My name is Marcus, I’m 30, and I live in New York City. Last weekend a few friends and I went out in Manhattan for dinner and drinks. Nothing wild, just a normal Saturday night catching up.
By the time we left the bar it was pretty late, and instead of dealing with the subway we decided to just split an Uber back downtown.
There were four of us, so it seemed simple enough.
The ride started normally. Traffic wasn’t too bad, and the driver had the route set to drop everyone off along the way.
About ten minutes into the ride, my friend Jason suddenly said, “Hey, can we make a quick stop at a bodega? I just need to grab something.”
The driver shrugged and said it was fine.
Jason added the stop in the app and said, “It’ll take like two minutes.”
If you live in NYC, you already know where this is going.
We pulled up to the bodega, Jason hopped out, and we sat there waiting.
Two minutes passed.
Then five.
Then ten.
At this point the driver had the meter running and was clearly annoyed. Traffic started building behind us, people were honking, and we were basically parked on the side of a busy street while Jason conducted what appeared to be the world’s longest convenience store visit.
Eventually one of my friends texted him asking what was taking so long.
His response?
“Almost done.”
Twenty minutes later he finally came back out carrying a bag of snacks and a drink like he had just completed a major grocery run.
By the time we got moving again, the trip had already taken way longer than it should have.
And it got worse.
Because Manhattan traffic had picked up while we were sitting there, the rest of the ride crawled along at a painfully slow pace.
By the time we reached the final drop-off, the ride that should have taken maybe 20 minutes had stretched into almost an hour.
Then the Uber receipt came through.
The total fare was $96.
Immediately one of my friends said, “Alright, split four ways?”
Normally I’m totally fine splitting rides evenly.
But this time I pointed out something obvious.
Jason’s “two-minute” bodega stop had turned into a 45-minute detour that massively increased the fare.
If we had just driven straight home, the ride probably would’ve been half the price.
So I said something like, “I’m happy to split the original ride, but the extra time from the stop should probably be on Jason.”
Jason immediately said I was overthinking it and that splitting evenly was just easier.
Another friend agreed and said it wasn’t worth arguing over.
But to me it didn’t feel fair to pay for most of an extra hour of Uber time caused by one person’s snack run.
Eventually I paid what I estimated my share would have been without the stop, which was about $20.
Jason wasn’t happy about it and said I was being petty.
Now the group chat is debating whether I should’ve just split it evenly to keep things simple.
So now I’m curious what other people think.
AITAH for refusing to evenly split an Uber fare when one person’s “quick stop” made the ride dramatically more expensive?
