Writer's Block: Check, please!

[stakebait]

I strongly prefer Dutch treat.

I don't mind people offering to pay, especially if they're the one who proposed the date, but I really get uncomfy when they insist... it makes me feel indebted, which I don't like, especially when I don't even have any concrete sense of what my side of the transaction is and therefore have no idea if I'm willing to take on the obligation or when I've met it. It's nothing as crude as "put out" but it's not quite nothing, either.

It also makes me reluctant to order what I really want (if I suspect it might happen) or feel guilty for doing so (if they surprise me with it after the fact) for price reasons, which is also uncomfortable.

It also makes me reluctant to agree to any more dates if I'm not absolutely sure that I'll be romantically/sexually interested in them, since I am potentially wasting their money. (And their time, but I'm wasting my own time at the same rate.)

It also makes me worry about what this says about their gender expectations... I am not a traditionally feminine woman; a guy who insists on fulfilling the traditionally masculine role is probably going to be a bad match for me in both directions... we're going to clash when I want to do for myself/be independent, and we're going to clash again when I fail to live up to the female side of the bargain.

(If it wasn't for gendered reasons, it might feel different, but in my 22 years of dating it's never NOT been a guy explicitly saying he feels he should pay because he's the guy.)

As I get to know the person better and it feels more like a relationship I do loosen up on this a little ... there can be more "you get this one I'll get the next one" once you're sure there's going to BE a next one, and concepts like "I treat you for a special occasion" or "I'll pay more because I have more disposable income than you" start to come into play.

That's not to say I've never let a guy pay. I have... three times. Because you get to a point where you're pretty much have to arm wrestle them for it, and it's undignified. But it's not a plus in my book.


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Comments

[zortified.livejournal.com]

This is why it's so much easier to date women. ;-) (Which is to say - NOT AT ALL. But at least you can't blame the insanity on gender expectations.)

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

My lesbian friends say that gay girl dating is much, much crazier than heterosexual dating. Like 10 times as crazy. Which isn't to say that hetero dating is easy either.

The only group that I've seen that seems to make dating easy are gay dudes. They meet at a bar, they buy a couple drinks, they go to one of their places, they have sex and then decide if they want to meet again. There seems to be much, much less of the games involved in lesbian or straight dating.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

My gay male friends say the sex part is easy but the transition to actual romance, if you should want to do so, is harder.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

At least one part of the dating process is easy. With hetero dating it's all difficult.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Is it? My dating experience is mostly hetero, and I haven't encountered as many of the gendered difficulties that I've read about others finding. I wonder if this has anything to do with my only dating Geek.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I suspect it does. If nothing else geeks are prone to assuming that overt statements can and should be taken at face value.

[batyatoon]

Oh good lord, yes. WHY DOES EVERYBODY NOT DO THAT.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

+1

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Heh yeah. Of my relationships with women, who pays has been one of the few things I never had to worry about.

[bezigebij.livejournal.com]

So how have you worked that out. Was it obvious who was paying, or did you always go Dutch?

Personally I think the sex is hotter when things aren't all too egalitarian, and yet are, if you know what I mean. So, I prefer we decide who's treating whom on a said evening, though not necessarily explicitly with words. But it sets a cue and a tone for things to come.

(I should mention that I am being a tad hypothetical here, as I am and have been for 4 years in a monogamous relationship with a woman I adore, so not exactly "dating" these days.)

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

We either went Dutch or traded off who was treating.

I tend not to want to mix money with my kink... actually I think that might be a hard limit for me, though if I was with someone who felt really strongly in the other direction, I guess I would try it once, or at least talk about it..

On a said evening would be okay, if it worked out to even over time. Or if one person always treated in restaurants but the other was spending an equivalent amount on their mutual entertainment in other ways, maybe...

One of the things is that my switchiness is about 95 percent sub and my bisexuality is about 80 percent het. So it won't just naturally work out to "and yet are" in my case. If I correlated my kink with who pays, I'd end up being paid for by guys the vast majority of the time. Among other things, it hardly seems fair to the guys. Being a dom doesn't come with a subsidy.

[bezigebij.livejournal.com]

Very valid. Especially if there is question about the achievability of the "yet are", and you're are right, that does seem to be harder to achieve in a heterosexual relationship wherein the female is the sub, because of the cultural assumptions and unawareness that often go along with that. And not mixing your kink with money is generally a good policy. Though, there is something about the song and dance of being pampered and treated during one's evening out that is just nice -- but then only if you know the sums are going to add up somewhere else.

I do think the lack of cultural assumption in gay male relationships is part of what makes this all easier. Typically, the top treats and everyone is generally and unconflicted about that.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Interesting! In my limited experience of gay male dating that's not the case, but then again my closest male bottom friend is also relatively well-off.

