Blow dryer. Works wonders.

Oooh, good suggestion.

Joining the "suck it up and pay" crowd. It's a nice gesture on the treatee's part to check if drinks are okay, but not required. Unfortunately, sounds like you have to either stop treating or work on your polite gee-no-not-really-bothered-at-all face.

ION, dang. A drug rep's casual question about my plans for the weekend just turned into a 20-minute crash course in Miyazaki, complete with quick tours of Wikipedia, IMDB and Google Images. I think the rep is going to go hunt down Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle this weekend. Hee! (I tried to steer him away from Howl, because the end is a little abrupt and weird and possibly not the greatest choice for My First Anime Ever, but he seemed really excited at the thought of Christian Bale doing a cartoon).

Yep, dinner includes drinks.

Okay, I could probably handle that. It's funny that I'd be more worried about the itch than the needles or pain, but there you have it.

I don't own a blow dryer, though.

I'm saying all this like I have any serious plans, which I don't. But still, good to know.

Yay, anime toaster for JZ.

Yep, dinner includes drinks.

What if you're with a large group, and one side of the table orders quite extravagantly, including a couple bottles of wine, and the other side of the table orders frugally, and then it is decided that the bill should just be split equally? Is that a valid reason to be annoyed or another instance of "just suck it up"? Hasn't the frugal side effectively been asked to subsidize the extravagant side? That's lame.

No, that's worth speaking up about.

In a large group you can try suggesting that that you split the bar and food bills according to who consumed, but if that is not a popular suggestion, you suck it up but are free to feel annoyed on the inside.

I always throw in more than I think I owe in case someone else is a bad tipper. Often when my family goes out to dinner we all throw in cash and nobody will take any back. I think we make waiters very happy.

PC, my personal experience has always been vastly different than that: 1) either the whole group is very similar (all extravagant or all frugal), or 2) the frugal sorts just speak up and say, "We need to split out our portion of the bill, we're on a budget" - and I've never run into resistance about that. (Frequently, I'm the one on the budget, more's the pity - I'd rather be extravagant, since that's the way my inner playa rolls.)

What if you're with a large group, and one side of the table orders quite extravagantly, including a couple bottles of wine, and the other side of the table orders frugally, and then it is decided that the bill should just be split equally?

That's way, way different than one person offering to treat. That is indeed lame, and it's fair for the frugal folks to speak up, point out the difference, and ask to split the bill according to, you know, what each person actually ordered. And the nonfrugals ought to be good and embarrassed.

eta: There was actually a whole Friends episode about this very thing, back in the beginning when Rachel was serving at the coffeehouse, Monica was low on the restaurant totem pole, and Joey wasn't working at all but the others never noticed them gnawing on breadsticks and splitting one side salad.