to prefer a man to pay on the first date?

[partie]

I am a woman. I barely go in first dates. When I do I always offer to split and my offer is genuine, and I become prepared to split but I always prefer they pay for the first date and then I grab the second.

The main reasons for this is that is shows they are not stingy, have a genuine interest in me, and in the future if we became a couple it would signal that they would be willing to help me out should I ever become jobless instead of seeing finances as completely separate. This is security I need from a relationship and it would work both ways.

Do you prefer a man to pay on the first date? I am not asking if men should or are obligated, only what your preference is.

YABU- I prefer to split/ I pay
YANBU - I would prefer the man pays

@TwinsAndTiramisu

And your brand of feminism is easily bought by a few free dinners.

Really sticking it to the man there.

@Cuppasoupmonster I won't be taking relationship advice from someone who dated a drug addict for two years.

Your values are very different to mine, I can now see why.

I don’t think @TwinsAndTiramisu claimed feminist credentials.
Or are women who don’t proclaim themselves feminists every 5mins are doing womaning wrong? Got any insults for them too?

Yes, that's right. Extreme understanding as per the whole thread.

We are "purchased" by half a chicken jalfrezi bill.

You are quite correct, I didn't :)

But to be fair, when all they can do is name call,do you expect anything less?

😆 I was 18! I’m now in my 30s and happily married to a professional man. You’re desperate to make out that one episode defines my life but I hardly even think about it these days 😂

The fact they feel a bloke buying them a pizza and a few drinks means he ‘owns’ them and they’re a gold digger is hilarious 😂

I thought gold diggers get sports cars, bespoke jewellery etc 🤔

Even gold digging ain’t the same as it used to be… 🤭

It's so disappointing to see another woman actually believe dating men is akin to selling oneself to them.

FWIW my first date with DP was dinner at his. Turns out that was a top strategy on his part because he's an incredible cook, and it certainly took me from "he's hot, this has potential" to "I might have found a keeper".

I also enjoy walking and would have happily gone on a city walk date. I don't consider these selling myself short because I don't consider anything about the process to be selling myself at all.

Oh and he turned out to be extremely generous. We earn around the same now but there was a point when self-employment got quite rough for me. He paid for our entire holiday and an unexpected bill I couldn't absorb that year, no questions asked and no repayment expected. But that was a few years in. That's when generosity actually means something, not when you barely know each other.

@7Worfs no, it’s all about dinner at Yo Sushi and a ticket to see a Marvel film these days, keep up!

Cuppasoupmonster · Today 12:26
Then she’s in for a series of mummy’s boys and cocklodgers.

So are you going to be passing to your daughters a similarly low expectation and ambition for equality ie that it is so far away that they may as well keep accepting the perks of a bygone era?

Are you going to tell your university-age sons that girls still expect old-fashioned chivalry in dating because in 10-20 years time they are going to be financially disadvantaged by having babies?

This will be laughed off as boomer nonsense, I guarantee you.

@gannett i wouldn’t have gone, great cook or not. From a safety aspect asking a woman to your house for a first date is a little dodgy, secondly it’s kind of moving the relationship into the ‘come see my house’ stage before I would be ready to do so. I prefer the atmosphere of being ‘out’, but each to their own, and obviously it worked out for you. We all have our own experiences don’t we?

Oh of COURSE the posters who think a man must pay also think women shouldn't have sexual desires. Traditional gender roles, the biggest red flag of all.

The thing is, the posters who go halves on dates aren't fixated on what men want. It's about getting the kind of man and the kind of treatment we want. If a man turns out to have cocklodger tendencies there's plenty of time between first date and any sort of commitment to ascertain that.

I can only recommend going out to get what you want without second-guessing what men, generally or specifically, want. I wanted sex with hot men in my 20s, and got it - sometimes on a first date and sometimes not even after a date at all. (And I hope some of those men were rubbing their hands with glee, because I certainly had a good time too! Why would I want my sexual partners to be miserable?) And I only wanted to be in a relationship with a man who treated me equally and had no truck with traditional gender roles, and I got that too. Win after win, really.

No they just pay for poor single mothers, why shouldn't they?

I had a colleague a while ago, early 30s and desperate to find ‘the one’ and settle down. She did it all - speed dating, online dating, blind dates etc. Literally hundreds of dates. Every time she insisted on paying half ‘because I don’t want to feel like I owe them something’, even though the dates were rubbish, a few drinks at a grotty pub and she usually ended up back at theirs anyway.

She got ghosted so many times, me and my other colleague lost count of how many times she would cry during the lunch break about another arsehole that had slept with her then stopped replying.

Eventually I just cracked, told her she was giving the wrong impression by constantly paying for herself and sleeping with them too quickly. Men and women are different and men will treat you how you treat yourself - if you act like you’re not worth their time, money and respect, they won’t treat you as such.

Long story short she adopted this new approach, turned down cheap and seedy sounding dates, and is now happily married with a baby son.

No fucking idea where and why shagging on a first date is equated with wanting to lay the bill. Anyone care to explain?

Pay the bill, what a typo 😀

Your choice. I went and we've been together for a decade now. We'd shagged already in any case and I certainly wanted another go, regardless of the dinner. I also did full due diligence when it came to safety.

I'd also had plenty of disappointing dates "out". Awful dinners where you realise you don't click within 10 seconds and still have to slog through the entire meal, every bite tasting worse than the last. Pub dates where it's so noisy that you have to yell in each other's ears - mmm, sexy.

Says the person on a relationship with a drug addict for two years!

I think the poster was abs us a better judge than you.

How do you learn if not through experience @GloriousGlory ?

I don't think making fun of a woman for what sounds like being financially abused by a drug addict is a particularly great way to get a feminist argument across...

Just so @GloriousGlory can salivate over the details, it was my first proper relationship. I had been kicked out of my home at 18 (new stepmum, long story) and was somewhat vulnerable and looking for somebody to attach myself to. Anyway we started dating (50-50 of course 😉) things were ok, we moved in together briefly and too quickly, things went downhill but slowly enough that it took me a year to twig on that he was abusive. Think making me pay for things ‘to make my bad behaviour up to him’ (daring to go out with friends etc). Culminated in him taking my bank card, and me finding out he was spending the money on cocaine. I left.

So go ahead @GloriousGlory , tell me how I have zero judgement because of that relationship 13 years ago.

Why?

Because you've based that experience and decided the key part was he didn't pay for the first date..

It would've all been fine had he done that?

You got kicked out of home, which possibly leads you to have to have men "looking" after you?

So many issues going on, but you base all this on the fact that a man must pay 100% on the first date or they're wrong.

I'm not a feminist, I'm pointing out that given that, is the PP really qualified to decide what's a good man?

Okay then. It's not a very nice thing to do either.