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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]He should pay but she should also be suggesting free or low cost things to do and places to eat. She should always be appreciative no matter the cost. If she’s constantly wanting a lobster dinner and gets mad if he suggests ramen noodles then she’s a moocher and he needs to drop her. [/quote]

What no!

He should not pay all the time.

GF can contribute.

This is absurd.[/quote]

She can contribute by buying groceries and cooking him dinner several nights a week. [/quote]

In the 1960s. And not at all in a college dorm.

Assuming OP’s scenario— etiquette wise,

I would tell my daughter to pull out her credit card and be prepared to split on a first date. And then going forward.   Or if the boy offered to buy dinner, to pay for the movie or whatever.  And by the second date to say “I’m not comfortable having you pay each time.  How about we split (or take turns, or whatever).”  But DD has some spending money, can earn more and will come out of college without debt. She can afford her half of reasonable entertainment.

I would tell my son to strongly consider whether a girl who assumes he will always pay for the whole date after the first couple and never offers  is worth worth a 4th date.

But beyond the who pays for what, my big message would be that you must learn to communicate about money  to have a successful relationship. How they divvy things up once it gets to the regular dating phase should entail a discussion and take into account the finances and preferences of both parties.

I started dating DH when he was working in tech and I was a law student and I tried to pay for the second date (mid to late 1990s) and his response was— I know your finances are tight. And I can afford this. Please let me pay while you are in law school.  After you graduate, we can reassess. Who knows, maybe you’ll be working at a big firm and rich enough then to keep me in the style to which I’d like to be accustomed. But I hope not, because you’d be working so much I’d never see you (which a grin, so I knew he was kidding, sort of). Until then, I’m not comfortable with a student paying when I have a good job. I would enjoy our dates a lot less, knowing they put you in a tough place financially. And they would have.  I was basically living at the poverty level at that point. To me, that was a great answer.  He saw me as a person who valued independence, he took my concerns seriously, he took a lot of pressure off me, and made it easy for me to accept him paying without it feeling demeaning or like I owed him something, and he saw a future for me where we were equals— or I could out earn him.  That one conversation told me a lot about him and how he viewed me and would treat me going forward. We got married a week after I took the Bar (became a Fed, have never out-earned him, but the wage gap right now is pretty small, and becomes non-existent or tilted in my favor with the pension and health insurance).  25 years this summer. Never once had a serious regret.

It’s an important discussion to have.  If for no other reason than because a marriage where you can’t communicate/ the parties aren’t on the same page about important things like money is going to go South, pretty soon after the Honeymoon.

OP— if your kid is dating someone and they are both of equal, early 20s shaky financial footing, this is a discussion they should have. He (you?) have legit concerns here. If she blows off his concerns, that’s a problem. Now, maybe she has something going on financially you don’t know about, like helping to support an ill family member or tons of student loans.  So I would not push a specific outcome. But, the conversation  is important. [/quote]

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