While a bunch of society has caught up to the fact that women are people too (with, GASP, their own money!), way too many dating books and columns aimed at us gals still make a big deal about making sure the person you're going out with is "financially stable." That puts a lot of pressure on a guy to act like he's not secretly checking his bank balance under the table when you order dessert.
You all can argue among yourselves about whether you think the rule should be that all dates are split 50/50, or that the guy pays for the first date, or that one of you pays for the dinner and the other pays for the sins of their followers, or whatever. But however you split it, I hope we can all agree that if you ask someone out, then show up penniless and expect the other person to pay for everything, you probably won't get a second date.
Take it from personal experience, it also sucks to be asked out to an awesome concert or event when you're so broke that you're Googling local food banks, because no decent human being wants to be seen as a gold digger who's only dating to rack up entries for her foodie blog.
But the harsh truth is that there are really good, non-gold-digger reasons to wonder if someone's financially stable before your hearts and bodies get entangled. Because unless both people are just in it for a one-night stand, if one of you is perpetually jobless, then the other could end up working two full-time jobs to take care of you both.
It's actually not shallow to ask yourself if it's going to be a healthy relationship in which both people contribute equally, even if you end up deciding it's OK if one of you contributes in ways that aren't financial. Or to consider "Huh, if I get involved with the smoking hot girl who's $30,000 in credit card debt, still expects her parents to bail her out of parking tickets, and has never held any job for longer than a month, will I spend the rest of my life in the red while working 60 hours a week to barely keep us afloat?"
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