Holy shit. And here I thought that the price of a cup of coffee was less than $10.
Because that’s what you do on a first date - coffee and chat, either at the coffee house or on a walk near it.
Spending $$$ on a first date is a great way for any guy to get hosed, and just sets up unrealistic expectations. You don’t do anything expensive until several dates in, once compatibility and mutual interest have been confirmed.
You think thats bad? Twitter is trying to start a movement of women remaining single till they die.
Tbh its kind of sad…
I can’t imagine the poor dears depriving themselves of luxuriating in the presence of personalities as brilliant and interesting as my own. It’s a sad state of affairs. 😥
Dating = Restaurant body doubling? American advertisers lost the plot
This article draws all the wrong conclusions from the design of the survey itself. That’s the average date expense, for all single people, to include:
- Rich people who don’t mind paying more for dinners out.
- People who have been dating a long time, on their later dates with someone they’re already steadily dating and/or fucking.
- Other expenses of a date, to include hair and makeup and other styling.
Digging into one of the surveys discussed in the article shows that the cost of a first date has climbed to $93.
$93 is more in line with what I’d expect. And yes, that price tag can price a lot of people out of bringing someone they don’t know well yet on a formal sit down date.
I went to look up the menu at the place where my wife and I had our first date, in an expensive city. If we ordered what we ordered that night, except with today’s prices, I think we would’ve spent about $30 on food, $50 on wine, and 30% on tax and tip for a total of about $105. We also split the tab. And that’s with someone who I had already met in person in a few places (friends of friends), had already established rapport over the phone, and already knew that we both loved the restaurant we were meeting at.
Obviously we need more cheap/free third places in the mix. And our society would benefit from better income/wealth equality. But while we live in this current situation, people should be generally be ramping up in closeness before spending real money on dates in places they wouldn’t have otherwise gone to. I couldn’t imagine spending real money before getting to know someone at least enough to know whether I like them and enjoy being around them.
The world isn’t like that though.
The reality of the world is most people want to meet at a bar or do an activity, and that costs money. And men are expected to pay for the dating. Splitting the tab is now very rare. People are a lot more traditionally sexist than they were 10-20 years ago.
I date. Most women want to be wined and dined, or they want to do a trendy activity date. Even if I take a woman out to a museum and a glass of wine, it’s going to run me $100. Museum tickets are 30-40 dollars pp, and the wine is going to be 15-20 a glass.
Women I met used to offer to split, but that basically stopped happening post pandemic. Now they never offer to split. I’ve also noticed surge in women demanding traditional gender role dating both in person and on dating apps. Nobody is a feminist anymore like they were 10 years ago. They all want ‘masculine men’ and they want to be ‘feminine women’. A lot more women I meet now are now asking me if I am ‘actually straight/gay’ now too. No woman was asking me if I was gay 10 years ago. Gender expectations have changed and regressed.
Article is talking about the dating world, as it is, as of 2026. Not how it used to be, not how it ought to be.
You’re living in a prison of your own making. I hope you escape one day.
yeah, I’m also impinging that gas prices aren’t 5 bucks a gallon right now. it’s totally a figment of my imagination!
if i just think different, they were magically be 3 bucks again.
I’m not going to pretend that I understand everything happening to today’s young daters, but what you’re describing isn’t true in my circles (which skew older and richer, but where the people going on dates are more likely to be divorced and/or have children from prior relationships, but where $200 on a weeknight dinner is not unusual or a financial stretch).
More importantly, I still stand by my description of how the article mangled the underlying studies. Dating can be expensive, but not everyone who goes on a $200 date in that survey is going on a first date with a stranger, and $93 is probably a better metric to follow to understand what is happening.
The rest of my comment is just a description of what I believe will both reduce the amount of money spent on first dates and increase the expected value of that date by deferring any decision to spend any money by only going on dates with people you already kinda know and already like. If you don’t believe that advice is practical for your current circumstances, I’m sorry to hear that, but I wonder if you can find another way to achieve similar effects.
i can’t change the world around me anymore than i can lower gas prices.
deleted by creator
“wHy ArEn’T tHe YoUnGeR gEnErAtIoNs GeTtInG mArRiEd AnD hAvInG cHiLdReN??”
marriage and children is more expensive than dating, by far. full time childcare costs are 2-5K per kid, for about 4-5 years before they can get into kindergarten. if one partner makes less than 50-75K, it makes no sense for them to work.
