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

[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.