This comment was by ShirleyInOz in reference to the post – Should a Man Pay on the First Date in the 21st Century?
When I started online dating, I was pretty clear in my profile that I wanted someone on the same page, around the same age. Yet I got a lot of ‘grand-dads’ because, for some reason, online lotharios expect a 15 to 20 year discount on their age. Another story? I gave a couple of them the benefit of the doubt and went outside my five years either way rule, but it really wasn’t worth it.
When it got to the ‘date’ and I am talking coffee, sometimes lunch, very occasionally dinner, I made sure I had plenty of money with me and I generally paid half, or accepted with a gracious “Thank you” if the man really wanted to pay. And some do. Sometimes in our pre-date correspondence I expressed the expectation that we would split the bill. Given the number of dates both sexes can go on in the search for The One, it is unfair to expect a man to pay every time. I didn’t at any stage expect a man to automatically pick up the tab.
I think calling it a ‘date’ is confusing. To me, dating is the active pursuit of a one to one relationship, not just a string of meetings with virtual strangers. I finally met the ideal man, we have been together now over two years, and very happy. And he can still surprise me, like the dinner movie date he took me on recently. He booked Middle Eastern tapas, with “Finding Dory” as the movie. Yes, he gets me. He brings me flowers and occasionally, I take flowers to him. We buy each other wine or beer for a night in. There is no sense of 50-50, just mutual respect and the mutual desire to do something nice for each other.
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