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"Yay" for enforcing traditional gender roles by essentially making the guys pay for the drinks. There's nothing awkward or difficult about "who pays for the dr

• sp332 13y ago
  Whoever is setting up the date, pays for (some of) the drinks. That seems like pretty normal "let me take you out for a drink" behavior, no?
  • scarmig 13y ago
    Rapidly obsolescent behavior. Maybe one drink. If you're the one asking her out. Maybe. But in modern sexual relationships, both people are choosing to go out because they both hope to have a good time. Bribery shouldn't be part of that. The population of women who are neither high upkeep nor feeling entitled by outdated social norms is rapidly increasing, and you might as well go for those, since they're likely better catches in plenty of other ways. Obviously not all women who are high upkeep or entitled are bad choices, per se. Plenty of good ones are there, in fact! But if you're hunting for fish in the sea, every second spent on a group of fish that's below average in quality is a second not spent on a group of fish that's above average in quality. Edited to add: actually, you're right, there's some hypocrisy in being willing to pay even for a single drink. I retract that lack of follow-through.
    • sp332 13y ago
      Oh, so it's not so much that buying someone a drink is a bad idea, but that it's the only way you can ask them out on this site?
  • nawitus 13y ago
    It's called indirect discrimination. Just because the social concention of "whoever first suggests the date should pay for it" might seem gender-neutral, in practise that leads to men paying for the vast majority of dates since men are the ones who are making most of the propositions. As it's extremely difficult to fix the gender balance of date propositions but a lot easier to fix the paying model of dates, I suggest that everyone should adopt the social convention of "everyone should pay for their own drinks/meals at dates". In fact, here in Finland the norm pretty much is that the bill is split, even though men still make most of the date propositions. The latter gender inbalance is a lot harder problem to fix.
    • EvanKelly 13y ago
      I would tweak your model just a little bit. I think splitting the bill is a nice default, but if someone wants to pay for the dinner than they should be allowed to without violating social convention. If I suggest dinner with a friend, when I know they would probably not be going out for a meal, I'll almost always pay for both of us. if it's more of a mutual, "yeah lets try that new Greek place" type deal, we'll usually split. The same applies if I approach someone and offer to take them out. It was my idea, I'll take care of the financial responsibility, especially since I chose the venue (which could be dramatically more/less expensive than the other party would want to pay). I think online dating might be a good model for splitting the bill because both parties are entering the situation ostensibly looking to go out for something. Additionally, when I pay for dinner, most people graciously accept and then suggest that they'll buy the first round of drinks or ice cream or whatever we might end up doing afterwards.
• jmtame 13y ago
  If it bothers you, you can ask the matchmaker that you don't need to have drinks paid for and we'll credit it back to your account. We have no hidden agenda here. All that we care about is that our members enjoy the experience, and we see dealing with paying for the drinks as an unnecessary extra step.
  • rdl 13y ago
    Being able to just walk away/disappear is worth more than the cost of paying for the drinks. Bundling the first round of drinks to make that easier seems like a great idea.