17-year-old high schooler is pressured by friends Amanda and Sam to cover a $500 restaurant bill during a weekend trip after Amanda orders half the menu and claims she “forgot her card,” but the responsible teen refuses to foot the bill: ‘My meal was $26’

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
May 20, 2025 3:00 PM EDT

If you want to test the true strength of a friendship, skip the trust falls and just go to dinner at a fancy restaurant with a group of broke high schoolers. Nothing quite exposes class dynamics, budget delusions, and two-faced freeloading like splitting an astronomical check after everyone has spent the meal pretending to "just have fun!" when it actually means "let's cosplay as trust fund babies for the night." 

Who knew a $26 starter could get so expensive, especially when Amanda the Appetizer Queen decides she's the lead in a new restaurant-centric TV series and the rest of the crew treats the split bill like communism in action?

In this game of restaurant roulette, all it takes is one "I forgot my card" and suddenly you, the responsible one, are being strong-armed into eating $500 worth of blame from friends whose definition of "pay you back" is as solid as a New Year's gym resolution. 

Sure, you brought up splitting the bill at the start, but nothing ruins a high school buzz faster than math or financial reality. It's apparently a crime to use logic when the only thing on the menu is peer pressure, and the only group project worse than high school itself is five teenagers trying to settle the check without adult supervision or a single working debit card.

Sure, being branded "stingy" and ghosted from future hangouts might sting, but at least your bank account and your dignity remain untouched.

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  • "AITAH for refusing to foot the bill after my friends and I spent over $500 on dinner?"

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  • I just went for a weekend trip with my friends and two of my friends picked a very fancy restaurant that the rest of us were hesitant to go to but decided to have fun anyways.
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  • There were about 15 of us and we got seated in the back and the waitress had to pull more chairs. Before we started ordering, I asked if how many times we were
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  • able to split the bill since there were 15 of us and usually the max is 3-5. She said the max was 3 ways and they all got annoyed at me for ruining the fun but we are
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  • all broke so I wanted to make sure that we weren't walking ourselves into anything couldn't afford.
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  • I ordered this dish that was around $26, and then my friend Amanda next to me ordered 6 different appetizers bc she hadn't eaten that day since we were exploring. My other 3 friends ordered set meals that were $45.
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  • Also, we're all in high school and just on a weekend trip and camping so going to a very expensive restaurant wasn't something I thought was going to happen.
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  • One of my other friends, I'll call her Sam, decided that we'd split into 3 groups of 5 and pay those bills, so Amanda was a part of my group. Of course I didn't say anything and we all enjoyed
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  • dinner but when we got the bill it was $500 for the 5 of us. Amanda then said she didn't have her card on her but could do venmo or
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  • Zelle and the 3 others in the group started pressuring me to pay the $500 since I was the only one with a physical card in the group.
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  • Plus my friends aren't the type of people to pay you back right away, there have been many of times where they don't pay me back and claim they "forgot," even when it was just a few days
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  • ago. And if it was smaller items I'd understand and not worry about it at all, but they've borrowed a lot of money from me before for things that don't matter and I never see it again.
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  • I said my meal was $26 plus a 20% tip and I could apple pay someone my total and they could pay but I don't have enough money on my card for $500, my
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  • money was for gas for the ride home. They called me TA since they knew I had a credit card and they just had Apple pay but I asked the waitress and she said
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  • they took apple pay as well. I venmo'ed my friend Amanda $46 (my 26 plus a bit more bc the tip for the entire bill came out to way more).
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  • Now they've been calling me cheap and I don't know if I'm TA or not. So reddit, AITAH for refusing to pay for a $500 meal?
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  • EDIT: Wow! Thank you all for the love and support it really goes a long way, I didn't even think I'd get 5 messages let alone 700. This was a week and half ago and was stilling getting some hate from these friends for distancing myself and acting "stingy," so decided to post this.
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  • One of my other friends who also tagged along and was a part of my group to split the bill hosted a party today and I was not invited. (My twin brother was tho). So yeah, safe to say I've be ex-communicated from the group, and honestly they've probably never seen me as a friend and it hurts bc I loved them so much and tried to get them to like me back-- and they never really did.
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  • But hey! On the bright side, I'm graduating in a month!! Yayy and I won't have to see any of them ever again (thankfully going to different colleges too). So yeah! If there's anything u need me to clarify just lemme know btw. Sorry if I wasn't clear abt something i've been trying to read thro all of the messages. But thank you guys so much for the support and the advice!! <3 <3 <3
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boyfriend peer pressure friendship bad friend best friends teenagers friends restaurant girlfriend friend mean girls Party high school trip
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