I don't get pampered that well in any case. Not that I don't want my fundamental needs and desires met, of course. But my submission is more about offering service, and being pampered reads to me as receiving it.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

One of the things is that my switchiness is about 95 percent sub and my bisexuality is about 80 percent het.

...I'm not the only one?

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Hee! Not at all.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

As a guy on a first date I pay, because I've learned over time that there is a high risk of pissing the girl off and ruining what was otherwise a lovely date without paying. This comes from going on first dates after hearing many of my female friends saying they prefer it when people go dutch on dates, then trying to go dutch on first dates, never hearing from the woman again and then hearing through the grapevine that the girl had thought I was cute and cool but then when I didn't insist on paying decided I was "cheap." After the fourth time that happened I figured "fuck it, I'll pay even if it is a gendered thing."

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

That makes sense but it kind of sucks for you because girls like me -- if there are any other girls like me -- are quite capable of saying "I thought he was cute but he insisted on paying so I thought he was sexist" and then you never hear from *them* again. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

In theory anyway. I've never actually done that -- it's been a definite first strike, but not a dealbreaker all on its own. Of the three guys who I gave up and let pay, I ended two of the relationships after a few dates.

The third just happened last week, and I didn't know he was considering it a date *until* he paid and gave the gendered explanation. I don't know if it's ever going to be anything since he lives on the other side of the country... but since he's a full generation older than me I give him more of a pass on having traditional expectations of himself. Though I made it clear that they're his expectations only, not mine.

The people I hate are the ones who say "I offer but I expect him to insist" -- goddamn it, say what you mean and mean what you say and stop spoiling clear communication for the rest of us!

[bezigebij.livejournal.com]

I think the gender play and expectations is a lot of why a lot of people prefer that the guy pay. It makes the man feel more masculine (like a provider, capable, active, dominant etc) and the woman more feminine (desired, desirable, "worth it", pampered, passive, submissive, etc). Point is, lots of people get off on the dynamic, even if they aren't even fully aware of it. A considerable part of many, many relationships is about playing out these long set dynamics and roles with each other.

I personally only go for this when everyone is fully aware of the dynamic that is being played out, and thus we are playing it out consciously and in an exaggerated fashion which can, frankly, be hot.

Good to be aware of the dynamics that work for you and then work with them. And, also, yes!, best to be aware of what potentially is expected at the other end of the bargain.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the problem for me is, while I do get off on being submissive, and submissive to a male dominant, in a sexual context, the idea that I should be submissive *because I'm female* is not just not a turn-on, it's a dealbreaker. And the idea that he should be dominant because he's male, the same.

I know way too many female doms (including very femme ones) and male subs (including very butch ones) for that to feel plausible to me, let alone the fact that my feminism finds it distasteful. My dynamic is just my dynamic, not the essence of an entire gender. And anyone who is not clear on that distinction is a much worse match for me than they would be over any amount of money issues.

[bezigebij.livejournal.com]

Yes, very much get this. And my point was pretty much this, that as long as it's conscious it is hot.

(I personally prefer dominant butch women and often her paying the first date is part of the dynamic that I prefer in the beginning of a relationship.)

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

"As long as it is conscious it is hot" is not exactly the same thing as what I said, at least to me. Someone can be consciously playing with a dynamic and still have that dynamic be way too gender essentialist for me to be okay with participating in it, or even sometimes to be around it at all.

As to the rest, if it works for you, more power to you. It would not work for me on a first date, which is when I'm *least* sure that I want to be submissive to this person. I need to know that they are capable of respecting my limits and interacting with me as an equal before I'm willing to play with being anything else.

(I'm also not really femme or butch, though I've got aspects of both, so anyone who is invested in butch/femme as a yin/yang dynamic is almost as bad a match for me as a very traditional guy would be, though I am down with dating someone who identifies as butch or femme for themselves without wanting me to be the complimentary half.)

[bezigebij.livejournal.com]

Interesting. And also interesting for me to realize through reading this, that I like the nuance to come into the relationship later. Later in a relationship I am very switchy and I can be very butch at times, but this is a part of me that I generally only express and show my lovers later. And similarly, while I love the softness and feminine side of my girlfriend, somehow I like that this was only slowly revealed to me and is a bit of a "just for you" kind of thing. Of course, it is about that individual dynamic.

