I work at a restaurant. Right next to the restaurant where I work is a Border’s bookstore. There’s a girl who works in the bookstore that I’m slightly enamored with. We met when I was getting a “cookie Javakula” coffee (which actually turned out to be quite delicious) in the store coffee shop. She made it for me (she used to work in the coffee shop but now she’s working in the book part of the store), and gave me extra cookies because I told her I loved cookies. Then we chatted a bit. We laughed, told a few anecdotes - it was all very romantic. I’ve seen her a few times since and we always smile at each other and sometimes chat.
OK, so I certainly like her and as best as I can gather, she seems to like me too. The problem is money. I don’t make a whole lot - enough to support myself, but I’m in a stage where I’m trying to save money in order to move out of the hood (and I’m not exaggerating, I live in south central L.A.). I know girls can be pretty expensive, and I am extremely frugal. So I haven’t been really pursuing or even thinking about romantic relationships. And since she works at Border’s, she can’t be making much either.
So is it worth it for me to ask her out? That is, are the potential benefits of a romantic relationship greater than the costs? How much can it hurt to just go to one movie and see where it goes? Is it a concern I should bring up right away, or at least fairly early? I don’t seek advice from others often, but I have to admit this is the first time in a long time I am truly at a loss for what to do with myself. So please tell me what to do.
For me, I don’t care how much money the guy I am with makes. I simply want him to have drive and ambition (for whatever it is he wants to do), and if he’s saving money for a good reason, I’m going to respect that. I completely expect to go dutch doing whatever it is that we do (may be going to a free museum, window shopping and a movie, or a meal somewhere) and I have on occasion treated as well. Other women may have different expectations, but you’re never going to find out unless you ask this fine filly out and see where it goes.
Take her out. If she’s obviously not making a lot of money (working at a Borders in South Central?) she’ll understand your situation. Don’t come out and say “I’m dirt poor!”, but subtly suggest cheap/free date ideas like $5 standing-room tickets at the ballgame (I don’t know if they do that at the Chavez Ravine, but they do here in San Diego), second-run/arthouse theaters, walks in the park (a hood it may be, but you can take a girl out to the park year-round), walks on the beach, a movie at home rather than the theater. Can you cook? Make her dinner and then sit down to watch TV or a DVD with her. IMO, the best relationships are between people who are young and broke.
Just to clarify, I live in South Central but work in Century City, 25 min away, which is a (comparatively) much nicer area. In any case, she’s still probably as or more broke than me (and yes, we’re young too). If you didn’t gather from my OP, I’m inclined to ask her out anyway but I want to be sure I’m not making a horrible mistake - as long as I have doubts I won’t come across as very confident will I? Therefore I have to remove all doubt.
Hell, go for a walk, take a trip to the library, go to a dollar theater, something like that. There are lots of things you can do with someone when you want to be with that person, not in a specific place.
I’ve dated poor (read “unemployed”) guys. It can be ok, but it gets old if you NEVER get to go out anywhere. There’s lots of free stuff to do, but eventually you want to go out to dinner or a club or a concert or something. I’d want to be sure there was some kind of entertainment budget. It doesn’t always have to be you paying for it, but it should be figured into the budget somewhere. “Going Out” is what young people do!
I dated a guy for two years where I paid for most of everything and I did all the driving (because he wasn’t old enough for a license… we were very young).
While some women are golddiggers who want to suck the money out of your wallet, there are a lot of nice women out there who appreciate a good personality and don’t require excessive funding. I agree, never going out gets old, but most folks can budget a movie or something like it now and again.
Honestly, some of the best dates I’ve been on were ones where little or no money was spent.
Nobody else can answer this question for you. When I was younger and single, to me, the only reason to make some money was that the money enabled me to take girls on dates.
If you can stop to evaluate the cost/benefit ratio of going on a date with an attractive girl, money means more to you than it does to most guys.
I’d recommend asking her out, and ferchristsake don’t suggest going dutch or make an issue of finances on or before this first date.
