Man Refuses To Order Food At ‘Casual Dinner’ With A Couple That Always ‘Splits The Bill’
“They order the most expensive menu item and then feed you a sob story about their finances.”
La Famiglia | Shutterstock.com If you’re out to eat with friends, family, or even acquaintances, how do you split the bill? Are you cognizant of what everyone else is ordering? Are you pretending not to notice when your entree is $40 more than everyone else’s?
Regardless of your financial status, it seems like there’s never a “right” answer — only a compassionate and courteous one. As one Reddit man explained in a recent post, if you’re not going to be respectful while ordering on a “split bill,” you should expect to pay for your whole meal.
A man refused to order food at a dinner with friends, knowing one couple always expects them to ‘split the bill.’
In his Reddit post, the man explained he has history with one specific couple when it comes to dining out at restaurants. Not only do they always insist on splitting the bill, they often take advantage of the equal split — “They’re absolute leeches,” he wrote.
Ikostudio | Canva Pro
“Going out to lunch? Expect them to order the most expensive thing on the menu.”
Living in Australia, where the poster is located, it’s common for restaurants to only offer to split the bill evenly — in comparison to the United States, where many places will divide the bill per person based on what they’ve ordered.
While many friends will split the bill in the restaurant and then compensate for the difference afterward, this couple never gives it another thought.
“Last weekend, one of the people from [my friend] group told me about a casual dinner,” he wrote. “I told him if [the couple] was there, I wouldn’t be able to come… he said I should put my opinions aside and come just once. I agreed.”
After being coerced into a ‘casual dinner,’ he and his friends opted to get drinks, knowing this couple would purchase expensive entrees.
While he knew he probably shouldn't have gone to the dinner knowing the couple’s spending tendencies, he wanted to spend time with his friends, so he took a chance.
However, when they started to order, it became clear that the couple’s conscience was still clouded. “Everyone began putting in their orders; most of them spent about $40. There were only about 6 people there… [The couple] both ordered $200 dishes,” he wrote. “When it gets to me, I just picked up the menu and [ordered] the $4 Miller Lite.”
Jacob Lund | Canva Pro
After explaining his loss of appetite, several other friends at the table made a point to cancel their dinner orders, agreeing to spend their time together drinking and chatting rather than wasting money on a meal. “After the main courses came out, I saw [the couple] picking at their food. The waiter then brings them the check.”
As the drink and food checks were separate, he’d assumed their one friend and the couple — who’d been the only three to order food — would simply split their check three ways, but instead, they “grabbed the waiter” and asked him to split it amongst the entire table.
Being forced to fully pay for their meals, the couple became furious.
“I stand up and correct him,” the man wrote, “saying the check was to be split 3 ways. [They] looked at me confused, saying they ‘always’ split the bill. I reminded him that 3 of us chose not to eat food, so we’d be paying for our drinks on a separate tab.”
While he said that he felt bad for the one friend who’d also ordered food, he wasn’t willing to pay for this couple’s expensive meal. “I slid a $10 towards my check, said goodbye, and walked out. The next morning, my phone was full of texts… telling me I forced them to pay more than they’d accounted for.”
Admitting that he was likely wrong for making the choice to go to the dinner, knowing that he wouldn’t be open to splitting the bill, he couldn't help but argue that this couple was overly entitled. “Their steaks alone were more than what they would’ve paid,” he wrote.
Wouldn’t a compassionate friend consider the financial contributions of everyone else at the table — or at least order something moderately similar in cost to the others?
Most commenters agreed that this man was justified in putting the couple in their place but they also pointed out that their friend group should be more upfront beforehand. “You’re not a friend if I can’t have open communication with you,” one wrote. “It sounds like everyone at the table felt that way but never said anything.”
Financial experts certainly agree with this advice as long as friends set some important ground rules. Grant Sabatier, author of "Financial Freedom" and creator of Millennial Money, told Investopedia, “You really have to come to it from a place of love, and respect, and understanding. Try to put yourself in the person’s shoes that you’re talking with, and recognize how you talk about money will make them feel,” Sabatier said. “If you have more money than them, often talking with someone who doesn’t have as much money can come off as bragging or make them feel bad because they’re not in this similar position.”
Sure, this man may have felt vindicated in avoiding footing the bill that he shouldn't have had to pay in the first place, but perhaps he still shoulders some of the blame for this couple's habit in the first place.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.