
Ah…the ‘elimination of free choice’ thing. Therein lies the rub.
Is it truly elimination of free choice? All along the way, there was choice. Choice to dine. Choice to not speak up earlier about wanting a separate check. Choice to speak up or not when the check is delivered about your situation.
Democracy works because it is a majority vote. Would you say that those who don’t get their desired end from a vote have lost their free choice? Democracy is the ultimate in collectivism, but it also smushes individual desire if your desire doesn’t match the majority.
As well, individualism in it’s purest form works when everyone is cognizant and considerate of the community. When individualism (like any extreme) goes too far and takes on purely selfish motives, the entire collective suffers. In the collective model, the collective benefits, while a few suffer.
You are a professional at this, I think
Good plans especially for heterogeneous groups in a business-type situation.
We should send this technique to Stowe! I think it would work well for him.
I’ll try it, too.
Quite often, Chris and I just end up picking up the tab or, at the very least, trading back and forth on it (if we go out with the same people, we’ll pick it up, then they will). But all in all, we usually go out with groups of people who are of the collective mindset.
I was struck by the similarities with pre-nuptial agreements
Protection of minorities from the oppression of the majority is essential (this ideal is represented in government through documents like the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution). This is a dilution of the democratic process to guard against coercion of the majority. I would agree that pure democracy is the ultimate in collectivism, but I wouldn’t say that is a good thing. One of the rights that should be guarded from the forces of democracy is a persons right to their property (in this case, their money). The majority shouldn’t have the right to force somebody to give up their property without their consent, regardless of a vote.
You say that there was a choice to dine, but from your description of the event it wasn’t clear that the choice to dine was dependent on a breaking the bill evenly regardless of ones own consumption compared to another. A more extreme example (to illustrate the point) would be if I invited a friend out to dinner and neglected to inform them that they would be paying for the bill. Their choice to dine was still present, but their choice in the form of payment is eliminated by my hostility.
The conflict arises, I think, when it comes time to pay the bill and people have different expectations of how that should work. It should’ve been worked out before hand if you wanted to preserve the choice to dine.
I would respond to the charge against radical individualism being harmful by saying that such a situation wouldn’t occur in practice. Individuals have it in their best interest to work with the group; you can see this through the development of altruism, which is a basic human instinct built in by evolutionary processes. I may be radically individualist, but that doesn’t necessarily equal selfishness. My own innate sense of fairness and altruism guards against selfishness run amok.
Apologies if it seems like I’m rambling a bit, it’s difficult to summarize my opinion on such a complex issue.
Protection of minority rights within a majority is essential…agreed. What we probably totally agree on, too, is that government should end where basic needs are met and personal growth starts.
I don’t believe in a communist state by any means! I believe in a strong social system that supports everyone as well as plenty of personal expression and freedom - as long as we make sure everyone is taken care of…
“I would respond to the charge against radical individualism being harmful by saying that such a situation wouldn’t occur in practice. Individuals have it in their best interest to work with the group; you can see this through the development of altruism, which is a basic human instinct built in by evolutionary processes.”
For some. I don’t think this is universal. You are in the majority, yes, but there is a great deal of selfish interest out there. Being a giver all of my life, I’ve encountered loads of it. And, being a community person, I see even the nicest people come in, get what they need and never contribute back, unfortunately.
…but bringing it back to dinner.
At the dinner table, there are usually two camps: let’s just split it equally and let’s calculate what everyone owes exactly. I can agree with the latter if there is a huge disparity, but for most dinners, there isn’t. In fact, the difference is usually negligible. And the collectivists aren’t always those who eat or drink the most. In fact, I’ve seen plenty of individualists end up paying way more because they’ve protested. I guess it just makes them feel better? That’s why I don’t think it’s about the money at all.
Now I am older, one of the things I would tell my 34 year old self is that the sort of friends who haggle about dinner bills are not the sort of friends worth having
Friends like Stowe, on the other hand, most definitely are.
People who are mean of spirit in small things are also like that in big things.
I came here through Steph’s blog, and for me it just pertains to cultural habits.
I’m French, and for 35 years living in France I was used to split evenly. I had the same feelings as expressed here about “detailed split”.
