Last week, there was a column on CNN.com (via the Frisky) which confronted the incredibly annoying and unsettled question: "Who should pay on a first date?"
Besides the stock answer ("the asker"), there was remarkably little of substance in the story's "debate." Since we could care less about offending people with honesty, we'll now respond with a comment that hung over the proceedings: the discussion is incredibly sexist.
While we agree that the noble thing for the "asker" to do is at least offer to take care of the check and tip and to just deal with it if the other person doesn't take the bait by offering to pay half, that's not really the issue here.
First, we have to address this crazy reaction women gave the Frisky writer for even considering a guy who offered to split the check on a first, second, third, and even fourth date:
In my personal experience, if a woman is in any way visibly or audibly bothered by the suggestion to split the tab at the end of a date, there are two possible outcomes for the relationship...
1) she will be revealed as a person who has unrealistic expectations, what we call the "fairytale model." This person may have an extensive list of specific requirements for a relationship, a list that will limit her to only men who will do anything to prove they are worthy, while all others will move on and avoid the hassle.
2) the woman is looking for an excuse to go back to her friends and tell them "he did this one single thing that pissed me off, never mind the rest of the date was amazing, and so, therefore, I won't return his calls again." This is what we refer to as the "fear of rejection" model. In other words, and I know we may be stretching a bit, some women see a man's desire to pay for dinner as proof of interest, while an offer to split means the guy is either a jerk, a stingy jerk, or a not-interested jerk. In many cases, they may be correct.
These are all, of course, pulled out of my ass and are entirely debatable, but keep in mind they are impressions and we decide whether to call based on these impressions.
Second...
What really annoys us guys about this "first date" debate is unrelated to why women get upset about an offer to split the tab instead of the guy just paying outright. It's actually because of comments like this:
And if you [ladies] don't pay for the whole thing, you should at least offer to split the tab. Incredibly (to me), most women I spoke to thought I was an idiot and firmly believed the dude should always pay on a first date -- though for some this was a recent change of heart.
Kate, a 33-year-old writer told me, "I tend to try to pay for myself, but as I get older and more comfortable with my awesomeness, I kind of wish and hope that the other person will be a little more old-fashioned about it." Good point. If someone's eating opposite Amazing Me, shouldn't she or he pay for the privilege? After all, I'm entertaining and cute and if you let me order dessert there may be some smooching in your future.
While the Frisky writer is probably kidding about those followup comments, "Kate" clearly let some serious sexism slip out in her remarks. We're going to have to do a lot better than this if we're going to have equality between the sexes-- if women want to stop being thought of as sex objects, which men can "rent" by paying for dinner (again, this is the male thinking-- he's paying for dinner, what is he getting out of it?), why would they be so stubborn about a split check?
Even worse, the Frisky story suggests it's practically outrageous to split the check until at least the fourth date. On a personal note, we once dumped a woman for having to pay for her for four dinners in a row: it made her seem like a) she was a conservative and that the real her was still to emerge, b) she was seeing me for the free salmon sandwiches and Chianti. (Matter of fact, that combo should have been a big red flag to begin with....) Or it could've been c) all of the above.
Here's another way of putting it: if you changed the phrase "old-fashioned about it" to "pre-feminist about it," what would you have? You'd have an individual making a complete ass of herself on cnn.com in order to justify their cheapskate point-of-view.
Ladies, we understand why you don't want to split the check-- it's a rough economy out there and dating is extremely expensive, especially when you are still trying to find someone to involve yourself with. But there's only one word for your position on this issue: sexist.
From CNN, via the Frisky.
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