I (37M) began dating a beautiful girl who I'm obsessed with, but we started spending much more time together than I expected and things have gotten expensive much faster than anticipated so I need to have a money talk with her sooner than expected and I have no idea how.
Ok so I'm a returning student, going back to UC Berkeley for Computer Science/Cognitive Science. I dropped out a while ago and worked in bars and clubs, but then I got sober and now I'm finishing my degree so I can use my mind to make money. So of course right now I don't have too much money, but my finances are relatively solid. I have no credit card debt, I have about $10,000 in savings, 800 credit score, and I am comfortable living within my means.
However, I just met this beautiful French girl and I'm falling for her fast. Our first date was cheap, we met in a beautiful forest and walked together for hours talking.
Our second date wasn't bad either, I stayed over at her place and I bought her dinner and coffee. Easy, $50 weekend, no big deal.
But then for our next date the next weekend she came packed for 3 days when she came over to my place lmao. It's been quite a whirlwind romance and she's the most romantic person I've ever met, I suppose because she's French lol, but I'm falling for her fast so I was fine with her staying the 3 days, but the problem is eating out at romantic locations for 3 days is 3 x 3 = 9 times eating out. But no matter, I was ok with it.
But the problem is the next weekend (last weekend) we also spent a 3 day weekend together. At this point I've spent maybe $750 on her in a single month and this is not sustainable. Maybe once I begin working, but I need to be realistic – for now I'm still a student. I have zero regrets and would do it again every single time even if she leaves me in the next minute. The time we have spent together has been wonderful.
But if there's a chance at a future with her I need to transition to "ok we started spending a lot of time together a lot faster than I thought we would and it's not sustainable to have these 3 days eating out and going to museums and paying for waymos etc." It's like marathon dating.
And I love it, I mean we've had sex 15 times already and we've only spent a total of 8 days together. And I was fine paying for the dates but the price goes up fast when suddenly you're paying for two people 9 times over a single weekend, especially on a student budget.
As of now I'm in zero financial danger. I haven't dipped into my savings at all, I have my rent paid a month in advance still, and I still have money in the checking account. But I can read the writing on the wall and I can do basic math. If I continue this pace, within a year or less my savings are just gone, and that's just not sustainable.
So how do I have this conversation with her without killing the romance? I need to either start having her cover every other date: As in I buy breakfast, she buys lunch, I buy dinner, she buys the movie tickets/zoo tickets/ etc. Or we need to just start eating groceries. Downgrade the expectations, not every meal has to be romantic kind of thing, they're just calories we need for fuel lmao.
I suppose I need to be willing to lose her, that's part of the problem. I am scared that if I change the dynamic she will turn out to be in it only for the money and she just leaves me when she realizes I'm not willing to pay all the time.
She knows I'm a student though, and in a tired moment of weakness I already had a fairly clunky talk about money with her and asked her to pay her own ferry ticket. I was looking for a sign she may be willing to collaborate, and she paid it with no issues. I also said I feel in the future we may need to take turns, and I suggested the "she gets breakfast, then i get lunch, etc" thing. She agreed without hesitation.
But then she seemed to pull back a bit. Maybe she just needed space in general because we had just spent 3 days together. But she left me on read for a while after we parted and it just felt different. Or maybe I was just looking extra hard for something to be different, who knows.
She's traveled much more than I have and this was just supposed to be one of her stops on a longer trip. She was headed to Los Angeles next. I'm worried I'm just being used, just a fun time in SF before she moves on. When I brought this up to her she said she has no set plan and wants to follow love.
I really hope she's not and I don't think she is pretending, but if she is pretending she's the most convincing and cheapest hooker I've ever met. She's extremely loving and affectionate and the price per sex is a deal I'd make any day for this level of affection and chemistry lmao, so ya like I said zero regrets, but the thing is I AM falling for her. Plus I mean every cent I spent on her was something romantic we did together so I feel horrible for even having these thoughts, like wtf. It would really crush me if she was just using me. So I need to figure out how to firmly shift this to a she pays half type situation because otherwise it's literally not sustainable so I need to make that move now.
I've been out of the dating game for like 7 years at this point. I have no clue what I'm doing. Should I downgrade us to just 1 or two days a week dates? That alone would save a lot of money. I feel like I was fine paying for everything for a couple to few months at least before even considering talking to her about money. But that was when I expected to be seeing her like once a week. Things have escalated much faster than I expected so the money talk timeline feels like it also needs to be pushed up.
How do I do it? My brother keeps a running tab with his girlfriend of 5 years. They split everything down to the penny. I consulted AI and it says that's too extreme and it's better to just do it more roughly, like alternating who pays etc but not counting every penny.
I could really use some help, thank you.