True, but unless you or your partner are against the very idea, most prospective relationships start with dating, then are moving toward marriage, children, or both.
some well-off professionals in nyc, have basically started ‘plantonic co-parenting’ arrangements.
as in, two well-off couples produce a child, but are not romantically involved, the child is basically a small business they co-own and invest in… and the child is not a product of love, but a product of financial investment of each partner…
basically child production without dating, marriage, or any personal relationship between the parents.
that’s where we are today. the concept of a loving family is now being replaced by purely transactional relationships that are treated as business arrangements. can’t wait to see how those children turn out… but hey at least they will have trust funds for their lifelong therapy about why mommy and daddy didn’t love them or each other, or anyone but themselves. and mommy and daddy will probably also want them to be good little business executives who have no soul anyway, because having human attachments would get in the way of their work-life and their corporate ladder climbing!
That’s a ridiculous amount of money to spend.
Most of my first dates were like
- walk to bar ($0) or subway ($3)
- a drink for both ($10 - $30)
- transit back ($0 or $3)
Even two drinks wouldn’t probably break the $100 barrier.
There are cheaper options, too. Coffee. Park walk and snacks. Free museums.
I didn’t have much trouble meeting people on the same page.
Edit: a full ass dinner date is a terrible idea for early dating. Don’t go on early dates you can’t quickly bail on.
Yeah, the article (perhaps intentionally, for clicks) misreads the underlying survey as being about first dates when it’s actually about all dates. Dates with someone you’re already fucking and sleeping over with is going to be a bit different to budget for, compared to first dates (which the second study they quote says is at around $93).
Most of my first dates were like
walk to bar ($0) or subway ($3) a drink for both ($10 - $30) transit back ($0 or $3)
Pack of condoms, $8.
where do you live there are 5 dollar drinks and 10 dollar cocktails?
I live in a major city. two beers is $20 before tax and tip, two cocktails is closer $30. bar tenders in my city expect 25-30% tip, and tax is about 8-9%, and many places start a 5% service fee now. So you’re adding 40% extra costs, so that $20 for two beers is now $30, easy. Two cocktails, is $50.
When I go out, by myself, and get a hamburger and fries and two beers, at a dive/cheap place, it’s $60. Even a fast food joint, with no alcohol, it’s $20-30 for a hamburger, fries, and a soda. If I go to the nice gastropub style place, it’s going to be closer to $75-80.
Even a burrito is $15 now.
Are they really expecting 25 to 30 percent tip? It shouldn’t be more than 10 percent as it was forever because the prices went up so their tips already went up.
I will tip 20 now because it’s the norm but it pisses me off. At 25 percent I basically am going to just stop tipping at all.
Asian bubble tea.
Brooklyn, where there’s a couple local bars I like. My favorite bar has $5 cans, but the more recognizable drinks are in the $10-$15 range. Two drinks is about $30, then.
What part? Certainly not park slope.
I don’t want to dox myself but my two go-to bars with cheap drinks are within walking distance of prospect Park. The second favorite’s cheap beer is like $7
this is just agit prop to get me to feel like i should spend more money when i finally get a date. shame.
The last time I spent that much on a night out was my first anniversary, and we got way too drunk at the bar we got married at (not cheap but not expensive) and ordered two pizzas because we were hammered and their pizzas are amazing.
Thank fuck I married a cheapass
what? with my current girlfriend we had an ice cream and a walk. these americans are crazy.
For a moment I thought you were talking about your previous girlfriend.
Haha same. We went for a walk and had a coffee.
American dating is is stuck in the 1950s.
It’s really not stuck in the 50s, it’s controlled by tech. Some tech lord could step on your ability to get a date on any online dating, which is most of dating now, outside of friends hooking up friends.
We could have a long conversation about how online dating sucks, and has gotten worse as companies maximize revenue and the oligarchy has tightened control of everything.
No, it’s not.
Nobody is controlling online dating. Stop with the conspiracy nonsense.
The issue with online dating is everyone wants the best they can get, but they can’t get it, so they ignore realistic options and chase unrealistic ones. And they double down on this after every bad relationship, thinking they need to ‘raise the bar’, but all they do is price themselves out of the market by having expectations that like only 1% of the dating pool can ever measure up to.
People do this to themselves. Like the article says, their expectations for first dates are too high so they just give up, but what they won’t do is ‘lower their standards’. They won’t accept dates that are less than $200 because they ‘know what they are worth’, even though very few partners can realistically afford such dates. Not to mention, the bar/cost only gets higher with time. If you expect a $200 first date, you expect a $1000 date a month or two later. So basically the only guys who can afford to date are finance bros or tech bros with massive incomes and wealth.
