My goodness, look at this! If either of my daughters behaved like this, I'd be really disappointed.
August 29, 2001
LIBERTIES
The Manolo Moochers
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
Dating these days involves a lot more
preparation than spraying, glossing and
gargling.
A thoroughly modern young lady might be found Paxiling herself, Googling
her date, Bikramming her body and pondering The Offering.
She might pop a social-anxiety pill to chill; check to see if her suitor's name
pops up on the Internet search engine Google; take hot, sweaty yoga in a
100-degree classroom; and plot the offering, as girls call the moment when
they make an insincere effort to help pay the check.
In the 70's, splitting the check was liberating. Now it's a test.
"If you offer and they accept, then it's over," says my 33-year-old girlfriend,
a TV producer in New York. Agreed a 23-year-old who works for Nascar:
"Last week I reached into my bag, offering to pick up our night out, knowing
full well I only had $6. We want to come across as if we've had an
upbringing, but we'd fall off our chair if it were accepted."
A 35-year-old TV newsmagazine producer from L.A. says: "If he hasn't
asked me about myself by the time the entree comes, I don't even bother to
thank him when he pays."
Going Dutch is an archaic feminist relic. "It's a scuzzy 70's thing, like platform
shoes on men," says a pal.
Many women expect to be fully subsidized on romantic jaunts, too. When I
asked a 28-year-old friend how he and his lawyer-girlfriend were going to
divide the costs on a California vacation, he looked askance. "She never
offers," he replied. "And I like paying for her."
It is, as one guy says, "one of the few remaining ways we can demonstrate
our manhood."
Women no longer worry about asserting their equality; they care about
assessing their sexuality.
It doesn't matter if the woman is making as much money as the man, or
more. She expects him to pay, both to prove her desirability and as a way of
signaling romance — something that's more confusing in a dating culture rife
with casual hook-ups and group activities.
"There are plenty of ways for me to find out if he's going to see me as an
equal without disturbing the dating ritual," explains a 30-year-old who works
at a newspaper here. "Disturbing the dating ritual leads to chaos. Everybody
knows that."
(The feminist freeloading doesn't change with marriage. Professional women
still want their husbands to get the checks at restaurants, pay the mortgage
and get home by 6:30 to help with chores and kids.)
Elizabeth Marquardt, the co-author of a report on college dating, observed:
"One Yale girl described the ridiculous situations that can come up because
of all the confusion over who pays for what and when it is a date. She found
herself arguing on the sidewalk with a guy over who should pay for a
Slurpee.
"A guy will ask a girl to the movies and she will think they are just hanging
out. Then he offers to pay, changing the whole outing into a date — a trick
date."
Marcia Gillespie, editor in chief of Ms. magazine, says the trend makes her
shudder a bit, with its retro implications of a quid profiterole.
My girlfriend Dana, a 31-year-old journalist in L.A., rebuts that notion:
"There is no way a woman nowadays thinks that if he pays he is entitled to
anything sexually."
Women say they want old-fashioned courting, even though fleeting sexual
encounters, known as hooking up, are common on college campuses. But
some men see it differently.
"It used to be all about chivalry, but now it's more out of greed," says Brian,
28, an editorial assistant in New York. "Feminism has allowed women to be
greedy — which is progress, right?"
Rick, a 31-year-old from Nashville, who describes himself as "a fat C.P.A.,"
said he had to spend $10,000 on meals to get his wife.
Other men are kinder. Marc, 26, my assistant, says that it is only fair
because "women have to spend a fortune to go on the date. They have to
smell nice and look nice." And a 39-year-old bachelor pal in Manhattan
chimes in: "Guys can be dogs, and they'll lead women along for a long time
without making that dreaded `commitment.' I don't think women should be
both bankrupted and abandoned."
Carrie, a publicist in her late 20's from Long Island, is not unwilling to dig
into her Kate Spade bag. "He can get the jewelry, the dinners, the shoes and
the vacations," she says. "I'll get the cab." |
