Should You Go Dutch on a First Date?

A client of mine recently went on a first date with a guy, let’s call them Anna and Ed. Ed pursued Anna and asked her out. He invited her on a date for 7pm at a restaurant on a Thursday night. The choice of restaurant, an expensive place in one of the nicer neighborhoods of their town, was his. Anna assumed it was a dinner date, as it was occurring at dinner time. About a half hour before the date, she got a funny feeling and texted Ed: “I assumed this was a dinner date. Is this a dinner date?” He texted back: “No, cocktails.” Anna had just gotten home from work and was hungry. She didn’t have the money to pay for the restaurant he had chosen and panicked. She texted back, “I have to eat, I haven’t eaten yet. I’ll make something quickly here at home and meet you out. I’ll be a little late.” To which Ed responded, “I’d rather just meet at 7pm, don’t worry — let’s feed you.”

It got even more complex after Anna arrived. When she sat down, Ed brought up the fact that he was going to pay for her dinner. He explained that he had just left his job and was starting to work as an entrepreneur and felt anxious about his 401k. Anna explained that it was 7pm on a Thursday and she would have been perfectly happy to meet him for a coffee Saturday afternoon. At that point, annoyed, she ordered the steak. Ed ordered nothing, made jokes about his finances, and watched her eat.

After dinner, he offered her a ride home. In his Maserati.

Consider this. Women pay more for our haircuts, our clothes, and our shoes. We make a third less money than men in the workplace, and in some workplaces — like entrepreneurship — we make just 25 cents on the male dollar. On the flip side, men who are married earn double the income of men who are not married… which means that our very presence as wives and mothers supports men to earn more.

Our labor, as women, to be beautiful, feminine, take care of the home, take care of children, and help our husbands earn more at work — does not get financially calculated into the dating process.

My point is that splitting a bill down the middle on a first date ultimately means that the woman on the date is paying more as her dollars are worth less than his dollars.

Who should pay for what on the first date is one of the most frequent questions I get and it’s fraught. Men are often triggered because they think the women are just after their money. Which is understandable, but also, guys, you gotta have some compassion. A starving dog will eventually try to get in your face. That’s all so-called gold-diggers are, fyi, all you rappers making nasty songs about them. They are rabid, starving dogs, starved by a society that treats women like we are a disgusting poison that it wants to eradicate from the planet. (Too much? Read the child porn statistics and tell me this country doesn’t hate women.)

On the flip side, those few women who have broken through into equal pay have betrayed the rest of us too, and that’s cut that hurts even worse than societal starvation because it comes from our own kind. It’s like, nowadays, if you don’t make your own money as a woman or go Dutch or hold your own door— then you are a weak, pathetic throwback to the 50s and not a progressive, independent, cool woman. An extreme example of this is how much vitriol people hurl at the sugar baby/ sugar daddy movement as sick and unhealthy. But is the sugar daddy thing really immoral? From where I sit it seems cleaner, more boundaried and more honest than Tinder dating which, let’s face it, is basically a free escort service.

As much as we want to be in denial and consider ourselves liberated, the truth is we aren’t. I don’t care that we voted AOC in, I don’t care that all of 30 women are now CEOs— en masse we are not getting anywhere with this equality thing and I for one am sick of pretending like it’s somehow different today than the 1870s. Girl, listen, you do not make as much as he does, ever. When any man pays for any woman for anything at all ever, from an ice cream cone to her Louboutins to a lifesaving surgery, it’s called reparations and it’s also called the redistribution of wealth.

I believe that our lives and actions must correspond to reality. And reality is that women, as the financially and legally oppressed class today — not just yesterday — today, have always needed to have sponsors, protectors and patrons … “allies” we call them now. If you have a good man and he gets it, allow your man to have your back as your ally and redistribute some wealth your way.

Now, I can hear some of you saying, but Sara what about my self-worth? A woman’s self-worth is not tied to a man’s paying — or not paying — for a meal on a date. Your self-worth is simply your self- worth. So stop saying things like “I’m worth it,” because that makes it seem like the amount of money that comes your way is the amount of self esteem you have. Gross, stop that. It’s not about your “worth” it’s about your man being a feminist of sorts. And let’s be real, if your man really does keep an eye on reparations then he is being a feminist in a way that’s way better than going on a women’s march.

I just happen to be a fan of feminism that changes finance and law because that’s what power is. I’m not a fan of superficial and cosmetic demonstrations of equality that don’t make structural change that is permanent and lasting. It’s like I used to tell my editor when I used to publish things. They would criticize my use of the male pronoun to refer to people in general and tell me I wasn’t radical enough (hi, have you met me? Not radical enough?) and I would write back and suggest they pay me as much as the male authors and give my pregnant sisters some real maternity leave and then I would use all the female pronouns they wanted me to in their esteemed journal read by all of ten people. (Just kidding. I didn’t write that in an email to my editors. I thought it though.)

Now, don’t go crazy with his Amex. Respect his money. Discuss it. Be open about it. Ask him how he wants you to contribute to your shared lovers’ economy, maybe by paying for a few things or by using your earnings to get out of debt — but don’t go Dutch on a first date. Or at least not without calculating how much you have already spent on that meal in lost wages due to your gender and getting clarity on how much your part of the bill is IRL.