This week, Single-in-the-City Swamis Joan Allen and Dan Collins tackle a question that might have stumped Socrates if he hadn?t had that hemlock highball: Who pays on the first date?
DAN: I was raised by Depression-era parents, so I don?t mind picking up the tab on the first date … though I admit I have female friends who wonder why I should always get stuck with the bill.
JOAN: In spite of growing up during the Women?s Liberation Movement, I tell my male matchmaking clients that they take their date to Starbucks for the first meeting, and that they pay for the lady?s latte. If he doesn?t offer, he shouldn?t be dating.
DAN: What if they don?t drink coffee? I find this “meeting for a drink” business to be awkward because I?m the poster boy for the local Temperance movement, so that eliminates the bar scene, and I don?t drink coffee either. If you go to a restaurant, you?re going to get a good meal out of it, and if the woman in question ought to be ringing the bells at Notre Dame, you know you?re done by dessert. And if I have to pay for the privilege, I can live with it.
JOAN: You?re just being ornery, darling; I?ve seen you drink coffee drinks. The point isthat if a man offers to take a blind date out for dinner, then he should pay the bill. I recommend a short first meeting for an inexpensive drink so the man?s not out a lot of money, and if either party wants to leave, there are no pregnant pauses or furtive glances at your watch. My advice, wait to ask the lady out for dinner after you?ve met her and you hit it off. And if the man asks the lady where she would like to have dinner, the lady should be respectful and not suggest a five star restaurant.
DAN: First, frappacinos don?t count. Second, I can relate! I let one lady talk me into going to an eatery she described as a “funky-little-hole-in-the-wall place” so I went expecting something akin to Bennigan?s and ended up with a bill more than $100 [and we didn?t even have drinks], which I paid. To add insult to injury, by the time I got home, I was hit with the flu and never heard from her again.
JOAN: Exactly, that proves my point!
DAN: There?s a point here somewhere? Should it be whomever makes the date has to pay?
JOAN: I?m from the old-fashioned school where the guy pays for the first three or four dates and then the woman reciprocates in some way.
DAN: Um, can you be a little more specific?
JOAN: I mean that the woman would pick up tickets to a ball game, perhaps make him a meal, something like THAT, Dan.
Have a dating question? E-mail Dan and Joan your questions at [email protected].
Dan Collins is a terminally single 40-something writer and local PR maven. Joan Allen is a noted matchmaker extraordinaire, author of “Celebrating Single” and “Getting Love Right: From Stalemate to Soulmate.”
