From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
This is Modern Love.
Let me tell you about my least favorite part of a date.
It's the moment the bill hits the table.
Regardless of whether the date's been good, the date's been bad.
When that bill comes, I'm frozen.
I don't know what to do.
I'm like, should I do the slow reach for the wallet, hoping the guy slaps that Amex down?
Do I just let him throw the card down and then get sort of offended?
Because it's like, do you think I can't pay for this?
It's just a vodka soda.
Should we split it?
Which is always kind of weird.
Should I Venmo him?
Should I Venmo him?
It's like, oh God, every option is so undignified.
But today I'm talking to a Modern Love essayist who had an unexpected solution to that exact problem.
Here is what she did.
On her third date with a guy, she proposed they open a joint checking account.
And I have to say, even though that sounds quite extreme, her reasoning actually started to convince me.
Here's our conversation.
Janine Lin, welcome to Modern Love.
Thanks for having me, Anna.
I want to tell you that I am talking to you on an incredibly fortuitous day, because I have a date tonight and I know that when the check comes we're going to do that horrible, weird little dance where I like reach for the wallet, but I'm looking at him.
Who's going to pay?
Should we split it?
And when you were dating and facing this question, you did something I've never heard of anyone doing, ever.
You asked a guy... to open a joint bank account on your third date.
I have to know, do people freak out when you tell them this?
Absolutely.
They think I'm bonkers.
Yes.
Yeah, it was a bonkers idea.
And you're right, that moment when the bill comes is so fraught, is so anxiety-driven, and there's so many layers and complexities to that moment.
You know, it's like...
Do I pay?
If I pay, does that mean my love is for sale?
If he pays, does that mean, like, he owns me?
Or, you know, is there some sort of projection of alphaness that we need to establish here?
Anti-feminism, yeah.
You say, and I agree, it's such a fraught moment.
Do you remember, put yourself back, when a check came, what did you say?
What did he say?
What did you do?
So whenever I was on a date out to dinner or having drinks or playing miniature golf, whatever it was,
Whenever it came time to pay, or whenever at dinner, for instance, the bill landed on the table, my knee-jerk reaction was to grab the bill and offer to pay.
And it wasn't just like a gentle, oh, let me pay.
It was like no.
My hand slapped the table, laying claim to the Czech presenter saying And I took it like it was like my life depended on it.
In my brain.
I said, if he pays, I'm going to kill him.
But what I said to the actual date was like, oh, let me get this.
And what would they do?
Were their eyes wide?
Like, what was their reaction?
I mean, of course they would kind of recoil a little bit from the like violent grabbing of the bill a little bit.
Yeah.
But then be like, sure.
You know, they'd just let me pay.
You said... if he pays this hypothetical guy on this hypothetical date, you will kill him.
Why?
What is it about someone doing something ostensibly kind for you that ignites such fury?
So honestly, Anna, I didn't know at the time.
I just kept doing it over and over and over again.
It was a compulsion.
It was instinctual.
I had no idea what that was.
I thought it was, you know, feminism.
I thought it was whatever conversations we have in our brain about that moment.
And it wasn't until I was out to dinner with my family and the bill came and I heard my dad say if you pay it, I will kill you.
To who?
To my aunts.
Yeah, totally.
And so that's when it clicked in my head.
I'm like, oh my God, that's where I get it from.
When you went out to dinner with your family, can you sort of tell me what would happen?
You eat a delicious meal and then what?
So it would only really happen in these big Chinese banquets when we were celebrating my grandfather's birthday, my grandmother's birthday or some big moment.
And there were, you know, like we'd have 10 tables at a restaurant for our family.
And every table was 10 people.
So it's like eight, nine courses of food, all in the middle of this lazy Susan, you know.
And you just turn it around and you pick at it.
And so at the end of dinner, after this one two hour event, the bill would come and you could almost.
I remember this as a kid because I loved it so much.
You can almost sense the energy in the room pause.
You know that moment where, like animals, suddenly sense an earthquake and they pause and they look up.
Yes.
It was like that.
And everyone would just like for the bill and threaten bodily harm.
Have all these different kind of schemes for how to pay for that bill?
I really I understand, in the sense that I am half Chinese, and this is a scene that I can absolutely resonate with.
I remember being I think it was in Michigan where my grandparents were living at the time.
Big dinner, family dinner, like you describe.
And I remember my aunt and my father fought so violently over the check.
My aunt accidentally scratched my dad and he bled all over the tablecloth.
I guess, like, as a kid, you say you weren't aware of what was happening.
What did it appear like to you?
