We've got a blind date with destiny...and it looks like she's ordered the lobster

This is one of those posts that may, depending on your viewpoint, make me look like a jackass.

So be it.

I know better than anyone that dating is fraught with difficulty and pitfalls. So how wonderous it is that yesterday, when my browser started on the front page of MSN (I really need to change that), I saw this article explaining to me who should pay on a first date.

Naturally, it is the man who should pay.

The thesis here is

a) the woman on the date is judging the man on his generosity, and will judge him lacking and lose interest if he does not pay for dinner;

b) the man, being "the pursuer" in this scenerio, will lose his pursuer status if the woman pays, and will therefore lose interest in her;

c) these two facts are ancient genetic imperatives, and are true whether we want them to be or not.

Well. Let's leave aside for a moment questions like, if the people on the date are both gay, then who pays. What I notice here is that what we have here are a bunch of unsupported claims made by the author and a few people who all agree with her. Viewpoints other than the author's aren't just given short shrift, they're entirely unrepresented.

So, for instance, the author never interviewed anyone who said, "I really want to avoid the dating politics where, if the guy pays, then I owe him." Which opinion has been expressed to me personally by a few women I've talked to.

And I can personally attest that, when I'm on a date, "I'm the pursuer" isn't a factor for me. Frankly, I'd like my date to demonstrate some interest in me. Having her say "You should buy me dinner or I'm not interested" accomplishes the opposite, by showing me that she's unwilling to put anything in.

My point being, (a) and (b) above are dangerously sweeping generalizations that are demonstrably wrong. At least not so ubiquitous as the author claims. Maybe some polling data would be helpful here, rather than just quoting a couple people who agree and acting as though that proves the point.

Claim (c) is even worse, not even being based on anecdotal evidence. While I'd probably stipulate that genetic predispositions toward certain behaviors and attitudes are a factor here, no effort was made in the article to justify the claim that those factors are universal and dominant.

Worse still is the implicit claim that "is" is the same as "ought," i.e., assuming all men's and women's attitudes are X, that's the reality and we should accept it by having the guy buy dinner. As opposed to watching out for those attitudes creeping into our thinking and taking care not to let them influence our actions, which seems to me far better. Just what decade/century/millenium are we living in, anyway?

If there is a reality of the situation, it is that dating is complicated and situational. Trying to claim that the situation is uniform, and that the correct thing to do is apply universal rules popularized in 50's "how not to be an awkward teenager" filmstrips, does not help the situation.