“Next time you want to start a verbal bonfire, ask a group of men and women who they think should pay on a date.”
This is how Jeanne Sahadi, CNN/Money senior staff writer, began a column in 2003 about the great bill debate. She outlined several guidelines aimed at solving this timeless problem, many of which still apply in 2010. For example:
You pursue, you pay. The person who initiates the date should pay. If one person has been doing the paying on the early dates and you continue seeing each other, then you should start alternating who pays when you go out.
But we all know that times have changed with the recession. Fellow CatholicMatch blogger Paul Jarzembowski recently wrote about how young adults should be cautious about news that our country’s recession has technically ended.
Jeanne Sahadi wrote her guidelines for paying on dates more than seven years ago, so I would like to know what your guidelines are for today’s dater. If I’m sitting at a restaurant on a first date with a check in between my date and me, what’s the protocol? If he doesn’t offer, should I think less of him? Does it even matter? What unwritten rules do you follow?
