A man has been applauded online over his reaction to learning he and his friends would be splitting the bill on an expensive birthday dinner out.
Writing in a post shared to Reddit under the handle u/MrZero10, a user claiming to be a 21-year-old man said he and his partner had originally “set a budget” for how much they were willing to spend celebrating his friend’s birthday at an “upscale restaurant.”
However, he soon ditched that approach after he found out, just after the main course, that the party of 10 would be splitting the bill between them. By then he had already begun to notice others on the table “continually ordering more and more expensive drinks and food” so decided to take action.
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Splitting the check remains a source of some consternation among the U.S. public. In a 2021 survey of 2,000 American adults conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Brazilian steakhouse chain Fogo de Chão, one third of respondents said they were opposed to the idea of splitting the bill if the food ordered by each individual did not cost the same amount.
This particular Redditor was specifically unhappy at the way it was just sprung on him. “If they communicated prior to the dinner as an obligation, that’s one matter but suddenly telling us after everyone is mostly done eating dinner seems sketchy at the very least,” he said.
However, he reckoned he had the perfect solution. Realizing they were about to shell out the same as everyone else, despite eating considerably less, he and his girlfriend decided to order “expensive desserts” to raise the price even more.
He figured since he had a good job and could afford it, it would “even out how much food everyone got” so ordered more to “make it fair.”
However, when the final bill arrived and it was close to $2,000, his friends began “bickering” with him in the restaurant and accused him of “intentionally raising the bill” to an exorbitant amount.
The friends continued to argue about the bill the next day, with the man branded a “terrible person” for his actions. His girlfriend, however, insisted he did “the moral thing” in ensuring they got their fair share while he remains “livid” that he was ever put in that position to begin with.
Diane Gottsman, a national etiquette expert from the Protocol School of Texas, could see things from both sides, though she felt the man could have made their position clear from the outset.
“The rule of splitting the check is fairly simple. If you don’t want to get stuck with expensive items from other peoples orders, you politely, discreetly, ask the server to give you or you and your partner a separate bill,” she told Newsweek.
Though she didn’t think his reaction was necessarily incorrect, the motivations behind it were important to understand.
“Amping up your order to make it fair is not necessarily wrong, unless there’s vengeance in it,” she said. “Some people may order a dessert while others are ordering expensive, expensive cocktails, and that’s not a bad thing, unless you are ordering out of spite.”
Gottsman felt that ultimately, the situation arose due to a lack of communication. “It would’ve been better for the couple who felt slighted to say ‘we’re going to order a few more desserts to balance our portion of the bill,'” she said.
Ultimately, she felt it was important to pick your battles on this particular issue and deal with it in a calm and measured way. “There are times, many times, when a group will split the bill evenly, knowing that it’s not going to be dollar for dollar,” she said. “When the bill is egregiously out of proportion, communication in a respectful and kind manner is the key to harmony in a friendship or family relationship.”
Others on Reddit, though, felt the man was right to react as he did. “Your ‘friends’ were trying to get stuff for free out of you, or at least have you pay for what they consumed, and it backfired,” one wrote.
“People always take advantage of splitting the check and no one should have to be responsible for other’s gluttony,” a second Redditor said, with a third adding: “It should have been clear beforehand how things were being paid…Your friends are inconsiderate and unreasonable.”
Newsweek reached out to u/MrZero10 for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.
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