Who pays on dates

Here is an interesting MSNBC article on date etiquette and paying.

Nearly 74,000 people took this year’s Elle/msnbc.com online survey over three weeks. The respondents were 40 percent female and 60 percent male. The survey sample was large and diverse, but it is not considered nationally representative because it was mainly restricted to msnbc.com readers.

Our Money, Sex and Love survey illustrates that the question of who pays has gotten complicated.

• Almost two-thirds of men, especially younger ones, said they want women to chip in after a few dates.
• Forty-four percent of women are bothered if a man expects them to help pay.
• Fifty-seven percent of women, especially younger ones, always offer to pay (even on the first date), but 34 percent of them are bothered if a man accepts — and 46 percent are bothered if he refuses.

“There are many more pitfalls for males than females,” said Janet Lever, a sociologist at California State University in Los Angeles who helped write and interpret the study.

That’s because some gals who make the modern effort just do it to be polite.

My 2 cents are, unless an arrangement is agreed to before hand, the person who initiates the date and makes the plans would primarily be the payer. If the other person offers to split or cover part of the cost, I usually won't argue. I take her at her word that she is making a sincere offer. To refuse her request could come off as being too controlling.

Either way, as the survey shows, it is a lose/lose situation for guys as the survey find 34% of women get offended if the guy accepts the women's offer to pay and 46% percent get offended if the guy doesn't take them up on her offer. I don't understand why some women get offended when the guy accepts their offer to pay. If the woman is not sincere in her offer to pay, then just say "Thank you" when he pays. It is not polite to offer if you don't mean it.

And what's up with the 44% of women bothered if a man expects them to help pay? Quite a number of women make as much or more as men, and what about equality between the sexes?

“Some women are really feminist in all parts of life — and then revert to the '50s kind of would-be housewife model,” McGuire said.

Plenty of women these days make more than the men they date. Who earns more is starting to matter. A fair amount, a third, of gals believe they should pay more of the dating expenses if they earn more than a guy. But it remains a double standard, since more women, about half, believe a man should pay more if he makes more.

“It’s a totally different world, and it’s an expensive world,” Lever, the sociologist, said. “You can’t go around being a little princess on the pedestal.”