I had a short term girlfriend a few years ago, who broke up with me because our first ‘nice’ date was only $300. She expected me to spend $500 and really said if I wanted to impress her I should have spent $1000. This was just a dinner. I made about 90K a year at the time, and she made 70K… she basically expected me to spend 1/4 of my monthly pay on a single dinner…
fast forward 5 years and shit has only gotten worse.
Match . com bought almost all of the dating sites. And the rest have consolidated.
If you think that the tech lords didn’t set up ways to hurt people they don’t like from their perch, or that the government and their connected pals don’t have them do that for them too, you are quite mistaken. They did it because they can, it’s as simple as that.
You are shown people they decide, you are shown as they decide, by their black box calculations, and their laughably bad matching of people based on their flawed personality tests.
That said, while the tech lords can step on some schmuck surreptitiously, what you describe is far more common. Dinner and a movie and drinks is just so expensive now, it’s not even an option for many people. Your costs in your example I consider astronomical, good riddance to her, that personality would leave you for someone richer first chance she found.
Also people just have an idea of what they want and exclude people based on their criteria in a way they wouldn’t be so quick to do with people they meet in person, which leads to everyone lying even more, which makes it worse.
These sites aren’t geared towards finding mates for life, but for keeping people paying monthly subscriptions indefinitely.
American society in general is stuck in the 50’s
yeah well, we were at the height of our economic power back then.
people seem to think if they just daydream hard enough they can magically have a 1950s life they see on TV.
And that any man who can’t provide a 1950s lifestyle is a failure of a human being. When in reality only about 2% of the single male population has the income/wealth to provide that lifestyle these days.
it was different in the 2000s, most of my friends/family coupled up and things were better and generally couples were economic partners. now things are economically bad and dating has regressed to 1950s expectations that men are the providers and women are the takers. when i meet new women and i suggest we are financial equals, they laugh in my face and tell me I’m a sexist asshole and how I owe them because of my male privileges… and how they have worked so much ‘harder’ than I have and they ‘deserve to be treated’. or they say they are should get ‘princess treatment’.
These are all highly-educated, liberal/left women working in a major city. Lawyers, doctors, other well-paid professionals. But they are all heavy social media users and if you go on social media and see women talking about dating… you see why they think this way.
Just got for a walk
Where tf are you all going on dates? I get pretty drunk and have food at the bar for 42$ every couple weeks. If I was on a date and paying for both of us (personally more into splitting it) it would be like 70$ tops. That’s not even close to the cheapest thing you could do. If someone’s demanding you spend that much on them from the jump they’re probably not worth dating anyway .
Where do you live? Also, most don’t take a date to get bar food on a first date.
Midwest. I’ve done many bar dates but I usually go for coffee for a first date that way it’s easy to bounce if we don’t click. The bars I go to have karaoke or live music on the weekends and the crowd is chill so it’s a good time. If that doesn’t sound like a good time to whoever I’m dating, we’re not going to click anyway and I’d rather be single than stress out jumping through hoops and spending tons of money trying to impress some girl. I did enough of that in my 20s. It’s not worth it.
depends on the date, some are super materialistic, expects one person to pay for everything.
Pro tip: Don’t date them
So date nobody? You are assuming there are other kinds of people to date.
There are…
What a stupid thing to think everyone is the same.
last year they had a poll on NPR in my city. 80% of women said men should pay for the first date and it should be an nice dinner. only 60% of men said they should pay for the first date.
the vast majority of people are the same. if only 20% of women single women agree with me that means I have very few choices to date. and frankly, it’s only getting worse year after year. this same poll 10 years ago was much power.
it’s a general truth that in economically difficult times people revert to conservative mindsets, overwhelmingly.
statistically there is a growing gap in the dating world between people’s expectations and the reality. largely fueled by social media. and the vast majority of people use it.
I don’t use social media, it makes me a pariah among most people I meet. They dont’ think ti’s admirable or good in the real world, they think it’s weird and snobby.
So fyi, not every woman who lives in your city took that NPR survey.
lots of women don’t date. by definition they aren’t in the dating pool. plenty of men don’t either.
the ones in the dating pool, are the ones i can date.
just like i don’t date married women. who also didn’t take the survey.
you can only date who is available to date and who is interested in dating you. for most people, that’s not a lot of people. it’s a small percentage of people and if that small percentage of available people are very similar… they are going to have very similar attitudes and expectations.
I’d love to date some low key easy count low expectation lady, but they don’t exist in my city among the single dating pool, because in order to live here you have to be a highly driven professional, because easy going people can’t afford $3000/mo rents.
