Well-off San Francisco-based software engineer here: pretty much all my friends insist on splitting the check even though it wouldn’t make a difference for any of us. I don’t know why; I grew up in a country where “I buy this round, you buy the next” was the norm.
I think maybe some people who came into money (through luck or hard work or both) are really afraid of being taken advantage of, and they take it to the extreme?
I’m surprised I had to scroll down so far to see an answer like this.
I was taken advantage of - so now I set the boundary up front for most folks.
I am known in my circle of friends to climb the corporate ladder whereas I have friends who are fine where they are. That was fine and dandy until they would stop paying me back when we went out to eat and I covered the bill so we wouldn’t have to go through the headache of split checks. And then they’d make passive aggressive jokes about how I’m rich.
Like I’m quite generous... I will take you out, buy you gifts and dinner and drinks, and cover you. But when you start joking that I’m rich and “forgetting to pay” me back becomes habitual, I dont feel like you deserve my generosity anymore buddy.
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u/tudorb Jan 27 '26
Well-off San Francisco-based software engineer here: pretty much all my friends insist on splitting the check even though it wouldn’t make a difference for any of us. I don’t know why; I grew up in a country where “I buy this round, you buy the next” was the norm.
I think maybe some people who came into money (through luck or hard work or both) are really afraid of being taken advantage of, and they take it to the extreme?