Talk to anyone who is trying their hand at the dating game these days, and they will tell you there is very little romance to it. From the impersonal nature of dating apps to ghosting, even landing a first date feels tougher than ever. But for those that do, there is a new debate raging about what happens when the check arrives.
Who should pay for a first date? That is a question Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was asked during an interview last month, and his decisive answer quickly went viral.
Megyn “loved” Kirk’s take and, on Wednesday’s show, they discussed why they both believe men should always pick up the tab and offered some dating advice for young singles today.
Kirk’s Take
When Kirk was asked by The Iced Coffee Hour podcast hosts Graham Stephan and Jack Selby if a man should pay on a first date, his answer was unambiguous. “A hundred percent,” he said. “What kind of a wuss, beta male is splitting the check? Like, who are you?”
When one of the hosts said he splits the check “quite a lot” for “financial” reasons, Kirk said that was “incomprehensible” to him. “From your prism, I totally get that. You have really good financial discipline,” he acknowledged. “I’m sorry, like, I would be so humiliated… That money you save is not worth the honor that you compromise.”
The exchange has gone viral over the last several weeks, and Kirk said he has been amazed by how many women in comments agreed with him while many men were more split. But he doubled down on his position.
“Listen, a man needs to demonstrate leadership and the capacity to provide early on. That doesn’t mean that you end up having to have that role when [in] a marriage, but, from the outset, what it means to be a man is to take directive, to be leadership, to be the protector of the family,” he explained. “Not to mention, the young lady that is there, deep down, she wants to know that, when all the crap hits the fan, the man can take care of her, and that he will do the alpha move, and that he is not gonna split the check.”
On the flip side, Kirk said a woman’s reaction to the move will reveal a lot about her. “So many men came to me and said, ‘Charlie, when I pay for a lot of the first dates, the women never say thank you’… Yet another good reason to pay on the first date,” he noted. “You learn as much about her as she is learning about you… It filters out ingratitude. It filters out the character of the person you are courting.”
The Iced Coffee Hour guys tried to reason that a man doesn’t need to be solely responsible for a first date that is clearly going nowhere, but Kirk doesn’t think it matters. “You have a role to play. On a date, the woman is there to be courted by you. That is the way this works,” he explained. “You are the one that is hosting, you are the one that is hospitable, and I think a breakdown of that has been so destructive.”
That “destruction,” he said, speaks to a larger issue. “No wonder male female relations have fallen down so much. We need men to be men again,” Kirk said. “We need to raise our sons to be men of honor, of character, and of leadership; to look after the women in their lives; to say that women are not just beautiful, but they’re honorable and they’re sacred; to say that we provide for our wives, we honor our mothers, and that we protect our sisters. That’s the men that we want to raise in our country. We’ve gotten away from that.”
Megyn’s Take
Megyn said she agreed “with every word” of Kirk’s assessment, and she shared how she could personally relate to it in her own relationship. “When Doug and I met… I was in my infancy at Fox News, and he was making a lot more money than I was… running his own company,” she recalled. “If he had actually suggested that we split the bill or that I pay, he would have been out the window in a New York second. It wouldn’t have even been a consideration. It was clear that he was taking care of me in that way. We both understood it.”
That dynamic holds true today. “Eventually, in the course of our relationship… I wound up earning more than Doug… but still he takes care of me. Still, he’s in the alpha role in our personal life and I’m more in the beta role in our personal life, which I love. That turns me on,” Megyn explained. “I think… for 99 percent of women – whether they’re working women or… women who work in the home – they do want to be taken care of. It’s biological, and they want to take care of their men in different ways, too.”
To that point, Megyn said there are instinctual behaviors that never fade. “I think the man should be the pursuer in the early relationship. And frankly, Doug and I have been married… 18 years, and he is still pursuing me… It is biologically conditioned… for the man to be the pursuer. He is the lion, you’re the gazelle, and he is programmed to run after you,” she noted. “If you upend that in any way, you are messing with nature.”
Dating Advice
So, Megyn had this advice for men out there: “Young men should know you do need to make the phone calls, even if she didn’t call you back. You have to be the one to text first. It is almost like a reporter going after a source. In a way, you’re subjugated; but you’re not actually subjugated. You are doing it because you are the leader in the relationship in this way, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is actually hot, and appropriate, and part of the game and the turn on.”
All the while, Kirk said, women need to keep this in mind: “If you’re a young woman and you think that it is pervy or weird if a man is pursuing you, you’ve got deep problems… ‘I think it’s weird if he approaches me at a bar?’ Get over yourself. That’s nature. That’s biological. Have enough self confidence to be like, ‘I’m not interested. Thank you so much’… Don’t go out alone if you feel unsafe.”
Ultimately, Kirk said men want to rise to the occasion for the right person. “A man will improve himself, his income, and his character to elevate towards a woman… It does things to the male mind, and women don’t always understand that,” he concluded. “So, I say to women: Hold yourself to such a high standard that the man wants to pursue you and that they have to elevate themselves towards that.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Kirk by tuning in to episode 1,123 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.