Dear Nikol,
I have a problem. I met a nice girl on the Internet. We went on a date and I took her to a restaurant that was the best one in the town. I took her out to a bar, too, and a nice one. By the end of the night I had pretty much spent my entire paycheck on getting her pink, fruity drinks and delicious food (which she didn’t want to eat very much of because she’s watching her figure). So, we kissed goodnight because I am a gentleman and I don’t put out on date one, then I called her and she said that she wants to go out with me again.
I have to wait, of course, to go out with her again because now I don’t have any money. But she’s really good looking. I want to see her and take her out. Next time I take her out I can’t spend all of that money. Sheesh. I’d lose my apartment if I kept spending like that. What should I do? Will she stop seeing me if I don’t keep up treating her to the finer things in life?
– Broke and Hopeful
Dear BaH,
You dun goofed. And that was silly, by the way. It’s very sweet that you liked this girl enough to want to take her out to an extravagant night on the town, but if it put you in a hard spot to do it, you really shouldn’t have. In a way, it was you pretending to be something you’re not.
You could have said, “I don’t normally do this. I just wanted us to have a nice night.”But even if you’d said that, you still shouldn’t have done it. You were being financially irresponsible and that’s not something a woman is looking for in a mate. You say that you’d lose your apartment if you spend like that, and wonder if she’ll stop seeing you once you stop feeding her food she won’t eat anyway, and I need to point out that she’d probably stop seeing you if you lost your apartment over a filet mignon.
This isn’t entirely your fault, either. Sure, you were being a knucklehead by overspending. But in the same way that women believe they have to starve themselves to get a decent man, too many men believe that they have to spend a lot of money to get a beautiful woman. It’s cave man thinking. Man provides. Woman makes children. And it’s not entirely bullshit, either. It’s kept our species going for quite some time. But if you’re like the majority of working Americans right now, you need to curb your spending and hopefully be able to save some money so you can stop living paycheck to paycheck.
So, BaH, I guess what you need to do is come clean. I’d skip the part about how the night might put you in the poor house, but let her know that things are a little lean right now. Have a plan for your next date, something free or cheap. Go rollerskating. Cook for her. Cook together. Go do something in this free thing we have called nature. Picnics are romantic. There are a lot of things you can do that don’t involve spending money.
If she reacts badly to this, she’s not really the girl for you, and not just because of her personality. You don’t buy a Jaguar when you can only afford a Pinto. And if she really is used to the finer things, that can be alright as well, so long as she knows that she’ll need to be the one paying for them.
– Nikol
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Questions? If you have a question for Nikol, you can reach her confidentially at lovesexetc@milwaukeemagazine.com. Your anonymity will be protected.