Put yourself in, like, kid Janine brain.
What did you see your family doing?
Did you think, like...
They're being insane?
Or did you think this is kind of just how it is?
I thought it was just kind of how it was.
And it was fun for me because my cousins and I would take bets on who would win.
Like it was a wrestling match or battle royale or something.
Yeah.
And to be honest, the moment where it really clicked for me was when my aunt won the bill one time.
And my parents.
In what appeared to me as a refusal to lose, they gave me money bills in my hand and asked me to crawl under the dinner table and crawl my way towards her and sneak money into her pocket like a reverse pickpocketing.
So she'll at some point later in the night discover she has like all these bills.
Exactly.
Why?
Why?
In my mind, I thought it was another scheme.
Like my parents had refused to lose and this was a way for them to win.
But on my way home from that dinner with my parents, they were brainstorming ways to continue to pay her back for the dinner bill, like with groceries, with clothes for her kids, with all these other things.
And I was confused.
I was like, why?
I did a good job putting money in her pocket.
Like, I didn't kill you.
Why are we still trying to pay her back?
And they're like, well, she just lost her job.
And so we let her win to save face, to have the honor and the privilege of paying for the bill.
But we know she can't afford it.
So they knew she couldn't afford that dinner and they are working behind the scenes to pay her back and then some, and really to take care of her.
And so that's when that ritual started to become clear to me exactly what it was.
We're all performing this ritual because we all want the right and the privilege and the honor to win that moment.
But underneath it all is this kind of invisible checks and balances that is happening that you don't really talk about.
Because before then, I was just like, oh, fun, they're fighting.
And then, underneath that, that was a moment that I learned that there was something more happening underneath all of that.
That is a really illuminating memory.
What did it teach you about money and relationships?
The relationship, as it were, between the two?
That's a good question.
It's so hard to separate, right?
Money and relationships and care.
And of course, you can care for someone without money. having money involved at all.
But money was such a big part of our lives because we didn't have that much of it.
You know, my family, very working class.
My mom was a waitress.
My dad worked in a factory.
Similarly, my aunts and uncles were also blue collar.
And so going out to dinner like that, a big family banquet was a big deal for us, you know?
And so even now, I had the means to pay for every dinner if I wanted to.
But it still comes back to that moment of like, is someone watching?
Is someone caring?
Is someone noticing like what this moment means?
And like, like this goes back to dating.
It's like every time I fought for the bill and I won because no one fought me back.
They were scared.
Like I just kept grabbing the check, grabbing check, happy to do it because I was saying I care about this.
I'm investing in this relationship.
But when no one fought me back and no one, stopped to ask the question, are you okay paying this?
Are you financially okay to foot this bill over and over again?
That's when it really started to hurt because then it made me wonder, are people noticing?
Are people caring?
Are people asking the question, am I okay to pay this bill?
What were you afraid would happen if you didn't pay?
What was that worst case scenario to you?
I tried.
I tried.
Not paying.
Okay.
I tried not paying and just letting them pay every time.
And it just felt gross to me.
It just felt unnatural.
It just felt... God, just like not... It just... It wasn't in my body to let that happen.
And I tried.
I really gave it a good try.
I let them pay over and over again.
But you know, in addition to my inherited Chinese rituals, there was also that layer of feminism.
There was also that layer of all these other things that we talked about when the bill came.
It was like, if I let him pay, do I owe him something?
You know, like, if I let him pay, does that mean my love is for sale?
If I let him pay?
Like there were all these questions in my brain that made letting them pay not work for me.
I tried splitting the bill.
Yeah, what was that like?
Because that's my approach normally, and I'm like...
Yeah, let's split it.
It just felt like you go your way, I'll go my way.
Like we don't have to see each other again.
I paid for my stuff, you paid for your stuff.
We don't owe each other anything.
And I didn't like that either, you know, because that moment we shared over dinner getting to know each other, did that not mean anything enough?
Did that not mean enough for us to invest a little bit of money, a little bit of ourselves into it?
So it seems like, Janine, there's kind of no way to win.
You didn't like letting him pay.
You didn't like splitting and you, you liked paying, but you were also like dang, aren't you going to fight me more?
It's like there's no way to win in this situation.
No.
And that's why the only solution in my mind was the joint bank account.
OK, we're going to get into it now, because that is not where many people's brain would go.
Right.
You say that's why the only solution was a joint bank account.
We need to dig into that.
How did that idea come to you?
I just remember the growing frustration I felt where I was paying date after date.
You know whether it was third date, fourth date, first date, whatever it was.
And no one stopped to have a conversation with me about it.
