Dating etiquettes

I stare deeply into gorgeous brown eyes that sparkle in the candlelight glow, I am transfixed. I feel like we've been doing this for ages but it is still not long enough. Sure enough it is the latter, as while I am still thinking these thoughts the waiter walks up to our table, slightly miffed as we're the last patrons 'here's the bill' and walks away. We stare at each other not in the romantic way we were doing a minute ago, awkwardly and suddenly we can't meet each other's eyes. Silence. After 30seconds, I sigh as I reach for my wallet. He does the same.

I am quite awkward as a person. I don't easily fall into comfortability with people till our relationship (friendship or whatever) reaches a certain level.Honestly I have intimacy issues but that is a story for another day. Awkward as I may be I hate feeling embarrassed, these may be not be the things that most people find mutually exclusive but i'm special. Because I hate feeling embarrassed I make sure to do things I can be okay with and can justify in my head so if it comes across as embarrassing I don't feel that way cos I have done it understanding it was okay/acceptable as right.

Dating and seeing people can get very awkward because you don't know the person well enough or haven't reached a level of comfortability where you can freely and confidently do certain things. Take for instance how to address the person when introducing or referring to him in conversations.
There are a lot of things that make dating awkward, today I would like to talk about the handling the bill issue. I feel like people talk about this problem a lot and it is not a new issue but I have never really gotten any concrete advice as to what to do  and I had to think about it recently when speaking with a friend.

The traditional idea was that a man paid for dinner or activities when he took a woman out but in the wave of feminism which I am all for, the lines have blurred a bit as to what to do.
Historically, in pre-feminist times the woman did not make as much money as the man and was meant to do everything in her power to make sure she didn't violate the man's status as hunter-gatherer so it made sense that the man paid but with the empowerment and enlightenment of identities of the sexes, women are increasingly more financially independent at least in most developed countries and guys now know or I hope they do that they don't need to have the woman diminished in certain regards to validate their sex as male.

what does this mean in present times? women can now pay for their meals, ask men out and pay for both their meals...as well as other activities that people that are courting dating are wont to do or better yet both parties pay for what they ate or did and split the bill. But because we have been brought up by people that grew up in a pre-feminist era we find that we still expect the guy to pick up the bill when we go out and this is not even limited to guys we date, our guy friends are sometimes included.
Gold digger or not, I sort of accept it because it is the way I was raised. i know I can pay for my dinner but it shows you are caring and generous when you ask me to have dinner and you pay for it. It is the same way I know I can open the car door or any door we walk through together but somehow you get bonus points for opening it and letting me walk through first.

To avoid broken expectations, disappointment and awkwardness. Many girls reach for their purse but don't really want to pay and end up getting disappointed when they are not stopped. It is not like they aren't fine to pay it, it's just cause no one knows the exact procedure in these things and assume the other person is thinking what they are thinking. I can't speak for guys but maybe they are also not sure of the girl's feminist principles so they feel you might find it insulting by telling you they will pay

I don't know how this will appeal to everyone out there but I have come up with something I think I can be okay with so I am not embarrassed in the future. Here it goes, if you ask me to dinner or whatever activity the date is, offer to pay for it and let me be the one to insist on paying for my half (or not! lol) and if I asked you to come out somewhere then I'd offer to pay it all and you can insist otherwise or for dutch.

That is my solution to the handling the bill thing when you are dating. It is not perfect but it seems fair. When you are in a full on relationship then I feel you are more free to discuss what you think is acceptable or how you go about it together.

Let me know what you think of the whole situation in the comments, I hope you have different thoughts I do enjoy conflict.