And I completely understand the distinction you are making about it being too gender essentialist. Personally, I really like to play with that. I like to play the girl and play to the gender stereotype, maybe even specifically in my romantic relationships because I don't do that in the rest of my life. And so I like the freedom to be able to do that unapologetically and without fear of that being misunderstood. And only someone who gets and shares and can play with that too would be a good match for me.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Very interesting! I never thought of the nuance entering later, but it makes all kinds of sense, even though for me it's almost entirely the other way around.

(Though in all of this I'm assuming a fairly meet-as-strangers first date. I've had plenty that skipped this step altogether because we already had a baseline established.)

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I feel like I'm giving the impression here that I hate batting my eyelashes, which is not the case at all. :) I'm happy to be "the girl."

For me the toxic part is the idea that being the sub is part of being the girl, as opposed to being two independent aspects of me, either one of which could exist just as well without the other. I'm happy to do both, but I'm not happy to have them be causally connected - and I'd have to be way more sure than I could be on a first date that the other person is on the same page as me before I'd be comfortable doing them together in a way that could be mistaken for conflating the two.

I suspect playing with a fantasy where they were causally connected would be powerful precisely because it is taboo -- but I'd have to be REALLY sure of the my partners' fundamentally not believing it for real before I ventured into that territory, and it would have to be very clearly labeled as a fantasy and not our regular dynamic. Which means we'd have to establish a regular dynamic first.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

It makes the man feel more masculine (like a provider, capable, active, dominant etc) and the woman more feminine (desired, desirable, "worth it", pampered, passive, submissive, etc).

This was definitely a part of the dynamic in my experiences with a particular dominant fellow. Of course, he also had a good bit more money at his disposal than I did. And in another aspect of what was going on, he was covering my expenses because I was providing help in his business during the same period as our fun time together (think working vacation, I was helping staff a vending booth at a very entertaining event) and it was part of my professional compensation. But a lot of it was done in the style of old-fashioned gendered expectations in a dating context and it reinforced the D/s aspect going on, and as it was done consciously it was a hell of a lot of fun. Play-acting!

On the other hand, when I was dating a decidedly genderqueer individual, we arrived at the decision that we were going with an ungendered host/guest arrangement -- whoever invited for a specific event (this was reinforced by geographical stuff, but not 100% congruent) would pay, so we could both have a chance to be the indulger and the indulged.

Just want to share..

[13masquerade.livejournal.com]

When I was going out with the man I was related to for quite a long time, we hit the bars together as a couple. I don't drink but he does. Normally our single friends and those who are couples buy drinks for me and my boyfriend. Despite not a beer drinker, I usually end up buying those that buys me drinks as well. This did not go to well with him. He keeps telling me I don't have to buy them back because he already did and I don't drink beer. But for me, I have to because they bought two drinks for us and they should be returned two as well. How hard is that to comprehend? I do not ask him the money to buy drinks for these people. In fact, the chips I accumulate I end up giving to him the following day.

Re: Just want to share..

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

It seems like you could solve this problem by telling them thanks but you don't drink beer and having them buy you something else that you actually would drink, even if it's just a Coke.

Re: Just want to share..

[13masquerade.livejournal.com]

Oh believe me, I have refused too many times to my embarrassment because it comes out like I prefer others to buy me instead of them. And dealing with these kind of situation is better when you just go with the flow..I usually end up the only sober person in the end.

They all know I only drink coke or cranberry juice with water mixed. Rarely do I indulge in a glass of wine or two at the bars. But how many glasses of coca-cola can you drink in a day? Although I don't have this kind of dilemma anymore! :)

Re: Just want to share..

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Whatever works for you... but I do not think I would find that to be better for me. If they can't deal with "I don't want that" without being offended I don't want to socialize with them at all.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

I tend to operate on the "the person who asks out/sets the date pays" theory, or the dutch treat theory. I am very uncomfortable with "I pay because I have the penis," or "I pay, and you put out."

"I am not a traditionally feminine woman; a guy who insists on fulfilling the traditionally masculine role is probably going to be a bad match for me in both directions... we're going to clash when I want to do for myself/be independent, and we're going to clash again when I fail to live up to the female side of the bargain."

This, over and over again.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Totally with you. Though I've never actually been out with someone who would subscribe to the put out theory. (thank goodness, since I find the idea that sex is a favor to them and not a mutual pleasure even creepier than the idea that dinner is a favor to me...)

I know they don't mean that, but that leaves my side of the bargain kind of flapping around in empty space. They pay and I... be grateful? Go out with them again? Give them a good review on Yelp? What? This is the closest I come to understanding the variant on fey lore that says fairies don't like you to say thank you.

