In the corporate world, we have costs of doing business.

Not just the cost of whatever we produce, but the costs of everything: The salaries and benefits to each employee, the freelancer payments, the marketing, the computers and electronics, the raw goods and materials, the waste, the space to do it all in, the electricity, the internet, the website, the apps, and on and on.

Yesterday on one of my writings, someone commented:

What I am saying is that the effort required is imbalanced. That in general as of now when it comes to straight male to female relationships (as I cannot speak for trans issues, which again has a whole lot of extra parts) men are required to pay the financial burden of dating. Paying for drinks, taking the woman out to dinner, paying the gas so on and so forth.

My reply was:

Ok. Let’s turn this around.

If you were to guess, what efforts do you think women have to go through for the same dating? What do they have to pay for what is expected of them?

I haven’t got a reply yet, but to be fair, I’m up at an ungodly hour, and it’s not expected.

But it got me thinking about the costs of dating.

Because that comment assumes a lot of things. Some may be true for some people. Some may not. It triggered a bunch of thoughts in my mind about expectations and took me back to the perceptions writing I did a while back about how our perceptions change how we experience the world.

For example, if you believe that you have to pay for every drink while dating, then your dating strategy will be focus around:

• Being able to afford the drinks.
• Choosing the place for drinks based on that budget.
• The ROI on buying drinks.

Which seems to me like the wrong way to date. Because it focuses on resources, instead of people and engagement.

I’m not saying that resources shouldn’t be considered.

But if you feel that you are ALWAYS responsible for specific things or EXPECTED to bring that particular game to every encounter, that seems like a burden, rather than a joy.

And not all costs are monetary. Here are a few off the top of my head:

• Buying dinner
• Asking someone out
• Deciding what to wear
• Makeup
• Shaving
• Safety issues
• Hope
• Dating site costs
• Crushing disappointment
• The search
• Being accepted for who you are
• Acting a certain way
• Anxiety

And so on…

So, I thought I’d ask y’all:

What the costs of dating are for you?

No matter how large or small. Monetary, emotional, personal effort…you name it.

And in the comments here, I’d like to make a request:

PLEASE only ask questions or agree and share experiences.

Let’s NOT use this particular topic as one to argue or even invalidate another’s experiences or feelings of expectation or obligation.

What I mean is this: The person above? I asked how they might feel about others. I did not say they were wrong, because in their perception, that’s the reality.

So, what is YOUR reality to you and for you only? What are your costs of dating?