I don’t want to pick on anyone in particular here, like Mr. Ruber. I say this because I have seen this with others as well, like my daughter and her boyfriend but, more importantly, with a couple sons of friends.
Back in my day, when we had nine planets and school was uphill both ways, when a guy had a girlfriend and went out with her, he tended to pay. This was especially true when he was first courting said girl. In fact, the surest way you knew you struck out was when the girl of your fancy INSISTED on paying her share. It meant…STRIKE THREE…YOU’RE OUT! Not once did I ever have a woman insist on paying her half of the first date end up in a second one.
Now, after dating for awhile the woman would offer to pay and you would let her…some times …especially if she chose the time and place but mostly you still paid.
The one thing you would NEVER EVER NEVER EVER EVER NEVER DO is haggle with your girlfriend about unfair splitting of a bill because she ordered drinks/more expensive meal. That is so FOREIGN a concept to me that my brain short-circuits.
However, I see things like this with the youngsters these days…and so I am thinking a sea change has happened. Hell, when I went through a divorce 10 years ago then started dating I would get comments that it was nice that the guy paid on the date…with sort of an ‘what an old fashoned guy’ kind of tone. I don’t think it helped or hurt me but it did give me a clue as to the interest of the woman.
In short, it does seem that a change has happened. For you people still dating, does the guy pay or is that custom considered old-fashioned?
It’s a little old-fashioned. While I think it is a nice gesture, I kind of feel like we’re all big boys and girls now and can buy our own stuff (I’m a man in my mid-30’s. Eeek I mean almost late 30’s).
Of women I had more than one date with, I found that the women who were the most successful or accomplished were more likely to offer/insist on paying their own bill. Heck, I even had one pay mine because she was super late!
Still, paying for coffee/drinks for a first date doesn’t really bother me. But once we’re ‘coupled’, things need to be pretty even.
Also Mid-30s here, and my opinions are very similar to Sicks Ate. At the time when I was dating. I would not have been offended at offering to pay, but I would generally offer some contribution (like, “let me pay the tip” or “thanks – let me buy you ice cream on the way home”). Eventually I would feel most comfortable splitting or alternating. I would have been insulted if a man insisted on paying all the time. It creates an imbalance in the relationship, where one person who isn’t paying, ever, is made to feel dependent and indebted. Usually the must-always-pay man has some real clever notions how the debt can be settled…
Generally if I offered to split the check and a guy made a big honking deal to refuse to let me contribute, I would consider that an enormous strike against him that we are not compatible, and probably not proceed to a second date.
I’m a big girl, handling money won’t make my uterus fall out.
Early 20s here. To be honest, this thing kind of depends on the woman. Some wait for the guy to pay, some insist on paying for half. There doesn’t appear to be a cultural expectation in my age group, however. At least, not in my(admittedly limited) experience.
I agree with you on the haggling. You NEVER haggle. You pay for half, or you pay for all of it. But don’t haggle if you want another date with the lady.
The old way, which I learned also, was built on the assumption that the guy had more money and always did the asking. Neither of these assumptions is valid today.
Haggling would be a deal breaker for both my daughters. The older one went with the same guy 10 years before they got married, and the younger one seems to have gone from friendships into dating, so I think the bigger issue is that a lot of the traditional “dating” behavior has broken down.
I’m in my late 20s and I agree that women vary widely and as a guy you’re best off remaining flexible. That means you go for the check and you certainly don’t argue or haggle with your date… ever. That’s ridiculous.
If they offer to pay or ask if they should you usually decline because a lot of women are just being polite and don’t expect to actually pay. Still, there are plenty of women who totally seriously want to pay for half and it’d be very rude and boorish to do anything but relent quickly and split it.
It might *sound *complicated but it’s actually very simple.
To your credit, BlinkingDuck, there are plenty of young women out there who are pretty traditional and would have expected to be treated but insist on paying when the date is going badly. The difference is now it’s not a certainty - you could be out with a woman having a great time with you who seems traditional in a lot of ways but happens to be a successful lawyer and always pays for half of her dates. So basically it doesn’t pay to assume anything based on how you handle the bill per se.
The person who invites pays for the first date. Since one thing that hasn’t really changed much (at least in my peer group*) is that it’s the guy who asks, 90% of the time, the guy pays.
However, not everyone has gotten the memo, so it’s best to bring enough to cover yourself anyhow. And bring enough for cab fare home. And make sure you have clean underwear on, what if you get hit by a bus and they have to take off your skirt in the ER?
Uh, sorry, channeling my Inner Old Lady there.
After the first date, it’s a bit of a negotiation. Some couples are most comfortable doing Dutch, some you pay for dinner, I pay for tickets, some do I pay today, you pay next time. A good way to test the waters for a third date, actually, is to say, “How about I get it tonight and you pick it up next time we go out?” You’ll either get stammers and lack of eye contact (= no third date) or a grin and agreement (= third date!)
But I do think most women in my peer group would be bothered if he insisted on paying everything, every time. And the woman paying for everything, every time, would raise red flags, too. It’s all about equality and reciprocity.
*me=37, white, urban
I wish some of the ones I have gone out recently would have offered to pay part if they knew they would just disappear afterwards. I usually pick something I want to do anyway for a date and it is almost always expensive. I fully expect to pay for the whole thing even if it is $500+ for the two of us even on a first date but I would be happy to take the hint if she offered to pay half if I could save that much money. I haven’t had any recent ones offer to pay for anything whatsoever.
