You’ve heard of ghosting and breadcrumbing. Now there’s a new modern dating term: “sneating”—the act of going out with someone just so you can have a free meal.
When I first read about it, I didn’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed at the thought. It’s funny because, deep inside, some of you will consider doing this. However, this can also be seen as manipulative to whoever’s paying for the meal. So let’s weigh in the pros and cons.
Actually, scratch that, there’s not a lot considering that the perks are you’d get free food and you don’t have to spend a peso. The cons are that your Tinder date might tag you as that person who didn’t call back after they treated you to dinner.
Here’s the thing: A New York Post article describes sneating as “the online dating trend that feeds on chivalrous men.” If you think about it though, gender roles would require men to pay for dinner, but since we’re living in 20-freaking-18, we shouldn’t abide to that anymore. A lot of times, women are willing to pay too, both in full and half with their date, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So anyone can fall victim to sneating.
That said, we shouldn’t subscribe to the notion that we are owed something when we do “what is expected” during a date. Treating someone to dinner doesn’t get you another shot with the person you like, so don’t go complaining about how they used you to get free food. You willingly paid for the tab, they didn’t manipulate you to do that.
As much as people want to demonize others with “sneating,” it’s just another funny word that we can thank the Internet for coming up with it.
Photo by Jep Gambardella from Pexels
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