No, Guys, You Don’t Have To Pay For Everything

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It’s a Friday night at around 8:30 p.m., a girl and guy are making small talk after finishing two meals and at least four drinks from a $$ Yelp rated restaurant. She’s probably part listening to him trying to be witty, part talking about how she had “aaaaaaamazing” paella in Spain when she spent a week there sophomore year, part hoping for a second to touch up her lip stain. He’s hoping she doesn’t touch up that lip stain so he can get to at least first base without coming away with a face full of Mother Pucker or whatever she’s wearing.

Then the waitress comes by, asks with a fake smile how everything was, and sets down the bill folder telling them both, but really just one of them if we’re being honest, “There’s no rush.”

Our girl takes this as an opportunity to become fascinated with her cuticles. Man, she really did a bang up job painting them while watching Vanderpump Rules. She tosses her beach waves and offers a half smile as he slides his American Express Every Day into the top and hopes that the lack of a check dance means he at least gets to slide into second.

This scenario is way too present, in my honest opinion, and really just makes me feel like apologizing for my gender. I realize that societal norms and society somewhat dictate that the one (97 percent of the time the guy) that does the asking foots the bill. But if you’re a girl and you don’t even offer because you just ASSUME, or even worse, EXPECT him to cover your half-eaten gluten free linguini and three vodka sodas with a splash of cran? You’re a brat.

I don’t care that your dad just stopped paying for your lofted 1BR with central air and an in-apartment gym. I don’t care that you haven’t gotten your promotion yet and decided to get a balayage color job for summer so your bank account is a hot $150 less happy. This guy that you matched with on Hinge is not necessarily obligated to fund you all night because you did him the favor of responding to his “Hey :)”. Just because he’s a guy doesn’t automatically make him an unlimited credit card put out for the night to take care of your drinking problem.

If you go out on a date without the ability or the plan to at least offer to pay for what you consume, you suck as a person.

So yes, gentlemen, some of us girls don’t expect you to pay for everything. We have apartments we pay for, credit cards, and savings accounts of our own. The offer to split the bill doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in getting handsy in the Uber home. It just means we don’t think that agreeing to exchange drunken baseball game stories over a meal also means you have to pay for everything. The offer is nice, but it isn’t a necessity. It means that it’s 2015, and we can handle paying for ourselves.

So, let’s go back to this date. Instead of being mesmerized by her DIY manicure, our girl instead does the check dance, ready to pay for herself like a decent human being, but loses the check dance to the guy across the table. He says, “Absolutely not” with a wink and still throws down that AmEx taking care of the dinner and first round.

Then girl, since the bill wasn’t even, the drinks at the bar after and the potential nightcap are 100 percent on her. And he defs gets to get some Mother Pucker on his face come closing time. .

Image via Shutterstock

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Kendra Syrdal

Once in college John Cusack asked Kendra to sing for him. She said no. Visit her website to ogle at her face and send hate mail // kendrasyrdal.com

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