You keep running into the stereotypical “date”, which is a dinner and sometimes includes a movie. You actually can do better with just like “hey I’ve been wanting to try bouldering at this rock climbing gym, want to check it out together?” Or similar. Don’t think in terms of dinner dates. Think in terms of activities you would like to do with your significant other long term. My wife and I currently take adult gymnastics classes and almost never go out to dinner.
1 - you dont know what the word “vast” means, do you?
2 - “its only getting worse every year” Source???
3 - you are using social media right now, largely fueling this misconception you are actively complaining about.
I’ve been on tons of dates. Never with anyone like that. I’d rather be alone.
Same. With someone like that I’d be better off paying a prostitute. The emptyness would be the same but more honest and the sex would be better.
Some has become most thanks to social media influencers telling people they need to go on expensive dates.
Hear Me Out: This capitalist/traditional attitude towards dating radicalized men into the manosphere. For the last three years this anti-“modern women”/anti-feminism movement has been rising across the internet; and about 75% of their resentment is just about distaste toward dating apps and paying to take a girl out for dinner.
For years I was laughing at ( and then after they helped Trump’s re-election, ripping my hair out over ) their complete refusal/inability to see any other alternatives to connect with people besides the most shallow idea of a date. Perhaps these folks just completely unimaginative, or have no personality to offer, and nothing to provide besides the traditional chivalry of this generic “provider” fallback that is unfeasible for most in this economy.
I wish I could just sit down with one of these men, and just ask them “Why not find women elsewhere?”. Delete the dating apps and go find a hobby, join a volunteer organization. If you’re such a “traditional conservative masculine man”, go to a Catholic church or alt-right fascist rally. It’s a whole lot cheaper than flying abroad to sugar-daddy at a favorable exchange rate. (Passport bros)
Though… the article does say: “More than half of Gen Z adults reported spending $0 a month on dating in a 2025 Bank of America Better Money Habits survey.” and mentions folks rejecting dating apps because they prefer real interactions…so maybe folks are waking up.
Capitalism did ruin dating. I’m pretty sure the CIA does everything in it’s power to prevent you from seeing the problem is the fact that you depend on the market for everything.
anti woman sentiment online has been around far longer than three years
I’ve been online for a loooong time. From my recollection: it hit its peak with the “anti-SJW” / “anti-feminist” rage during GamerGate in the mid 2010s. It was well on the decline until Andrew Tate and the TikTok manosphere accounts which copied him brought that rhetoric back; now targeting real world women instead of “woke” gamedevs and script writers.
can confirm
This has been going on for much longer than just three years.
Why not find women elsewhere?
This is the same vibe as “go hand out your resume in person”. I’m old enough to remember when most people didn’t have dial up. Things have changed.
I’m an elder millennial that has and continues to do all of this shit they are saying in other comments, I still meet more new people regularly that I actually want to talk to again through dating apps. Third spaces are dead and people have over the past 10ish years stopped being interested in expanding their circle by happenstance. I’ll even admit to this myself.
In general we don’t trust each other, and there’s a very real chance that any person you meet could be a fascist even in left leaning cities. This has understandably made women especially more leery of the men they meet even when men are explicitly feminist because the men that hate women lie about their beliefs exacerbating the underlying problems even more.
People don’t understand that we’re not just experiencing political and economic collapse, the culture we all grew up learning how to live in no longer exists. This is a symptom of that
most ‘liberal’ women I have dated the past 5 years were closeted conservatives. don’t assume men are the only secret MAGAs
anyone of them with half a brain knows they have to lie about it to get other people to like them. every closeted conservative woman I have met never told me until like date 3-5, usually after we had slept together and she could let her guard down.
entirely seconding the rest of this. I am actively social in hobbies and volunteering. I have never ever met anyone to date that way. Everything is apps, and the occasional random approach at an event or bar or etc. Dating and socializing are two very different things these days. The last time i dated a ‘friend’ i met through other friends I was in college, 20 years ago. as am adult it’s been nothing but dating apps for most people I know, and the other people met someone at their job.
Wasn’t trying to say it’s just men, it’s happened to me with maga women, although I would imagine the rate is much lower from that subset. Lots of white women liberals that don’t give a shit about intersectionality or capitalisms role in their own oppression .
But we’re on the same page overall, dating is broken, some will still get lucky but it’s bleak out here. Unless it’s explicitly for single people to meet each other.
it won’t get better until the economy gets better, which, as we know, nobody seems to want to fix. they just want to make it worse so the rich get richer and the rest of society gets worse.
historically marriage and child rates are follow economy. when the economy improves people get married and have kids, when it’s bad, coupling and children rates plummet.
