Don't Disect the Check

How many of you go out to dinner with cheap friends who practice one of the most annoying things known to the population of us who dine out. Check surgery.
What might you ask is check surgery. It is when you go out with your friends and everyone orders pretty much the same thing and enjoys it until the bill comes. When the bill comes your fellow diners sink deep into what I call check denial.
Check denial takes place in 3 steps: 1. Viewing the bill and thinking"how did we spend that much". 2. The other person or couple ate more than their share. 3. Separating what you purchased from what everyone else purchased and proclaiming loudly, " my portion of the bill comes to $35.00."
This is called bill dissection. You can always spot the would-be check surgeon because they always grab the bill first and begin the process. Those who are better in math figure out their portion secretly in their heads and then pass the bill on to their unsuspecting companions.
Even though everyone ordered entrees similar in price the rest of the group is always stuck with paying more. The other annoying thing about check surgeons is that they never claim the appetizer. Even if they eat half or most of it. If they did not say at the beginning, "lets order chicken wings," they do not want to split the cost of them so the rest of the group is forced to pay for an appetizer and most of the cost of wine. I end up paying for wine at dinner and I don't even drink.
You might ask, " how does a dinner party defend itself from these butchers. Here is a good tip. At the start of the meal, all diners create a pot. As in poker, everyone contributes the same to the pot. $20 is a good standard for this pot. This will cover appetizers and wine. Four people $80. Five people $100. This may sound silly but it may help you being stuck with a large bill that you are only partly responsible for.
So if the bill comes to $200 and there are 4 people, even if check the ripper wants to pay for their portion they have already paid $20 and this relieves the burden for the rest of the group.
The easiest way to deal with this of course is to simply split the check in even portions and not nickel and dime your fellow diners with the game of who bought what.
Even Steven as they used to say it works and everyone usually leaves with a sense that justice was done. The check cut and paste specialist may not like this and their argument usually goes like this " you guys ate more that me." If you eat out with the same people all the time, it balances itself out . Of course the person who is worse than the check surgeon is the one who loudly proclaims at the start of the meal the often used phrase,"separate checks." This type is worst than the check surgeon because they from the beginning have no sense of fairness or justice.
For both of these types , I say if you can't work it out exclude them from your dinner lists. Dining should be a pleasant experience not a math lesson.