Thanks all who responded to my previous thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=161992
Now I have an additional problem. You see, I called this girl (as a refresher we’ve gone out for lunch and a real date so far) on Tuesday to ask her out on Saturday. After a few minutes of chit-chat, the conversation went basically like this:
Me: So, what are you doing on Saturday?
Her: Oh, just planned to do some work around the apartment, but was thinking of calling you to see if you wanted to go see a movie.
Me: Hey, that sounds good. How about dinner too?
Her: Sure! How about that new Thai place?
Me: Sounds great. Wait a minute, did you just ask ME out?
Her: Well, I guess I did! So I guess that means I pay, right?
Me: You know, I really don’t have my dating rulebook handy here.
Her: Because I don’t mind and I’ve done it before. It’s my little bit of feminism coming out. In fact I asked a guy out to prom and paid for it all! (Note that was about 10 years ago.)
I then changed the topic to allow me to evaluate what the heck she just said. Now, I don’t mind paying and figure it’s the default anyway. But I am also “progressive” and modern enough that my manhood isn’t shattered by her paying, and we do have similar incomes.
I’m going to pick up the movie tickets earlier in the day, so she won’t have an option of paying for those. But this may make her more adamant about paying for dinner (it’s not an expensive place, by the way).
I hate the whole issue of who pays. It drives me nuts, since I don’t care if I pay, but I don’t want to get in an argument over it. As long as I having a good time, it makes no difference to me. I’ve let girls pay before a few times, but none of them have worked out, so it’s impossible to determine a causal relationship. If this date goes well I’m going to suggest that for our next one we cook our own dinner and avoid the whole issue (well I guess we’ll have to buy groceries).
I think I always way overanalyze this stuff. But this girl so far seems really cool, so I don’t want to ruin it prematurely. Thanks again for your help!
Man I hope she doesn’t read the SDMB