This semester I enrolled in a class called “Anthropology and Film.” While it is still a bit early to tell what the class is going to be about, so far we have been watching anthropological films about cultures I almost know nothing about?the people of Papua New Guinea when they met Australian gold prospectors in the 1930s, Eskimos and their daily life practices and the hunter-gatherers of northwestern Botswana.
Tuesday in class we began to talk about kinship relations, how marriage works in various cultures and the rules for courtship. The professor then asked us about courtship in our own society. What are the rules?
I piped up and said something bland and obvious like, “Dating is confusing, and some women are offended if you try to pay for dinner and some guys are offended if they can’t.” Hmm. Good point.
The class discussed whose responsibility it was to pay, and responses varied from “The guy is scum if he doesn’t pay on the first date” to “The person who asked should pay.”
Class wasn’t the first time that I’ve thought about this. Pretty much anytime I am out with someone and the bill comes I think about it. What do I do? Do I reach for my wallet and pretend I want to pay? When the guy says, “No, I’ll take care of it” do I push further that it really is alright, I want to pay? Do I heave a sigh of relief that I really can’t afford to pay for it anyway? Do I get slightly pissed off if the guy accepts initially when I offer to pay?
The answer is “yes” to every one of those questions, and I’m not exactly proud of it. I would like to see myself as an Independent Woman (“House that I live in?I bought it / Clothes that I’m wearing?I bought ‘em”), but it feels pretty damn cool for someone to first ask you if you will eat with them and then for him to pay for it. I once thought a good solution would be for the percentage of the date that I paid for to be equal to the male/female wage differential. I quickly realized that this was both impractical and a little too revealing about myself for early dates with someone. It would not only give the impression that I had thought about the matter way too much, but would also ruin the “relaxed atmosphere” when I busted out the calculator.
I really don’t know why I still expect a guy to pay for my dinner. I would be completely offended if someone I went out with insisted that I wear make-up or a skirt or that I “order the lobster” (wink, wink). Case in point: This summer, for reasons that seem blatantly non-existent in hindsight, I agreed to go to lunch with a Marine officer in his early 30s. We went to a 50s-style diner, and things were going OK, except for the fact that conversation centered around flight patterns and his dog. He asked me what I was thinking about getting, and I mentioned three menu items that seemed enticing. When the waitress came, he ordered for me. Granted, he did know that what he picked had about a 33 percent chance of me ordering it. But he did it for me! The nerve! What was worse, I could tell that he thought it was really slick. Maybe it was his age, or his involvement with the military-industrial complex, but he thought that the rules were that he should order for me.
My best friend John maintains that there are more rules than just who pays. He is a big proponent of the “Three Day Rule,” which means that he asks a girl on Wednesday if she wants to go out on a Friday, Thursday for Saturday. He claims that every guy knows it and that not to follow it is disrespectful. John also doesn’t call girls back right away, partly because he doesn’t want to seem too eager, and partly because he has seen Swingers far too many times. I have also heard John say, “I don’t actually listen to the girls that I like.” I will not be taking any dating advice from John.
After dating someone for a while, it isn’t so tough. You can talk about it, feel comfortable, and the initial dating issues seem trivial. The problem is, after you get to know someone, you don’t really need the rules anymore. It’s that beginning awkward time (the time when it is disastrous if you have broccoli in your teeth or your lips are chapped and peeling and lip-skin gets stuck to your water glass) when the cultural rules are necessary.
Yes, you could say that if a first date paying mishap or an awkward conversation ruins a budding relationship then the relationship wasn’t worth having anyway. But I don’t want to take anymore chances. I feel that I have a couple of possibilities. I could give up on dating and determine if the guy is for me by learning if he likes Bottle Rocket and the musical stylings of Michael Jackson. Either that, or the next time I go out for dinner, I’ll try to engage him in pleasant, interesting conversation. When the bill comes, I’ll lock in my death stare and move his hand to his wallet like Professor X controlling one of Magneto’s minions. Hopefully, I just won’t have broccoli in my teeth.
