Consolidated Discussion - Paying for Dates

[Mme. Chaucer]

I'm still tickled by the fact that he thinks it's NORMAL for a man to spend thousands in early dates alone throughout his 'entire dating career'...

 

I know. No wonder he's so grouchy. Thank goodness he now has the Internet to awaken him to the fact that he is not required to do this anymore. Things should be looking more positive for him soon!

[zengirl]

Only one way to find out .

 

Offering your jacket when it is cold (if you are having an outdoor date) is another simple gesture that can show you care and are thoughtful.

 

Well, the jacket when cold thing I understand! Hubby definitely does that, and he will even wear a jacket to somewhere that he thinks I might be cold (like if we dress up to go to the ballet) when he knows he won't need it. However, unless it gets 'suddenly' cold or starts raining suddenly or something, there's no reason for him to offer because I bring my own if I think of it. The puddle thing doesn't make any sense to me, though.

 

Random gestures of kindness and generosity such as offering a coat or holding a chair have nothing to do with an established, pervasive social institution of paying money favoring one gender and disfavoring the other.

 

I'm not sure why you separate the two. The coat and chair thing come from chivalry and the same attitudes as paying on a date, in terms of their origins. And a woman rarely offers her jacket to a man or pulls out his chair. Is it only different because it's money? Why do people consider money so precious anyway? Those people who consider money so important should certainly not offer to spend it on anyone.

 

It's interesting that as much whining as women do here about imaginary sexual double standards and other things, double standards such as "he pays for early dates" that actually exist

 

Sexual double standards are only a problem because they rarely come from the person you actually date. I have no problem weeding people out --- I have a problem with sexual double standards and name-calling where young women and teenage girls are bullied or harassed or shamed in public. If young men were getting cheap-shamed, I'd be against that too, but that has nothing to do with paying on actual dates, which is a personal decision between two people. You're conflating too many different issues.

 

That many women expect all the benefits they received in the past with none of the responsibilities or accountability is a fact that this thread and others prove handily, and the ones who recognize that equality entails... equality will be treated equally.

 

Social and legal equality has nothing to do with any dating issue, really. Dating is a personal interaction. I'm certainly against any mandate that would hinder men legally or in the workplace because of their gender. I'm against bullying or sex-shaming in general, and I'm against shaming for men who choose to pay or not pay on dates or women who choose to accept such an offer or not, and generally against shaming in general. You say it's a problem that women will shame men into paying, but you are trying to shame men into NOT offering and women into NOT accepting from your POV, so how is that different?

[dasein]

Anyone who doesn't acknowledge that men spend thousands more on dating and relationships than women in the U.S. generally is deluded, young and inexperienced, or just lying. There are certainly exceptions, those are not statistically significant.

 

Men spend money on women, lots of money, dating and relationships are more expensive for men than women. This is a simple fact of U.S. dating and mating culture. In the past, this was balanced somewhat against dowries paid to men or men's families. That still goes on in a very limited way, but not generally. Men are still expected to pay though. There is a giant kernel of truth to all the many stand-up routines describing this indisputable U.S. social phenomenon from Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle and dozens of other comedians. It wouldn't be funny if it weren't true, and as it impacts many men's lives in "faux equality" culture today, it isn't that funny any more.

 

People are waking up though, I went through over a decade of dating the "old fashioned way," always be a gentleman, always pay, do more for women, be a mensch. Then one day, based on personal experience and that of friends, I realized that there wasn't any kind of balancing expectation of women any more on the other side. Women were free to do whatever they liked, behave however they wanted, with no accountability to traditional social standards, yet somehow, the standards that benefitted women to men's detriment had remained.

 

It's interesting that the average hypocritical woman's desire for equality stops where dangerous jobs, armed combat, paying her share starts. That's not equality, just cultural largesse and dependence, which is really all most women want, "more for me, less for you." Rationalize, rationalize away, ya'll are very good at that to the point of actually believing your own bullsh-t.

[maybealone]

I'm still tickled by the fact that he thinks it's NORMAL for a man to spend thousands in early dates alone throughout his 'entire dating career'...

