Miss Manners: My friends and I have been splitting the check for 40 years
I have a number of friends I regularly meet for meals out, as well as for friends’ birthdays. We’ve been friends for going on 40 years and first began socializing after college, when all of us were starting our careers, paying off loans and living on shoestring budgets.
Decades later, we still keep up the tradition of paying for our own meals, even on occasions such as birthdays. The group always covers the check of someone celebrating a birthday, but we don’t consider these gatherings to be occasions where a “host” pays. Someone will just send the group a text saying, “It’s Bob’s birthday on Tuesday, so where should we meet?”
If, for example, we celebrate with a cookout in someone’s yard, we all happily chip in for the groceries. Are we violating any principles of etiquette by continuing to gather on these terms? We’re all still happy with the arrangements, and for us, it’s the company that matters rather than protocol around picking up the tab.
But it is the deceit involved that makes it wrong. There is nothing bad about people deciding to go out together and pay their own way, or getting together for a cooperative meal, where each contributes food.Miss Manners: I found a student’s racy lingerie in my clean laundry, what now?If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.
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