He gave a couple good ideas, join a service group, take Salsa lessons, go to local events. There’s a tree planting event in my community this week. You won’t meet people if you go once, but if you keep going people will recognize you. This is called “making friends” and sometimes that leads to romance. Things in your community still happen like the olden days.
i actively volunteer for the past ten years. single people dont’ go to these things. it’s all married people. making friends doesn’t lead to romance, it leads to making friends with people who have no interest in dating you because they are already coupled.
it’s also time your spending not pursuing romance, which means less time for that. dating takes a lot of time and effort. it’s not magic, it’s more like exercise. yo uahve to be constantly exercising to stay in shape, and you have to be constantly dating and pursuing romance if you want romantic life.
Wow… please don’t take this as an attack, it is not intended as one. Your post made me seriously sad. I couldn’t imagine living a life where I had to treat dating and romance as “exercise” and something I have to plan into my calendar.
I hope you find what you are looking for.
it’s not any different with jobs. you have to constantly be on the hunt for a new job and working constantly beyond and above to get new skills if you want to remain employable. the day of getting a job and sitting back for 30-40 years and taking it easy are long gone. we live in a hyper competitive society, esp in the major cities. dating is the same, everyone is endlessly trying to ‘upgrade’ their dating prospects and if you aren’t ‘improving yourself’ constantly you are seen as a loser who deserves to be alone, just like if you don’t have multiple degrees or training certs at your job you are considered under performing.
10-15 years ago things were different. now, if i don’t get 2-5 new certs each year at my job, I’m considered under performing and if you want a raise, you better be getting that 5, 2 is the bare minimum effort. did i mention that the certs now expire every 2-3 years now? they used to be considered ‘lifetime’ but they ended that in the late 2010s, so they can keep the gravy train going. in 2010 when i was hired, having 2 basic certs was considered really great, now if you have 2 for a starting job, you are considered a failure and unemployable, you need to have like 6-10 to even be considered. oh ad the starting pay is like 15% more than it was when I started 15 years ago, even though the COL is now 2.5x what it was.
We are all working 3x as hard, for half as much as we used to get. Dating is the same. dating is a job market for romance. in my city, women expect you to typically making 200-300K a year to be even considered ‘worth’ their consideration. even though statistically, men in my city have an median income of 80K. so you nee to be making triple median to be considered a ‘date worthy’ guy.
i make about 150K a year, own a place, volunteer, have run my own small business, have two advanced degrees, active hobbies, very fit endurance athlete, etc. and when I go on dates i basically get asked why i am not more successful in life and that I lack ambition and drive and that my life is too ‘lazy’ because I’m not working 80 hours a week. also get told I’m ‘cheap’ because I don’t like going on dates that cost more than $200. It’s insanely brutal dating market. but i really want a family so I keep trying, but every woman who is interested in me basically expects me to be a multi-millionaire who has no life outside of work and dating her.
Don’t get me wrong but I think we might live very different lives. I’m also dating people and also having romantic relationships but I never… considered that path you are taking. It sounds exhausting.
Things have changed especially because we all are becoming less social. Getting to know someone in person is still much more effective. Talking to strangers without pretense is however less accepted.
amen to that. even irl the level of presumption and pretense is insane. i quit a lot of social activities because i was becoming depressed dealing with the arrogant and delusion most people are living with about other people. I had so many occurrences of being going on rants about ‘people like you’ or bashing people who aren’t exactly like them. it was so miserable.
people were not like this 10 years ago. social media has warped their brains. people are so hateful and angry now.
Less tolerant, I also notice it with myself.
I love to read. I used to have cool dates talking about books. I haven’t had one of those since 2018!
Now when I talk about books, I get lectured what a racist male supremacist I am for not reading Toni Morrison or similar. (I had this happen to be like 10x times in the last few years) It’s insane. I can’t even enjoy my hobbies anymore without them being weaponized against me for not being ‘woke’ enough or something. Or I get told reading anything other than business self-help books is ‘a waste of time because it is not productive’.
God forbid I just… enjoy books because I like stories and it’s fun. No, now if you read it has to be for some political virtue signalling thing or for ‘self improvement’.
But it doesn’t though. Dating is something you do to find people to be with IRL. Dating apps are made to keep you engaged and noy to lose customers. If you want to find someone to be with IRL, you gotta look IRL and it helps going somewhere, where people have similar interests
datings apps are how you use them. if you ask people out irl, and they say no or ignore you, the app has nothing to do with that. it’s the person on on the other end not being interested.
They are statistically not made for actually finding someone. If they were they wouldn’t be profitable. The goal is always to keep people using the app and spending money. If you are straight, the ratio of men to women on the average dating app is skewed against you if you are male and in your favor if you are female.
