Splitting the bill, and other perils of modern friendship

Sometimes, I can’t help disapproving of the people I spend my time with. From their twatty boyfriend to the wardrobe appropriation to the husband flirting to the poor timekeeping and oft haphazard distribution of wine, it’s hardly surprising I lose friends more often than socks (and it’s not just because I have a highly organised laundry system that involves paying my children to sort and pair).

Perhaps it’s my hyper organisation and attention to detail that alienates those who have a less anally retentive approach to life, or as you like it: funloving, careless, chaotic or just plain pisstaking? We may be supposed to take our friends as they come, but should we, when you feel you’re the one making all the effort most of the time? Friendships, when they’re good can offer so much meaning (especially after a few bottles of wine; yes, and arguments too) and yet, when push comes to shove, and times are tough, can too often feel fairweather.

It’s not like I desperately keep tabs on who brings what to the party but when you so often feel shortchanged, it’s hard not to notice that your so-called bezzie turns up empty handed while you offer to pay for her meal at your own birthday dinner (to pay her back for a couple of hours babysitting in which she gave my daughter’s long saved-for-last gold wrapped biscuit, from a box given as a Christmas gift from her grandmother, to her own oft-demanding offspring, precipitating a massive meltdown, not only from my daughter but from her, when I told her I thought she’d, perhaps, on this occasion, overstepped the mark.

I don’t want to be petty. But after my cleaner nicked one of my children’s homemade muffins left out for their tea, and then had a hussy fit when I said it wasn’t acceptable (though, please, help yourself to biscuits from the tin!) it feels as though people take advantage of my good nature too often, and I’ve had enough!

Relationships shouldn’t be, but always are about power, and when you’re clearly as socially clueless as I am, perhaps it’s no great surprise I often feel taken for granted by people who say they are my friends – not least my employees.

So, with the cost/benefit analysis over the years feeling very much in others’ favour, things came to a head this Saturday when it came to what’s fair in friendship and splitting the bill.

I’d postponed a trip to Devon to sort out our cottage for the summer to be at Reprobate Kate’s birthday lunch. It’s not the first time I’ve bent over backwards to be there for her. She’s a longstanding friend and there’s lots of water under the bridge since our mutually difficult children brought us together many years ago. On her 40th, I was happy to take a day off work and spend over £100 on a gift (it was a bin, admittedly- that was the joke – you got me a bin?) But fed up with watching her struggle with plastic rubbish bags at home, I bought her a designer one she’d mentioned she wanted, filled with helium balloons, before treating her to a fancy meal. But when I tried to pin her down for the spa date she’d promised me in a my birthday card one year, she was evasive and it never happened. I should have learned my lesson about how one- sided this friendship could be.

We went to the venue, in the City near Tom’s work, arriving slightly flustered as we’d received a request to book our cottage just as we exited the tube. I felt a little awkward in any case as things have been strained since she started dating our neighbour, creating tension and resulting in an incident where he yelled at me for complaining to her I could hear people having rather violent sex upstairs when the kids were in the garden. We’ve (the twatty boyfriend and I) not spoken since and I had no particular desire to start, so I was forced into a situation where I basically had to skirt around him to avoid point blank ignoring him.

In any case, people were ordering drinks, but it was only midday, so I wanted to ease in slowly, especially since Ava, who been really upset about biscuitgate, was a little reserved around Kate and her daughter. But not wanting to be a party pooper, I got into the swing of it, ordered some wine, and made noises that, since it was a pricey place, everyone might feel more comfortable paying for their own meal, especially when my other, slightly reckless and self-confessed alcoholic friend Linda was glugging back the same wine I was nursing at £33 a bottle.

Having been stung splitting bills before, I hedged my bets, tried to keep pace, ordering starters and sides, while Tom, who was being unusually reserved, ordered just a burger. But with such a big group, things went astray; orders came out wrong and waiters were by turn obsequious and apologetic, but none of them spoke great English. Linda started to get a bit gobby, complaining, perhaps rightly, about this and that, souring the atmosphere. In an attempt to turn things around, drinks kept flowing, though when I asked the waiter to stop topping me up after each sip, I was met with ridicule from Linda and Kate, as if I’d never been to a nice restaurant before, and I was oversensitive to feel a bit threatened every time a man leant over me to fill up my glass. As the party got louder, I found myself withdrawing, concerned about Ava, who can look sulky but is actually painfully shy; and dealing with the cleaners over the phone about the booking request, which, in the end, looked as though it might have been a bit of a scam.

I was fading a bit after a few nights’ poor sleep, and ready to leave, but Tia Maria coffees were ordered (and reordered when they came out wrong) and puddings and god knows what she, all of which Tom and I did not partake.When the bill came, I ridiculed Tom for getting the calculator out. Don’t be that guy, I said, but in reality I baulked at the £700 total and felt sorry for him, who’d ordered lightly compared to our twatty neighbour, who been pigging out, and Tom resented footing his bill, especially after he’d been abusive to me in my own garden.

Tom totted it up, rounded, and added a tip. He’d laid down £150 before Linda – she of the complaining and the “let’s just get another bottle”- grabbed the bill and said “no, this is how we’re going to do it”- attempting to split it between us and the other couple who’d already left paying more than they owed, as well as extra to pay for Kate’s meal. It’s not that I particularly objected to that, but on my birthday, no one had offered to buy my food and in fact Linda, who’d turned up late, was offered not to split the bottle of wine she’d missed, to which she readily agreed, and then proceeded to buy another and split it with a friend of ours, pointedly excluding me (even though, I guess it’s petty to mention, it was my birthday).

Like I said, funding everyone’s largesse at a pricey restaurant feels a bit like a mug’s game. So when Tom objected, and Linda made a great, bolshy drunk fuss about pointing out that Tom and I would pay for our own thing, I quietly asked, “what are you trying to suggest, Linda”, wanting her to admit she was saying we were tight for refusing to pay for her and our twatty neighbour’s gourging. And pretty quickly, she did.

Despite the fact she’d been number 1 on my list to take with us to our Devon cottage this weekend, had we gone, for a freebie weekend on our slab. We’d only decided against asking her in the end because she has form for overordering in restaurants, then making a fuss about it “all working out in the end.”

Except it doesn’t, Linda. When some people give and others expect everyone else to pay for them; expecting favours, overstaying their welcome, turning up late, shouting others down, taking over at someone else’s party – it doesn’t “all work out.”

I inevitably pay for it, when they inevitable get drunk and then, inevitably, have a go at me. So, this time, they can absolutely go fuck themselves.

And so, that was the end of another friendship, I’m sad about it- through good times and bad, we’ve put up with each other. But then, I don’t have to put up with so-called friends taking more of the piss than a damn about my feelings.