Just do something reasonable and not too expensive. If the relationship still looks promising after the date, there will be plenty of time to discuss financial details later.
Thirded. Balance the “expensive” dates with the cheap ones. The down side to having no money (other than the having no money part) is that it requires you to be more inventive. It doesn’t take much imagination to take a girl out to the movies or a nice restaurant. And while those are fine, they can be kind of boring after a while. Having no money forces a creativity – where can you take her for a picnic? is there a free or half price show you can take her to? – that keeps it interesting.
So your question basically is whether the potential for a relationship with her is worth the time it will take you to come up with creative ideas for inexpensive yet fun dates. I think it probably is.
I’m disturbed that I’m the only who thinks the OP’s title is somewhat offensive so I won’t comment on that.
But why not let her make up her mind about frugal dating on her own? There’s always sex, you know… and before you say it condoms can be had for free in many places. If you like her what have you got to lose?
I don’t think Rigamarole’s intent was to offend; that’s apparent by the nature of his OP. I can see his point, as he’s possibly venturing into a scenario he’s never dealt with before.
Some women are golddiggers (i.e., Anna Nicole Smith) and really only want $$$ out of a relationship; others are all about the love. Still others want it all!
I know it wasn’t and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I was being ironic because it isn’t my style to be offended either. But still when you appraise a woman like some sort of commodity I have to think your chances of scoring go way down.
Fuck it, man, just take the girl out. Putting it off allows so much stuff to change - she could meet someone else, she could lose interest, she could die, whatever. If you like her, take her out. If she likes you for you, she won’t care if you can only barter peanuts for doughnuts. If she is bothered by you having nothing, then you figure that out when you get there.
While out is nice, don’t ever discount the greatness of cuddling on a couch/bed and just talking. Talk is cheap, but filling.
Ask her out, man! Right, you know she won’t have much money either, so she will understand things like picnics in park, museums or galleries, open-air theatre, whatever, ( suppose you might want to research some leocal pleansatn-but-cheap cafés, bars, restaurants, pizza places sort of thing.) cheap summer things your town has to do. And I would be extremely surprised if a girl would be expecting you to pay for things. Of course, if you do make sure to pay for your first date, this can actually be quite good, leading to “that was really fun, and thank you so much” - but you really must let me pay next time. Lo and behold - second date sorted!
Do ask her out - faint heart/fair lady and all that. If you don’t you will always wonder “what if?” and if you do and she turns out to be a brat who wants a man to pay for her, well, you don’t want her anyway. ( I mean, have you women reverted to the 1950s when nobody ws looking, or what?)
And report back to tehSDMB with happy stories, OK?
Hell, what a mess. Sun* is making it hard to see - sorry. Of all the messes I made there, let’s at least fix “you women” to “young women”, otherwise things get really confused.
*Yes, there *is sun in Scotland sometimes!
Sorry to post three times in a row, but I also want to remark, Rigmarole that another thing is that the normal course of conversation is likely to include your mentioning what work you do. So she should be able to infer that you are not pulling in millions. Ergo, no need to tie yourself in knots worrying about how to mention that you are , just like her, just getting by.
Also, you know what - she might have exactly the same concerns. Honestly. I’ve just realised that, apart from my being an antisocial hermit anyway, IF I were suddenly to get together with a nice man but he had much more money than I, I’d actually be a bit uncomfortable with that somehow. All I mean is, just don’t assume she will only want you for the sake of posh expensive dinners, that’s all. So, when she’s busy and work and no doubt has her own things to think about, she takes time to chat with you and give you extra cookies? Sounds good to me.
There’s a nice summer, and you’ve nearly got a nice girl so … on you go.
I’ll add my two cents in here by saying that when Jakeline and I first started dating, we went back and forth in terms of which of us had more funds available due to our varying job situations. There were times (well before we were married) when one person was doing most of the paying for entertainment.
If you guys really hit it off, you’ll find a way to make it work. There’s absolutely no reason for you to take a shot and see what happens.
