A "do I owe my friend this money" thread, slightly atypical

[Hey_Porter]

Or maybe not, but to me this seems like a closer call than a lot of these threads. Last weekend I went to Vegas for a bachelor party for a friend of mine. Good friend that I have known FOREVER, but I don't see him too much. I didn't make the decision to go until that week, so there had been NO discussions regarding where I would stay, where they were all staying, etc. This didn't bother me, as I wasn't flying in until Saturday afternoon and was leaving on Sunday early afternoon, and kind of assumed we would just be up the whole time. They (being the group of 10 guys), for the most part, had been there since Thursday. When I get there, turns out he had booked two rooms at Bellagio. They were there when I got there, and I stashed my backpack in the room. All is well and good, lots of drinking, gambling, strippers, etc., no real talk of sleep. At five or so, people are talking about doing different things, e.g., gambling at Bellagio, going to the Wynn and gambling, etc. I went off with a couple of the guys who were NOT staying at Bellagio, and had a time share off the strip. Long story short, I end up crashing at their place for maybe three hours, then going and changing at Bellagio in the morning.

Get an e-mail yesterday from my friend the bachelor, essentially billing us all for the Bellagio stay. Before this gets discussed, the reality is I am going to pay, because it is only $85, and I don't see the guy too often and it wouldn't be worth a fight. But should I be perturbed?

My perturbed-ness is due slightly to another incident that occurred. Whether that is justified, I'll also leave for OOT to decide:

On Saturday night we go to Capital Grille for dinner. Pretty decent place, not outrageously expensive, but not cheap. The group is full of professionals, e.g., a couple lawyers, a few doctors, and a couple guys in finance. Me and another guy are the only ones who remain students, i.e., we're poor. As such, I order cheap, not out of an inherent cheapness, but a flat out inability to afford. Just a steak and a salad, no sides, no drinks. Everyone else goes crazy, ordering several Grey Goose and Redbulls, a couple bottles of wine, several sides, dessert, etc. Y'all are probably seeing where this is going. We get the check, and split it equally. I know it's the easiest, but I can't afford a $200 meal, which is why I kept my order to about $50. Justifiedly perturbed?

Cliff Notes: Friend "charges" me for a room at Bellagio I didn't sleep in, and we had no agreement or discussion, formal or informal about where I would be staying. Also, split an almost $2000 dinner bill equally, when my "share" should have been only about $60.

[Yeti]

i think the meal thing is definitely wrong.

[Aces McGee]

You definitely have a right to be irritated about both of these things. I also commend your line of just chalking it up to one of those things that happens. Bottom line is that it's not worth the headaches.

-McGee

[daryn]

with that dinner situation.. if that must be done, i would mention it beforehand.

[Badger]

The dinner thing is unfortunate. It'd be hard to step up in that situation and say "Sorry guys, I'm poor can I just pay for my part and you split up the rest?"
I always take care of my friends who are still poor college students whenever they are around, and if this group consists mainly of your buddies they should have been looking out for you, not necessarily paying for your meal, but at least making sure you weren't on the hook for a huge ticket.

That really has no bearing on the room situation, which without any prior clarification I'd say you're on the hook for, as long as it's just your share for that one night.

Sounds like you've got a good attitude about it and maybe have learned a thing or two.

[slickpoppa]

Dinners with a lot of people are always problematic. If you split the bill, then the cheapos go wild and free ride on everyone else, but if you don't split the bill, there are always some people who will try to short their share. I just assume that if I go to dinner in a large group I'm gonna end up paying more than I should somehow.

[Ghazban]

[ QUOTE ]
Dinners with a lot of people are always problematic. If you split the bill, then the cheapos go wild and free ride on everyone else, but if you don't split the bill, there are always some people who will try to short their share. I just assume that if I go to dinner in a large group I'm gonna end up paying more than I should somehow.

[/ QUOTE ]

This only happens when you eat out with jerkoffs. In college, people were always shorting the bill in these situations but when I got cooler friends later in life (not necessarily richer compared to the restaurant prices either) I found the opposite effect. Everybody would overpay so much we'd be leaving like an 80% tip and you'd have to force people to take money back.

Lately, I've hung out with a completely different set of people that have a better way of doing things. If we go out to eat or for drinks or whatever, somebody will just pay the whole bill, then somebody else will pick it up the next time. It's never discussed or made an issue of; people just have the consideration to volunteer to pick it up in such a way that it all evens out in the end. Obviously, this is exploitable but if anybody in the group was that petty, they probably wouldn't last long.


To the OP, the dinner thing sucks but the room thing seems fairly reasonable. In both instances, if paying was going to be an issue, you should've brought it up in advance.

[slickpoppa]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Dinners with a lot of people are always problematic. If you split the bill, then the cheapos go wild and free ride on everyone else, but if you don't split the bill, there are always some people who will try to short their share. I just assume that if I go to dinner in a large group I'm gonna end up paying more than I should somehow.

[/ QUOTE ]

This only happens when you eat out with jerkoffs. In college, people were always shorting the bill in these situations but when I got cooler friends later in life (not necessarily richer compared to the restaurant prices either) I found the opposite effect. Everybody would overpay so much we'd be leaving like an 80% tip and you'd have to force people to take money back.

Lately, I've hung out with a completely different set of people that have a better way of doing things. If we go out to eat or for drinks or whatever, somebody will just pay the whole bill, then somebody else will pick it up the next time. It's never discussed or made an issue of; people just have the consideration to volunteer to pick it up in such a way that it all evens out in the end. Obviously, this is exploitable but if anybody in the group was that petty, they probably wouldn't last long.


To the OP, the dinner thing sucks but the room thing seems fairly reasonable. In both instances, if paying was going to be an issue, you should've brought it up in advance.

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't always have control over who you go to dinner with, especially when you have people from different social groups coming together like at a bachelor party or birthday. None of my good friends are douchebags, but it's impossible not to be associated with douchebags by 1 or 2 degrees of separation.

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
with that dinner situation.. if that must be done, i would mention it beforehand.

[/ QUOTE ]
While this is the best solution, I think it was still salvageable all the way up to when the check came. I don't think any of those professionals would have begrudged him for having to kick in an extra $10-20/each and cutting him out of the pool were he to bring it up. That said, real ballas play credit card roulette in this spot.

As for the room that's a tough one but again that you probably didn't even see coming. I think the moral of the story is, don't do Vegas for a bachelor party unless you're prepared to spend about 50% more than you planned. I recently begged out of a BP there and was unsurprised to hear about how everyone went over budget, largely in part to one guy spending money on behalf of everyone else on strippers and bottle service, and then coming to them to collect. Ugh.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

Re: Vegas

You should be mildly perturbed and pay. I mean you should have been prepared to pay for some room, somewhere - you did crash for 3 hours. but these things should be organized beforehand, so everyone knows or has a good idea what the weekend will cost.

Re: Capital Grille

Depends on how close you are with these people. If you are that worried about the bill, you should probably tell whoever invited you that you are concerned about the cost, can't go out for a baller meal, etc, but you're happy to pay for your share.

also who the [censored] orders red bull at the capital grille.