Dating apps are just the way for capitalists to make money off dating
Cool, then why is that more the half of new couples meet on dating apps?
You don’t use apps. You don’t know what you are talking about. It’s not a conspiracy. They are free. I don’t pay for any apps and I regularly get dates from them. Do most women who message me, not meet up with me? yeah, because they aren’t interested in me. That’s their choice.
If i only did in person dating, I might go on one bad date a year. at least with apps I get way more dates, and half of them are decent, even if they don’t go anywhere. i went on like 20 dates last year, a few were bad, but 18 were from apps, and one of them became a short term thing for a month, but we were not politically or financially compatible so I stopped seeing her, plus she hated my cat.
How are dating apps still a business if they are made to lose their customers?
I don’t think they would still exist or be profitable for the companies owning them if they were actually good at getting people together.
I think more than half of the new couples meet on dating apps because the opportunities to meet people IRL have been heavily reduced since the pandemic.
they sell your data. they sell ads. they have optional features you can extra for that are expensive and some people use them. i have been using dating apps for 15 years now. they haven’t changed that much. it’s just that they are all swipe apps on your phone now. but the business model has been the same since the 2000s, it’s basically freemium service like free to play online games are. and it’s profitable because while the vast majority never pay, the small number who do, spend a lot, and are called ‘whales’. the business model is all about getting the whales. people like me, who have never paid once in a 15 years, aren’t really making them any money.
again, you clearly dont’ use apps and you’re just making stuff up.
I’m not an expert on manosphere but I think it’s just a radical manifestation of a broader anti-feminism movement that spans beyond the internet, beyond young people and beyond dating. It’s not attitudes towards dating that radicalized men but a more general feeling of losing power and privileges. Listen to conservative men of all ages and they will complain that you can’t molest women anymore, you can’t date rape and you have to very careful because people now tend to believe women when they accuse of you of abuse. The manospere is just how the push back against those changes manifests on the internet. In real life it’s one of the issues fueling the surge of far-right parties.
Dating has been a big gateway for the manosphere though. Women can actually support themselves now, on a large scale, even to the point where women are surpassing men in education and getting better paying jobs out of school than many men are getting.
So, in a real sense, for possibly the first time in history, men are actually having to be more than just a stable provider to attract women. And many are choosing to become bitter and resentful instead of doing things that might actually improve their chances. The manosphere offers a “lose 15 lbs in 3 days fraud diet” but for dating. And people look for shortcuts constantly.
I generally agree but you think dating means asking women out and trying to prove to her you would be a good life partner while for a lot of man dating meant getting some girl drunk and fucking her in the dorm bedroom or spiking her drink at a club and fucking her in a bathroom stall. This is the dating they have lost because of feminism and progress and now want to get back to.
Remember Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing and Micheal Wolff’s accusations? Kavanaugh tried to rape her and absolutely nothing happened to him. This is the power man used to have and now are trying to get back. The manosphere sect leaders can’t say it out loud but it’s the core of it and all the anti-feminist movements.
Reading these last three comments — I was taking “dating” to mean forming a stable relationship because they’ve been throwing out words like “stability” and whine about divorce; but you’re probably right. The “GamerGate” rage that funneled into the manosphere has very rapey vibes, and that’s about fictional video game women. Seeing the rise in misogyny-inspired attacks; increased joking about rape and abuse; and that online rape guide CNN did a report on… I’m very scared for our future, especially for the future of feminine Gen Z and Gen Alpha folks.
There are so many things you can do with a partner that don’t cost money and will make permanent memories.
Cucking. Gloryhole. Orgy. Swinging.
Running though the streets at 3:47 with a big knife and 5 dollar mask from pop up Halloween store
AM or PM?
“Don’t run, I just want to admire your skull”
She said she wanted a guy that would chase her so…
Yeah but on the first dates you gotta try to impress a little right, don’t want to come off as too poor or cheap (depending on circumstances, 2 students in exact same situation is different than older working adults, for example)
This feels like a capitalistic idea to convince people thay they need to spend money to find a partner or people to be with. Dating can have many forms and you can get to know people in many different places. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to talk to people in hobby groups or go take a walk/drink a coffee with someone
Plus a shared interest is a great start to a potential relationship. If you have nothing in common, how can you expect to get along well with each other.
If the girl is impressed by how much you can spend on food is it really worth impressing her at all?
Then stop going out for dates. Who convinced you that capitalism has to be a third wheel on your dates? Y’all too dependent on market capitalism to provide for you.
