Am i being unreasonable? Bill share context

LOL just read the mate a) multi millionaire - another great friend, not that you'd expect him to pay everytime you go out or something - but if its once in a blue moon meet up hes just as bad - im not sure either are really 'friends' but im more disgruntled at the voucher man than the millionaire man tbh, hes a definite ****er

Cougar

If you paid up as a skint student, you might have been poor but you weren’t skint. If you were skint you wouldn’t have been in a restaurant in the first place.

Fifteen years ago I’d maxed out every credit card (well over ten grand, probably nearer 15), was way out of the back of my overdraft, had run out of favours with any friends who might sub me money and was – quite literally – raiding a piggy bank of coppers in order to buy food a few days ahead of my first pay cheque in months at a new job. Tell me again about that “only” £10 between friends?

Money is like oxygen. It’s easy to be blasé about it until you don’t have any.

Yet again, Cougar seemingly knows more about someone else's personal circumstances than they do.

You're like a living embodiment of the Monty Python sketch - "you weren't poor until you were eating gravel: etc.

Glad you think I wasn't skint at the time. Could you go back in time and tell the bank that please?

I honestly don't know why anyone bothers offering any opinion when Cougar will just rock up and tell you you're wrong.

I’d expect to share the voucher and divide the remainder equally, unless there was a large imbalance in the cost of drinks. I don’t expect non-drinkers to subsidise me

This - I'd never put a friend in that position.

Glad you think I wasn’t skint at the time.

You had sufficient surplus money that you could choose to spend it on a social event. 🤷‍♂️

Cougar

You had sufficient surplus money that you could choose to spend it on a social event.

Ah, yes, you always know better. You're always right.

Notwithstanding there are lots of reasons why someone might feel, even in the face of crippling financial issues, that they have fulfil societal obligations such as going out for a meal for a special occasion. Indeed, this very thread is about someone who felt some measure of financial pressure but still went out anyway.

Anyway, I have had just about enough of every thread turning into 'Cougar knows best' and I just can't be arsed reading it any more.

I think you may be reading more into this than is necessarily there.

Suggest you put your buns down, have you seen the price of bread theses days? 😉

I don't know you or your situations past or present from a hole in the ground, and I'm genuinely sorry if I've upset you. All I can go off is what you tell us.

You say you had the money to go out in the first place, even if that was perhaps an unwise spend. Some people do not even have that luxury. I've had friends decline events because with all the 'societal obligations' in the world they simply cannot, they don't have the money and are too proud to accept charity.

People with "crippling financial issues" do not go to restaurants out of social pressure. People with crippling financial issues know the optimum time of day to go to Lidl to hoover up the reduced produce. Some of them aren't even that lucky.

And at the risk of repeating myself, that really was my point all along. It's easy to go "it's only a tenner" if you actually have a tenner, even if it's the last tenner to your name until Friday. It's not about one-upmanship (downmanship?), rather it's having a sense of perspective.

Also, I do know best. I thought you'd have worked that out by now. 😁

To be fair to Cougar, the last few months of my final year i was sufficiently skint that i didn't leave the flat except to go to Uni or go shopping just before Tescos shut to see what they had in the discount bins.
I would have gone to Asda, but that was 4 miles away.

A treat was if they had something like olives or bacon short dated as then i could stick some on my beans on toast or beans on a jacket potato (the 1996 baked bean wars quite literally meant i didn't starve). That's essentially all i ate for 5 or 6 months.
I only rode my bike that year until something broke, then it was parked up, until i got my first pay packet that got me out of my *unapproved* overdraft into my approved one.
I'm also quite glad it was a very mild and early spring.

Alan who lived round the corner ended up in hospital due to malnutrition.

TBH, i *only* finished £15 grand in debt, should really have aimed for 20 and been able to eat properly and heat the bedsit.

Though the farting from excessive bean consumption was hilarious.

So no, i didn't "chip in when my mates went for a curry". I stayed home.