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.