Then I moved to Germany, where the detailed split is so much in the culture that the waiter asks you if you want the bill split or together, and if you ask “split” he’ll go through it and make the exact count for each person. I was shocked at the beginning, and somehow I still dislike it, but it’s just the way things are here, and it does not mean anything about people’s generosity.
Thanks for this Marie-Aude!
Yes. It is very cultural. When Chris and I were in Germany, they made it clear to us at the outset that there would be no ’shared appetizers’ unless we wanted to share what we couldn’t finish. LOL. It was odd, but I knew what I was getting into.
And I should add for everyone…it isn’t as cut and dried as: these friends won’t make the simple split, so I don’t want to dine with them.
I don’t think any one of them is cheap or greedy. It’s more about a philosophy…a point of view. It’s irritating, yes, but I really do struggle to try to accommodate.
But, yes, you are right. Dining with these friends becomes less frequent than with those you can just relax with when the bill comes. I also find that, generally, I get on best with people who have the community/collective mentality anyway - we tend to share lots of similar ideas and it becomes a big tension to communicate with someone that is very focused on personal freedom. I just don’t make a hard and fast rule about it. It tends to work out that way.
Sounds like I could dine with most of you, though!
Oh…and I should add that I was overwhelmed by the generosity of the French! Not only did they pay, they would gift and pay for everyone! The perfect hosts…making us always feel incredibly welcome. Almost embarrassing it was so generous!
We heart France!
I do also heart it now, I miss it
But I think this “generosity” is also pertaining to the general habit, and you’ll get back later on what you offered before… so we don’t see another way to do it, but on the long term it equals
For that German was… difficult
@ Tara…nah, it isn’t about philosophy (in the US culture), thats usually just an intellectualisation of more basic (un)desires (in this case stinginess).
But, if you put this into the social network context, people who make things “hard” like this will slowly get pruned off the social vine (unless they have some other great redeeming feature).
Every interaction in a social network has microbarriers to entry - raise ‘em too high and people will, over time, travel down that link less.
I’m not sure this comes down to just an individualism versus communalism philosophy alone. To me, it’s more about a sense of trust in the flow of nature and that you’re an integral part of nature too - it just all works out in the grand scheme of things - not necessarily among the same precise circle of friends that evening, just somehow, somewhere. Some sense that universe itself is a Libra, not just Stowe.
I am finding that I steer clear of “friends” that must minutely split bills down to the last cent these days. And I’m the one that doesn’t drink, doesn’t eat meat. (And my experience tells me to walk away from startups where you are on founding team, and they don’t want to split stock evenly.)
Well in many ways, my whole sense of “me, my, mine” is disintegrating. Lately cultivating a circle of friends that pretty much share and share alike. For instance, if one of us down on funds, we’d still swing by their house and bring them along because we want their company, not necessarily their share of the check - and no strings attached, it’s not a loan.
Though, maybe, next time, it’s me that’s a bit tight on funds. Though maybe not ever again. I think some of the richest people I know, in every sense of the world (so I don’t quite qualify, I’m talking multimillionares), are ones that understand circulation at a pretty deep level.
haha, get some less tight friends!
We’ve had this issue come up with the Fashion Blogger Brunches. We’ve finally found the perfect venue but they won’t do separate checks! =P
So far I take the math person role, we pass the bill around the table and cross off what we ate. Some of us are professionals and others are poor students so I never considered an equal split of the bill (I am not paying for anyone’s $10 mimosas!) This way we can keep the table open to those who can only get a croissant and coffee as well as the smoked-salmon and mimosa types.
So far there haven’t been any bad feelings… I think in Canada it’s understood that you pay for what you eat… if we found a place that would do seperate bills we’d switch venues in a minute.
As the “Birthday Girl” in the story, and a strong opponent of splitting the bill as well as a great fan of “Stowe’s banking system”, I felt I had to chime in here.
My comment became so long it grew into a post on my site: Against Splitting The Bill.
For those of you who won’t head there to read it, I’d like to restate my apologies for the slightly sour bill paying time at my party last night. As you can imagine, it wasn’t my intention. (More details in the post…)
I don’t like counting the cents either. Hence the banking system which lets people who like counting the cents count the cents, and lets those who don’t evaluate how much they want to contribute as they see fit. No questions asked.
