Don't forget tax & tip

Nothing annoys me more than a crying baby sitting behind me on an airplane, but a close second is splitting the bill at a restaurant. This is because it never works out right, and that unfortunate fool who decided to bring a credit card will inevitably be shafted with the shortfall, or else someone will overpay to make up for the difference.

Growing up in a Corean household, the idea of splitting the bill is not only completely bizarre, but utterly rude. In Corea, it's a fight for who pays. In a society heavily engrained in Confucianism, the eldest often will attempt to pay for everything. So, if my dad's around, he would always take the bill. However, it wasn't without a fight. My uncles, my mom, my aunts, everyone must at least try to pay (if not actually pay). Part of this is the idea of reciprocation in Confucianism. You know, interpersonal relationships are all about balancing the scales, and so if someone pays for the bill to a meal, you've got to get them back somehow, in order to balance out your debt to them. It is the reciprocal nature of relationships that keeps everyone close, because you cannot abandon your debt.

The idea is never that you're simply paying someone back for what they've done. In the course of events, you accumulate all sorts of things that quantitatively cannot be repaid. You know, for example, my mom invited this lady at church to her house for Thanksgiving one year, and it was just me and my mom anyway, but she did it because this lady didn't have anyone to spend Thanksgiving with. It's a nice enough thing to do, but beyond that, there is some sense of obligation, that a person should be repaid for something like that. It's like karma in our own lifetime.

So the idea of splitting a bill is bizarre to me, in that it seems like a desperate attempt to stay even keel, not to owe anything to anyone, but regardless of whether we're not in a monetary debt to someone, we owe other people in ways that are immeasurable. How do I repay my preceptor for writing my letter of recommendation? How do I repay Scott for keeping me company when I was living at Oak Hill? How do I repay Leo for being my church buddy? How do I repay Adam and Xanthe for all the times I've gone to their place on a lazy Saturday afternoon? How do I repay Sandy for buying me dinner that one time? How do I repay Rebecca for getting me back into climbing? How do I repay Melissa for all the cigarettes I bummed? How do I repay any of this? If I can't pay this stuff back, why should I even worry about a bill for dinner?

Splitting the bill is an attempt to be fair, and in the process, it is not only unfair, but unnecessarily complicated. It always ends up this way. Someone doesn't have change. Someone doesn't have cash. Someone has to use a credit card. And in the process of totalling up the bill, someone forgets they ordered drinks, or forgets to account for tax and tip. Every time a bill is split, it always comes up short. And the mental arcobatics that need to be performed to get the necessary amount of money onto the table is a nightmare. Inevitably, someone pays more than they should have in order to get the right amount for the waitress (so classically the one who suffers that nearly all restaurants add gratuity automatically for large parties) and for the bill. That person, for years, has been me.

For a while, I settled upon the idea that all bills should be even splits. There is no question of who or how much. It's just the bill and tip split evenly. This is, by far, the best way to split a bill. And of course, the least used. This is because people always feel that they are unfairly paying more than they should. An example would be last night (11/01/03), if we split the bill evenly, me and Dave would've overpaid considerably since we split an entree. However, to me, that would be worth it to avoid the hassle of trying to be 'fair' about it. No one ever sees it that way, and so in an effort to be fair, the bill was once again split up.

Now, I've reached a level of frustration with splitting the bill that I don't even allow it to happen. If people are unwilling to do an even split, I'll try to pay the whole thing. It was how I was taught to behave in any case, and I don't really mind the cost too much. However, if you do this to a bunch of guys, it just won't work, because a man almost never is in a position where someone who is not his parent or his boss buys him a meal. This is why I enjoy eating with women. Women are used to people paying for their meals (what can I say? That's society for you), and thus are more willing to allow me to pay, and well versed in methods of reciprocation, and I don't mean that in a lewd way. I just mean that women seem to play along much better.

Now, I'm not saying that anyone owes me anything. Honestly, only three times have I ever had someone who was not my parent, a friend's parent, a relative, or my boss pay for my meal . And two of those were dates (I know, I know, I didn't pay for the date? Well, what can I say. I didn't). And that's fine. I don't do anything expecting to be repaid. It's why I don't keep track of money when it's owed to me. If I did things to be repaid, I'd have a mighty large chip on my shoulder. But the truth of the matter is that treating someone to a meal is a distinct privilege, and it's fun for me to do it.

I imagine one day I will run across a girl who will try to pay for my meal for the same reasons and I'll be forced to marry her on the spot.