I actually didn't make a production of it at all. I very discretely picked up the cheque, slipped my credit card into the slot, and put it back on the tray.

I just wanted to clear up a misconception. This isn't really about the money. I have plenty of that. I can afford to pay for lots of first dates and not bat an eyelash at the cost. What really has me riled up is that I felt like I'd been led on by somebody for the express purpose of getting a free meal.

I've had a full night of sleep, so I'm less upset now than I was yesterday evening. It was out of line for me to suggest that I'd be hundreds of dollars richer if I'd made my date split the cheque. Most of the time, I leave the date with an honest impression of the chemistry between us and I'm happy to pay whether there's something there or not. I'm upset over this incident because it feels like somebody gave me an intentionally dishonest impression, just to make sure that I'd pay for dinner.



I really wasn't calculating the cost, though. All that was running through my head that entire evening was how much fun this girl was and how compatible we seemed. I left that restaurant completely stoked about what seemed like an inevitable second date. (By the way, just as an aside, I would be very disappointed if I had gotten laid. I've managed 26 years of waiting until I'm married. I hope to keep that trend up.)

I guess the long and short of it is that if FEELS LIKE somebody said nice things to me for a couple of hours and pretended that she liked me to get a free dinner. I don't feel like a gentleman. I feel like a chump. If I had left the date with no sense of chemistry, I wouldn't feel this way. As it is, we were the last ones left in the restaurant after it closed. We had talked for hours. I left feeling like a great connection had been made. Now I just feel like she was leading me on so that I'd buy her food.

Well, I guess I'm in the wrong here. My feelings are still hurt, but the prevailing wisdom is that they shouldn't be.

Maybe I'm not the gentleman that I think I am. It no longer feels good to buy a perfect stranger dinner "just because." Lily, you say that you can tell a lot about a guy by the way that he handles the cheque. That as much as tells me that picking up the cheque can and should be a calculated move by the man if he wants to make a good first impression. Well, it hardly seems worthwhile to try making a good first impression when the woman's mind is already made up. I haven't had a second date in months, but I'd be several hundred dollars richer if I'd asked my dates to split the cheque.

As a matter of course, I always offer to pay for dinner on the first date. That just seems like the gentlemanly thing to do. If my date offers to split the cheque, I reassure her that she doesn't need to. I think I might quit doing that, though, or even requesting to split the cheque.

I had a date last Thursday evening where I paid. On Friday afternoon, I emailed her to thank her for a great evening. No response. Tonight, I called her to ask her to dinner and she had decided not to pursue a relationship with me. By all means, that's her right, but it seems like she must have had a notion of this at the end of our date. I feel a little bit cheated that she let me pick up the cheque.

What are you talking about? I have mindblowing sex at the office all the time. At least, I think I do. It must be good because every day, when I get home, I can't remember the last two hours and I feel like I've been screwed.

I've been in this situation before. It really is extremely weird. And because I'm an engineer, I think about it, too. "Is this guy going exactly as often as I am? Maybe he's going exactly twice as often."

I call my folks "Mama" and "Papa." I've long since gotten over being embarrassed about it, but it definitely felt weird when I was a kid.

Is that a challenge? I bet I could give it a good try. Picking up the frisbee while doing a ninja flip, for example. I bet that would look cool. On a side note, nobody looks cool while trying to use the word "whilst."

Breath

I find this one particularly enjoyable not because the blonde woman thought she had to use only her breasts but because she was able to finish the race even though that's what she was doing! What a remarkable athlete!

I find this one particularly frightening.

Ephraim is one of the sons of Joseph (the guy with the Technicolour Dreamcoat.) It's one of the 12 tribes of Israel. I pick most of my pseudonyms out of the Bible and this is one that I particularly enjoy.

Heheh. Reminds me of a song about a Scotsman by Bryan Bowers.

Goats are the miracle animal. They're food, milk, and sexual gratification all in one neat package!

(oYo) Boobies!

I am also single this Valentine's Day. I could probably get a DATE, but she wouldn't be a VALENTINE. Loving it? Not really. I don't fall for the hype, though. I didn't have a party to go to on New Year's Eve, either. Sometimes, I think that our society fosters the idea that we should be unhappy about our suboptimal social lives, especially on certain holidays. That just doesn't seem sensible anymore. I'll play racquetball with my friends, like I do every Thursday, grill up some bratwursts for dinner, and read or play video games until bed time. No big deal.

Hah! English class? All I see is two cocky men initiating a flame war. Knock it off, fellas.

Just remember, ladies, vehicular manslaughter is wrong.

Screw that ungrateful wench. That's a marvelous day of carefree birthday fun.

Don't believe these lies! The government is building these walls to contain the inevitable zombie uprising. They've been experimenting with mutagenic chemicals and engineered viruses since the mid 1960's. They've met with mixed success and have also been extremely incautious regarding disposal of failed experiments and dangerous cocktails of supersoldier formulae. It is only a matter of time before these factors cause the widespread reanimation of thousands of undead.

I understand. I can revive one of the threads that I started on this topic previously, if you'd like to contribute. I just needed to mention it to provide context for the discussion. I hope that it helps to illuminate my motivation.

When I state that I am paying attention to your advice in these threads to help me overcome the challenges of approach anxiety, that really is ALL that I want. The traditional escalation is outside the scope of my needs. You'll find that some of the questions that I asked were geared toward benefiting from some of the approach techniques without acting in a way that implied a false intention of escalating.