Earlier this month, Marissa Ellis wrote a piece for MadameNoire called Dating Dynamics: When Should [Women] Start Paying for Dates? I was asked to provide the male perspective on women contributing financially when dating. I knew this would be a sensitive topic so I prayed on it first, then I came up with the following points of clarification.
What is the Status of the Relationship?
Establishing the status of the relationship is critical to any discussion pertaining to how much and if a man should pay. A simple breakdown might go as follows.
First Date: The man should pay.
Second Date: The man should pay but as Marissa mentioned, the woman can begin to chip in for smaller items. For example, if you go to the movies, you can offer to help pay for concession items. If you go to dinner, you can consider helping with the drinks or the tip. However, I think any offer should be genuine. If you don’t want to pay or don’t feel like that’s your role as a woman, then don’t bother offering for offering sake, since there is a very real possibility that he might take you up on your offer. He may refuse but you shouldn’t make the offer expecting him to refuse. It’s a date, not an SAT test.
Third Date or more: By the third date (or more), you should begin communicating some of your expectations with your person of interest. I know this “communicating” with the person you like idea is a crazy, but bear with me. Usually by the third date, you have an idea of your level of interest. You’ve already gone on two semi-awkward getting to you know you type dates and you’re probably transitioning into a dating rhythm. If you haven’t paid already, I believe a casual conversation about financial expectations can be discussed (among other things). You don’t invoke your inner Donald Trump and threaten to fire anyone who doesn’t meet your expectations, but I see no harm in discussing them, especially if you plan to continue dating. It’ll be easier to cope with disappointment on the third date than the third month/year.
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What are Men’s Expectations?
From Marissa Ellis’ Dating Dynamics: When Should You Start Paying for Dates?
Considering that all my friends have different perspectives on this topic, I definitely would say there are no rules, although non-oblivious folks have clear opinions on the matter. Those two friends I mentioned previously, who believed in not paying during the initial dating phase, believe that they’re setting a certain standard of how they’d like to be treated. They see themselves as prizes to be won; women to be supremely courted. If they make it too easy for these men, then he would undermine their value.
As Marissa said, “there are no rules.” I’m also not sure most men’s expectations adjust in direct correlation with the amount of money they spend or “invest” in a woman. For instance, the type of man who expects sex or a relationship from a woman will likely expect sex or a relationship from a woman regardless of the amount of money he does or does not spend in acquiring his goal. In other words, just because a man takes you on a $200 dinner date doesn’t mean he suddenly feels you owe him something in return. He most likely felt you owed him something by merely being in his presence. The dinner is only a means to an end. I (hope) you don’t believe every man who pays for dinner feels the woman owes him something in return. Further…
The more successful a man is the less value he places on individual dating expenses. This is one of the faults in basing your worth on how much money a man does or does not spend on you. While I see the logic behind this idea, it becomes less applicable as you date men that are more successful. Is a man who respects you but does not have the financial means to court you greater than a man who doesn’t respect you but does have the means to court? Perhaps you desire both qualities – financial stability and R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Regardless, it is far less taxing on a man who makes $130,000 a year to take you on expensive dates than it is for a man who makes $30,000 a year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he has more feelings for you. Therefore, assuming a man who spends more money courting – on dinner or other activities – equates to him having more feelings invested in you can be misleading or outright wrong. Men with money can afford to spend more of their money completely independent of how they feel about you as a person.
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Should Women Still Expect Men to Pay?
One day, men and women will be financial equals. As of today, women only make approximately 77 cents for every dollar men earn for the same work. However, there are already exceptions to this rule in some major cities. Prior to the recession, TIME Magazine wrote an article noting, “in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more.”
Is the selective application of gender roles at fault? In my experience, both men and women are guilty of selectively championing for gender roles that benefit them while remaining eerily quiet on those that don’t directly affect them. Even if those ‘unspoken rules’ are disadvantageous to members of the opposite sex. For example, when I encounter women who expect men to pay or men who expect women to cook, I often wonder who pays or cooks for them when they are single? Why does that expectation suddenly change when they have a man/woman in their life?
This gender-based expectation system is further convoluted when you consider more and more men and women are raised in single parent homes mostly head by women. This creates a situation where many young men and women have only been exposed to a life where a woman was the dominant or sole financial (and emotional, physical, etc) provider. Yet, when they begin dating this is not the expectation. Despite the progress of women towards financial equality, many women and men still expect the man to provide financially, at minimum, during the courting phase. What happens to these gender expectations when men and women are financial equals or, as is the case in some cities, the woman makes more? Maybe nothing needs to change, but I doubt it.
What are your thoughts on these points? What do you expect from the man/woman and at what point in the progression of dates do you expect it? When dating in a non-committed relationship, is he always expected to pay? Should the person, man or woman, who asked for the date pay for the date?
WisdomIsMisery aka WIM uses his formal training as an internal auditor to provide objective, yet opinionated, qualitative and quantitative analysis on life, love, and everything in between. As a Scorpio, many women wish death on WIM and some have attempted to hasten its arrival. WIM is not a model, a model citizen, or a role model. See more of WIM on his weekly write-ups for SBM and on Twitter @WisdomIsMisery.
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