This was not how I imagined things ending when we were laughing happily at the Olives & Plates Embassy Towers restaurant in Sandton the previous night. Completely smitten, I was already imagining her being my girlfriend.

How could I not? She was gorgeous and intelligent, and everything was going perfectly. Yes, I do tend to get ahead of myself sometimes, but man oh man, this felt different. As far as first dates go, it was perfect.

Where to start? Okay, I arrived at the restaurant at 7pm sharp, looking crisp in my white turtleneck, cream jacket, and black jeans.

She’d told me she was running late, which was fine because it gave me time to compose myself. I had shot my shot and somehow secured a date with a well-known actress whose face could launch a thousand ships.

When she arrived, some 20 minutes later, she looked amazing in her white dress and short black coat. I was beside myself. We chatted the night away over good food and drinks.

The next morning (yes, she spent the night), while I was still dazed by how well everything was going, things started to go horribly wrong. As she was preparing to drive back home, she asked me if I was going to give her petrol money. Say what? Come again?

Instinctively, I said no — I didn’t even have to think about it. Why would I give her petrol money? Was that the “price” for our little rendezvous? It didn’t sit well with me.

Yes, she had driven all the way from her place in Soweto to Randburg, but so what? To be clear, I don’t necessarily mind sending a woman I’m dating some money. But I’d rather send it without her asking for it. And not after just one damn date. 

I’m okay with the societal expectation for men to bear the financial brunt of dating and relationships, but, jeez, I’d just settled the bill at the restaurant last night. And it hadn’t been cheap.

Flabbergasted, I tell a couple of my friends, and they are all equally surprised. I even text my mom to get her take on this and check if I’m overreacting.

Seeing as she and I often discuss these types of gender-based topics, I’m eager to get her perspective on this. Surprisingly, despite her usual sentiments that go along the lines of the popular social-media refrain “Indoda must”, she too is not impressed.

“Firstly, I absolutely do not agree with a girl asking you for petrol money,” she says. “Girls who do that are just skanky, they are not worth your time. If she’s already asking for petrol money this early on, there’s going to be more asking for this and that.

Dating shouldn’t be about asking for money for hair and this and that, she should be able to provide her own petrol money, otherwise she shouldn’t have gone on that date. You have to stay away from those types of women.”

Phew. My mom is on my side.

I’ve often thought about the topic of girlfriend allowance. It’s one that’s inescapable on my social-media timelines.

Was this a premature form of girlfriend allowance? Also, seeing as my date is an actress (she’s still relatively on the come-up), are her expectations amplified by the type of experiences and money she’s exposed to in her industry?

To unpack this, I speak to an actress friend of mine, Gomora’s Lerato Mokoka (NOT the actress who asked me for petrol money), to try to understand if this is a common expectation in the acting world.

“I think it just depends on who you are, whether you’re in the industry or not, whether you’re exposed to guys with cash or not,” she says. “So the whole idea with relationships, for me, personally, is that, if you are pursuing a particular type of woman you should be able to, I’m not saying take over and maintain her lifestyle, but if she takes care of herself a certain way, and she eats in certain places and can take herself out to certain places, it only makes sense for you to be able to do that for her.”

She goes on to list some of the places where she eats and says that, because she doesn’t take herself out to Wimpy, she also doesn’t expect her man to take her there.

“If you do give me a girlfriend allowance, I’d rather you’d noticed these things. If you see that I do my nails every month, you come to me like ‘You know what, baby, here’s some money for your nails’ or ‘here’s some money for gas’. If you initiate it, that’s amazing. I don’t think any girl would say no to an allowance, but for me it’s not a dealbreaker if I don’t get it.”

She adds that, in her industry, expectations are high because of what she’s exposed to and what she hears from her industry friends.

“You hear the types of things that these girls be getting. Sometimes these girls be getting things just for existing. They’re not even asking, but that’s also what I love. They don’t ask, it just comes to them.”

Another female friend of mine, Anele, who’s a 32-year-old account manager at an agency, shares similar sentiments but has a different perspective. “As much as I believe a man should provide, I don’t believe in a woman being a debit order,” she says. “You should be able to provide for yourself without a man, and there’s nothing wrong in being an independent woman who also wants a ‘soft life’.

However, you should be able to give yourself those things without a man. It’s okay to like and want money and the things that money can do for you, but there should never be an expectation. Essentially, I don’t understand why you are paying me to be your girlfriend. For me, if you really love me and want to shake the table, I’d rather you buy me something that could appreciate over time, such as stocks.

Personally, that would mean more to me, because that means you’re investing in me and even if we were to break up I’ll be good. But, I mean, if you want to send me money I’m going to take it, my momma didn’t raise no fool.”

Interesting. I can live with the odd bank transfer for nails and maybe some cash here and there. But again, surely it shouldn’t be an expectation.

Having spoken to these women, I reach out to my best friend, who got married last year, for some male perspective and to find out whether he gives a wife allowance. “I think that it’s very relationship specific,” he says. “For example, Zandi [his wife] and I don’t necessarily call it a wife allowance and it isn’t a fixed amount. I’ll give her money to do her nails and when she needs stuff.

I can’t say end of the month I send her an allowance, but I’m genuinely not opposed to it. I think that there are a lot of advantages we as men enjoy in society. For example, career progression. For the most part, it’s been my experience that as men we are able to progress quicker, better, and easier, you know.

And by virtue of that we need to spread the money. Women do so much more with money as well. They make sure, when you have kids, that the kids are good, your household is looking good."

He goes on to add that he can’t wait to make more money so that he can really give her an allowance at the end of every month. “As soon as I get to that point, I have every intention of doing that.” Must be nice.

Perhaps if I wasn’t just a regular earner and I had more money, I’d have been less offended by my date’s request.

But here I am, still single and maybe not quite as ready to mingle. As Nigerian afrobeats star Davido said a few years ago, “In this life, have money or you gon suffer.”