The Venmo Request: A New Wrinkle in Modern Dating
12th June 2016
I’ve recently had occasion to think about dating and its attendant rituals for a piece in this magazine, and so my eye was caught, the other week, by an article in the New York Post that suggested that one of the institution’s foremost traditions might be undergoing some change. “Cheap Bros Have Found a New Way to Get Out of Paying for Dates,” the headline read. In the fashion of a modern-day fable, the piece quotes three young women who had gone out with three young men. Each guy paid for his date’s dinner or drinks, as guys who go out with women are generally expected to do. Each then used Venmo, the peer-to-peer payment app, to request that his date reimburse her share after the fact. The women were outraged and contemptuous. “I do not have time for scrubs,” one said, speaking for all. They had expected to be treated, not treated as debtors.
So much for feminism.