 

I know, right? I always dated more than any of my friends, and all but two first dates turned into dating each other for at least a couple of months. Maybe it has something to do with having a general knowledge of what you want, and finding men who also have general knowledge of what they want.

 

I'm not sure why you separate the two. The coat and chair thing come from chivalry and the same attitudes as paying on a date, in terms of their origins. And a woman rarely offers her jacket to a man or pulls out his chair. Is it only different because it's money?

 

Judging by the contents of this thread, I would have to say yes.

[musemaj11]

I will accept as an obligation to pay for the first four dates when women accept as an obligation to put out after the fourth date.

 

If one demand is tolerable then so should the other.

[maybealone]

It's interesting that the average hypocritical woman's desire for equality stops where dangerous jobs, armed combat, paying her share starts.

 

It's also interesting that some men's desire for things to be 50-50 starts and ends with the woman contributing 50% financially.

[Els]

I know. No wonder he's so grouchy. Thank goodness he now has the Internet to awaken him to the fact that he is not required to do this anymore. Things should be looking more positive for him soon!

 

Apparently every man in the USA does. I can't refute him, seeing as I've never been there, but you guys must have some very poor men over there!

[Mme. Chaucer]

Anyone who doesn't acknowledge that men spend thousands more on dating and relationships than women in the U.S. generally is deluded, young and inexperienced, or just lying.

 

Clearly, you care. I don't.

 

Men spend money on women, lots of money, dating and relationships are more expensive for men than women.

 

I can see that you have your undies in a terrible bunch over this outrageous injustice.

 

So, DON'T SPEND ANY MONEY ON A WOMAN, EVER!

 

Isn't that simple?

 

Many people don't treasure their money as much as you evidently do, and don't mind spending it on things they want to do. Even sharing it is "normal" for some.

 

I'm not lying!

[Mme. Chaucer]

I will accept as an obligation to pay for the first four dates when women accept as an obligation to put out after the fourth date.

 

If one demand is tolerable then so should the other.

 

Sounds like a real blast!

 

I don't think there are many, if any voices "demanding" that men pay for dates. If some women want it that way, it's up to them to find willing participants.

 

Just like it's up to you to find a woman who is going to "put out" with you (or to you, or whatever) because it's her "obligation" to do so.

 

 

All I can say is it's a good thing for everybody that you and dasein are effectively not in the dating world. People can and should be spending their time with much more positive activities than having obligatory sex with people who probably hate their guts.

[Els]

 

All I can say is it's a good thing for everybody that you and dasein are effectively not in the dating world.

 

Actually, they ARE in the dating world, and that's pretty darn awesome. They keep the women who are just like themselves away from all the decent men out there, and vice versa. Everyone profits.

[Mme. Chaucer]

Actually, they ARE in the dating world, and that's pretty darn awesome.

 

 

Are you positive? I thought I read that at least one of them is imprisoned someplace.

[d'Arthez]

Even sharing it is "normal" for some.

 

I'm not lying!

You do know that the ideology of "sharing" is nothing more than feminist claptrap don't you? Silly woman.

[dasein]

Clearly, you care. I don't.

 

Your continuing to post to the thread, offering little of substance in the process other than criticisms of my posting style and attitude on the issue, says othewise. If you didn't care, you wouldn't.

[Mme. Chaucer]

Your continuing to post to the thread, offering little of substance in the process other than criticisms of my posting style and attitude on the issue, says othewise. If you didn't care, you wouldn't.

 

I care about discussing the topic. I don't care about your raging inflammation about how heinous it is for men to bear the atrocious burden of paying for a date, when it is entirely his choice whether he does so or not.

 

Talk about "first world problems."

[dasein]

Men showed deference to women partially as a matter of valuing the immense difficulties of childbirth and the necessity of hard female work at home to keep the family going. Women had to go through something equally as risky and painful as warfare as a matter of merely keeping the species or village alive. Women were obligated to work just as hard as men in keeping the family healthy and together.

