The Cost of Going Dutch

by Gwen Cooper — October 9, 2007

I recently participated in an impromptu roundtable discussion of sorts with a group of girlfriends. The subject: who should pay on a date. Our discussion was kicked off when one of our friends, Mandy, announced matter-of-factly that she always insists on going Dutch when she’s out with a guy. From the exclamations of horror expressed by some of the women we were with, you’d think she had informed us that she routinely decapitates and devours men she’s had sex with.

"Yes, I’m a woman—but I make my own money and can afford to buy my own meals," Mandy said. "Why is that, two nights a week, I have to pretend like I need a man to take care of me?" A fair point. "Whoever makes more money should be the one who pays," another friend chimed in. "Any guy who lets you pay for your half of the meal is cheap," a third friend argued. "You can tell right off the bat he won’t treat you well if you end up in a relationship with him."

Well, maybe. Or maybe he just thinks he’s respecting your independence appropriately by splitting the check with you. I’m all in favor of looking for the early clues that indicate what kind of boyfriend a date would make, but it’s not like any of us are mind readers. If you’re constantly trying to make a date a referendum on gender politics, don’t you run the risk of getting the worst of both worlds?

Knowing that I write a dating blog, my friends finally asked my opinion on the subject. "I kind of feel like whoever suggests the date should pay for the whole thing," I said. "Or when you’ve been dating somebody long enough that it isn’t so 'official’ anymore, I think you should divide the night in half. So maybe he pays for dinner and you pay for the movie tickets and popcorn afterwards."

It’s a subject on which I’ll admit to being torn. On the one hand, the idea that women need men to "take care" of them is a pretty antiquated one. On the other hand, I know people—people who were just friends, and it was never about dating—who have gotten into fights that lasted for years over splitting up a dinner bill. Say you decide to divide the check, and one person’s meal is significantly more expensive than the other’s. Do you just split the check down the middle, or does each person only pay for what they ordered? And if you’re the one with the cheaper total, but your companion feels the bill should be divided evenly, don’t you end up feeling kind of resentful that you’re paying $30 for a dinner salad? And—most importantly—are these the kinds of issues you want to have to deal with on a date? People on dates are generally trying to make the best impression possible, but money very rarely brings out anybody’s best side.

Which is why I feel splitting up the evening, and having each person be responsible for a specific segment of the evening, might be the best way to go. Although the best part of eventually being in a long-term relationship is that, sooner or later, you lose track of who pays for what—and you’re free to focus on doing the things together that the two of you enjoy. And isn’t that what any date—first, second, or hundredth—should be about in the first place?

Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, recently published by Simon & Schuster. To read all of Gwen Cooper's posts in "The Dating Life," click here.