Who Pays on a Date?
I think we’re all a little confused…
Last Sunday, I had a date with a guy I’ll call Claude.
The details of the date are muggy from my Ativan, and the fact that it wasn’t exceedingly memorable. He suggested Pinkerton, a wine bar in my neighborhood. I said it was also Weezer’s best album, but I don’t think he got the reference. I should have known then that there would be no wedding in a winery for us.
On the date, I learned that he had went to Brown, and was addicted to crossword puzzles (plus and plus, ‘cause brains). Like me, he had been raised Unitarian. We laughed over learning about Krishna and Buddha in Sunday school, but it wasn’t a diving board into deeper understanding. I recall that he had a serious twitch: when I rested my gaze on him, his face scrunched up as though he were taking a picture of me with his eyes.
When I got up to use the ladies room, I checked in with myself to see if I would want to see him again. The answer was the same as when my mom offers me one of her monochrome knit sweaters from StitchFix: “I meannnnn sure, I guesssss…like, I have no strong objections to it.”
Then, the check came. We had both had one drink. As always, I reached for my wallet. He didn’t stop me.
I had a windstorm of thoughts. The strongest was, “okay, time to go!” Because historically, nothing signals the end of a date like two sets of credit card slips. Then, I thought, “Well, why should he HAVE to pay? You’ve only known him for an hour, and you’re not even into him.” Then, another ray of clarity fired through my mind: I would’ve been more into him if he had paid. The scales that had clanged with such indifference would have toppled in his favor. I would’ve at least wanted to kiss him.
But why? I didn’t know, I just knew how I felt.
When I went home, I wanted to further explore these feelings. I was uneasy about my, “I would’ve at least wanted to kiss him,” which savored strongly of prostitution to me. Maybe “going Dutch” was becoming the etiquette of Brooklyn, the headquarters of gentrification and de-genderization. Would our biology soon be neutralized into a flavorless bisque? Maybe we’d show up to the date in matching flannels and beanie hats, our sexes differentiated from each other only when our underwear came off?
I decided to put it into the ethers.
I posted about the story to a Facebook group filled exclusively with women living in NYC. It’s about 130K strong. Women frequently post their dating stories, meet-cutes, and revelations about infidelity. It’s a giant sorority where women pat each other on the back, pick each other off the ground, and proffer slaps across the face that land like a healing astringent.
The hive had plenty to say.
“Next time, don’t do the reach,” one gal advised. 70 people liked her comment.
“You’re not a princess for expecting to be treated a certain way,” one said. “Do you want a man who makes zero effort whatsoever?”
My rhetorical answer was no, of course not. Not paying, as I saw it, was a continuation of the milquetoast, comme ci-comme ça energy I’d felt from him so far. It didn’t make me slick with desire; didn’t make me want to run breathlessly down the street, screeching out to store owners and pigeons that I found someone that made me feel truly alive — my most blessed and sought after emotion.
But to not do the wallet reach on a first date? How would I muster that? Wouldn’t that signal presumptuous princess diva behavior? The idea of expecting a man whom I’d only known 90 minutes to foot my bill made my toes curl in my boots. The struggle reminded me of my pain of charging a broker’s fee: how I full-body cringed when giving the number, fighting every impulse to shout, “it’s okay! I can do half that!!!” It was only the capitalist eagle cawing in my ear, reminding me that I had rent to pay, too, that steeled me and hushed my stammering.
I took a survey on my Instagram story, asking girls if they expected a guy to pay on a first date, and guys if they believed in paying on a first date. The results were surprising: 100% of guys said yes, they paid, while 80% of girls said that they expected the guy to pay. I felt relieved that the standards that felt inexplicably natural to me were still something of a cultural norm (not that my Instagram, with its 1100 followers, is the US census).
My friend Michael was a lone voice opposed to paying. He explained to me his stance:
“if you’re dating me, I don’t want you to be thinking of what you can get out of me.” He said that he felt that paying set up a dangerous standard, in which the girl was expected to give something in return. He’s been in Brooklyn for 10 years, which I’m sure has molded his philosophy. To him, a girl not offering to pay was a red flag.
“We’re equals, aren’t we?” he opined.
I told him I felt we were Plessy versus Ferguson: separate, but equal. I don’t treat a guy the way I’d treat a girlfriend. I don’t say the same things. I don’t message guys first on dating apps, and I don’t ask them out. In my experience, it just doesn’t work out when I pursue guys — I end up feeling insecure. My instincts tell me that’s not how nature was intended.
Even though words like “protect and provide” sound so very Eisenhower-era, these are virtues I associate with the masculine. The masculine figures in my life (and I’m including lesbians in this) tell me to be careful; get my oil changed. My mom makes sure I’m well-fed, and my female friends empathize with my emotional pain. No, not all of this is black and white, just like gender isn’t fully binary. I have a lot of masculine in me, which makes me strong and confident and independent. I also wear a pink fur coat, and like to be as soft as a kitten on dates.
My friend Emily told me that by paying, I had signaled to “Claude” that I wasn’t interested. The girls in the FB group said I was playing a game by reaching for my wallet when I hoped he would offer to pay. Michael said that he considered it a huge red flag when a girl didn’t offer at all. There were a lot of people preferring absolutes that were at odds with each other. One person’s triangle was another person’s quadrilateral.
The last person to weigh in on the great debate was my friend Sarah. She’s French, and has a resourceful mindset that only someone working without a Visa can have. She’s the type of scrappy girl who’s had a man co-sign an apartment with her, trading flirtation in for a credit score.
When discussing dates, Sarah said that she, too, always offered to pay. But she hoped the guy would overrule her.
“If I pay, the first date is the last one,” she said, with an insouciant shrug. She recounted a story in which she offered to pay, and the male joyfully accepted.
“You’re not like the other girls,” he told her.
“I wanted to tell him, ‘Nope — I’m worse!!’” she said. When he invited her to a cooking class the following week, she didn’t bother to text back.
As for me, Claude never texted me again. Did he sense my indifference, like Emily said, and take my splitting the bill as a farewell? Or was he not into me to begin with, which was why he didn’t see fit to invest in me?
I’m interested for anthropological reasons. It’s interesting to pinpoint the “chicken or the egg” genesis of attraction. In astrology, the sun is the most masculine planet, and the moon is the most feminine. Since the moon’s light is a reflection of the sun, I’ve sometimes wondered if female attraction is a mirror of male attraction. Does mine originate from being securely bathed and beamed in this light? Is my low wattage a mirror of what’s being projected at me?
Maybe I’m a Sarah — just like other girls, but worse. Devilishly, I hope so.
It feels so good to be well-fed and well-lit.
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