Group dinner: How to split the bill

I admit I'm a calculator kind of girl. But I do it for other people, as much as myself. This has been a commonly discussed topic between my friends, and I find that a lot of people feel that they get screwed over when it comes to splitting bills evenly. Because I would never want to put someone in that uncomfortable position, I have no shame in being the one to split the bill as evenly as possible.

I am too.  I have no problem paying slightly more than everyone else when I'm with a group (if I did, I would never go out to big group dinners!), but I don't like putting others in a situation of not being able to afford more than what they've ordered and not feeling comfortable enough to say something.  I much prefer everyone putting in what enough to cover what they ordered plus tip and tax if applicable. 

I'm with Mrs R. I'm flexible, but I think life is too short for calculators.....

I don't like calculators, but I don't like people getting screwed -- the overpayers OR the folks on a tight budget who might not be able to go if someone orders crazywine and the most expensive item on the menu.  With some groups, it's easiest just to divide by X.  With other groups, it works better to have each pay for his/her own stuff.  But you really need to know your group.  The last big group lunch I went to ended up being way under on the bill.  WTF.  It's so embarassing to have to do the "um, guys...we're short" thing.

I guess because I'm older and my friends all seem to be similar that it's rare for me to go out with heavy drinkers or people who don't order roughly the same as me.  I'm happy for it to be split evenly although if somebody was unhappy about that I'd rather they spoke up and asked for the bill to be split by what they had than seethed about it afterwards.
I have been out in large groups where I didn't know everyone well in those instances it's not uncommon for the food bill to be split evenly and for drinks to be separate and individual (paid for at the bar). 

When we went out in a group we used to split the bill.  One of the larger groups was like 17 people or so.  However, I stopped doing this for the simple fact I don't drink and others were ordering multiple drinks at bar prices of course.  Which I didn't think it was far for me to pay a larger amount at that point and insisted on separate checks after that.

It wasn't anything personal against anyone.  But when you are paying 25.00 usd for a 10.00 meal, you really start to wonder.

Vince

I completely agree with you. Last October Tim and I went out with some of my friends and we ate at a rather pricey restaurant and our share of the bill was £100, even though we hadn't ordered any drinks!  It really bothered me until Tim pointed out that while we were on the pub crawl before dinner, he and I barely paid for drinks, so it did even itself out I suppose.

I haven't been out for an actual meal with a group of people in the UK (only out for drinks where we had snacks).  But when I was in the US, I always asked for separate bills.  This is the way me and my friends/family/coworders always did it.  Not sure why, I never would have minded splitting the bill evenly or something like that...we just never did it.  Maybe it's just a cultural thing in that area or something.  My hubby says that with him and all of his UK family/friends/coworkers, they always split the bill evenly (granted that all of them drink about the same amount of alcohol and eat pretty much the same things so it's pretty fair this way).  If you ordered a salad and the person beside you was having a 10oz ribeye meal, I might be able to see where splitting the bill could be aggravating.

I think some people have this down to a science and they get a thrill out of taking advantage of other people. I had an audit supervisor who would order the most expensive things on the menu and then want to split the bill evenly.