No one stopped.
I mean, no one stopped to fight me back.
But also, more importantly, no one was talking to me about what this moment meant.
No one was talking to me about finances.
No one was talking to me about financial compatibility, you know.
And then from there, my brain went...
This is so ridiculous that we don't talk about money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like this big issue.
Let's just avoid it.
You know what I mean?
It's kind of too complicated to deal with.
Although it does feel that way when you're getting to know someone.
It feels kind of rude to bring it up.
So I understand.
But okay, you're feeling this growing frustration.
So then what?
Well, so then my brain went to like, oh my God, like there's so many...
Other ways that people test compatibility in a relationship.
That's so much harder than opening a bank account.
Like, let's get a pet together to see if we can raise a child.
And then you break up and then you have to discuss custody over who gets the pet.
Who's going to take care of Spot?
Totally, yeah.
Exactly.
Or you move in together into an apartment and...
And then you break up and then you have to fight over who gets what furniture.
Wait, stop.
You're kind of convincing me right now.
A dog, an apartment in a city like New York.
I'm like, all those things are so tough to disentangle if something doesn't work.
And you're saying with the checking account, you just kind of go to the bank and it's done.
Yes, Anna.
At the time, it was easier to close a bank account than to cancel a gym membership.
Oh, my God.
They really don't let you go on those gym memberships.
I'll have you know.
But still the joint bank account of it all seems to me, at least on its face, to carry like a bigger weight.
I wonder, I wonder why you know, like I hear, the apartment and the pet and you're laying out a very logical argument.
But I'm like something about joint bank account screams like marriage to me.
Oh, absolutely.
I even know people who are married that still won't have a joint bank account because they have such a different relationship with money, and money is protection and I don't want to share any of it because we might get divorced.
There's so many different relationships that people can have with money for sure.
And so for me, a joint bank account made so much sense, because we could each deposit the same amount of money if it was proportional to our incomes, right?
And it was a certain amount every month that we would direct deposit in.
And then I could fight for the bill and still feel like, behind the scenes, I was taken care of because we were equally contributing to this account.
So you're laying out again like a very logical argument for why opening a joint bank account actually isn't such a logistical lift as it might sound like.
But at the same time, you know, people don't get a dog, well...
I'll say many people don't get a dog or get an apartment, all these things you're comparing it to.
On the third date right,
On an early date.
So can you describe the part of your plan where you wanted to sort of float this to someone in the early stages of getting to know them?
Like what was the logic there?
There was no logic, Anna.
I was just so tired.
So at this point in my like early 30s, where I was like really tired of going on date after date after date where this kept coming up, I was just fed up.
And I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do.
And this is going to cause a reaction in the other person that's going to be very revealing to me.
And then I'll go from there.
So you'd open up this account in both your names and then you'd what?
In my brain, it was once a month we would do a direct deposit that was proportional to our incomes.
You'd prorate it.
Very smart.
Yep.
Yep.
And then, yeah, both our names would be on the debit cards.
And would you get, like, I don't know, a picture of you guys on the card?
Or what was the... No, I didn't want to go that far.
Yeah, you can't do that.
That'd be insane.
Can I ask, like, how much would you imagine would be in this joint bank account?
So at the time, I... calculated how much I was spending on these dinner dates.
And I really did your research.
Yes, I really thought about this.
It was really bothering me.
I think I was spending upwards of $1,000 a month on dinner dates.
This is San Francisco Bay Area.
So everything is really expensive there.
Going out is so expensive.
In my brain I had wanted to start off in my proposal with something even lower, something more manageable like 500.
So $250 per person, which seems more reasonable, right?
Given how expensive everything was in San Francisco.
I think if you went with a thousand at the top, it would be hard.
Yeah, it would be a hard no.
I wanted to make this as crazy and bonkers as it sounded.
I wanted this to actually sound quite logical and quite easy to do.
Did you worry that you'd propose this joint bank account and this guy would agree to it, but then he'd like take all the money and leave town.
Were you worried about that happening?
Oh, yes.
I was worried about being taken advantage of.
Yes, absolutely.
Which is why I didn't propose putting in $1,000.
Oh, my God.
500 you know, really 250 between the two of us felt like an okay amount to lose if this thing turned into a guy taking off with my money.
Yeah.
So that worst case scenario was like, truly in your mind.
You were like, that's possible.
He could just take the money and run.
Yes, absolutely.
Well, that would be a surefire way to know that guy was not your guy.
Am I right?
Exactly, yeah.
250 lost, but knowing that this guy was definitely not someone I was ever going to marry was worth the money.
