I'll make you pay for this!

I've never been a strong supporter of making the guy pay for everything on a date. However, during a window period of 6 months in 1997, I went through a massive dating spree and mentioned to a friend that it was seriously impacting my continued status as a non-bankrupt. Why? she asked. Well, I keep paying for the dinners and the lunches, particularly if I don't fancy the guy.

Why do you pay if you don't fancy the guy?

Duh. So I won't feel obliged to go out with him again, just because he sponsored my last meal!

You idiot! Let me teach you, she said. You will learn to get the guy to pay for your meal. It's not difficult, you know.

So she brought me out on a date. Like it was HER date with a guy she was seeing non-exclusively - I just tagged along. Good looking, rich, very charming, super bad boy reputation (although I wonder if she spiced that bit up to incentivise me).

Anyway, she's right. It's not difficult.

1. You let the guy pick the restaurant. Of course you can veto all his choices until he picks a restaurant you like - duh!

2. You let the guy do the ordering. At most fancy restaurants, the waiter is going to take the orders from him anyway. You tell the guy what you want to eat before the waiter arrives and let him take it from there.

3. When the waiter asks about the winelist, you tell the guy to decide.

4. The clincher is the crucial 5 seconds when the bill is arriving. Note - arriving, not arrives. The waiter comes wandering over with the bill, right. You look ahead, or if you're talking, you pause and look at the waiter, but YOU DO NOT MAKE A SINGLE MOVE. No diving for your handbag. No patting of your pocketses. Drink water if you need to overcome the urge (at this point during my tutorial, I had already reached behind for my handbag but my friend The Teacher grabbed my hand under the table and crushed it. Then she kicked me.) The point is to remain calm.

5. After the guy has put cash or credit card into the bill folder and the waiter has taken the bill away, then you look squarely at the guy and smile. Thanks for the dinner. Then, just ever so casually, you say "How much should I pay you for my portion?" Whatever you do, do NOT mentally calculate your portion and then hand over a fistful of cash then tell him to keep the change. Because there's an even chance that he probably will do exactly that.

Asking "How much should I pay you for my portion?" is an interesting question because the guy can't do the sums in his head mentally - he's got to subtract his portion from the total, then factor in 10% service, 5% GST and 3% CESS. Plus he'll look like a stingy bastard. No man will do this. No man.