On the subject of dating and splitting bills. Years ago I went on holiday, and met some other people some of whom turned out to be single. We formed a group and did a few trips around the island where we were staying. It was good fun as the men tended to tackle the driving and I don't seem to recall there being a fuss with bills as we just split the bills as we were all on holiday. When our holiday came to an end some of us swapped numbers and addresses (wouldn't do that now!) and one man asked me out for a date.
We met up and went out for a date in Covent Garden and went to a restaurant there, his suggestion. I started by asking all the small talk stuff and just chit chat, what did he do, where did he live, what car did he drive (not fishing for £££££ answers just chit chat), and some of this we'd known when on holiday together. After 20 minutes went by he suddenly spat at me "you seem to be only interested in me, you're a gold digger" - or words to that effect, in really a quite nasty tone of voice. I immediately got up, I don't think I even said a word, or maybe something like 'bye bye, you can get this' but I did say to him something about "what I've been talking to you about is normal convo/questions, I am not a gold digger" and walked out of the restaurant.
I then got the tube home, didn't take that long. After about 10 minutes of getting home, there was a ring at my doorbell and my flatmate answered the door - I'd briefly told her what had happened, and she told him to go away, that I wasn't interested in him. He was really apologetic, apologising for his behaviour and had picked up some flowers from the local petrol station (!), kept calling through our letter box.
The moral of the story though, if you can't afford to date, don't date. If you're stingy with money or touchy about it, try not to let this affect dates, as in my case, I was put off. I actually would've gone halves with him, had he asked. But this was also in the generation where most men paid for dates at least for the first few months dating, it was an unwritten rule with men/women, though you could offer to buy e.g. coffee/popcorn and drinks on a cinema date. In fact as a PP said, most men were offended if you did offer to pay and they didn't expect sex/you to put out, in return. If you were a feminist re paying as a pp said, this would put them right off you. In London and SE area.
Anyway OP, onwards and upwards as I said before, you did the right thing. I mean ffs, even sons of my friends who are now teens/early 20s, most of them would never ever expect their dates to pay on the first date from what I get told if we talk about it!