Tara, it’s interesting that you’ve intuited the pattern of “individual” and “collective” in the way that people go about solving problems. About 40 years ago, this is the pattern that Clare W. Graves found when he did psychological research on his students over about a 15 year period. You can read about it here: http://clarewgraves.com/ I’ve mentioned his work here before, because I think it is really relevant to a lot of what you are talking about, and observing (as conveyed by your blog posts). And, for all of it’s incompleteness, it’s one of the best theories that we hve about human nature. Graves changed his theory over time, to account for new data. One example from the Futurist Magazine can be found here” http://clarewgraves.com/articles_content/1974_Futurist/1974_Futurist.html
and an even better explanation is here:
http://clarewgraves.com/articles_content/1982_handout/1982_1.html
Basically, Graves found that human nature tends to center on either the “individual” or the “collective” focus. This can hold true even for one person. In one situation, you may solve problems by focusing on the “communal” in some way, in other situations in your life, you may solve problems by focusing on yourself. This is true for all of us, I believe.
The amazong thing about Graves’s work is that we came to his conclusions by asking people to write a conceptualization of what they thought a “mature healthy adult” is. Then, he tasked the same people with defending their conceptualizations against each other, and gave them a chance to defend them against the leading “authorities” of the time period. Then, he turned the data over to indpendent judges and ask ed them to “quantify this any way that you can”. He did this for 15 years or so. Amazingly, the first pattern that emerged every time was the “indpendent” and “communal”. The exact same patterns you came up with, by observing your dinner party social dilemma! Later, people started calling this the “Locus of Control”, and started calling the patterns “inner directed” and “outer directed”, and other names which basically all mean the same thing.
Graves’s “levels” were really just more specific versions of these two “locus of control” centers.
Perfectly right. As the party organiser, I did neglect to inform the people I had invited of how the bill would be settled — party because I never dreamed that one could be attached to the idea of “splitting evenly”. I announced when the bill came that we were using the “bank system” (some version of “pay for what you ate”, but with no control). So if anything, this invitation to dine would have come with a “we’re not splitting the bill” notice, had I done it correctly. I would definitely not argue here that people accepting the invitation to dine were implicitly accepting to “split evenly”.
Most of the above comments seem to focus on individual rights vs collective rights. But there’s the flipside - individual and collective *responsiblity*.
If someone feels strongly that they would be shorted if the bill was evenly split (they’re non-drinking, vegetarians who are light eaters, say) they should step up and ask for a separate check at the start. That’s THEIR issue, so they should take the action to deal with it.
Alternatively, they can bring up the issue at the start of the meal - “hey, we’re doing separate checks, right?” Likewise, the host could arrange this with the restaurant or bring it up graciously at the start - “Hey, I know we’ve got a wide variety of people here so to keep it fair, everyone will be paying for that they order and we’ll all chip in on wine, OK?”
Failing this, how people act will set expectations - if someone got there and ordered a bunch of appetizers for the table that creates a share and share alike mindset. Don’t order for me, then tell me I’m paying for what I eat. Oh and BTW, paying for what you ORDER is fine… but paying for what you EAT could easily lead to silly extremes… “I only had 2 prawns, she had 3″.
At the end of the day, this is mostly good manners - don’t go to pricey places if you know 1/2 the people can’t really afford it, don’t worry about a few bucks here and there, don’t take advantage of people by eating/drinking far more than your share. Frankly, if the difference between $40 and $45 is really that important to you, stay home. If it’s not, then don’t raise a huge fuss at the dinner. And if you know you’re oly going to eat $30 worth of food so that the $45 would be grossly unfair, ask for your own check. Sheesh, people…
When I was living in the Midwest we would usually go out to eat (there wasn’t much else to do where I lived) with coworkers or friends (or sometimes both since they weren’t mutually exclusive) and our system was pretty simple. Each one would pay his own dinner plus any appetizers or shared food that this person ordered. It was assumed that if you ordered appetizers you would share them but pay for them entirely, however, that would also encourage others to do the same and we would have a table with several trays of shared appetizers and nobody would complain about it. Also, it was my experience that everybody would behave really nicely and not eat all the appetizers that somebody paid for, by her/himself, which would have been terribly rude.
