Dating dilemma: Who should pick the bill?

By Alex Balimwikungu

THE matter at hand is the age-old question: Who should pay for the meal when dating? Where the answer was as obvious as telling the Pope’s religion for some in yester years, you would be in for a shock today.

Where men have always been reminded to take care of their responsibilities (read women), tables are beginning to turn. A lot of women out there do not like feeling paid for.

Is it a western world notion or are our Ugandan women learning to go “50- 50” on the bills? I sought to find out people’s opinions and for most ladies, dating is a job where they get paid with free meals to spend time with guys.

Daisy Ampeire, a social worker, argues: “I will start sharing bills on a date the day men start experiencing labour pains. A man should be able to cater for his date’s financial and emotional needs.

In return for his money, I am at liberty to give him children,” she says.
Christine, a radio presenter, believes a perfect gentleman is judged by his ability to pay the bills even if it is the woman who has invited him for the date.

“I love it when a guy pays on a date. A man paying the bill silently says many things, most importantly “I am a gentleman, I want to make you feel special, and I want to provide for you”, which makes her feel special.

She recalls a dinner date with a sexy man where everything was going on magically, with the man acting everything she had dreamed of in a man — humorous, confident and flirtatious.

She was seconds from anointing him: “the one person she had been missing in her life” when the bill showed up. An awkward silence engulfed the scene. Later, he tactfully excused himself to the gents and took forever to return.

When he showed up, the bill had been cleared and her perception of him had changed. They have never met again.
“If a guy cannot even treat you on the first date, what is he going to be like after 10 years in marriage?” she asks.

Mbabazi Mulera a.k.a Bina Baby, insists on a “50-50” bill sharing if she is in a relationship. “I prefer to split the bill to avoid feeling indebted to a man I have only started seeing.”

The way she sees it, when a man takes a woman out on a date, he is trying to make a good impression on her. Why not the woman making a good impression on him? Bina Baby is perfectly happy with that arrangement, considering some women make more money than their male dates.

Beth, a PR executive, reckons that if a man splashes the cash on a date, he does not like her. In her experience, such men see paying for dates as a way to get easy sex and will expect an after-dinner action later, which she is at no liberty to object to.

Gerald Rutaro of Theatre Factory believes a man has to show a woman a good time, which means he should pay up at all times. “If a woman pays on a date, she is controlling, and who wants that? I would rather pay and have an upper hand at all times,” he says.

His colleague, Dickson Zizinga, thinks women should pay for their half because “men end up paying for everything once they are married.”

“The guy should pay,” says Moses Wasswa, 19, a Computer Science student at Makerere University.
“That is the way I was brought up.”

Lydia Wanyoto, the MP for the East African Legislative Assembly, says having men pay the bills at dates all the time is exploitative and discriminatory as it gives them advantage over women. She has one formula for women going out on dates:

“If you call the date, pay up 100% of the bill. If it is mutual and both parties agree forehand on the date: pay 50%.
If the date is his idea, pay 25% of the bill.

Women should avoid looking on as men attempt to get an upper hand over them under the guise of paying bills.”