Where are they gonna go? We destroyed most of our third places, or made them so expensive to extract maximum profits.
Dinner is expensive, movies are expensive, small friendly local shops have been disappearing in favor of sterile corporate ones.
For a lot of people the only option would then be a home, which doesn’t work great for a lot of reasons.
Non-matinee theater prices aren’t that bad. Just don’t load up on giant ass overpriced popcorn and sodas.
Coffee dates are a thing. They’re expensive for coffee, but if you break a hundred at a coffee shop, you’re probably going to the hospital.
Public parks exists. Ice skating rinks aren’t that expensive. Book stores.
Ice cream!
Pizza places have somehow stayed inexpensive.
Hell, the gold standard first date: getting a beer at a bar is not that expensive, still.
If your only idea for a date is a high end fancy ass multi course dinner, with cocktails, then yeah, you’re gonna have issues…
getting a beer at a bar is not that expensive, still.
Where the hell do you live that you can claim this? Your pizza comment was also kind of funny as most places near me are honestly pretty expensive. I guess you could go to Little Caesars or something lol
Those aren’t dates. those are friends/family activities.
How many women think it’s romantic to take her to a movie at 12pm for the cheap matinee show and then take her out for a $3 coffee afterwards? dating is about romance. romance is going to a evening film, and think a nice dinner afterwards. she wants you to take her away fro a weekend to a nice bnb in the coutnryside or a beachhouse, she wants to go traveling with you to another country.
You know how enjoys 12pm movie and ice cream dates? my nephews when they were children. women don’t want to be treated like 6-12 year old children. they want to go on adult romantic dates. and those are expensive.
yeah, after we are married and pop out a kid or two, i’m sure she’d like a 12pm movie and going for ice cream, but that’s not courtship.
Dating is whatever you want it to be. There’s no rules. Women can be chill and just want to hang out and spend time with you. There’s tons of low cost/free activities.I don’t spend that kind of money until I’m sure the relationship is going somewhere and even then it’s for special occasions not regular dates. If whomever I’m dating has a problem with that they can find someone else. I’m not interested in paying to play.
You’re describing very established couples style dates, not just started dating dates.
You continue chasing those materialistic people who refuse a low key ice cream/coffee date, I guess. It’s your wallet.
If your only way to keep a woman interested is throwing money at it, then that says a lot about you.
Most women want to be treated like a person, not a trophy to be won by hitting an arbitrary budget threshold. Romance is an interaction between two people. The activity doesn’t much matter if you’re actually connecting.
Reading through a load of your comments in this thread and I think you really just need to lower your own standards. I promise you that not all women are so very money-centric as you are making them out to be.
My first date with my husband, we went for a walk at a park…
Edit: whoever replied I have you blocked already, so have fun, I cant see your comments.
Yeah, my partner of 10+ years went on multiple dates to museums, parks, and botanic gardens in the first month. We ate delicious Mexican food after, all super cheap.
This was great because now it’s a tradition for us to go to museums on every vacation.
aw I love that
museum entry where i live is $50 now. yeah 15 year ago it as $15-20. i used to get a yearly membership for $60, now that membership is $200.
mexican dinner used to be $10, sure, but now it’s $15-20 for a burrito at a cheap place, and a nice sit down mexican place is going to be $25-30 for a burrito.
so many people here are out of touch with how dating and going out costs are in 2026. you are living 10-20 years in the past.
My museum dates were taking advantage of free museum Tuesdays for residents.
You have stated you live in Boston, I was there last year. Beautiful city with so many inexpensive museum options, plus the massive park that had events going on every day that I was there and the historical walks were great. Try some of these:
- Harvard Museum of Natural History: $15 per person, $75 individual membership
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: $22 per person, $75 individual membership
- The Institute of Contemporary Art: $20 per person, $65 individual membership
- Museum of African American History: $15 per person, $35 for basic individual membership with one guest, $75 for the same with 2 guests
- The Sports Museum: $18.47 per person
- USS Constitution Museum: $15 per person
- Harvard Art Museum: free
- Boston Public Library: free. This one was my absolute favorite, we spent 4 hours wandering the halls looking at paintings and sculptures, I could have been there all day
Many of these have discounted admission for residents and members. There is also the Boston Aquarium, which is $39.95 per person, but that can easily be turned into a multiple hour event and membership is only $79 per individual. They aren’t all $50, you just have to look at their websites and check for discounts.
Women don’t want to go on museum dates. they are considered cheap and low effort.
