What a winner!

I’m just trying to explain that not everyone who disagrees with you is trying to, like, “take advantage of you”.

I mean... They are though - the fact that they're doing so because they've been taught it's the right thing to do doesn't change that...

They might straight up disagree with you and genuinely believe that it’s more polite, or they might never have considered it.

That's still no excuse though - "I never thought about it" is not an excuse for taking advantage of someone (which is exactly what this is - you are taking avantage of someone if you expect them to buy you things before they've even met you. There are plenty of people who've been taught other horrible things (like "a woman's place is in the kitchen" or "it's a woman's job to raise the children while the man goes and earns money") who genuinely believe those things are true and right, the fact that they've never actually considered how these things affect other people isn't an excuse, if anything it makes it worse, since they're not only selfish and rude, but also inconsiderate.

I’m literally just pointing out that, to many people, your viewpoint is the unusual one. That’s it.

OK, and to many people your viewpoint is the unusual one. Like I said I'd never even heard of the idea that the person who invites someone on a date should pay for the whole thing until you mentioned it, so in my eyes it's your point of view that's weird and old-fashioned to me.

You keep repeating that "some people were/are taught this" like it makes a difference, or like it makes it not batshit insane, saying that for some reason because it is/was "common wisdom" that it's somehow sacrosanct and not up for criticism. I'm sure the person in this post thinks it's common wisdom that "if you buy a woman a drink and she accepts it, that means she wants sex, and if she doesn't provide sex then she's somehow stealing from you and you should get your money back". The fact that this person thinks this is a good idea doesn't make it more defensible or less stupid.

If you look at that idea from a neutral perspective, without being clouded by nostalgia or tradition or whatever else, if you go on a date with someone and say "well you invited me, so you can pay for my dinner" when you both agreed to the date in the first place, but one of you happened to bring it up to the other first - can you not see how selfish and entitled that is? Why does them plucking up the courage to ask you out in the first place entitle you to a free dinner?

If you met up for a date in the park (or another free activity), would you say "hey, since you invited me on this date, you owe me $30 since you're not buying me dinner"? If not, why not? What's the difference between that and expecting them to buy you dinner? Does the fact that they invited you for dinner mean they now owe you money?

Just like other stupid ideas from the past, like women being subservient to men or "I bought her a drink/dinner therefore I deserve sex", this idea deserves to be consigned to the history books as a relic of a bygone era.

/r/ChoosingBeggars Thread Parent Link - i.redd.it