I never had to go through the horrible experience of having to calculate my portion of a dinner, so uncomfortable and such an awful way to finish a nice gathering.
I’m a big fan of advance communication. There is nothing worse than trying to digest that lovely meal with bad feelings stuck in my craw at the very end of the night! I like the simplicity of the Stowe’s Bank system (and as I’ve gotten older and my friends have too, we usually have too much $), but for birthdays I prefer simple and quick for the guest of honor’s sake.
For invites for a group birthday celebration, as host I tell people we’ll plan to split the bill and cover the birthday person, which sets expectations. One couple on a tight budget came to a group dinner, and they were just very clear about what their budget was as they perused the menu, ordered accordingly, and we recalculated as a group after deducting their share. Easy.
I went to lunch one afternoon with three grad school friends to catch up and trade (mostly made up) stories. We decided to go all out and meet at California Pizza Kitchen where we each ordered an identically priced pizza and Snapple flavored iced tea… except one guy (Mark) who ordered just a plain iced tea with his pizza.
When the bill came Mark pointed out that his iced tea was $.49 cheaper than ours so he shouldn’t have to split the bill equally. He was right of course, that wouldn’t have been fair. I wonder how he is; I haven’t seen him since.
This has become quite a popular entry with 35 comments so far. We can learn something from anything, I guess.
Here is my little secret. Since I am often the guy that organizes group dinners and things, I’ve in more than one occasion book gatherings at Chinese or Japanese restaurants where we share the food. And since we don’t have heavy drinkers in our group, our bills usually evens out. So thats my way to eliminate the problem. (smile) Plus I think it is more fun to share the same dishes and we can talk about how good (or bad) the food are since we are having the same dishes.
This is always such an ugly thing between otherwise agreeable people. Having spent years as a vegetarian and non, a drinker and non, and at the high or low end of the income range at the table, depending on the group of dear friends I’m dining with, I can sympathize with both camps.
Philosphies of social dynamics and politics aside, it would be fantastic if money weren’t an issue. I would love if my friends who are teachers and grad students made the same as my friends who are tech visionaries and programmers. But people do have budgets, and when a friend’s birthday party dinner is set for somewhere a person would usually not budget for, it’s a shame if that person can’t come and enjoy the company and give their birthday wishes without putting themselves in a tight spot for the month.
I believe in the splitting equally philosophy with the following conditions:
- Organizers of such parties should choose a venue within the reasonable range for *all* attendees or be willing to subsidize a bit.
- If there’s a wide disparity between who is partaking (and how much), alcohol should be ordered on a separate tab or just ordered and paid for individually at the bar.
- Keep the appetizers (at least mostly) vegetarian friendly.
As usual, a little consideration goes a long way.
Glad to know I’m not the only one that uses the ‘bank’ system, and I’ve found that - like Stowe - most of the time, I end up paying a fair share after everyone has pitched in. Sure, sometimes I need to pony up a few extra dollars, but it surely saves the unnecessary aggravation that comes with trying to split a bill.
I go out with a core group of friends quite often and we play ‘Credit Card Roulette’. While it only works if you go out with the same people regularly, it not only adds some excitement to the process of paying, but in the long run, it evens out.
this story is awesome!!! ROTFL
Reminds me of a time when I was part of a group of ten people, six of whom wanted to split the bill equally and four of whom didn’t (I was of the bill-splitting party). We ended up spending 45 minutes - FORTY FIVE MINUTES! - dividing up the bill. Then I noticed that we’d been over-charged by approximately 30%. This time around, we split it evenly and no-one argued. More recently, I’ve often found a variant on the Stowe school where the poverty stricken chip in what they can afford and the rest of us split the balance. But that only works with people who are comfortable with each other.
I always thought that only my sisters and I who had this types of argument.
I always thought that only my sisters and I who had these types of arguments.
Who can protest the infallible logic of Stowe Boyd’s bank? Best idea I’ve ever heard for eliminating bill-time awkwardness.
hey
my comment about class didn’t make it to your comment section…how come?
peace
leigh
I have left a longer comment over at Stephanie’s blog, and would like to add a part here as relevant for this discussion:
First, it is a cultural thing again. Paying for the host on a birthday is not usual over here, but the other way round. Walking in an international environment, this has to be though about as well, it is the same with tipping for example.
