One of the girls mentioned that she went to dinner with her family to celebrate a birthday, and her significant other planned to offer to pay for dinner. Like, the whole dinner. We all had differing opinions about the appropriateness of when to offer, should you offer, who should offer, etc, so I thought I would ask the blogging world.
When you are out to dinner, do you offer to pay every single time no matter what? What if you are with family? Or someone else's family? Does it matter who you are with, whether or not you offer to pay?
One of the arguments was that you don't want anyone to just assume you were getting a free dinner. If you took someone to dinner and they didn't offer to pay, would that be your assumption?
I think it's different for everyone. For me, I rarely offer to pay. If I go to dinner with my family, it would just be silly. If I go on a first of second date, I am traditional enough that I feel paying is the man's responsibility. However, that gets tricky on later dates or once you are in an established relationship. I am by no means a taker and not a giver! Even if I go to dinner with a friend's family, I don't offer to pay, mainly because I know that if the situation were reversed, my parents would never accept money from one of my friends.
So, mis amigos, what do you do? Do you offer? What does it depend on? Or do you just offer every time, just because it's the right thing to do?
I agree with you on all points. As a young college student, when past significant others' families invited me out to dinner, it seemed silly to offer to pay since I usually knew the family well and I knew they would probably refuse any money I offered. I made a polite attempt at the first dinners to test the waters but after they assured me that when 'they take me out to dinner, they are taking me out to dinner,' I stopped offering as it would have then become impolite to do so. Everything is relative, of course and I'm sure once you are older and considered to be on more equal footing with the parents of your significant other you might offer to take them out to dinner once and a while to even things up. There are probably exceptions to the rule as well. :) I'll leave it for others to debate.
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