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It's also in the nature of restaurant meals that they are often situations where people want to show how great they are (dates, business lunches, even meals with friends. eating by yourself where there's no one whose opinion you care about to witness the tip is a rarity).

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Is that really that much of a factor?
Most dine-out situations I've ever been involved in I very rarely have any idea how much the other person tips and they don't have any idea how much I tipped either.
This is true whether we are splitting the check or whether one or the other is paying for the whole thing.

People just don't share this type of info that often. And if you're on a date it's not like the girl is going to be eyeballing the check and receipt to see how much you tip. I mean, it could happen that they look at the number of bills left on the table and make an evaluation. But more often than not one party pays and the other is not going to know how much the tip was.


The societal norms have definitely changed. People of all generations believe that 20% is far more acceptable now whereas previously that would be considered a very generous tip.
I think somehow the service industry has pushed it that way just with talk/peer-pressure or something like that which ends up getting spread around.

I know that my 63-year-old Mom tips 20% because when we dine-out she has me double-check to make sure she is tipping enough because she ain't too hot at math. And she doesn't care at all really about giving to the needy or getting better service when she returns there because she doesn't frequent that many places often enough to become known. But she does know that 20% is considered appropriate now. Where she heard this I'm not sure.

My Dad is kind of slow to catch up to what is happening in the world around him sometimes and I believe he tips in the 12-15% range although I'm not positive. If so then he is completely oblivious to how horrible a tipper he is compared with most people.
But I think that's very much the case for a lot of the senior population in Florida. And for many it doesn't have a whole lot to do with being stingy because they can't afford to tip more or anything like that. It can be at a nice and expensive restaurant but they just haven't gotten the word that 12% is considered extremely low.

I'm pretty sure if you asked people in the service industry in Florida they would tell you that the more affluent seniors can be some of the worst tippers around even if they believe they got great service. Not true all the time of course. But some of them just seem to not have received the memo that 12% is kind of insult now and that 20% is more the norm.

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