Starved for Some Real Chivalry

Alarmingly, some women still swoon over men who open doors, pull out chairs, hold purses, etc. And when he foots the bill on the first date, he transforms into a fairytale knight; but I’d say his armor is gold-plated like American coins.

I hate it when a man pays on the first date. I started a pretty heated debate with one of my guy friends about the issue, but I choked up with indignation when he dropped this one liner: “The girl puts in the effort to look nice, and the guy pays.”

Um, pardon me?

If a girl deigns to dress up for a date—and I’ve gone out bare-faced and sporting rain-splattered jeans, so gents, you are not guaranteed a cute sundress—if a girl deigns to dress up, she does so because owning her natural assets makes her feel good.

She doesn’t need cute shoes to hold onto you, and she (rightfully) expects you to like her pre-coffee sweatpants self just as much. But she wants to demonstrate her interest, to show that she’s willing to sit in front of the mirror for an extra thirty minutes and tease her eyelashes into that perfect curl. It’s about the extra time and work on her part, not about the final result. And if the date goes poorly, she can turn heads when she storms out. She has the power to look drop dead gorgeous and tell you “no.”

So, don’t think you need to pay us to put on a show. That logic is poisonous: if dinner’s prime rib, do we owe you a pole dance?

And from another angle, shouldn’t the guy dress up too? Shouldn’t he bring his funniest, sweetest, pleasantest self to the dinner table, like the lady? Shouldn’t he have better merits with which to impress her than a flick of the old credit card?

Some women protest. The man asked her out, planned the date, and surprised her with an extremely fancy – and expensive – dinner. She shouldn’t have to pay.

But in the college world, most foot-in-the-water first dates are relatively inexpensive. More importantly, when a woman hands over the bill, she also forfeits her own investment in the evening. Suddenly, there is no penalty in accepting an invitation from a boy she never actually liked. In effect, he can manipulate her feelings by paying for the pleasure of her company.

Rather than holding men economically responsible for unwanted outings, a lady should consent to dates where she cares enough to pay for her share in the excursion with gusto. Better yet, she should take the initiative and ask out men she actually likes. Expecting a man to pay prolongs the constrictive male monopoly on asking.

Actually, this social norm flexes the power of the purse on multiple levels. It’s an ugly move, and one most guys make unintentionally, but the resulting dynamic muddies romance with intimidation.

In high school, a kid asked me out to lunch. I thought we’d go as friends, since we had known each other for about a year as study buddies. I liked him, but I didn’t like him, and when he suggested we grab lunch sometime, I thought he knew that.

And then he paid.

A flush rose in my face as we grabbed our food from the counter and shuffled over to a corner table. This wasn’t a friendly hangout; it was a date. Suddenly, I was underdressed, awkward, shy, uncomfortable. My shirt had a spot, my eyebrows weren’t plucked. Oh god, I wasn’t date material.

I felt inadequate; I owed something to a boy who had set a plate of steaming chicken in front of me. This compunction impelled me to look at him through a romantic lens, when previously I had considered him nice but unremarkable. Suddenly, I viewed him with greater esteem; I needed to win his approval.

I really did try to drum up feelings for him. Out of gratitude. When he asked me over our empty plates to meet up later for a movie, I decided to give him a chance. I said “yes,” because he had paid for my food. I could spare him one evening, right?

Not surprisingly, I never managed to cultivate romantic feelings for that high school boy, but his decision to pay left me feeling obligated to try. We went on two more dates before I worked up the courage to tell him that I didn’t see the relationship going anywhere. Worse, I felt guilty for breaking it off; he had paid for me and I had let him down. He had wasted time and money on me. The new awkwardness killed our friendship. If I had paid for my own lunch, I would have walked away from that table as just a friend, but at least a friend.

When the guy pays, he assumes the authority to define the situation. He, and not the lady, answers the strangling question – date or get-together? This authority, coupled with the sense of indebtedness that basic human gratitude stimulates in the girl, generates an age-old power dynamic where a woman conforms to a man’s needs and receives a wage-earner’s remuneration. Our society’s sense of recompense and repayment stifles her independence until she loses the power to say “no.”

When the guy pays, I worry that he does so not out of generosity, but out of a desire to recreate this hierarchy. In short, I stop trusting him.

This antediluvian tradition preserves heteronormative gender roles and income distribution. Once upon a time, a woman might have lacked a job and stable income, rendering her incapable of covering a dinner bill. Moreover, in a time that valued wealthy young gentleman, a young spark had to show off his affluence to preserve her interest. In fact, in the high-class society that endorsed this mentality, a man could think of the meal as a long-term investment soon to be paid back in spades when her daddy forked over the dowry.

I can understand, if not agree with, the origins of this practice, but this particular branch of so-called chivalry hardly fits with modern demographics. Currently, the unemployment rates for men have passed those for women. I’ve got my eye on a college degree and a high-powered career. You think a Gypsy’s bill will impress me? Or that an Ici cone will bankrupt me?

So ladies, stop forgetting your wallets at home when you head out on a date or fidgeting with your hair as you wait for the check.

And gentlemen – if you really want to be gentlemen – don’t look so goddamn wounded when I pay for my own dinner. Rather than buying my goodwill, respect my unconventionality and earn my respect in return. That currency is far more valuable, anyway.