There’s always that awkward bit when it comes to the end of a first date at a restaurant and deciding how the bill will be settled. Do you split? Will he offer to pay the full whack? If so, will you offer to go halves? Will you insist on it?

 

The never-ending debate on whether a man should pay for the bill on the first date continues as people go on more and more dates to try and nd ‘the one’. The thoughts that come into some women’s minds at that part of the date are ‘if he pays, does he expect something in return?’; ‘is he trying to show his dominance?’ or ‘is he just being a gentleman?’ On the other side of the coin, some men complain about having to pay: that women want equal rights and yet still expect that men will pay for them. The question is: is a man paying for the bill through common courtesy or just plain sexism?

 

Some believe the idea of men paying for the bill is out-dated, patriarchal, and that it goes back to the old-fashioned idea that men are in control of the nances and want to show they can provide. Schoolteacher, Iona, 25, finds it “very patronising” and believes, “It harks back to when women were the property of their fathers and then were transferred to their husbands when they married. So in that respect, I nd it super creepy.” On an episode of First Dates on Channel 4, a woman insisted on paying the bill saying, “there’s no rational reason why a woman shouldn’t pay”. Her date refused and the argument turned heated when her date, who also wanted to pay for the whole meal, ended up grabbing her card from her and telling her to “shut up”. They ended up settling it by splitting the bill. In the anteroom afterwards, where couples have to awkwardly tell each other whether they’d like to carry on dating or not, the woman told her date, “c’mon, we’re in the 21st century, if I wanna pay for the bill, I’ll bloody well pay for the bill”. The man said the reason he wanted to pay for the bill was “there’s not enough opportunities to be a gentleman”. Despite the incident, they decided to meet again!

 

That’s the thing. Have we created this whole controversy about a man paying, when in fact it’s about him wanting to be a gentleman in the same way a man would hold the door open for a woman or offer her his seat on a bus? Student, Josh, 22, says, “I always pay on the first date purely because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do. It was the way I was brought up”. In that case, it’s nice to be treated to a meal and there shouldn’t be any shame in that. Some other men feel differently, arguing if women want equal rights, why should they have to pay? And rightly so – if she’s earning, and possibly making more than the man, why should he have to pay? Josh doesn’t think “it’s unfair at all, I just think that’s the way it is and should be in terms of masculinity”.

 

Since the advent of feminism, things have changed radically. Women are much happier and insistent on paying for their cut of the cheque. However, other women still prefer the idea of being courted and for them to be paid for. Fashion student, Georgia, 21, thinks if a guy doesn’t pay for the bill on the first date, “he may not be interested or be a bit stingy”. She says she’d only make the exception of offering “to go halves/pay towards if I was enjoying the company or if it was expensive.” And fair enough. Everybody has their own way of doing things on dinner dates, whether they hold their cutlery the wrong way round, or tuck a napkin into their top, and that also completely applies to paying the bill. If a guy is insistent on paying for the whole bill, maybe don’t just assume that he’s a domineering, misogynistic male, and take it. Maybe he’s just trying to be a gent? After all, free meal I suppose – I would go for it anyway.