"Hey should men pay on every date?" You actually can use this as a conversation starter by asking women their opinion on this very topic.

What are the common answers we generally get by asking this question?

Some people would say that men should not act stingy.

We also have people like David Deangelo or Swinggcat who are from the opinion that paying on dates is a form of supplication, i.e. it is a way of trying to please women. And then you should almost never pay on dates or you should almost never buy women dinner.

I suggest this first rule: if you're the kind of guy who tends to pay on dates and that you have underlying motives...Stop doing it! Why ? Because this is a demonstration of a lack of integrity. And lack of integrity is a huge turn-off for women. In other terms, you're acting from a place of manipulation as you're trying to elicit a specific response in women by trying to please them or by buying their affection. Another underlying motive men often have is trying to impress women by boasting about their work accomplishments or their new car.

If you're being yourself and that's part of who you are... then it's ok. You may still want to dig deeper though. Pay attention to your hidden values. How is your identity constructed? Does it rely on having money and materialistic possessions?

Then you can gain insight by positioning yourself on the lover-provider continuum. The provider type is the "future good husband". He has a good job and can take care of the family's financial security. He has this "nice guy" side to him. And the lover type? If you haven't watched the movie Don Juan de Marco with Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando, then watch it and make sure not to miss the opening scene in the restaurant. I can tell you Depp's character did not pay for dinner...

We can also get the insight of the female dating expert Tiffany Taylor who states: "We often wield the power at the beginning of the relationship simply because tradition dictates that a man is supposed to ask the woman out. You're supposed to impress us, gather up the courage to ask us out, pay for our dinners, and generally tempt us into giving you what you want."

Unfortunately, with the habit of paying on dates, a man can also attract the wrong women. If a woman is trying to induce a man to pay on every date, or if she never offers to split the bill, or if she asks questions about what line of work a man he's in, or what kind of car he drives, beware as one can label her a gold-digger.

Let's get a final insight.

Until fairly recently, modern roles for men and women were fixed and separated. This will sound very cliché but men were supposed to go out and earn money. Women were supposed to stay home and take care of the kids. Thus, men - especially those who came from a patriarcal background - used their financial wealth as a way of trying to control women. Whereas women often manipulated their men through emotional outbursts and sexual innuendos.

Next came (and is still coming) a stage in which men and women both sought to balance their masculine and feminine inner facets toward "fifty/fifty", becoming more like one another. For instance, in the US in the 60s, men began to acknowledge their feminine dimension by adding a sensitive side to their character - or by growing long hair. Meanwhile, many women were doing just the opposite. They gained financial and political independence. They learned to be more assertive.

It was a good thing for men to gradually get in touch with their feminine side and women to embrace their masculine facet. They became less dependent on each other. In terms of social roles, men and women became more similar. This was an improvement for everyone.

But this is not without side effects. Indeed this trend toward sexual similarity can be seen as a major cause of today's unhappiness in a lot of couples. The trend toward parity has resulted in socio-economic equality, but also in sexual neutrality. Today, a lot of men have this intuition about sexual polarity but they express their masculinity wrongly, by trying to demonstrate financial or physical superiority.

In the end, it is ok for women to be men's social equals. What men should cultivate is their ability to play their masculine part in moments of intimacy, by demonstrating leadership and direction, not by putting their money on the table.