A couple of Thursdays ago the Post-Gazette ran a piece by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd examining the status of check-paying in the current dating world.
For those of you who missed it, it essentially said, "Feminism schmeminism: Women like you to pay, and men like to do it, so split the check at your own risk, fellas."
Several male colleagues drew my attention to this piece. They did not follow up by inviting me out to lunch or dinner, I noticed.
In the '70s, Dowd said, splitting the check was a big step forward for the liberated woman. But she quotes women who all agree that it's now a ritual tap dance to test a man's intentions. If he actually lets you hand him money, he's a cheap loser. And he's going home alone. And he's going to stay that way, as far as you're concerned.
Going Dutch has gone the way of bra-burning. One woman told Dowd it's "a scuzzy '70s thing, like platform shoes on men." (Now that's scuzzy.) For their part, the men quoted in the column said things like "I like paying for her" and that doing so is "one of the few remaining ways we can demonstrate our manhood."
The point is that women now feel confident enough of their equality that they can focus on other things, like feeling desirable. (This would be the "Rules" approach, which assumes that a man simply won't value something he hasn't had to earn.) Besides, who pays when the check comes is one of the few remaining ways to be sure you're actually ON a date.
Single people, particularly young single people, spend a lot of time hanging out with friends in groups. Now, if you're with your friends, of either sex, checks are split. But a guy who considers himself on a date will pick up the check if he knows what's good for him.
Things have gotten so very equal and nebulous that sometimes the guy's response to the check is the first clue a woman gets as to whether they are on a date. The revelation can come as a pleasant or unpleasant surprise.
Is this all true? Well, I suppose it is. I've faked the purse-reach many times, and, yes, if the man actually lets me chip in, I conclude that this was (a) not a date, or (b) the last date I'm going on with this cheap trifler. It looks bad, and all my girlfriends agree on that. You don't hold out great hopes for a guy who informs you that you owe $13.78 for your entree and glass of chardonnay.
Still, there is the uncomfortable whiff of greed or freeloading. A woman shouldn't look at a date as a free meal and shouldn't go out with a guy she's definitely not interested in just to get one. In fact, if it occurs to me that my date's conversation, table manners or personal odor has eliminated the possibility of further contact, I scan the menu for the house salad or tuna sandwich.
The cost of meals may be considered a reasonable investment for a man in the possibility of a relationship (as is the cost of a woman's makeup, perfume, hair-care products, sitter for any kids, shoe repair, dry cleaning, manicure, etc.), but it's best to avoid outright fraud.
And then there's the whole question of who invited whom.
There's an aspect to this that's like door-holding. It used to be that men held doors for women. Then there were feminists who yelled at men for holding doors for women, claiming that the implication was that women were too weak and fragile to open a damn door for themselves. That response seems a tad harsh. Also, it resulted in guys letting doors slam in women's faces, which doesn't leave me, for one, feeling empowered.
Now, etiquette has sort of felt its way to a sensible middle ground, where polite people just hold the door for other people, regardless of sex and apparent physical robustness. I think this works best.
The person who invites someone on a date has a certain responsibility to pay for the outing. I think this is classier than splitting a check, and I'm quite willing, once I've gotten to know a man well enough to be sure he won't feel emasculated by my ability to produce a valid credit card, to treat.
The thing is, the world really is different from the way it was 30 years ago. Feminism really did accomplish a great deal. Everybody knows that the purchase of a dinner doesn't entitle a man to sex. Everybody knows that a professional woman is perfectly capable of buying her own meal.
It's time to move on from those battles and fight about things that are still really wrong.
Like the dry-cleaning inequity between a "shirt" and a "blouse," for example.
Samantha Bennett can be reached by e-mail at sbennett@post-gazette.com.
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