I will just say, though, like $250, that's still a risk.
And to me, that shows, like that's a chunk of change, no matter which way you slice it.
And I feel like it shows me that you were like.
You were like serious about this plan, like you were willing to lose money.
That's how serious you were about it.
Yeah, i mean, the way i rationalized in my head was it was still less than i was paying when i was constantly fighting to pay the bill and paying for every single dinner.
So in my mind i was like oh, it's still less than what i was investing in previous dates.
You're like look, i couldn't be spending any more money on these.
Tell me, you had this pitch perfected, as it were.
You had this idea, all of the different points locked down.
You'd researched it.
The real rubber meets the road when you actually pitch it to a person.
Tell me who the person you pitched this idea to was.
Who was the guy, the lucky guy?
His name is Adon.
And it was our third date.
We had met on Bumble.
I didn't know much about him.
I knew he was from Ireland.
I knew he had just gotten out of business school and was his first year in tech in San Francisco.
And I knew he lived in San Mateo, which is about 20 minutes away from me in San Francisco, where I was living at the time.
Beyond that, I didn't know much else about him.
I did know though, if I were to perceive anything about his demeanor or his personality, it was that he was quite calm gentle kind, kind of soul like very kind.
You know, immediately when someone walks in the door, you can kind of sense who they are.
Like, oh, this is the kind of guy, like, you know.
So let me back up and say, I...
Yeah, yeah.
When a person walks in the room, I can instantly project or fantasize about what life might be like with them if I were married.
And some guys just walk into the room and are like oh, this is the kind of guy I'm going to go jump out of a plane with.
That's going to be our life together.
And when Adon walked into the room I was like oh, this is the kind of guy I'm going to enjoy a cup of tea with as we watch sheep cross the meadows from our window.
I kind of dig it.
Yeah.
Was that like attractive to you?
Did you want that?
I didn't think so at the time, to be honest.
Like I was still in the phase of my life where I wanted to be jumping out of planes with someone.
And so there was nothing to lose with Adon and this pitch for a joint pig account, because I was like he's not quite my type, but he's the sheep guy.
I want the plane guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
So you kind of were like, it felt low stakes.
Yeah.
Yes, it felt the man sitting across from me and our relationship felt low stakes.
But the proposal to do a joint bank account was certainly very high stakes because it was the first time that I felt like I was really putting myself out there.
To be honest, like he could have been anyone that I pitched this to.
With online dating, it doesn't matter, right?
Like if this date was a bust, you just go on another date.
And then you go on another date after that, you know?
I think that's a really important distinction you just made.
The guy didn't matter so much, but this pitch did.
And I guess I want to push on that a little.
It's like, what were you afraid would happen?
You'd make this pitch.
It's well researched.
It's tight.
You have a deck.
I'm joking, but you might as well have a deck.
You know, like, what were you afraid would happen if this person said no?
I mean, I guess it doesn't matter if he said no, you just pitch to the next person.
But yeah, you were opening up in this way you hadn't before on a date.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I did have a deck, Anna.
Oh, you did?
I was going to bring it out if I needed to.
You did?
You had like an iPad in your bag?
It was on my phone.
But honestly, if they rejected my proposal, it would have felt like they were rejecting me.
Because I spent so much of my dating experience trying to be someone I thought people wanted to be sitting across from at dinner, right.
I spent so many years of my youth, especially teenage, high school years, rejecting the Chinese side of my identity and trying to fit into mainstream.
And it wasn't until that moment, where I had the idea to pitch this joint bank account, that I finally felt like I was bringing myself to the table.
I was finally bringing all the stuff that I felt like I was hiding to the person that I would potentially be spending the rest of my life from.
And in my mind, I was thinking, why would I hide this from this person?
Like if I'm on this date with the objective to find the person I wanted to marry and spend the rest of my life with.
This is not an aspect of myself I should hide any longer.
And so, yeah, if Adon rejected me, I would have been crushed.
But then I told myself, there's the next guy and the guy after that.
So maybe it's okay.
Maybe I can be bold for once.
We'll be right back.
So you get to this date.
It's your third date with Adan.
Pitch is loaded up on the phone.
Bring me into that moment.
You sit down at the table.
Do you bring it up right at the beginning of the meal?
No, I make sure we have a really lovely meal.
I made sure to order like really good food and we were enjoying ourselves, had great conversation.
So that when the moment came, when the bill landed on the table, I could make this presentation.
Slow this down for me.
The waiter drops it off.
Normally, you'd claw for this.
What do you do instead?
I say, hey, can I talk to you about something for a second?
