Should You Let Him Buy You a Drink at a Bar?

This posting is a response to whether it’s ok to let a guy by you a drink. I would like to address a few specific parts of that article that suggest to me that the author has some fundamental misunderstanding of men and the dynamics between men and women in bars and clubs from a male perspective.

“The paradox of life really does start and end with women at the club. It’s the ultimate lose-lose: if you sleep with him you’re a hoe, if you don’t sleep with him you’re a tease.” – the first part might be true, but not sleeping with the guy the same night you meet him does not make you a tease. Inviting a guy over to your place at midnight, making out with him half naked and then not sleeping with him might make you a tease. Letting him stay over or staying over at his place, not having sex with him and giving him blue balls definitely makes you a tease. But going back to your friends at a bar after you spoke with a guy for a while, whether you liked him or not, cannot be held against you by any guy in his right mind. In fact I suggest that in most cases where you start talking to a guy at a bar, you should cut your conversation after 15-20 minutes, no matter how much you like him, exchange contact information, so that you can hopefully see him again, on a different day and at a different place.

“To men, buying a woman a drink means putting down an investment. They are acknowledging that they are willing to pay for you to get drunk enough to sleep with them.” – not necessarily. Many guys do not have the agenda of getting you to bed that very night. The more common goal is to get your phone number so that they can contact you later and ask you out. Of course, sleeping with you will be on the agenda then, but getting laid is not as urgent for every guy out there.

“When a guy buys you a drink, it gives him the in, the ability to stand next to you, the shot to prove himself. He has that drink, or at least the time from when he orders it until you get it, to make you like him enough to stick around. And if you’re not into it, at least you gave him a fair shot.” –  shame on the guys who fall into that category. A guy does not need to pay a fee to talk to a girl, as if he had to purchase the pleasure of her company without knowing anything about her. He should talk to her first, and if he likes and he thinks it’s mutual, he might consider buying her a drink. And if any guy feels like he need to buy a drink in order to “have a shot to prove himself”, he has a problem and he starts things on the wrong foot from the very beginning.

“What it really boils down to is, don’t let a man buy you a drink if you know you aren’t interested.”  – this is absolutely correct. It’s perfectly fine to accept a drink from a guy you think you might be interested in, but if you know for sure that there is nothing he can do or say to make you want to see him again, politely decline his offer.

With regard to accepting the second drink – if you have as much pride and self respect as you should, then you should not accept two drinks from a guy you just met, even if you did like him, unless your goal is to get drunk enough so that you don’t have to worry about the guilt associated with going home with him, if that’s your plan.

One of my female friends once said that she has no problem accepting drinks from guys without having any intention of talking to him for long and when she knows that she doesn’t want anything else from them besides that drink. She further said that she doesn’t feel she is doing anything wrong. According to her, if guys lie, cheat and otherwise disappoint women all the time on a much larger scale, why can’t she engage in this relatively petty deception. I disagree with her attitude and would hope that most women out there have enough dignity and self respect to avoid trying to get back at men or otherwise justify their less than noble behavior.