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For Love or Money

The tabulation of the dollars involved in dating doesn’t always add up.

by Natalie
posted on February 01, 2007

Credits: Rachel Dom

Here’s the truth: There is such a thing as a free lunch. Somebody’s got to be winning those business-card-in-the-bowl lotteries at all those Thai restaurants, even if it isn’t anybody I know. But there really is no such thing as a free date—regardless of who’s footing the bill.

In prefeminist times, it was fairly clear-cut. The man was expected to pay for dates pretty much up until the wedding—it was taken for granted that the majority of the financial burden attached to wooing would be his responsibility. But as with all things progress-oriented, feminism brought with it a Pandora’s box of side effects. Most notably, the dating dilemma: Can chivalry and feminism coexist peacefully when there’s a dinner bill involved?

Recently, I’d become preoccupied with the merit of continuing to date someone in spite of the fact that my gut seemed to be telling me he didn’t have long-term potential. But while I’d been obsessing over whether or not Charlie could ever become Mr. Right, Jules had been busy weighing the pros and cons of continuing to date Mr. Tight.

Having split from her latest beau, Jules was happily surprised when her crush from work, Aaron, finally asked her out. “Everything was going great,” she told us over martinis at Bourbon & Branch. “For our second date we got a round of drinks before dinner and then ate at Salt House. And then the bill arrives, and I kinda sensed a hesitation on his part, so I jumped in and said, ‘Hey, can I help out with that?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah—absolutely!’ as if he was expecting it or something,” she said. “And sure, he paid for drinks on the first date, but we hadn’t been out for dinner before, and I thought he’d turn down my offer. Am I missing something?”

“Shame on him for taking you up on it,” Sia said. “But shame on you for offering! You knew you’d be turned off if he accepted, so you shouldn’t have spoken up in the first place. Plus, your offering sends an underlying message that you don’t think you’re worth the expense, which ends up costing you much more than half the bill, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Jules responded. “My self-worth has nothing to do with how much a guy spends on me.”

“It’s not really the amount that matters,” Sia continued. “It’s what splitting dinner symbolizes. For example, the guy can buy dinner, and if the girl pays for a cab or drinks it might almost end up costing the same, but the illusion is intact. The girl feels ‘taken care of’ and the guy feels like the man.”

“But what if Aaron really likes her and just can’t afford dinner at Salt House?” I asked.

“Then someone should have thought of that before suggesting Salt House,” Sia answered.

According to an etiquette guide I’d seen in a recent issue of GQ, the guy is now expected to pick up the tab only for the first date; after that, it’s pretty much a crapshoot. But most Venus residents I know have a serious bone to pick with that sort of Martian rationale. Many of my friends won’t even consider continuing to date a guy if he doesn’t shell out for date number two—and three and four, for that matter.

"How ironic that I had no
qualms about paying once I realized I had
no serious hopes for the relationship."

But it’s not about the money—these are the same girls who have no problem treating their friends to drinks and dinner on a regular basis and dropping a paycheck on a cute pair of boots. The way they explain it is that paying for those early dates is as a litmus test for a guy’s romantic viability. “The One” would never let the girl—his girl—pay for dinner, at least in the beginning. By paying, the guy is saying, “I recognize something in you, and I can already see that you’re worth it,” which feeds right into that romantic ideal of love at first sight. Still others interpret it as, “I’ll provide for you, baby.” And since a guy living in SF could never actually say that, and a girl would rather die than admit that’s what she wants to hear, his wallet says it for him.The tricky part, of course, is that usually guys are not in fact saying either of those things. They’re paying because they’re “supposed to.”

The language of love may be universal, but the dialect of dating is not.

That Friday, Charlie and I got dinner at Universal Cafe. He ordered us a bottle of Pinot Noir and excused himself to go the restroom. I took a peek at the wine list and registered that the bottle he had ordered was well beyond my price range—what’s more, I recognized a few other bottles on the list that we had enjoyed on other evenings whose prices surpassed tonight’s selection. I began to mentally calculate the cost of our relationship thus far. This being our seventh date, I figured Charlie must have easily dropped at least $500 on dinners alone—even though I did help out sporadically.

From Charlie’s perspective, the cost-benefit analysis must be looking favorable—he wouldn’t continue to invest if he didn’t think the returns would be plentiful down the line. And yes, his input had already yielded “output” on my end—around date four, to be precise—that had nothing to do with money. Still, I started to feel guilty about being on the fence all along while he’d been paying both of our ways, and the fact that his salary was much higher than mine did nothing to alleviate my conscience pangs. He’d gone well beyond the point of gentlemanly obligation and made himself vulnerable. I could estimate the financial cost, but his investment of time and an undisclosed amount of emotion amounted to a total that I’d never be able to repay.

Charlie returned to the table just as the wine was arriving, and we toasted to another lovely dinner. “And who knows?” he grinned winningly. “Maybe, in a few hours, breakfast?” I smiled and shyly studied the menu, realizing my nagging take-it-or-leave-it feeling about going home with him was now “leave it,” post-tabulation. My strained line of credit was the straw that broke the relationship’s back. When the bill arrived, I lunged for it instinctively. “Allow me,” I said. He began to protest, but when I insisted, he looked touched, and (heartbreakingly) even a bit hopeful.

How ironic that I had no qualms about paying once I realized I had no serious hopes for the relationship. It didn’t make sense even to me, and I knew it was probably sending Charlie the opposite message. (“This girl likes me so much she’s willing to pitch in!”) Knowing that he’d already sunk a small fortune on spec, and having decided to take my business elsewhere, maybe I simply felt he at least deserved a tip.

While Charlie may have gotten the short end of this particular stick, it was the mystery man I might eventually really care about who would inevitably get hit with the biggest tab. Because I would hope that, from his point of view, the returns I could give would amount to payback and then some.

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