Do we have to pay for her friends too? That always pisses me off.
[quote=“Buttercup”]Stop being a girl before you become a woman. You can’t expect to be treated as an equal, if you aren’t his equal.
I generally have always been out with university students and later, teachers, so I always had more money than them. I don’t mind paying for what I want to do with who I want to do it with (dinner …) without expecting them to pay. I’m not really interested in guys who feel emasculated by this, or conversely by cheap guys who never put their hands in their pocket. I really don’t care about money.
Trust me, you aren’t such hot shit you can’t pay for your own cab. Unless you’ve turned pro.[/quote]
Buttercup has got it dead, bang-smack right with the quoted post. It aludes to; what works in the long term & gets down to ‘you both do what you can at the time’; being considerate. Always being the giver on either side, can lead to a mismatch. If a guy you have not known that long, wants to fall into a pigeonhole of ‘long term provider’ straight away; is that going to keep you feeling attracted (not Buttercup - the original poster)? Do you think it possibly shows some insecurity to expect him to always pay? Guys like confident girls, just like girls like confident guys.
How about another way of looking at this.
You get used to her paying her share
You share the cost of meals
You share the cost of rent/mortgage
You share the cost of holidays
You have Children
She stops work
You are screwed
Just pay from day 1 guys get used to it and it won’t hurt so bad later.
Depends,
When I was on the dating scene with TW girls I usually paid for most things but sometimes the girls would offer to pay for something. After a couple of dates I always would subtly imply that a 50/50 type situation was ok with me. Cause I was giving her more than she was giving me 
So after dating some Taiwan girls and finally settling down with one (I am getting married in about 2 days). The conclusion for me. 50/50 is fine but its nice for the guy to pay for the first date.
For my wedding day, my soon to be wife doesn’t want to take a cab to our dinner restuarant, she wants to take the bus. I thought she wanted to save money at first but the reason she wants to take the bus is because we can talk and just relax. We always had a good time taking the bus or MRT and so its good for us.
It beats me swearing and cursing everyone while driving my scooter and occasionally pounding on some taxi cab drivers window for cutting me off.
I guess it just depends but I think if you are a foreigner with a Taiwanese person that a 50/50 arrangement is acceptable. No one is gaining or losing anything, no face, etc… it is neutral territory.
I always went 50/50 with my western girlfriends and always 50/50 with my TW girlfriends unless it was the first or second date. Some TW girls had problems with it but I just told them that is the way I date and the way many western people date. Get over it. I never had one run away from me but I never stayed with a gold digger either.
Soon to be happily married to a TW girl and taking the bus to dinner and maybe a cab back. I ended up paying for the whole wedding though lol but that was our situation.
Congrats and since its your wedding day perhaps a bit of a splurge on a taxi is reasonable?
I don’t get this. Why would a married couple have separate accounts?
I was exaggerating a bit…
We never had separate accounts. We don’t believe in it. But there were/are no such thing as joint accounts in Taiwan and it was generally easier for her to open an account. Thus, when I started working, the paychecks went to my wife’s account. Nowadays the only account we still have in Taiwan is in my name and now that we live overseas all our accounts are joint.
But, I’ve given my wife control over all of our finances as I am generally too busy.
I don’t get this. Why would a married couple have separate accounts?[/quote]
To build up a slush fund? 
Do we have to pay for her friends too? That always pisses me off.[/quote]
If you can pay for her friends also, it will be better and later you can charge your GF for her friends meal. Just avoid doing such thing in front of her friends.
Imagine another scenario, you and your GF decided to share 50/50 in your livelihood expenses and also household chores. This also means that in case you invite your male friends home for dinner, she will cook and YOU will do the dishes. After dinner, you do the dishes but not very happily since your male friends are there, right ? You’ll rather do the dishes after they are gone.
[quote=“djkonstable”]Depends,
So after dating some Taiwan girls and finally settling down with one (I am getting married in about 2 days). [/quote]
Congratulations!
My wife and I started spending almost every day together from the day that we met. At the time, she was also a student. It would have been silly to expect her to pay for much at all because she didn’t have the means. Thus, I would have had to choose between paying for almost everything, and being able to be with her and do the things that I like doing (though I don’t live an extravagent lifestyle), or trying to make some point.
That said, she did try to pay for things where she could, and it was the thought that counted. I’ve never really liked wearing watches, and she gave me a watch which, although not very expensive, I knew had cost her a lot of money, so I was very happy to receive and wear it because I knew it had come at a large cost to her.
