Not that we aren’t all well aware of the dating world’s sheer awfulness by now, but we have a reminder that poorly communicated expectations and unrealistic role models are basically ruining singles’ lives. So, good luck out there all you brave folks who dare to date!
It wasn’t that long ago that a man would automatically be expected to pick up the full tab on a date. And in some areas, that’s still the expectation. In others, it’s rude for men to insist on paying. That’s where this situation got a bit messed up.
As user CuteBananaMuffin shared on Reddit, a first date did not go as well as he thought it did, and he found that out the hard way
He seems to have thought it would be fine to let his date pay for her share of the meal, but her texts to him definitely show that she felt otherwise.
She clearly expected him to pay for the whole deal, even though her share was vastly more expensive than his
For the record, the 110 euros he claims her food and wine came to translates to about $126 U.S. at present.
It’s easy to see where someone might think she was trying to take advantage of him, and the fact that she’s content calling him rude for not paying so much is a telling sign that there might be some trouble with entitlement down the road.
Another red flag for this dinner date — apparently she spent much of the night talking about another guy
And yet he stayed. As he explained in the thread, at the time the bill for dinner arrived, “She was shocked” that he let her pay for her own dinner: “She didn’t say anything at the time, but from her facial expression I realized she was furious.”
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The reactions generally came down on his side, as you might imagine. “That’s why she invited you out so she could get expensive food and wasn’t expecting to pay,” wrote adam_k_for_honor.
Folks figured he pretty much dodged a bullet
Many agreed it was the right decision when he let her pay for her lobster dinner and didn’t let her push him around
“Anyone that expects that royalty treatment is not someone you want in your life. Good move,” wrote classyharvey.
Some people speculated on ways this kind of behavior might creep its way into other parts of daily life
Dark-Castle agreed, saying “Shes [sic] the kind of person who refuses to get a job, stays at home watching netflix all day, and gets pissed when you come home from your 10hr shift and forget to pick her up some takeout and clean the dishes for her.”
And there were others who were able to see the bright side of it all, that people like her tend to be quite rare
“Eh whatcha gonna do about it? Some women give women a bad name, some men give men a bad name. Luckily we are intelligent enough to understand that they are a small minority of the people,” wrote rolgordijn.
“For example, when is the last time you ever met someone like this? For me I don’t even remember how long ago it was. All is still well, have a great day!”
One person suggested that there is an unwritten rule about dating
It is that whoever does the inviting does the paying. “Doesn’t matter if it’s a man or woman or whoever,” wrote DrJohnnySarcasm. “If I invite you, I pay. Isn’t this like common sense?”
However, not everyone agreed, with some suggesting that was more of a regional thing. “I live in Sweden, and here you basically always pay for your own stuff,” shared rollingForInitiative. “That’s the default. Someone can offer to pay for the other person, but it’s not expected.”
Well, maybe not in Sweden, but perhaps in Spain
LaOptimista said they found a difference after moving to Spain. “It wasn’t until I moved to Spain that I realized this was a thing and actually I had to be careful if I invited someone to go for a meal or something. One of the meanings of ‘invitar’ in Spanish actually is ‘to pay someone else’s consumption.’ So I have started to invite people without using the actual word.”
But at least one woman chimed in to say that she never expected guys to pay for her meals on dates
“I’m a girl and I always go into the mindset tht [sic] I pay for my drinks/food with anyone,” wrote princessarielmama. “Guy or girl and if they offer to pay I’ll let them but offer to pay theirs next time we go out. Even when I was single I never assumed a guy would pay for me dating or not.”
So that’s refreshing!
