Cuz I’ve Got One Hand in His Pocket... (Winter 08)

Ani Khodaverdian
anikhodaverdian@ucla.edu

As an 18-year old, Armenian woman, I have found myself come across quite a difficult realization. It is an extremely depressing concept, one that the majority of my friends follow. It is the idea that men should always have to pay for the check on a date, and women should never have to take out their wallets. Not only this, but if a man cannot afford to pay for a woman on every date, he should not be dating at all.

When I ask girls why they think men should pay all the time, they usually tell me something along the lines of, "If a guy cannot afford to pay for a girl every time they go out, he is not a man." Or, "If a girl has to reach for her wallet when the guy is in her presence it is a so called a ‘patvi harts’. When I try to further understand them and ask what the reasoning behind their statement is, they reply with "Just because, it’s tradition."

Unfortunately, in many places, it is also a tradition for the women to have to stay at home, cook, clean, and raise the children while the man goes to school, becomes educated, and develops his career.

I choose not to follow tradition. I find it more reasonable to act logically. Nowadays, women and men have equal opportunities to pursue higher education, which leads to equal paying jobs. This also means that men do not make more money than women do. So, in reality, there is no longer a reason for the man to be the one who pays for the couple. I’m not implying that women should be the ones who pay, but it should be split equally between the two.

This is especially senseless at our age, when we all have expenses as students. How is it fair for the guys, who make just as much money and have the same expenses as we do to also have to pay for us? There is no logic involved in this idea what so ever. To counter this argument, many girls have naively told me that "the guys like paying for me; they get mad when I try to pay."

This may be shocking to some of you, but guys do NOT like paying. They tell girls they like paying because they know that if they don’t, girls may think they are not real men. This makes me feel bad for those guys who really can not afford to take girls out. If someone doesn’t have a lot of money, it doesn’t mean that they are not a man, or not dating material, unless of course the girl is shallow and needs her boyfriend to pamper her all the time.

Being a man should not be correlated with the amount of twenties a guy has in his pockets but the amount of personality and self-control he obtains. What should matter about the men that women pursue are intangible things.

I look for a guy who has the same interests as me, if he understands me, and if I look up to his ideological views. I find it a big turn-off when guys push their money on me. This is because it seems like they think they can buy me. I am not an object to invest your money in, I am a human being.

The only things guys should invest in women are time and emotion. You cannot buy those things with any amount of money, things that actually have sentimental value, and really show how much love a person has for another.