When you go out for dinner with a friend, how you handle the expense of your meals? Do you ask the server for separate checks? Split the bill evenly no matter what each of you ate and drank? Have one person pay the whole bill with a credit card and the other brings cash for payment of just what she ate and drank, plus her share of taxes and the tip?
If I take a friend out for her birthday, I offer to treat her and usually pay the whole bill.
What about when you go out with a group of people? If there’s a patriarch or matriarch, do you assume that person will foot the whole bill? What if your friends include a couple, a grown child and his children, and your family comprises just you and your mother? Do you split the bill evenly between the two families? Is that fair?
I’ve known about friendships that have ended over payment for dinner, and plenty of ill-will between two families for uneven group dinners.
On Facebook, people linked to software for splitting checks or paying the bill. Other people suggested you can split the bill on your cellphone. Some said they had group dinners, one would pay with his credit card and the others would pay cash for their dinner. When one person didn’t pay his share of the tax and tip, he wasn’t invited back to the group dinners.
But most preferred separate checks.
How do you handle the situation?
Coming November 17, 2020! ODDITIES: 22 Stories by Lisa Mason
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