Wholeheartedly disagree that his should be the rule, even though it sometimes comes up in practice. And if the lady offers to pay for her half ‘just to be nice’…well, she just talked herself into half the bill.
Actually, the almost foolproof way to see if there would be a third date was to try to kiss her. She kisses you then you are doing fine. No kiss/turn her head…no third date whether she wants one or not. YMMV. Friends insisted that should happen on the first date, not the second but I was always more laid back
I know, that sounds harsh but way back when we had nine planets and school was…er nm…I spent some time on the dating scene…and I found certain ‘laws’ seemed to apply…and one was that if she didn’t kiss or gave you the cheek on the second date then she was either not too interested in you ‘in that way’ or she has issues that would be best to leave for some other guy to tangle with. I never had one relationship that went well where I ignored my own advice above.
Blushing furiously I’m, uh…I’m trying to think if I know anyone who hasn’t admitted at a hen party that she’s done WAY MORE than kiss on the *second *date, before the status of the third date was clear in anyone’s mind…straight up sex doesn’t always indicate a third date is in the cards. Maybe I just have slutty friends. Kids these days…
In my 30s, and I expect to pay for what I ordered unless other arrangements have been made in advance (and I’ve agreed to them). I’d feel a little weird about someone insisting on paying for me, especially if if it’s the first few “dates” and before there’s an established relationship. If I don’t know you well, I have no idea if you’re one of those guys who “expects something” in exchange for that money, so I’d frankly rather not be put in a position to “owe” you anything.
FWIW, I’m not financially well-off, so contrary to Sicks Ate’s experience, I don’t think a woman’s financial status matters that much.
I will accept someone treating me if 1> we know each other, and 2> it’s discussed beforehand. Since I’m not well-off, and most social activities involve spending money, a lot of times if someone wants me to hang out with them I have to refuse for financial reasons. If they offer to cover me in that case, I assume they’re a grown up and are allowed to spend their money however they want, and they understand that reciprocity in a financial sense may be a long ways off.
Late 30s here. Ireland, so this may not apply in the US.
I think part of the difference you’re noticing is that a lot of people don’t ‘date’ per se - they slide from friendships into relationships, rather than going on dates with near-strangers. That’s what I always did (we’re talking fifteen years ago). So my husband and I went from hanging out in the pub as part of a big gang to hanging out in the pub on our own, and it never occurred to me to expect that he would suddenly start paying for me. He bought a round, then I bought a round, same as always only with fewer people involved. In fact, one of the ways we knew the relationship was going to be an ongoing thing was when I let him pay for dinner - because it implied that there would be a next dinner that I would pay for.
Most of my friends worked the same way. I do have one female friend who thought that, if she was going out with a guy, he should pay for stuff. She got a fair amount of slagging for it.
If a guy had suggested a $500 date, I would have said no way, because I was broke so I couldn’t have paid my half (or reciprocated on the next date), and I’d have been intensely uncomfortable with the idea of him paying for me. It would’ve been fine if we were already in a serious long-term relationship, but early on, no way. We needed to do stuff we could both afford.
Generally I’ll let a guy pay for the first date, start picking up parts on the second date (he pays for dinner, I grab drink after, or something along those lines) and alternate after that. It tends to even out in the end.
Having Euro friends and our company has a London office I can say that that sounds very…European.
We had a younger woman at my company that I was quasi-friends with and she spent much time in the London office. She was a real Anglophile (sp?) and was not against exploring sex. She was very VERY frustrated with London men because they would never put themselves on the line and ask…they always wanted to hang with friends and her.
Well, there is a difference in ‘dating’ and ‘trying to get some’. I was referring to dating
I’ve never liked letting guys pay for everything on my dates, because I feel that it creates an expectation of sex in repayment for money. It’s like one step removed from actual prostitution (okay, that’s an overreaction). But honestly, I would rather pay half now and not feel pressured later on. If, for example, I were to end up on a date with an asshole who insisted on paying for dinner (not that every guy who insists on paying is an asshole, but there’s certainly some overlap here), we could end up back at his place where he’s gently but firmly pushing me further than I want to because he paid for dinner. Maybe I would *let *him push me further than I want to go, because I feel guilty that he paid for dinner. I would just rather forestall that whole scene in the first place, because I know how assholes work. More importantly, I know how *I *work. I can’t accept money in those situations without accepting an accompanying, undesirable sense of obligation. I hate being in debt to another person. Katniss knows what I mean, ok!
Similarly, I also can’t understand how chicks can let guys buy them drinks at bars–Don’t they have any *respect *for themselves? Or do they think their presence is SO stimulating that talking to a guy for 5 minutes is “worth” an $8 drink? Talk about self-centered.
Yeah, I have done $500+ dates a few times as an experiment. Like I said, I wanted to do the things anyway and wanted a female of my choice to do it with me but it is frustrating when they just disappear afterwards. I get that they don’t want to be my girlfriend but some etiquette is necessary in my mind after a couple of such dates when they said that they would call and then don’t and won’t even respond to mine.
I never even hit on most of them. Maybe that is the problem. I don’t think women’s ideas of dream dates and reality match up all that well. I would have done much better with an escort service if sex was all I was looking for but it wasn’t and it worked out great except for the part where they stopped communication abruptly and with no warning.
However, I always expect strict etiquette and that is where the women today are letting me down. I would be happy to pay $1000+ for a first date an honest and straightforward woman that I could have a good future with but I am not sure they exist in appreciable numbers in the wild. I know it isn’t all about money but I am not sure I could find that with anyone that I have met so far and I screen deeply in advance.
