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Pay for Your Own Coffee

I have friends currently in the dating stage of life, which is fascinating to hear about secondhand, and, being me, the money part catches my attention most.

Nearly every friend I have insists it’s the guy’s job to pay for dinner and drinks. One recently tried to pick up the check anyway and got a “come on, let me be a man” in response; he took it back before she could finish the gesture. Another friend of a friend apparently uses dating to fund her nights out; when money’s tight, she finds someone online willing to take her to dinner. It always works.

I asked around: is there ever a real conversation about the bill? Mostly no. A woman might make a token gesture toward paying, mostly for politeness, but that’s usually where it ends.

What strikes me is that these are all women in their forties, all at least as financially secure as the men they’re dating. This isn’t about need.

So what does this actually do?

One friend went on two dates with someone who paid both times. After the second, she decided they weren’t a match and spent two full days agonizing over how to tell him, instead of sending the simple, honest note she eventually did. She told me it would’ve been so much easier to end it if she hadn’t felt like she owed him something for the forty dollars he’d spent.

A more serious version of this happened to another friend some years back. A guy took her to a fancy dinner, and when the night didn’t end the way he expected, he made his displeasure clear and never contacted her again. She was, fortunately, someone who didn’t let that kind of thing shake her, and her read on it was good riddance. Not everyone comes out of a situation like that as unbothered.

My honest take: men get a lot of leverage for the price of a fairly cheap dinner. Some women consciously use that dynamic to their advantage, which is fair enough, but it still reinforces a pattern that doesn’t really serve anyone in the long run.

This dating-and-paying pattern sets a template, and if the relationship continues, that template often carries forward. Being financially taken care of by someone else shifts the whole balance of power in a relationship. I see a version of this with my own kids: I pay, and I make the decisions.

Do women need to be taken care of? What people actually need in a relationship is to be loved and respected, and assuming upfront that someone can’t take care of herself financially isn’t really either of those things.

I’ve met several widows through my volunteer work preparing taxes for seniors. Almost without exception, they were never the ones making the financial decisions in their households. Learning to manage money for the first time as a senior after losing a spouse is genuinely hard.

The pattern starts small, right at the beginning. Going on a coffee date? Pay for your own coffee.

Renée

Renée

My days these days are mostly advocacy, with my kids always first, and hiking, biking, and cold plunging worked in whenever I can. Winter cold plunges aren’t for everyone, but there’s a strange kind of beauty and calm in it that I’ve come to need.

Separation was a journey. It took time, and it taught me most of what I know now.

I write about what I learned along the way, and about the family justice system I ended up spending years inside of.