What is so hard about splitting the bill?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As for the bizarre anthropology excerpt above, it refers to gift-giving in general and not taking turns picking up a bill. Try Emily Post if you want to find a relevant excerpt on this topic!

You don't think picking up the bill is giving a gift? The excerpt is quite relevant in terms of how generosity can be used to manage social relations. I'm not a devotee of Emily Post so I can't say about her but I'm sure Miss Manners would understand it perfectly.

Nope. I pick up the bill sometimes; my friends do it the next time. It's not a gift but rather a social nicety. None of us feel like haggling over a check - or asking the waiter to go back and split the whole thing. It all evens out at the end anyway if you have good friends and go out a lot with them.

I think your anthropology textbook excerpt is bizarre. Is that how you manage all your social relations? Hysterical!

I can understand the OP's point. If it is a Starbucks etc., I just prefer to get own coffee etc. If someone is saving the table, then I will say - do you want me to get your order or vice versa if I am saving the table and we hand the other person the money. I don't regularly go out with anyone other than my husband to have a "I'll catch you next time" arrangement. I think my preference is that I am in a situation where I get to offer the money for my share. If you choose not to take it okay and decide it is a gift to me that's fine - but it would feel awkard to have a "oh you can get the bill next time" rejoinder ... which now makes me feel like it is a debt.

I remember my 5th grade teacher liked to say "neither a borrower or lender be" and I seem to have taken that to heart. I don't like to feel like I owe money to anyone and even if it is $5 for the day I forgot my wallet - I will be prompt to pay the money back. Some people may say it's $5 but my thought is it isn't my place to be cavalier with someone else's money +"oh Mary won't mind if I don't pay the $5 back". Even if she doesn't need it, if I asked to "borrow", that implies I will pay it back. I also realize you have to be careful when offering to pay for someone's meal. Though the OP said it doesn't seem as though she has money issues etc., I remember years ago I met a high school casual friend for lunch. She was in art school, and I was out in the working world so I offered to pay for her lunch. I realized that it became an awkward situation because she felt like she was a charity case and was kind of sheepish but said, hey I can pay for my lunch. Her personality was pretty low-key so the fact she was speaking up meant it really bothered her. To be honest if the shoe were on the other foot, I probably would have felt the same.

[Anonymous]

In my culture, it's considered tactless to split the bill. I married out of my race/culture and once my husband made the faux-pas of offering to split the bill when we went out with my sister and her husband. Her husband thought my husband was a cheapskate and rude.

If OP thinks she has it bad, I have to learn to balance different social rules about bill splitting between different cultures. In some situations, I must insist on picking up the tab, in others, I should graciously accept someone else picking up the tab and yet in other situations, I must remember to go 50-50. But, really, it's not that hard.