That's a symptom of the value of time vs. money.

If you're going to resent someone getting an extra 10$ worth of food you split the check based on costs.

If 10$ is effectively meaningless but 200$ is not. Split it per person, it's fairly close and reasonably fast.

If 200$ is effectively meaningless, rotate who pays it's faster. This can blend into: If 2,000$ if effectively meaningless, or you want to show off, who pays may not relate to who paid last time.

I'm not sure the time thing is particularly true but you're absolutely spot on with it being a value of money thing. And you're spot on with your characterisation as to how it works.

I’ll never forget how odd and uncomfortable it felt the first time I went out to lunch with co-workers (at my first “real” job) and this “split the check” thing happened. I always thought it just seemed so much fairer for everyone to figure out what they ate and pay for that. Kind of a culture shock.

Is it? Not co-workers, but I always find it (extremely) annoying that after having a great meal with friends that some of them insist on counting item per item how much they owe at the end of the evening.

Yes, I might have had an extra glass of wine. Or you might have had an extra side dish or a G&T. Let's either just split the bill, or I'll pay today and you'll get the next.

Now it seems silly, but back then it was a sudden transition between honestly worrying about the implications of a $15 lunch vs a $5 lunch, to making some money and not having to sweat it.

>In the upper class, oftentimes one person will pay for the check and it's awkward to object.

That's how it's in my country for all classes, poor or rich.

When friends go out, someone and pays for all the others (and someone might ask to chip in or pay themselves, but the first one doesn't take no for an answer).

Next time you see each other, the other person can pay, but no one keeps any very specific tally ("I paid 3 times, you paid 1") -- that would be considered tacky and cheap. That said, if someone systematically over many meetings never takes initiative to pay that the rest start considering them a cheapskate (but never giving specific tally or anything -- it's more from the feeling "never remember you paying").

Anybody insisting on splitting the bill, or obsessing over who ordered what, is also seen as a cheapskate.

That's how it usually goes among people with regular income. Now, sometimes, when the company is comprised of people that might be students, unemployed, etc, they more often agree to split the bill. But in this case too, obsessing over who bought what is considered rude, and usually it's just a simple bill/persons split that's paid by all.

That only makes sense if you're consuming roughly the same amount. If you have people who don't drink alcohol in your group, or don't eat meat/seafood/poultry, that's easily 15% to 30% difference in cost. I try to make sure those aren't sharing in alcohol or meat don't end up paying for it. It wouldn't be a problem if the difference was $5, but nowadays, in many cities this ends up being $10 per drink and an extra $10 on the entree...etc.

>That only makes sense if you're consuming roughly the same amount.

In our culture's case, in general the amount each one ate doesn't matter -- whether one had steak and the other just a salad, the salad person can very well still go on and insist on paying for everybody else. Nobody would care about "a 15% to 30% difference in cost" (the person paying for everybody wont feel it's a burden, and the persons having their meal paid, wont feel like imposing).

It's not about achieving some perfect balance or fairness in any particular meal -- people genuinely want to treat others, and enjoy taking turns doing so.

It's only longer term one would care for patterns of behavior (the person who after so many meals with others never volunteers to pay etc).

Longer term is when it would make leaa sense because even if everyone is volunteering to pay, the one who is consuming 15% to 30% less is always paying extra. I can see not caring if it's once or twice a year, but I'd feel bad for expecting someone to keep paying extra when I can easily add a couple numbers in my head and take care of my portion.

> Anybody insisting on splitting the bill, or obsessing over who ordered what, is also seen as a cheapskate.

If we're splitting a bill, I insist on this, because some of my friends don't drink alcohol, and some do.

(I drink.)

They wouldn't care about that. In fact when someone volunteers to pay for everybody, and someone else asks to chip in because e.g. they drank alcohol or they ordered a more expensive dish than the others, the person volunteering to pay just dismisses them (and jokingly feigns being insulted that they'd think he'd care for such a thing).

> you pass around a receipt and take turns deciding who owes what

A lot of things in this thread seem completely foreign to me. Every restaurant I've been to in the past few years has just asked how we want to split the bill. They seem to keep all orders separate in the system and just merge them if you want shared bills.

I usually like to eat at less-expensive restaurants and most of them will just outright refuse to do like six checks.

I have only seen Denny's do this.

I must live around weirdos. One person pays, and someone else always objects.