When I was a child there was a Time Magazine cover...or a New York Times Magazine cover...or an Atlantic Monthly cover...well, I can't remember which exactly, but I do remember the picture clearly: a table with three plates of lobster and one plate with a plain hot dog. My parents had a long conversation regarding this cover, but I didn't really get it. Not until I was older.
The basics of the article, as my parents explained, was that even if you don't want to spend a lot of money going out with a group, an economic/rational choice/game theory model states that you should assume that the ones who order lobster will want to split the bill. So even if all you can afford is a hot dog, you're better off getting lobster and paying a little more than you split three lobsters and a hot dog (because at least you are getting to eat that lobster and paying for what you ate) than being stuck subsidizing the crustaceans filling other's bellies while you munch on a processed meat roll. Not that there's anything wrong with processed meat rolls (vegans and vegetarians, this is not the time or place).
We've all been there.
Stuck paying for things you didn't get. Stuck paying for people who didn't quite get it.
And I was there last night.
I'm low on cash these days. One on the list of statistics on unemployed millenials. My dear friends know this. For example, they know I can't take BART to meet them in the city for drinks or a movie like I used to. That's a whole eight more dollars to spend on a night out! That's like a bunch of cans of cheap beer we could pick up at the corner store and drink in someone's living room while watching trashy tv! But just because friends know that you're skint, doesn't always mean they remember.
Last night was book group and my plot to live within my means was thwarted because this time we happened to be going out for dinner. We went to a cheap-ish pizza place not too far from me, so I thought I'd be fine. I looked at the menu in advance. If I didn't get a drink and ordered the cheapest pizza, I could be out of there for less than $20. Huzzah! I could totally splurge on that.
But the best laid plans...
When I arrived I ordered a beer because we were waiting for more than half our group and who wants to wait without alcohol (alcoholics anonymous, this is not the time or place). So an $8 beer it was, because it's the Bay Area and that's the cheapest beer they had. Fail one. Totally my bad.
Then someone asked if the table wanted to split an appetizer. I said I was fine without, but everyone else went in on it. I would realize later that this fail two was the beginning of the end of my $20 meal plan.
Fail three occurred when my good friend asked the waitress how many pizzas would be needed to feed the table of seven. Five was the answer and an ominous sign of my total fails to come.
When dessert happened, I thought maybe I'd spring for some soft-serve frozen yogurt. Luckily the frozen yogurt machine tried to halt my spending by breaking down. I decided better of splurging on dessert and declined to order anything in it's place. Man is still mightier than machine, though, and so not ordering dessert was my fourth fail.
My fifth fail was my greatest.
The bill came to the other side of the long table. Before I knew what was going on people had put in cash and cards. $37 per person, that's what was going on. I split 5 pizzas and two salads between seven people, and I'd had a beer, and suddenly I owed $37.
Now I never read that Time Magazine article. Maybe it talks about how our psychological and social molding makes it hard to squabble with those ordering lobster when all we can afford is a hot dog. What I do know is that being the 'penny pincher' in a group of people who don't have to worry about a nearly forty dollar pizza dinner is a hard role to assume. At this point it was on me to speak up and say that the math needed to be recalculated, but rational choice doesn't kick in then, social pressure does.
So next time I'm gonna have to learn how to ask for my own check from the get go, no matter how awkward that might feel. Because I'd still like to be able to go out with friends, and I'm not all that into lobster anyhow.
The basics of the article, as my parents explained, was that even if you don't want to spend a lot of money going out with a group, an economic/rational choice/game theory model states that you should assume that the ones who order lobster will want to split the bill. So even if all you can afford is a hot dog, you're better off getting lobster and paying a little more than you split three lobsters and a hot dog (because at least you are getting to eat that lobster and paying for what you ate) than being stuck subsidizing the crustaceans filling other's bellies while you munch on a processed meat roll. Not that there's anything wrong with processed meat rolls (vegans and vegetarians, this is not the time or place).
We've all been there.
Stuck paying for things you didn't get. Stuck paying for people who didn't quite get it.
And I was there last night.
I'm low on cash these days. One on the list of statistics on unemployed millenials. My dear friends know this. For example, they know I can't take BART to meet them in the city for drinks or a movie like I used to. That's a whole eight more dollars to spend on a night out! That's like a bunch of cans of cheap beer we could pick up at the corner store and drink in someone's living room while watching trashy tv! But just because friends know that you're skint, doesn't always mean they remember.
Last night was book group and my plot to live within my means was thwarted because this time we happened to be going out for dinner. We went to a cheap-ish pizza place not too far from me, so I thought I'd be fine. I looked at the menu in advance. If I didn't get a drink and ordered the cheapest pizza, I could be out of there for less than $20. Huzzah! I could totally splurge on that.
But the best laid plans...
When I arrived I ordered a beer because we were waiting for more than half our group and who wants to wait without alcohol (alcoholics anonymous, this is not the time or place). So an $8 beer it was, because it's the Bay Area and that's the cheapest beer they had. Fail one. Totally my bad.
Then someone asked if the table wanted to split an appetizer. I said I was fine without, but everyone else went in on it. I would realize later that this fail two was the beginning of the end of my $20 meal plan.
Fail three occurred when my good friend asked the waitress how many pizzas would be needed to feed the table of seven. Five was the answer and an ominous sign of my total fails to come.
When dessert happened, I thought maybe I'd spring for some soft-serve frozen yogurt. Luckily the frozen yogurt machine tried to halt my spending by breaking down. I decided better of splurging on dessert and declined to order anything in it's place. Man is still mightier than machine, though, and so not ordering dessert was my fourth fail.
My fifth fail was my greatest.
The bill came to the other side of the long table. Before I knew what was going on people had put in cash and cards. $37 per person, that's what was going on. I split 5 pizzas and two salads between seven people, and I'd had a beer, and suddenly I owed $37.
Now I never read that Time Magazine article. Maybe it talks about how our psychological and social molding makes it hard to squabble with those ordering lobster when all we can afford is a hot dog. What I do know is that being the 'penny pincher' in a group of people who don't have to worry about a nearly forty dollar pizza dinner is a hard role to assume. At this point it was on me to speak up and say that the math needed to be recalculated, but rational choice doesn't kick in then, social pressure does.
So next time I'm gonna have to learn how to ask for my own check from the get go, no matter how awkward that might feel. Because I'd still like to be able to go out with friends, and I'm not all that into lobster anyhow.
$8 for beer?!? That's insane!
ReplyDeleteSorry, that was really what I got from this. :)
Right?! And when I try telling people the Bay Area is often more expensive than London, they don't believe me.
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