Second about the cheapish person who dares to stay an “individual when it is so much cooler to be the collective!!!” This is a star gazing hippie argument. Could we come down to earth please for a moment?
It is fine with me if I have a group around me which is my friends even barely friends, and to a certain degree I also do this with strangers. But my believe in Karma is not that I have to be generous to the world no questions asked. The relevant part in this is the “no questions asked” argument.
Splitting the bill for me has a very simple reason as I explained in the other comment as well - I am *never* at what the group is at. I am either much over or much under what they are having and as there is the talk of “it will equal out” - yes, in the long run and over all my dinner bills.
But if I go out with the same crowd of people the pattern with them will not change. And as I said, it can run both ways. I do not want to pay much more than I had nor do I expect anyone else to pay for me much more than they had.
And I find myself grouping up with some people as in the non wine people, or the ones having a full meal versus only some little thing.
The argument “then don’t go out” does apply here, but it needs an addition “don’t go out with those people”.
There is not just one situation, and not one solution. But out of the three, me pay /we pay and everybody pays what they had aka Stowe, the we pay does sound like dictatorship to me. Because it forces me to do something.
“You contribute to what you had and maybe even a bit more to not go into details” is much more about collective than a decision “we do all want to pay the same, right?!”.
Bottom line: Clear these things before you start ordering.
Usually also something to be done so the waiter can set up separate tabs and probably where this whole “we pay together” things comes from: Because they are to lazy to run separate bills and it makes their life much easier just to lay the burden on the guest to split it up …
I didn’t read through all your comments, but I just wanted to chime in from the far east.
In Japan, birthday girl never pays, and everything is always split evenly. Sometimes frustrating, but I really prefer it to the bill dilemma turned blog post.
I am so mortifed by petty cheapskates who dither over their share of the bill that I have been known to snatch the whole thing out of their hands and say, “Oh let me treat you, I”ll pay the whole thing,” as a way to shame them into self-reflection.
And the poorer I am, the better this works out. THere is nothing like shaming some MoneyBags pennypincher by having the working class girl at the table pay the bill.
When they protest, I say, “I’m sure you’ll treat us all next time.” Sort of an evil Miss Manners maneuver. It probably doesn’t do any good to reform the real moochers, but at least it allows me to not sit thru the agony of bill-quibbling.
Sometimes I’ve been invited to an event where I belatedly realize that it’s way over my head, expense-wise. The average tab is going to be running into the high three figures for a supper, per person. Without wine.
When that’s the case, you always know you can’t afford it, well before the entree comes. So then I just have a quick drink, offer some cash to the host and say, “Oh I”m so sorry, I have to go home early. And I give them more than my drink cost, so it’s clear I’m thinking of the tip.
My favorite people to go out with are the types who take turns “paying for all of it.” It’s a very romantic gesture, it allows you to spoil your friends and be spoiled in return.
This is always interesting
How I solve this problem is called: THE credit card game.
If everybody is wining about not splitting the bill equally (or nobody has sold their company lately) I suggest to put everybodies credit card into a hat and let the waitress pick one card who pays for all!
It is very exciting (as you probably can imagine).
But there is a way out, as not all people are risk seekers/entrepreneurs, every one can ‘buy’ oneself out for the average price of the bill plus a small “chicken out” premium of lets say 2 euros (hey I’m Dutch, we have euros).
The funny thing is that a lot of people finally will agree to put it the average price plus the premium although they didn’t agree with splitting the bill in the first place. Some people stay in the game for the fun and excitement of it, the others who chickened out are watching the ‘ceremony’ with the waitress picking one card and have fun as well.
This is a win-win-win situation. The people who chickened out feel winners because they paid their part, had a great evening and didn’t lose the game, the people who put in there credit card and won the game win for obvious reasons (they had a free dinner which made their evening) and the loser is a winner because he/she has a story to tell (its bloggable)!
One Trackback
[...] en certaines circonstances) et les avantages que je trouve au système bancaire, en réponse à un billet de Tara Hunt (par ailleurs ma généreuse hôtesse durant mon séjour à San Francisco), qui regrette qu’on ait [...]