It’s customary for the man to ask the woman out and then to pay, just like it’s customary for men to walk nearest the street when they’re with a woman or to pull out her chair or open her door. It’s all part and parcel of the same ritual that we’re all involved in. And btw, I don’t know where you’re getting that most people expect to have money spent on us. I certainly don’t expect to have money spent on me. And it’s not just because I’m an unemployed manchild with no life, before you start going down that road again, but because I’m male. In all the dates I’ve been on it’s been expected that I pay. And no, they weren’t a bunch of first dates. One of those relationships was initiated by the woman and still I wound up buying her dinner and movie. Yeah, my experience doesn’t equal fact, but I know that my experience isn’t all that abnormal. In fact, I think it’s typical.
Edit: The only relationship I’ve been in where it hasn’t been expected that I pay has been the one where the girl and I were living together.
Missed edit: If somebody I wasn’t married to invited me on vacation with him (or for that matter, her), I would assume that person would pay for everything, or almost everything. If I did the inviting, I’d expect to pay.
I do see where once you get involved in selecting the accommodations you should maybe kick in a little something
^^ Are you being serious? If the girl wanted to go by herself, why would she take the boyfriend along? If the girl values her own money more than her boyfriend, what type of relationship is that?
Also you seem to not know what going on vacation together means–it almost never means I just invited you to come along on my vacation. Instead it means we planned a vacation together. This is even more likely in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.
That said, I’m not with Melon on this–it’s fairly easy to set up a relationship where you do not pay for everything. The only reason you feel it is expected is because you always do it. That’s selection bias.
Heck, I don’t think I’ve ever been on a date where I paid for everything. Heck, I know one woman who was a bit upset I even offered.
Okay, now that I’ve read the rest of the thread, I have to point out the inanity of ywtf’s argument: it always goes both ways. If you are thinking “I could eat by myself”, then you are being just as greedy, as the reason you are supposed to agree to the date is because you want to be with the person. But you value not paying for the date more than the person. You are just as cheap–society just lets you get away with it without social punishment.
I really wish otherwise decent people could get over the prejudice where they think it’s okay to judge someone’s character completely based on one action that can be interpreted in different ways. As I was socialized, you always assume you will have to pay, even if you think it is unlikely. To do otherwise says nasty things about your character.
Naive and idealist as Mr Melon might be, I still prefer the sound of his dates to the Goon’s pedestrian world, ‘real’ as it might be. Obviously it’s normal for those with the means to treat each other, but it can end up sounding like a sterile exchange of goods and services sometimes.
There are some people, and this is doesn’t depend on what sort of equipment they have between their legs, who will attempt to get free stuff from other people. See any of the potluck/office meals threads we’ve had. These people will accept any invitations, but never reciprocate. If one person is willing to let his/her date pick up ALL the tabs, without doing something in return, it’s quite possible that this person is simply a mooch, and is not good dating material.
It’s also possible that the person who doesn’t pay isn’t CAPABLE of paying. Maybe s/he is a student on a very limited income. I had a boyfriend like that, but he was able to find free or very low cost ways for us to spend time together…and both of us expected that he would be able to be more free spending when he graduated and was able to get a job that paid more than being a gas station attendant. Yes, it was that long ago.
Paying for someone else means, essentially, “I have enough money to pay for myself AND treat you as well.” It’s a form of conspicuous consumption. In a dating context, it can mean “I have a decent job or other means of income” and THAT’S why men traditionally paid for women. There were (and probably still are) very unkind words to describe men who accepted meals and other gifts from women, when they weren’t providing the vast majority of meals and gifts. Nowadays, though, women are pretty much expected (in American society, at least) to hold down a decent full time job when they are adults, and a woman who doesn’t have a job and who expects a man to provide all of her meals and gifts without reciprocating is called cheap, at the very least.
I’ll put out if a woman buys me pizza. Not a plain one though, it’s got to have toppings. Feed me a large with extra tomatoes, mushrooms. and some sausage and I’ll be your dirty little man whore.
There’s a lot of men who will put out without buying dinner for them first. Of course, the quality of those men usually leaves something to be desired.
What you are essentially saying is that men have to pay for the privilege of your company, which is ridiculous. If you don’t think a man’s company will be enjoyable, and simply think “free meal” when agreeing to go out with a guy, do him a favor and just decline.
You think it’s ridiculous that she essentially said the person inviting another out to dinner should pay for the guest? She said she would pay if she invited him on a date.
I find this whole thread odd. The invitee should never be expected to pay unless an agreement was reached beforehand.
Yes. If I am invited somewhere I go with the tacit assumption that I will be paying my way unless specifically told otherwise. Lets say a friend calls you up and says, “Hey theR, I will be in town for business, would you like to have dinner?”. Would you assume that the friend is offering to pay for your meal?
I find it odd that people want there to be so many rules around something like dating.
Sometimes I’ve paid, sometimes I haven’t, it all depends, and it’s usually pretty obvious who’s going to pay for what without having to revert to some rule that’s supposed to apply to 99% of situations.
That’s not a date, it’s getting together with a buddy. They are completely different types of events. So if you’re invited to a birthday party you show up with your own cake?
Add me to the list that finds this whole discussion odd.
No, because that is an event a person is hosting. If it’s a birthday dinner at a restaurant then I expect that I would pay (and toss in money for the b-day person’s dinner).
It’s not “my world”, it’s the normal adult dating world. A lot of other people here are saying the same thing as I am, yet you single me out and call it “my world”.
I have a feeling in the world of “broke motherfucker”, a “date” is “you come over to my house and we watch tv until it’s time to fuck”- that is not my world, nor is it typical of adult dating.
I just figured that a man paying for a lady’s dinner was the modern human equivalent of a peacock flaring his impressive feathers to seemingly disinterested peahens. It’s not like there are any mastodons left that he can take down.
Anywho, as the mother of two teenagers, I’m all for girls paying because they are statistically better educated and wealthier than their male counterparts. And while we’re bucking societal expectations, I think it’s also high time that the “Bride’s family pays for the wedding” tradition is tossed out the window.
