How Gays Split a Check at a Restaurant

Yesterday was just another day in which I felt so sad for straight people! What a terrible story to hear about how it is to dine out with the straights. The young, unmated heterosexual people are so often locked in a struggle of resentment and desire and jealousy and insecurity and misunderstanding. Then you put money and status-seeking and sexual conquest (all of that mostly on the mens’ side!) on top of those inflamed and engorged feelings, and blammo, the whole powderkeg goes up in flames and next thing you know, someone’s being called a douche and someone’s being called a whore. And that is why straight people actually shouldn’t dine out together, ever. But there is another way. Possibly it’s instructive how the gays share in the purchase of food and beverages at restaurants.

To be fair, I’m really talking about the gay men, but I don’t want to omit our lady-loving ladies, as they are too often omitted. But honestly? We shouldn’t even talk about how lesbians split checks. It so often literally defies parody, and I am serious, so sisters, please, I love you but don’t even roll up on me to disagree, you know that I am right when I say that Cassandra just had the tabouleh salad, and she’s not going to even round up to the nearest cent when she puts in her share. I have been there with you in Berkeley and I have held your hands in Louisville and stood by you in Brooklyn, and the lesbian check-dividing game is terrifying all around the world, so usually when there is a token gay man involved, he just overpays by at least 100%, in cash, because the ladies only love cash, and then he goes outside to smoke and wait out the barely-repressed violence of the processing. (What happens behind our backs, from what I hear, is even more bonkers.)

But here is what happens, in my experience, and this is not a parody, when the gay men go out to eat, whether it’s at a hotdog stand or it’s two-star Michelin.

Gay: “Give me that check, it is my turn!”

Other Gay: “That is crazy talk, you paid three weeks ago at [name of other equally wonderful spot]! Please, please let me!”

Third Gay: “Oh, you guys, that means it’s my turn, give it here!”

Fourth Gay: [Secretly has already handed plum-colored American Express card to server ten minutes ago, and now all the gays realized that the check that has just been delivered is merely waiting for a signature, not a card.]

All Gays: “You guys!”

The end. Exeunt gays. Everyone hugs repeatedly!

Straight people should try to think about something besides getting laid once in a while, or about someone other than themselves. Weird, right? Never thought I’d say that, but here we are.