How to split the check without the accusations and awkwardness

They gathered around a large, circular table at City Lights of China in Washington, rekindling the friendships that had first sparked when they were teenagers. It was 2004, and the seven friends were just a couple years into their post-college careers. They were, in other words, not exactly flush.

Sandra Beasley, now a poet and teacher in Washington, remembers how pleasurable the evening was - until the group came up short on their dinner check, which totaled about $160 or so. As Beasley retells it, five of her friends had paid with cash, enough to cover their share of the bill, plus tip. The other two paid with credit cards.

When the waiter brought the cards back to the table, the charges were about $10 to $12 higher than what the cardholders expected, Beasley recalls, and they still had not covered the server’s tip. There were some rumblings that the waiter had pocketed part of the cash, causing the shortfall. Worse, there were unspoken suspicions that, among these childhood friends, a cheapskate or two lurked at the table.

“It was very awkward,” Beasley says. “We had never really dealt with these types of situations before.”

The stresses and frustrations of check-splitting are not exclusive to 20-somethings, but they seem to hit this subset of diners harder, and with more frequency, than other groups. The reasons would appear obvious: Many have just started to pull down a regular paycheck, one that often leaves little room for life’s pleasures, large or small. Twentysomethings tend to hold onto their dollars tighter than J. Paul Getty. Perhaps just as important, they haven’t yet weeded out the misers among their friends, the people who, no matter how much they earn, will never cough up enough cash when dining en masse.

Everyone, it seems, has a story of dining out in their 20s and getting stuck with the tab. The amounts differ, but the scenarios are often the same: You’ve coordinated a gathering. Let’s say it’s a going-away party, and you’ve invited friends and colleagues to a favorite spot. They eat and drink with gusto. Some cut out early and slip cash into your hand on their exit. Others hand you $10, saying they had only a beer and a side of fries.

When the check arrives, just a handful of folks remain, and the cash on the table doesn’t begin to cover the damage done. You lay down your credit card and begin to mentally calculate how many months it will take to pay off the $100 that you had to cover for your deadbeat buddies. You begin to resent your friends and colleagues even though, at this point, you’re not even sure which ones to resent. (Well, that’s my story, at least.)

There must be a solution to this common problem, right? I mean, other than never dining out in parties larger than one.

Restaurateurs will tell you that electronic point-of-sale, or POS, systems make it easier than ever to split checks, especially if everyone uses a credit card.