Once I’d met her family and my wife and I were semi-officially living together, I explained my finances to her. We’re on the same page in terms of life goals and the kind of lifestyles we want, so she is totally on board with the financial decisions I make. She said to me once that she just wants me to handle everything because I know more about these things than her, but I try to explain what I can to her when I can (I don’t understand everything myself and I’m still learning), and whenever we review our budget, we do so together. She understands that if we want to reach a certain goal at a certain point in the future then that leaves us with a certain amount of disposable income. She sees that I don’t buy everything I want now in order to reach future goals, and so she doesn’t expect to get everything she wants now for the same reason.
My wife’s older sisters (especially the middle one) consider me stingy because I don’t throw money at all the cosmetics and so on that they like (which my wife is not really into anyway), but in the future, they’re going to be lucky if they have two NT to rub together for this reason. If the middle one (who is unmarried) expects some guy to lavish things upon her, then that seems somewhat self-defeating in my view, but there you go. I’m just waiting for them to come asking us for money in the future… 
I guess I’m pretty lucky to have found someone who is not the typical Taiwanese princess in many ways. Her sisters and my friends’ girlfriends still can’t believe she did things like carry a pack and stay in a tent in the wilderness on a four day hike in Iceland for our honeymoon, but that’s why I married my wife and not her sisters or my friends’ girlfriends.
I don’t get this. Why would a married couple have separate accounts?[/quote]
Why should married couples only have joint accounts?
So you both have visibility over the fambly finances and can conduct transactions as required.
Surely what two people do in a relationship, be it with bank accounts or anything else, is between them, whether it’s practical or not. What works at an emotional level is what’s practical, even if it’s not how I or anyone else would necessarily do things.
[quote=“djkonstable”]Depends,
When I was on the dating scene with TW girls I usually paid for most things but sometimes the girls would offer to pay for something. After a couple of dates I always would subtly imply that a 50/50 type situation was ok with me. Cause I was giving her more than she was giving me
So after dating some Taiwan girls and finally settling down with one (I am getting married in about 2 days). The conclusion for me. 50/50 is fine but its nice for the guy to pay for the first date.
For my wedding day, my soon to be wife doesn’t want to take a cab to our dinner restuarant, she wants to take the bus. I thought she wanted to save money at first but the reason she wants to take the bus is because we can talk and just relax. We always had a good time taking the bus or MRT and so its good for us.
It beats me swearing and cursing everyone while driving my scooter and occasionally pounding on some taxi cab drivers window for cutting me off.
I guess it just depends but I think if you are a foreigner with a Taiwanese person that a 50/50 arrangement is acceptable. No one is gaining or losing anything, no face, etc… it is neutral territory.
I always went 50/50 with my western girlfriends and always 50/50 with my TW girlfriends unless it was the first or second date. Some TW girls had problems with it but I just told them that is the way I date and the way many western people date. Get over it. I never had one run away from me but I never stayed with a gold digger either.
Soon to be happily married to a TW girl and taking the bus to dinner and maybe a cab back. I ended up paying for the whole wedding though lol but that was our situation.[/quote]
Congrats djkonstable. My best mate who has married at TW girl is very happy - hope yours is a long and happy marriage too.
The man pays for the first date. The woman pays for the second date. The man pays for the third date. The woman pays for the fourth date. And keep alternating.
But dump him on an odd number.
Dump him where? In a river or by the side of a road?
Dump him where? In a river or by the side of a road?[/quote]
Depends where the date was, clearly. Bitan = river. Yangminshan = still wild boars up there? 
I’m a foreign student in Japan and I have a few Taiwanese friends. One of them’s guy whom I happened to go out with for a few months. Almost always I paid for mine – even on the first time he invited me to go somewhere. I really found it weird especially for the first few times because he never even offered to pay, but I thought it was just because of a difference in culture.
There’s this one time on Valentine’s day when he asked me to go somewhere. Of course, I was expecting that this time maybe he would pay for the both of us (it’s a special day after all) but as expected, he didn’t even offer. So I was kind of grumpy that day. Now we’re still good friends and whenever we talk about that day, he’d tell me my mood ruined it all and I always felt guilty about it (which eventually led me to this forum) but I never really told him the reason why. I thought that’s just how they date in Taiwan.
Well, well at least I don’t feel guilty anymore after reading the posts in this thread…