‘I was so broke I couldn’t afford groceries. … There were weeks I went on a different date every single evening.’
As the cost of dining out has climbed and economic uncertainty has grown, TikTok has become riddled with tongue-in-cheek videos of people talking up “dating for dinner,” as some experts call it, as a budgeting hack to save money on food. Some joke that scheduling dates throughout the week is their way of meal prepping. “I literally had dates for 10 days straight bc I didn’t want to go grocery shopping,” wrote a commenter on one recent clip. “That’s definitely one way to save,” chimed in another. Some videos coach daters on how to defuse the tension over who will pay the bill.
A transactional first date where one person is dating for dinner can be a bummer for the person footing the bill if they were genuinely looking for love. But it also can take a toll on the person receiving the free meals.