 

Enter 20th century technology, which made childbirth a relative breeze, if it is even chosen at all, and made housework a much less onerous requirement of a stable family. No longer were children "our future" in a very real way. We aren't in any danger of "extincting out" either as a species or a village. Concurrently, technology and the growth of the service economy opened up work opportunities to women that couldn't be conceived of in the past due to the burdens of childbirth, dangers and physical requirements of the workplace, and the necessity of hours of rigorous housework every day, among many other factors.

 

Now all those burdens are long gone, have been for decades, all the reasons men honored women with demonstrating support and resources. Yet they many women still expect money from men as if we live in the world of 100 years ago. I don't blame the hypocritical among women for this other than for their hypocrisy, everyone likes free stuff. The women who rationalize and recoil at this issue are simply the social equivalent of children howling in a sandbox when a toy is denied them. No difference whatsoever.

 

Imagine a world where women were, as a matter of social convention, expected to pay for early dates, or were expected to prepare and host a meal for suitors. Imagine if it were the case that men, as often as not, accepted such a couple of times and then completely disappeared off the radar as a matter of privilege. Imagine a world where certain men expected women to all be SAHMs, yet felt no obligations at all to support and take care of their wives and children. Imagine a world where men were insistent on maintaining the social advantages favoring men in the past, yet refused to accept any of the male DUTIES of the past. Imagine a man expecting a docile, subservient woman at home, then running like George Costanza at the first sign of danger instead of protecting his family.

 

That thought experiment parallels the thread topic exactly. Would women say "no big deal, that's just the way it is?" Of course not. The howling and shrieking would be deafening in every form of media and public life. Placards would wave, marches held. Yet when men complain about the exact same kind of thing? "Stop whining, get over it, you aren't a real man."

 

Disgusting.

[dasein]

I don't care about your raging inflammation

 

Readers are certainly free to compare your posts to mine in this thread and decide who is "raging" and who is not.

[Mme. Chaucer]

The howling and shrieking would be deafening in every form of media and public life. Placards would wave, marches held.

 

Disgusting.

 

Oh, come now. What a tempest in a teapot. Speaking of tea, why not try a nice soothing cup of chamomile? It might calm you.

 

The howling, shrieking, hysterical hyperbole and placard-worthy rhetorical bombast is only coming from one source around here:

 

YOU!

[Mme. Chaucer]

Readers are certainly free to compare your posts to mine in this thread and decide who is "raging" and who is not.

 

I don't think they would need to "compare" in order to make that decision. I'm not raging, I have no soapbox to bellow from in this argument. I've said several times that I can't believe it's such an issue, and I'm fine with people figuring out who should pay for dates according to their own personal preferences.

 

Guys who have a religious fervor about paying for a date don't make me rage. They make me either laugh, or feel sorry for them.

[dasein]

It's also interesting that some men's desire for things to be 50-50 starts and ends with the woman contributing 50% financially.

 

The above, without detail, is a totally hollow, meaningless statement. But even if you had given examples, I'm more than happy to admit that many men expect silly, unreasonable things from women, provided you admit that the "man pays for early dates" social convention is equally archaic and silly.

[dasein]

Guys who have a religious fervor about paying for a date don't make me rage. They make me either laugh, or feel sorry for them.

 

The rancor of your posts directed at me and my posting style demonstrates otherwise. Haven't even bothered responding to several of your posts here as they stand well enough on their own without comment.

[dasein]

Oh, come now. What a tempest in a teapot. Speaking of tea, why not try a nice soothing cup of chamomile? It might calm you.

 

Not that it matters, but I drink about a quart of homebrew green tea a day and oolong with dinner. No coffee. You are clueless about anything concerning me or my life personally, including my degree of anger. You simply choose as your typical MO here to waste your own brand of florid prose in condemning my POV... laughably without any substance at all.

 

The howling, shrieking, hysterical hyperbole and placard-worthy rhetorical bombast is only coming from one source around here:

YOU!

