“I’m Only Paying for What I Ordered” — Woman Slams Folks Who Expect to Split Restaurant Bill Evenly

If you're going out to eat with your friends, how do you split your bill? Do you sit there and have everyone contribute for what they ate and then they throw in 20% for tip? Or do you just split everything you ordered right down the middle?

The topic of bill splitting is completely nullified by restaurants that ask people in the group if they want to run separate tabs and just pay individually. Thanks to handheld POS systems that allow servers to individually approach diners and have them pay for only what they ordered and maintain all of those tabs by the customer, a lot of the anxiety surrounding shared tabs are automatically quelled when this is stated by the server at the onset.

However, there are a lot of establishments that will put a limit to how many cards can be used to pay a bill on a night out or won't allow this option at the onset, which means that the table is left with a few options.

The first is an even split: everyone tosses in their cards and tells the server, hey, just divide up the bill among all of these and we'll call it a night.

It's simple, it's efficient. Or maybe someone wants to get a bunch of points on their card and get Venmo'ed / Zelle'd by other folks at their table afterward. Another way of handling the situation is for everyone to figure out who owes what on the bill and depending on your friend group or who you roll with, can get very dicey very quickly.

This is perfectly evidenced by this Instagram Threads post uploaded by Mia Flowers (@miaflowers._) who posted a screenshot of a social media post by @tipfineass that reads: "If The Bill Is $400 and It's 4 Of Us Just Pay $100 Damn"

Mia staunchly disagreed with the social media user's post, writing: "Yea … NO ! I’m paying for what I ordered"

She added that folks who believe it's okay to just simply split a bill evenly when they go out with their friends are inconsiderate for doing so with a pretty strong choice of words.

"It’s sickening to look beneath someone who doesn’t have it like that …have a discussion about where y’all going so the person can decide whether they have it to go or not …can’t be mad when they only wanna pay for their stuff !!" Mia added in her post.

Another person said that they went out to a "really nice restaurant" and decided to pull the server aside and ensure that they covered the cost of their meal, and ensuring that they got a receipt to show the cost of everything that they consumed at their friend's birthday party.

They even made sure to snap a photo of the receipt, which they summarily shared with the host of the party once the question of paying the tab came up a couple of days later.

"Went to a birthday dinner at a really nice restaurant recently. There were about 20 of us. I got one app, one entree, and one cocktail. Everyone else was throwing back martinis left and right. I pulled the server to the side and asked to go ahead and pay for mine while I was up. It was about $80. The host text me a few days later asking to chip in $200 for the whole bill. I sent my receipt and said sorry babes, I paid for mine!"

Someone else wrote that they wouldn't allow their friends to pay more than what they ordered if they went out together as a group at a restaurant: "There's no way I'm going to let my friend pitch in $100 if all they had was $20 worth of food. Real friends pay attention and look out for each other."

However, another person in the comments section of the post remarked that the "default" agreement with their friends is that everything is going to get split up whenever they go out, and if someone intends to have a different arrangement, then they need to ensure that this is communicated thoroughly beforehand, and not ruin the night by arguing over money once the bill arrives.

"If no conversation is had before we set foot in the restaurant this is the default. Usually, it's only 2/3 of us and we always share our food so splitting it equally just makes sense. But if you're tight or on a budget, it's on you to communicate that beforehand. Don't wait until the end and sour the mood with bickering over money."

However, others think that discussions about splitting the bill evenly must come beforehand, not the other way around: "No bc I didn’t eat $100 worth of food. If there wasn’t a memo about the bill being split evenly before, then I’m paying for what I ordered. F--- off."

What do you think? If you're going out to eat with your friends is there just an understanding that everyone is going to evenly share their meals regardless of what they ordered and the total amount is?

Or do you only have people toss in money for whatever it is that they've ordered and make sure that everyone is putting in fair amounts, with tip included for the final tab?