From a Guy’s Perspective: Paying on Dates
As I start this article out I’m thinking that this may be a record setting short one. It’s not really debatable, but I’ve gotten asked about it (by more than a few girls) so I figure that it’s time to answer. Truthfully there are a few different ways that guys can go about this, and it means a few things, but overall there’s only one real way they should be approaching it.
Here are the three overarching ways a guy can handle paying on dates:
1. The guy pays for every date: This is a good guy, a great guy, maybe just a rich guy but if you don’t know that for a fact take him as a very considerate guy. However, this might make some girls uncomfortable and either way it should probably be stopped by the time a relationship becomes committed. If a guy pays and pays and pays, then maybe he starts to feel like he really needs to every time, maybe you as the girl start to expect it every single time and take it as a particular offense when the guy suddenly doesn’t pay once.
2. The guy never pays: This is tricky, but it’s lame. A guy should pay for the first date. Period. Yeah, I just added a “Period” after the literal dot that was a “period” and another literal “period” after that because its that important of a point to emphasize. Yes, we want you to offer to pay, that way we feel so much better when we insist that your insisting is useless and say, “No way, I’ve got this.” Don’t over insist about it, eventually you have to “give up” and let us win, (but back to this guy who never pays…). So what are you supposed to think of this guy? What isn’t natural to think? You probably think that this guy doesn’t like you when he asks for two checks or that he has no money or that he’s no good and rude and whatever. Maybe. It’s entirely possible that one of these thoughts would cross your mind even subconsciously, and because of that a guy really should pay for the first date. The thing is that maybe he’s none of these things. Maybe it just did not occur to him that not paying would make a difference (though that kind of does make him inconsiderate… but ignore that), and if the date did go really well and both of you want to go out again, there’s no way that you should let him not paying get in the way of that.
3. The guy who does it the right way: This is somebody who pays for the first few dates, somebody who pays for the first few dates (after insisting that your insisting is useless), but will eventually let a girl pay sometimes after they start dating. Sometimes they’ll even let a girl treat for a whole night if she feels like it.
What people need to remember is that gender roles aren’t what they used to be; a guy isn’t paying for every meal just like a guy (sadly) isn’t getting a dowry for marrying a woman anymore. Things have changed and there is no longer a defined set of rules on how to act anymore. The Bro Code has yet to replace Franklin and Washington’s codes of etiquette. Every guy is going to have a different attitude going into it and if this is the most important make-or-break issue when it comes to guys, your priorities are wrong.
Yes, a guy should pay for the first date, but if he doesn’t its not the end of the world. When a guy changes from a guy you’re going out with to your boyfriend is the time when you decide between yourselves.