Should men always pay on first dates?

Dear “It” Girl,

Flipping through this month’s issue of Cosmopolitan, I chuckled as I came across the comments of E’s Chelsea Lately on dating. “Men who want to split the bill on the first date do not deserve penetration,” she says! (And you wonder if she is she implying that if they buy you dinner they do!?!)

As an “It” girl, you know that dinner is not the currency for prostitution. You are smart enough to decide who you’d like to engage in sexual activity with and when you feel comfortable doing so. You judge your men on a case by case basis, and ideally, you never judge a book by its’ cover.

Should the-who- pays- on- a- first -date issue be a question today in these economic hard times? Does it matter if you are a proud feminist? Is the man not a gentleman or remotely dateworthy if he doesn’t foot the bill? What about if you make more money than your date? For you to decide, my dears. Here is what I know to be true:

Proper etiquette: Whoever asks, pays. Men mostly ask, men mostly pay.

As a woman, you do not owe a paying man anything. He is paying for the potential pleasure of your company.

Generally, a good man likes a challenge and wants to feel he has won over his woman. While some say offering to pay on a first date is a nice gesture, it may send him the unconscious message that you are making it too easy for him.

Letting him pay can communicate your self-confidence. It shows that you know you are worth the expense.

One of those most important things to consider is this:

If you don’t expect him to woo you in the beginning, you shouldn’t expect him to woo you later on after he’s already “got” you, your feelings, your loyalty. If splitting the bill was fine for the first eight months, he will have a hard time being convinced why he should start paying for everything. Many people believe the man should cover all expenses in the beginning of the courtship, and the woman should start contributing later on. If you want to do this (or have a gold digger streak and just want him to keep paying), you must do what my Grandma LuLu would say: “Train him right from the beginning”.

Love, Rachel Russo, MS, MFT