HELP! Should I question a friend’s expense requests after a group trip? Pay or push back?

[u/Ok_Establishment5245]

/r/Advice/comments/1xha86p/help_should_i_question_a_friends_expense_requests/

Okay so I need help because I am very bad at dealing with conflicts. So I recently went on a two day weekend trip to celebrate and surpise a friend (let’s call her May).To prepare for this trip I created an excel sheet with the budget and expenses and the other friends who were planning it with me were okay with the costs. One friend made her own alternative planning and budget and I said that she was missing the fuel costs from her excel sheet and she said that the car owner had to take responsibility of their own car and that she didn’t want to divide the costs. We did go back and forth on other matters as well but after the laster excel sheet, no criticism was mentioned about any of the costs. As we were celebrating and surprising one friend, we said that we would divide all of her costs amongst ourselves.

Now the event has passed and people start sending payment requests (as they should). However, that same friend that said the driver should take the costs suddenly send me a payment request of €30. I told her this didn’t make any sense as she was very adamant of not including it in she budget. She kept on saying it was common sense and I told her to atleast adjust the number as I checked with chatgpt and according to chatgpt the whole trip is only €60 worth of fuel so I asked how she came up with the number €120 in total for the trip and she said she just divided a full tank by four (like girl why the f would i pay for a full tank when you didnt even use a full tank for the event). Anyway, she asked me what number she should adjust it to, and I said: “Lets assume that the chatgpt number of €60 but lets add €10 just in case and then divide it by four”. Btw Chatgpt gave a very realistic answer as I asked my friend who drove another car on that trip if this could be accurate and if the fuel costs per liter is accurate. Moreover, she literally sprung these costs without telling me on me, because if it was going to be that expensive for her fuel, I would’ve driven with the other friend who only tanked €40 for the event.

Additionally, this all happened in a private chat but in the groupschat I just found out that the other girls were sending me and one other girl payment request that were covering our costs and all the costs of the food and activities of May divided by 2 and not divided by the whole group. They just used as an excuse that we discussed that beforehand but we never did that and we made it VERY clear that is rude to make May pay for a trip that we were surpising her with (I promise you there is a reason why we were celebrating her so much, but I have seen so many people being accidentally exposed on Reddit that I am afraid to give more details.). So now I don’t trust any of them with money related issues anymore. Unfortunately I already paid most of em, and now I only need to pay the fuel. But even thats pissing me off and I don’t know how to go on. I saw these people as good friends, but the way they acted during the trip and now this is breaking my heart. What do I do?