The “whoever asks, pays” logic is flawed because most women do not initiate courtship. If you accept a date, then you are clearly interested in me. Why should I hold the financial burden just because I was the only one with the guts to ask you out? I’m not going on a date to pay for your meal. I’m going on a date to see if we have anything in common.

I cannot believe it’s 2011 and women still expect chivalry. Seriously? How is that equal? If you expect chivalry then I expect you to be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen making me dinner. I combat sexist beliefs with sexist beliefs. It’s not 1950. If you want chivalry, then please be willing to put on a dress, heels and stay in the house all day.

Chivalry has no place in modern America.

Today, more women get college degrees than men. Pretty soon, the average woman will make more money than the average man, (hoping and assuming that gender wage discrimination fades away). When the woman obviously makes more money, shouldn’t she feel obligated to pay more often?

Now if only women wouldn’t hide behind traditionalism when it comes to asking men out. It is such a cop out to always wait for the guy. They’re just as afraid of rejection as men, but have the excuse of, “the way it’s supposed to be,” to wait to be approached instead of making the first move.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the fact that somebody else is doing something for you that you could do for yourself. That’s the whole point. Sure you could buy yourself dinner, or buy yourself a massage or pick yourself flowers and that’s great – but that doesn’t mean we should refuse to let the men in ourlives show us that they care in those ways out of some sense of feminist duty. Conversely, when you do those things for your boyfriend you are treating HIM.

The reason we feel weird about it is that men used to primarily use monetary elements (dinner/flowers/presents/shows) to show attention to ladies, and women could pretty much only reciprocate sexually. But now that financially we’re all more on the same footing, there’s no need to shun ANY favors from your man unless they’re just not your taste. And you can reciprocate any way you like.

The way I see it, first dates cost girls as much as dinner to look like the dinner companion he expects. If it goes beyond the first date, we can split the cost of the pizza and video rental.

In practice the man I married paid for the first few dates. But later in our relationship we’d split the bill. Sometimes I’d even pay, since I had a job and he was in medical school. But the first few dates there was no question who was paying – neither of us would have it any other way.

Now that we’re married, my husband usually pays and occasionally I make a big show of treating him. But it’s all technically irrelevant because it comes out of a joint account!

First dates are different to me, though. When I was dating I hated when the dude I was with insisted on paying on the first date. To me it was a litmus test: if he insisted on paying in spite of my repeated offers to split the bill, it came off as pushy, rigid, and like his idea of how the date was supposed to go was more important than my discomfort.

Marriage is about specialization, and dating’s purpose (in the end) is about marriage. Men specialize outside of the home as it were, and women specialize inside. Does it mean that men can’t raise children, or women can’t make money? No. I would offer however that it is more efficient for the system for women to focus on child bearing (for which they have no option to hand off to a guy) and men on bread winning (which they can hand off to a girl).

We can use paying or not paying of things to determine the ethics of an individual, but it doesn’t change the biological imperative. You can also argue that when dating you are not part of a system, but if you live your dating life that way, would it really change once you became a system?