I had one guy try to explain it to me that I was providing the good company. But it's insulting to him to imply that he does not provide equally good company to me... and if I thought he really did believe it was my job to entertain him while he just sat back and enjoyed it, I'd find that insulting to me.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Well, the "pleasure of your company" meme evolved when it was rare for women to have significant financial resources of their own, so there wasn't a lot of opportunity for financial reciprocity. And "I am willing to devote financial resources to have your companionship on events we will both enjoy" is a pretty solid signal of interest, in those circumstances. Now that it can be presumed that both parties have independent means, the signal doesn't come out the same way, and acquires shades of ick.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*nods* And in those days the marriage contract was one in which she was expected to cater to his wishes in exchange for his financial support. So a date in which he paid and she catered was a reasonable display-in-miniature of these skills, like an audition on both sides.

IMO any expenditure of scarce resources on either side is still a solid signal of interest. It's just that ignoring my clearly stated objection sends the meta-message "my interest is more important than your limits" and that does not even make me feel safe, let alone valued.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, attempting to override your objection is NOT ON. Offering to pay can be a nice gesture, but insisting over a stated objection? Gross.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

In the past I was not comfortable with "the person who asks" for myself, even though I was fine with it for others, because I knew that I seldom if ever asked, and partly for gendered reasons.

Not that I think women shouldn't, but knowing some men do think that was a disincentive, especially combined with feeling that it isn't a very subby act and the fact that, being a mostly het girl, I could get away with indulging my shyness and fear of rejection and still *have* dates, because the men have been socialized to ask.

However in the course of writing this I realized it's not as true as it used to be. I've asked several guys out recently.

[mneme]

I think "the guy pays because he has a penis" is a meme that deserves a quick, painless death. "The guy (or gal, or the person who asked for the date) pays and expects sex in return"...that's not a date; that's a financial transaction.

The rest of it...I've moved over time from doing everything strictly dutch (date or not, but there was a period where drcpunk and I were passing a symbolic half-penny back and forth to aid in splitting the cheque) to mixing up a split and a treat (and tending to let treat move around between trading off, "the person who can afford to pays," (of which "I'll treat because I want to eat out well tonight and I want to hang out with you, so don't worry about it" is one variation)).

Regarding power dynamics...you can actually take those either way (regarding paying, anyway; I think it's harder to sexualize ordering in a fashion other than "the dom orders"), so I see no reason to have power dynamics induce such an unfairness in a relationship I'm in. To consensually take advantage of an existing reason for one person to pay, sure (although that's a minefield, for I hope obvious reasons; similar to the distinction between "I'm hurting you because I want to" and "I'm hurting you to punish you for failing a test that you were rigged to fail").

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I'm not the only one with the half penny? My ex and I used to trade a verbal one... until I actually bought him a ($5) half cent reproduction piece at Colonial Williamsburg. :)

As to the rest of what you say, I get that, but since I am chronically the person who can afford less, I have qualms about being habitually treated in terms of what that does to our dynamics in the long term.

It's not so much power per se, in the sense of them saying "I pay so I decide," as that I never want the list of significant things I get out of a relationship to include quality of life level-ups, lest I ever end up trading off emotional/intrinsic downsides against material/extrinsic upsides in my own head. I never want to think, even for a second, of staying with someone who makes me unhappy with their words because they make me happy with their wallet.

So treats that are largely trivial and could be afforded by me if I cared enough (coffee), infrequent (birthday), or not that important to me (I'm buying you this ticket to the baseball game because I know you would never spend your own money on sports and I want your company) are all fine, but while individual instances of "I want a better dinner/vacation than is in your budget, it's on me this time" sound harmless, if that became the ongoing dynamic of one of my relationships, I would worry a bit. Because the chances of it ever going the other way are slight at best.

[mneme]

Nope! We used British pence pieces (never mind that they were worth about 2.5 cents) until drcpunk lost both of the two we had left over from the 1995 Worldcon.

Regarding affording less...it depends, really. I'm functionally supporting drcpunk these days as I'm employed and she isn't, but that's basically a matter of practicality, and we'd both prefer if she were employed. Plus, our relationship was very solid long before this became an issue. It's complicated, I think, but I think central is that the relationship dynamic was well established long before I had to decide whether to support her.

It's a little different with pocketnaomi, as I'll tend to cover one good-sized meal at some point during my visit (and, of course, cover my own transportation, hardly a minor expense). OTOH, my visits are infrequent (once or twice a year) and she'll typically make a point of taking me out for a meal at some point even if it isn't -as- nice a meal as the one I cover. I guess this counts as "infrequent," though.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*nodsnods* If I ever get to that kind of commitment, it would be different, I assume. Though I still think i'd have a much easier time supporting someone else -- emotionally at least -- than the other way around.

[rosefox]

"Tonight we're going HAM: Half on All Meals."