The Bitter Bill: How To Kill An Evening With Maths
How a song of love, power and sensitivities is knit
When people come together at a dinner table, candles lit
Like a bonfire we sit around a table of flowers, butter and baguette
Put the napkins on our lap to keep the etiquette
Sit and talk and love and laugh
The sweet dessert, the peak of sweetness, between the hugs
And then the dark cloud appears
The bill with its little detailed souvenirs
Of counting peanuts, calculating the beast of consumption
Counting the glasses each one had …. and who ordered that last espresso?
A friend once told me she doesn’t want to go to any group gatherings anymore ‘if a bunch of motherfuckers become mathematicians when the bill comes’ … and that got me thinking.
It was Saturday night and my melting pot of friends came together in one of our favourite restaurants. It was one of those evenings where we decided for bottles over glasses and we laughed about old stories just as much as making new ones. Because some stories never go out of fashion. The cauldron of cackling friends consisted of people I call my dearest and nearest as they know my secrets and I could call them for advice about anything; from choosing the right wine from Aldi (which is actually rather good), to tips for a good lawyer for life’s incidents and accidents. Also more than present were the very appreciated acquaintances that move in their own bubble of intimacy, where we cherish each other for various reasons. Albeit from a bit further distance.
We were almost the last ones in the restaurant, exchanging seats to get a chance to speak with more people, trying the menu from starter to dessert, finishing on the obligatory espresso with a face pulling grappa on the side. I didn’t see who ordered the bill but it was a sensible thing to do since it was getting very late and also friendly-rowdy at our big table.
My friend held the bill in her hands and drifted out of the conversations in order to have a closer look at this little piece of intervening paper. I could see how she wrinkled her eyebrows and scanned the list of expenses giving proof to this abundantly colourful evening. She counted in her head while the rest were still talking and laughing as if the evening would never end. I was certainly still in the mood of the celebratory bubble we were moving and dancing in. It felt like my friend was deliberately exiting that bubble and took a disillusioned look at the hard facts. She tapped her boyfriend on the shoulder and said a number to him. I felt like the bubble exit was about to widen and I wanted to scream at her through my bubble but I failed to reach her. The boyfriend took the number into consideration, took a stern look at the bill and calculated again. Then he said a number back to her and they passed the paper to the next person who also squeezed out of our bubble and glared at the bill, clearly concentrating on the new environment he was zooming himself into – the hard fact world. A friend opposite him felt the exodus at the table and yelled over to the one holding the bill – “how much is it?”. The bubble popped. The entire table became silent as if someone turned on the light and everyone was staring into the bright, brutal neon light of cold numbers.
No, no, no it happened again. Don’t let the brutal calculation of expense – policies begin! But it was too late ..
People used their fingers to calculate how many extra fries or pots of mayonnaise they ordered and if they should pay for one whole bottle of wine if the partner only drank one glass. And there you have it – moments of friendship that come to a bitter end and I become a witness of the slow death of a cherished evening. An evening of sharing time together accompanied by a flailing and failing sound effect that occured in my head.
When I organise a gathering like this, I like to see how people get on with each other, to observe the chemistry and if new friendships will blossom through it. Friendship is quite a philosophical topic that the giants of philosophy Socrates and Aristotle both spent time ruminating over. For Socrates friendship meant more than all of Darius’ gold! Wishing to be friends is a quick word, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit. For Aristotle, three types of friendship exist. The first one is the utility friendship where people are friends because it is mutually beneficial. This could exist between work colleagues who would like to keep in touch after being in mutual circumstances but they usually don’t in the end. The second category is the friendship based on pleasures, like partying together as long as they find enjoyment in each other. This can be quite temporary as well. The third kind is called fellowship and the most valuable of all of them. It is based in the appreciation of character and goodness of each other, rather than transactional value or shared pleasures. Depth and intimacy is key in this relationship and if you are lucky it includes the two other kinds, utility and pleasure.
There are all those different friendships and connections out there but they do all have one common ground. Friendships' smallest denominator is indeed sitting and eating, drinking together, sharing time, thoughts and stories. Sharing is the key word here. Who leads us to think we have to count up each peanut we ate when we go out to eat together? I am absolutely puzzled about how much time some people spend doing so on a night out. Imagine being at someone’s house and the host starts counting how many glasses of whatever you had. Or you cook together and everyone gives an equal amount of money, do you re-evaluate that once everyone has finished consuming?
Let’s look at this anew and come together under the premise that we share food, drinks and time together. It shouldn’t matter if you pay one more glass or less from someone else. Divide equally with a generous tip for the lovely waiter that took care of you all night. Don’t pay individually, you are in it together when you share time, luck and laughter. It is the gift between each other, to share in trust and glamour of the night. Keep the spark going. And split the bill evenly in silence without breaking the spirit of the night. During those nights exactly those philosophical categories of friendship sort themselves new and find each other in new formations. Splitting hair over the bill disrupts our ideas of friendship and commitment. Be thoughtful and make it equal. Or decide to pay for everyone on the quiet. But don’t start doing the maths. Otherwise the expense weighs heavier than the sharing experience of friendship which echoes in refreshed connections, newly made human discoveries and mutual transactions of utility, pleasure, depth and intimacy. Why not transcend the bubble of a wonderful evening beyond the gravity of cold costs? If friendship really does mean more than all of Darius’s gold, lets leave the bitter bill out of it.
Written by The Deutsche Girl
The author, 35 years old, writes short stories, articles and poems under the name The Deutsche Girl. She lives in Bristol and works as a Film Producer for advertising when she doesn't write.