 

That's genuinely a funny thing to say to any reasonable man in current U.S femculture. The only real raging here and elsewhere is coming from the sandbox, "It's mine. MINE! MINE! just because! Gimme gimme gimme!" Listening to women defending archaic, favorable, UNEQUAL treatment today reminds me of that good old Lee J. Cobb gimmegimmegimme shakedown scene from "On the Waterfront." That's what men and reasonable women are beginning to hear from many areas of "women's issues" today. The backlash is coming, and it will be undesirable socially. Hopefully, as more and more wake up, we can avoid such backlash.

[zengirl]

The only real raging here and elsewhere is coming from the sandbox, "It's mine. MINE! MINE! just because! Gimme gimme gimme!"

 

The fact that people calmly and reasonably state their perspectives and opinions and you hear them like this has very little to do with what anyone else has said on the matter. No one has said this at all, really.

 

Imagine a world where women were, as a matter of social convention, expected to pay for early dates, or were expected to prepare and host a meal for suitors. Imagine if it were the case that men, as often as not, accepted such a couple of times and then completely disappeared off the radar as a matter of privilege. Imagine a world where certain men expected women to all be SAHMs, yet felt no obligations at all to support and take care of their wives and children. Imagine a world where men were insistent on maintaining the social advantages favoring men in the past, yet refused to accept any of the male DUTIES of the past. Imagine a man expecting a docile, subservient woman at home, then running like George Costanza at the first sign of danger instead of protecting his family.

 

Imagine a world where each individual man could choose whether or not he wanted to offer to pay on early dates and each individual woman could choose to accept graciously or decline, and it wasn't all some grand game or scheme or even any kind of complication. THAT is the world I, and many others, live in. For you, it's all about some social agenda, which is ironic because you accuse everyone else of having a social agenda.

 

At any rate, I've never understood this "traditional" or "not traditional" thing. Equality and feminism were about CHOICES for women, and for men, in their personal lives and the social/legal equality to make that possible. All men should have the choice to pay or not pay, to work or be SAHDs, to marry someone who earns more or less than them, to ask women out or wait to be asked out, etc, etc, and they all do. Whether or not it'll pan out is a different matter, as it is for women. But I don't have some kind of identity crisis that relies on me selecting some "Traditional" or "Modern" box. I can just be who I am, and everyone else can to.

[Els]

Interestingly, out of everyone I have ever interacted with, both online and offline, the person who comes closest to the stereotypical image of an extreme radical 'feminist' is... dasein. Except with the genders flipped.

[dasein]

The fact that people calmly and reasonably state their perspectives and opinions and you hear them like this has very little to do with what anyone else has said on the matter. No one has said this at all, really.

 

If kids in the sandbox could endlessly rationalize not having a free toy taken away in terms of basic generosity and other mealy mouthed, indirect excuses when they have no rational grounds for keeping the toy, I'm sure they would. The result is all the same though.

 

Imagine a world where each individual man could choose whether or not he wanted to offer to pay on early dates and each individual woman could choose to accept graciously or decline, and it wasn't all some grand game or scheme or even any kind of complication. THAT is the world I, and many others, live in. For you, it's all about some social agenda, which is ironic because you accuse everyone else of having a social agenda.

 

Ignores the social standard that by and large, men ARE expected to pay for early dates, and in so doing, assume 100% of the risk of early dates in a world that you and I both live in where women maintain it is their privilege to simply ignore or fade on a guy who has paid for the dates. If he refuses to comply with the standard, he will be slandered more likely than not in his dating pool. That's the world you and I both live in.

 

Of course you refuse to address the crystal clear point that women expect to shirk duties of the past while maintaining advantages of the past, and if men attempted this, the howling would never end. It would not be rationalized, but rather exaggerated as some hideous systemic misogynistic oppression. If men complain though, about discriminatory treatment, it's "no big deal" or is met with mountains of puerile, transparent rationalizations.

[dasein]

Interestingly, out of everyone I have ever interacted with, both online and offline, the person who comes closest to the stereotypical image of an extreme radical 'feminist' is... dasein. Except with the genders flipped.

 

Interestingly, out of everyone I have ever interacted with, both online and offline, I don't rate you as being particularly notable in any category.