Last Saturday over lunch a friend who used to run one of Hong Kong’s biggest hotels told us about a tradition he observed in some parts of China whereby, at the end of a formal dinner, wedges of fresh orange are served up to the guests. While a piece of this sweet, juicy fruit is probably a very nice way to cleanse the palette after a heavy meal, here the serving of orange has a different meaning – it’s a message to guests that the evening is over, and that they are to gather their things more or less immediately and get the hell out. Because while it’s been a lovely evening, your host is tired from spending an entire day cooking duck while you lay on the beach, and while she would love the pleasure of your company at some later date, right now she has no desire to see any more of your face.

It’s so entrenched and accepted there that nobody would dare shirk convention and request one last glass of Drambuie. Dinner guests get straight up from the table, put on their coats and, like well-mannered little lemmings, scurry away en masse. Now, as someone who likes to host dinner parties and now and again spends entire days cooking, if not duck, then something equally time-consuming, I think the orange tradition is excellent and that the Chinese are onto something very clever. In our culture we have no way to tell the guy who started out being fun but now is wanting to open yet another bottle of red that we’re tired of the sound of his voice and that he must call for a taxi already.

So – in order not to be rude – more wine gets opened which means that the host has to exit the room every few minutes to slap herself awake, and then wash dishes till 2am while second-wind guest snores away in his bed. And there’s something a bit unfair about that. You’ll always have that one person who doesn’t seem to notice that you’re yawning so widely you could swallow the chandelier, and it kind of puts you off next time you feel like having a shindig. So, let’s make like the Asians and start our own orange tradition. When I bring those wedges out – even if you’re just warming to the topic of Uruguay’s economic crisis – you need to make like a tree. Because, while I love you enough to invite you around, your time here has come to an end.

So, I have people in my life who, given half a chance, would pay for everything, always. They whip out their wallet the second that bill arrives, and being allowed to contribute to my portion or – god forbid – getting the whole meal becomes one of those ridiculous snatching/wrestling games where the waiter stands by patiently as we both insist it’s our turn and that the other one definitely paid last time.

Then, there are the others – the ones my friend Neill calls the ‘next timers’ – those who seem to have eyes in the back of their heads which register the exact moment the waiter starts moving towards your table with his saucer, slip and mints, and that is the time they’ll get up, all casual-like, and mosey on to the loo, leaving you with your little silver card and nothing to do but pay for dinner. Again. Even though you paid last time and the time before and the time before that, too.

It’s messed up, this situation. When they come back and act surprised that it’s all a done deal, they’ll always – to make themselves feel better, I guess – tell you they’ll get the bill ‘next time’, but this next time story never happens. Somehow they’ll find a way to weasel themselves out of that one, too – they don’t have cash and don’t want to use their cards; they ‘forgot’ their wallets at home or they’re really short this month. Except then you’ll see on Facebook that they took themselves off to Thailand – obviously with the money they’ve saved from all the meals their friends have sponsored.

People who do this to other people are a special brand of tacky. I get poor; I’ve been shit poor in my life. Yet it’s never the ones who are struggling who’ll pull these tactics on you. We’ve had well off friends stay with us for two weeks and contribute a single bottle of wine, and struggling friends who showed up with Moet et Chandon, shopped for groceries daily and tried to pay for every meal out. We have people who come for a braai armed with Woollies ribs (and we all know what those cost), garlic bread and cous cous salad, and others who show up with an open bottle of Porcupine Ridge which they quickly put in the fridge and drink all the nice Paul Cluver.

I can’t decide if the ‘next-timers’ are aware of their tightness and don’t care as long as they’re saving a buck, or if they are genuinely oblivious to how onbeskof they’re being. There is something so lovely and gracious about taking turns to pay for one another instead of enduring the embarrassment of sitting there trying to work out how to split R291 plus tip. But I’ve learnt that, with some people, you just have to go 50-50 otherwise they’ll take you for a merry old ride. And, when you’re having to watch your back like that, are these so-called friend even worth having? Lately I’m not so sure.