I am on a group tour overseas now…
First of all, I want to say I generally split the bill whenever I went out with people. I may have one extra drink and someone may have a dessert and more expensive food.
I am with with group of people whom I do not know that well. We have one common friend who recommended this tour.
There are few meals that we are responsible for.
Definitely trickier with people you don’t know. I think I would opt to get separate checks in this situation but depending on where you are, that may not be that easy.
What does the common friend suggest?
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Ask for separate checks if the place will do them.
Otherwise, split the bills…and just make sure you get the nicest bottle of wine and meal on the menu🤣
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If there are too many in the group for separate checks but the group is always the same, I’d do an arrangement where a different person pays each night and tax and tip are split evenly. . A picture is taken of the bill and texted around via a group text already in place and with a tax/tip amount then each person has to Venmo the bill payer by adding up their costs while waiting for the cc to return. So let’s say bill is 100 pre tax tax was 6 bucks and tip will be 20. The text says tax and tip 6.50 each please add your expenditure and veno Jane at ———-[venmo account name] I’ve done that in a similar situation.
But this is a method I’d use only in the OP situation where I’m dining with essentially strangers. Otherwise the culture of the people I socialize with is for an even split of the bill no matter who ate what.
We’ve talked about this often on CC and variables include who you are dining with, regions of the country and personal budgets of the diners. Except for a rare occasion I can’t imagine just splitting a bill 4 or 6 ways evenly regardless of what people ate/drank unless maybe I was with family. If you’re splitting it anyway, why not split it to what everyone actually owes?
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Except for the OP situation where you are dining with essentially strangers in my neck of the woods you split the bill evenly always no matter who spent what. It’s not even up for debate. It’s what the culture demands. As you said different cultures may do this differently.
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The only time I haven’t split the bill evenly was a lunch with friends when I ordered a salad and they ordered very expensive dinner entrees. I would have split it, but they both recognized the imbalance and I paid less. I would not have brought it up, but would have been a bit annoyed.
If one person at the table does not drink, I always offer to pay more to cover that cost. Most of time the person doesn’t care, but sometimes they are greatful.
For the OP’s situation, it would depend on whether folks are respectful of each other and order in the same range. If so, split it. Everyone having an entree but one person orders expnsive appetizers just for themselves, you could have people split in accordance with their spending. Not that hard to figure out with calculators.
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It used to be frustrating when my husband and I would go out to lunch with co-workers (we were at the same company). We were just out of school and very broke. We ordered minimal amounts while the other engineers ordered the works. I wanted to break up the bill considering what people ordered (after all, engineers can do math pretty easily), but one of the guys went ballistic. We decided we’d have to skip the lunches. 
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It might have been different when we were very young, but now we always split the bill evenly and no one pays any attention to what anyone else orders. No one keeps track.
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Typically when dining with friends we just split the bill. I have one group that I dine out with often (monthly dinner out book group), where we send the check around and everybody puts in what they calculate as their share for what they ate and drank. It usually comes out fine (you need to remember to add tax and tip to your portion). On occasion we have been short and everybody throws in a buck to make it work.
Wow, that is weird to me. We usually pay for what we ate, plus tip. Sometimes we will just split it evenly if it’s fairly close, but otherwise everybody chips in for their portion only (plus tip). Seems odd to do it any other way to me.
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I agree. It’s not that hard to figure out. Entrees, drinks, and desserts have such a wide range of prices and not everybody orders all of that. Why not figure it out fairly? If you can’t do it in your head, you can use your phone.
Better yet, ask for separate checks.
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What boggles my mind also about this is I rarely pay cash for anything anymore. So I don’t have a fold of bills in my wallet to throw on a pile! Which is why I’d prefer (if there can’t be separate checks) one person pays, the others Venmo their amount to that person. (I know, I know, not everyone has Venmo…I’ll limit who I go out with to only those who do… 
)
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We have split bills many times where the restaurant will take a couple of credit cards as part of the bill. We just tell the server how much to put on each card.
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What is this dining you speak of? The one where you go with a group and split the bill? Can’t say I remember! 
In my neck of the woods, separate checks are common.
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Honestly, I was a server summers when I was in college, asking for separate checks was something I was rarely asked to do. It’s not really a thing here, I’ve done it myself maybe 5 times in my life. The only people I’m going out to eat with are friends, we split the bill evenly, unless one person really ordered very little. Honestly, I liked being able to hand over my credit card the few times I did it, it was usually at dance competitions where there were different family sizes, I think my husband has done it at soccer competition weekends. When I’m out with a group of girlfriends I can’t imagine 8 or so separate checks. I also don’t care if I’m paying more for less with friends, plus we usually order apps for the table.
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No Venmo for me. We split on credit cards usually or one puts it all on their card and the other(s) pay them cash. We don’t drink any more and I have no desire to pay for someone else’s expensive cocktails. If it’s a friend I haven’t seen in a long time sometimes we’ll buy them dinner, but with no expectation of being paid back. I’d rather just pay for the whole thing or split it fairly accurately.
After getting the short end of the stick enough times in my youth by eating out with people who drink like fish, I always either get a separate check or just avoid the group meals altogether. The exception being friends I know and eat with regularly, so I know we usually spend roughly the same amount.
Seriously, I’ve been out with groups where I have one single drink for $10 and others are having six+ drinks at $40 or more per drink or bottles of wine in excess of $500. You end up with literally thousands in alcohol on the bill. I’m not paying for that.
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What part of the country do you live in @Mjkacmom? I am in North Carolina and my crowd usually pays for what each couple or family or single eats themselves. We don’t usually all pay the same amount. That is weird to me. Sometimes one group will pay for everyone else, but split checks are very common. Just did it last night with some new folks I hadn’t met before. Wasn’t my idea either. That’s just commonly how it is done.
@oldfort, if you want to pay for your own meals I don’t see any problem with that. Does the group want to all split it evenly or what? To me the right thing to do is pay for what you order unless you want to treat everyone else.
NJ, NYC metro (10 miles outside). Basically one adds it up, plus tip, divides by the amount of people. It’s usually pretty even, we are in our 50’s and no one drinks more than one or two drinks, and it’s very common to order food to share. I think the first time I handed over my credit card to pay for just my order was no more than 10 years ago.