"It's rude to ask the price"

The method in this book turns on one question, and there's a reason you don't ask it. Asking what something costs feels like bad manners. It suggests you can't afford it, or that you're weighing the friendship against the money, or that you're the sort of person who asks.

Asking the price is the most ordinary thing in the world everywhere except at the table. You ask the price of a car, a house, a holiday, a plumber. You'd think someone was odd who didn't. The taboo is specific to spending with friends, and it exists because the spending with friends has been arranged to feel like it isn't spending. The split is "shall we just", not "can I have thirty-three pounds". Lisbon is "count me in", not "four hundred and twenty pounds plus spending money". The language of the table is built to keep the price out of view, and the taboo on asking is what keeps the language working.

So the question is a small act of translation, from the table's language back into money, and the way to ask it is plainly and early. "What's it likely to come to, roughly?" to the organiser, in the chat, before the yes. "Where are we thinking? I'll have a look at the menu." Nobody reasonable minds this. Most organisers are relieved to be asked, because they've been wondering whether the price is too much and haven't wanted to raise it either. If the organiser is offended by the question, that's information about the organiser, and it's worth having before you've paid.

The other reason the question feels rude is that it exposes the thing everyone's pretending, which is that the price matters to them too. It does. It matters to everyone at the table. Half of them are doing the sums in their head while saying "count me in", and the person who asks out loud is the one who lets them stop.

Chapter 20 is the method for asking, and it's four sentences you can use as they are.