[BillyJ]

Hello,

I’ve been doing the online dating thing for a while now, and I have a question for you. I’ve been fortunate enough to get a fair number of emails from women, and have met up with several of them, but I’m starting to get irritated by the way many of them seem to expect me to pay for the meal the first time we meet, particularly when in some cases, they apparently already know they aren’t interested in me.

When I first meet someone from a dating site, I don’t really think of it as a “date,” per se, but rather just a chance to talk face-to-face, and to see if we like each other enough to want to start dating. That’s why, when they suggest meeting up, I usually suggest something really casual like a coffee shop or a diner. But they’ll nix that idea and suggest some specific (and more expensive) restaurant. Then the bill comes, and they sit back, wait for me to pay it, and then afterwards MAYBE they’ll say, “Oh, um, do you need me to help with the bill at all?” (notice the wording, which makes it clear they don’t actually want to.) Others don’t even do that. I’ve gone out with some who conveniently excuse themselves to go to the restroom when the bill shows up. And then we part ways, and I come home to find an email saying, “It was nice meeting you, but I don’t think we’re a match.” Gee, thanks. She must have known that by the time the bill came, since that’s generally towards the end of the “date,” so why would she let me pay for her meal? I mean, I would feel pretty low to sit back and let somebody pay for me when I knew I didn’t even like them.

I’m at a point now where I don’t want to even bother meeting up with women from these dating sites because I’m tired of shelling out $40+ each time for what often ends up being nothing more than a one-time occasion of idle chit-chat over a meal. Like I said before, I usually suggest doing something very casual, and I usually emphasize that I’m seeing it more as a chance to find out if we WANT to date, rather than an actual date, but a lot of women (at least the ones I’ve met) apparently aren’t satisfied with that. In fairness, though, I will say that I have met some who were on the same wavelength as me, and who preferred to just go for coffee and chat, and will have their wallets out ready to pay as soon as they order their coffee (and just so you don’t think I’m total cheapskate, I’ll usually offer to pay in those cases, anyway. So I guess it’s not the money that’s the main issue for me, it’s the principle/expectation behind it.)

Anyway, I’m just curious what your thoughts are on this, and how I should handle it in the future. Thanks.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

When a man meets a woman on a dating site and invites her to have a meal or a coffee, it’s [i]a date[/i], and men are usually expected to pay — especially when they made the invitation in the first place. Making that invitation after meeting on a dating site makes it even more obvious that this meeting is a date — rather than meeting someone at a high school reunion and agreeing to catch up together over coffee, which isn’t necessarily a date. It sounds like you’re either annoyed that you’re expected to pay or annoyed that you’re paying for too many first dates that don’t go anywhere.

So if you don’t want to pay for your dates, then don’t invite women out — wait for them to invite you.

And if you’re paying for dates that don’t go anywhere, then it’s a good idea to spend some more time figuring out who these women are before you invite them to get together so you have a better yield of dates that are not just “terminal” first dates. Or, you can meet women at places where they are already in person — like the gym, the coffee shop, the market, the park, on vacation, at group events, etc. That way you’re already at an event with a woman and you don’t have to pay for her, and you can get to know her further.

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