Again, a period of neglect. I have intermittently been forgetting that I even have a blog. In my neck of the media woods, I am drowning in opinion and I can’t see that adding mine will help anyone. But, you know, it might ‘lead to something.’ That reminds me of something that I retweeted the other day, by @BigFashionista. ‘I was thinking of calling up a plumber to sort out my rads. No cash for the job, but it’ll ‘raise his profile’. And that, dear friends, just about sums it up.
Anyway, the festive season. Actually, these thoughts apply all year round, but they are heightened during the winter party months. And the summer ones. And spring and autumn.
So, as you’ve probably worked out, I don’t drink. Neither do quite a few other people, for varying reasons. Just to ram the point home, I don’t drink alcohol, like, ever. And yet I, and others like me, are sometimes, when out for the evening, still sometimes expected to chip in for the drinks part of the bill.
I’ve lost count of the number of events that ‘throw in’ a glass or two of horrible wine as a justification for bumping up the entrance fee. I don’t want this, thanks. Mind you, when an event is unusually overpriced, and there’s free ‘champagne’ offered as part of the deal, you know the evening is going to be rubbish, so it’s quite a useful indicator.
But the non-drinker’s tolerance is far more heavily tested when they go for a group meal in a restaurant. The odd beer slipping through the net is one thing. A booze bill that doubles the cost of the meal is another. A while back I went to a posh book launch and then about 15 of us went for dinner. The wine flowed. Then the bill came. £40 a head. I looked at it and said, ‘I’ll give you £20 as I haven’t drunk anything.’ The host looked bemused and disturbed. ‘But I’ll have to recalculate the bill!’ he said. ‘You’ll have to recalculate the bill,’ I replied.
One friend who invited a group of us to a restaurant last year cracked it by running two tabs, one for the alcohol and one for the food. Perfect, and I wish people would think a bit and offer to do this more, when there is clearly a number of sober people at the table. Of course, even this wise and reasonable course of action can still be thrown by the one non-drinker at the table who will loudly show up the rest of us sober types, in our killjoyish meanness and poverty, by theatrically insisting on paying a full share.
The thing I hate the most is having to ask permission not to pay for alcohol in advance of an organised event, when I know the bill for the meal is going to be large. The potential humiliation (ohh no, the host might think I’m poor!) might be enough to silence you and get you to reach into your pocket and subsidise the drinkers. But we are in a recession and I have no shame on this. If someone’s going to get stroppy about it or act like they’re doing me a special favour, it’s a friendship that might just be over.
Of course, sometimes over the years I’ve swallowed it and paid up. Context is all. But can you tell this pisses me off a bit?
Update
I’ve been reminded that the situation is the same for people who aren’t drinking because they happen to be driving, and people who only ever have one drink. Also, and I remember this from long ago boozy restaurant days, it’s often the people who have ordered the most, whether brandies/champagne, or just food (the fanciest starter and the biggest steak), who demand equality over the bill, and call ‘spoilsport’ the loudest.
Matt Christie
November 21, 2011
Surely no reasonable person would have any problem with this, I think it’s more the case that the social convention is so strong that the bill gets split, that it wouldn’t really occur to me to do otherwise unless someone brought it up.
Can I maybe suggest that rather than watching the bill arrive & letting someone calculate it, announce the results & *then* mentioning it, wouldn’t it be easier to bring it up as the bill arrives? Or when you get invited remind the host that not everyone drinks & suggest separate bar & food tabs?
If someone’s vegetarian & they’re coming to my house for dinner, I’m happy to cater for them, but I’d expect them to tell me in advance rather than turn up & say it’s not fair I didn’t guess. At a table in a restaurant, I’m not monitoring people’s alcohol intake, why would I? It’s up to you to point it out. Although not fair to non-drinkers, the social convention *is* that the bill is split, so until that changes I think it falls to the minority to let people know as early as possible to avoid it being awkward.
Another option would be to get the person you know best at the table to pipe up on your behalf, again before the bill is calculated.
I absolutely agree with the last part, anyone even questioning the fairness of separating bills once brought up is not deserving of your company.
taniaglyde
November 24, 2011
I totally agree about cooking for someone who’s veggie – you would expect them to point it out well in advance. But with the booze thing in a restaurant, making a thing of not paying of drinking at the beginning can sometimes be embarrassing. See the scene in my book where the woman announces the fact at the beginning of the party, making me look a little foolish and, of course, poor. I also think it shouldn’t be an automatic convention that the bill is split equally, and I’m noticing that quite a lot of the time people do check it over and break it down. But then I don’t hang around with big drinkers any more.
Lori Smith (@lipsticklori)
November 21, 2011
I usually drive to events that finish after public transport has shut down, as I really don’t care much for drinking alcohol just because it’s there. That’s not normally an issue though, as they’re usually not the type of event where people are buying rounds! Restaurant bills are a pain in the arse though. With ex-colleagues, I would sometimes have soft drinks to cut the cost of a meal (because they’d chosen somewhere pricey), and I’d always have to mention this in advance. I hate the assumption that non-drinkers/vegetarians should sponsor everyone else’s more expensive habits simply because it’s easier.
taniaglyde
November 24, 2011
There is also an idea floating around in some circles that it’s a bit declasse to talk about money, and a bit mean, and ‘not getting it’, to want to divide a bill according to what you’ve had. Again, I used to, but I don’t hang out in those circles any more.
Another point someone made was that vegetarians often end up paying for way more than they’ve had.