Wow, let’s go to the BPL and watch homeless people masturbate to porn on the public PCs, SO ROMANTIC, so charming! Let’s go to the constitution and hang out with a sweaty crowd of poorly dressed tourists! wow, so romantic! lets go to the aquarium and enoy the stink of penguin shit and hordes of unsupervised kids running around! wow! so romantic!
How do I know? I ask them out to them and they tell me I’m cheap and they deserve better and they reject the idea and then reject me for suggesting it. What do they always say yes to? going out for dinners and cocktails…
Most of those aren’t even museums, btw. They are like single rooms, and some of them are just straight up gross on the inside. The MFA is $30 for a basic ticket, and more for special exhibits. That’s more a of a legit museum date that I would take someone on. Two tickets for a special exhibit is $80, because they include lots of fees and you have to book them online because they are time and sell out.
Please tell me more how you don’t date and know nothing about my city. You were a tourist. You don’t live here. You got the mile high tourist experience. You think I should pretend to be a tourist who thinks Boston is amazing by going to our crappy cheap museums… but in my world everyone has been to these places dozens of times already and they have no interest in going to a Harvard Natural history museum they went to when they were a teenage on a school trip… so they can see the exact same rocks and stuffed animals they saw 20 years ago. A lot of the places you are suggesting are crappy and unchanging and boring to a local resident and I don’t even want to go to them myself.
Yeah, when I travel I go to lots of museums, it’s fun. But the vast majority are one and done, as a local doesn’t repeatedly visit them because, nothing changes. Aside from the MFA, which is the only museum we have that really rotates things regularly, due to their massive collection.
I know you are trying got ‘be helpful’, but what you are suggesting dates for teenagers or out of town tourists. Not working urban professionals in their 30s/40s. That’s what I am and that’s who I date. The last time I went took a woman on a cheap museum date I was like 25 and broke and so was she, but I’m not going to take a 35 year old woman to a museum for children and she is going to think I am a man-child weirdo for suggesting we do that. They are grown ups and they want to do grown up things, like going out a nice restaurant.
Hi! I have a vagina and I identify as a woman, I am also a working professional in my 40s and I live in an urban area. I love museums and I think they make perfect dates and I often go to the same museums multiple times. The Boston Public Library was beautiful, there is an entire section that is dedicated to art and history. I didn’t see a single thing that you described during my walk through. There was a live taping for the local NPR station at the cafe though, that was pretty cool to watch.
I’ve noticed your complaints up and down this thread, I’ve also noticed them around the threadiverse for a while and I am beginning to see a pattern. You tend to be aggressively argumentative, denigrate women as a whole/complain about “woke”, refuse to see things from other people’s perspectives, and don’t listen to anyone’s advice. Have you ever heard the phrase “if everyone around you is an asshole, then maybe you’re the asshole”? Perhaps part of the issue is your behavior and attitude.
Anyway, you can look for ways to change or stay angry, doesn’t make a difference to me. Either way I hope you have a wonderful day ✌️
cool. every first date i have had in the past decade ended with the suggestion we go to a very expensive restaurant afterwards suggested by her, and when I decline or suggest a more modest place she gets very angry about how I have ruined our nice date.
nice walks isn’t a thing most single women are interested in anymore. it’s regarded as ‘not making an effort’, and effort is regarded in the expense of the dates. even bowling, axe throwing, are now the ‘casual cheap date’, but those are all expensive now. renting a bowling lane in my city is $50 per lane per hour. add some cheap beers and food and boom it’s over $100.
I legitimately forgot how bad it is in America. I’m like why don’t you take the train to somewhere for a nice walk? I forgot you guys can’t really do those things with your infrastructure.
deleted by creator
this is what people don’t get.
20 years ago you could go to a movie and dinner for $20 and walk around the city and do free stuff.
Today it’s $150 bucks and you can walk around and look at homeless bums in the park, because all the free arts programs are mostly gone, because the artists all need to make money to pay rent.
LIFE HAS CHANGED. nothing is cheap anymore and free stuff is far more limited, but people’s expectations for life have not changed. they still expect traditional 1950s lifestyles. including the aspiration for a single family home and two kids… but you have to be a millionaire to afford that lifestyle now.
Be good company and time spent anywhere becomes worthwhile. It has to start somewhere or capitalism will continue to price us out of even the simplest of human experiences.
“Hey baby, why don’t you come upstairs so we can avoid the capitalist machine of going out?”
most women aren’t socialist/archaist. they exist, but they are a tiny minority.
every punk show is like 300 dudes and 10 women.
I was ridfing on the idea of “dating” being capitalist because it’s expensive sometimes by implying that sex is cheap.
shitty sex is cheap. good sex is expensive