It's about this moment.
And I say I don't remember exactly what else, what I said, but it was something.
Like you know, this moment means a lot to me and to my family.
And, as you've noticed, the first two dates, I've fought you to pay for this bill and you didn't fight me back.
You just let me pay, which is okay.
But let me explain what my expectation is, and i explained my family ritual and i explained that it would be hard for him to like intuitively understand it, and so what i would, what i'm proposing to you, is a joint bank account, and then, of course yeah, of course he's just like what i know i was gonna say okay, we're with you.
Then the camera pans.
What's his face doing?
When you say, and so i'm telling a joke, he thinks i'm i'm joking, he's like he's laughing, and then you're like no, i'm serious.
Yeah, and i had to, like there was seriousness on my face, so i had to wait for him to register my expression and it felt like the longest pause ever.
It felt like the whole world took a breath to wait for him to realize i was serious about this proposal.
And then, when he realized I wasn't joking, of course his body language said it all.
It was like he crossed his arms.
He kind of leaned back in his chair like he was trying to get away from me.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
And how did that make you feel?
Oh, my God.
I started... Nervous.
I was so anxious.
I started.
You know everything I said to you earlier about the logic behind the bank account.
I was probably just racing through that logic.
Oh, my God.
Words were spilling out of my mouth.
I had no idea what I was saying.
I was saying some kind of logic, hopefully.
But all I could remember was just this body language.
It was just, like, slowly pulling away from me.
If he could, he would have ran through the wall and there would have been an Adon-shaped hole in the wall.
You know, like that was the the level of discomfort I had created for both of us.
And, of course, the bill came and I just paid for it because I felt so bad for, like what I subjected him to.
Oh my god, wait so the bit, wait.
So the bill came.
You're like I want to talk to you about something.
You do the pitch.
He seems to really not be into it.
And then you're like you know what, screw this.
And then you just put your credit card down.
Like that's how you ended that pitch yeah, yeah.
And I was like you know what?
I just subjected him to the most uncomfortable moment in this three-date relationship.
I'm just going to take care of the bill and, you know, we're just going to peace out.
He's probably going to ghost me.
I'm never going to see this guy again.
So then we just leave the restaurant.
Whoa.
And let me just... Let's just linger here for a second.
How did you feel when you were driving, or on the BART, or I don't know how you're getting home from this date, but how were you feeling?
I think I was still recovering from having gone through it, like I wasn't necessarily thinking about being rejected or whatever.
It was just like oh wow, my body was still in aftershock of having done that and then only afterwards, like a few hours later, that I was like okay.
I told myself.
I was like okay, you did it.
You asked for what you wanted.
You didn't get it from this guy, but there's another guy that I could go on a date with that I'm going to try again with.
So I think it was confidence-masking disappointment for sure.
But I didn't want to give up on it.
Like, I knew I couldn't give up on it.
So you weren't expecting to hear from Adon again?
No.
Mm-mm.
I thought it was over.
I was expecting him to ghost me, to block me on his phone, to report me to Bumble as a scam artist.
But then he texted...
I can't remember when, like if it was a few days later, whatever it was.
I was really surprised to hear from him, but he texted hey, let's meet at a bank in San Francisco and open this account.
Okay, most romantic text ever.
Okay, let's meet at a bank and open this account.
That's basically a sext to you at this point.
Yeah.
In my world, yes.
Wow.
Okay.
So how did you feel?
That's so unexpected for you.
I was like, okay, game on.
We're doing this.
Like, okay.
He totally bought my pitch.
You're like, I knew it was great.
It was undeniable.
Didn't even have to bring out the deck.
Yeah.
We'll be right back.
Okay, so he says meet at a bank.
Yeah, he had picked a bank in San Francisco.
And I was like, you know what?
No, no, no.
In my brain, I was like, no, no, I got to make this as easy for him as possible.
And so I picked a bank in San Mateo where he lived.
And it was only a six minute walk away from his apartment.
So I knew that there was like a short distance to get cold feet and to turn around.
I was gonna say that's nice of you, but it turns out it was purely strategic.
Before you go in, like, did you ask him?
What changed your mind?
You know, you seemed really not into it.
No, I was so convinced that it was because of my brilliant proposal, like my undefeatable logic, that like convinced him.
But I will say like we met in front of the bank and it was awkward.
It was like we didn't hug or kiss.
You know like, do that thing where you do, when you greet each other.
And his body language still... spoke volumes.
It was still like arms crossed against his chest.
Like he was kind of just there going through the motions but hadn't really processed what was happening.
But I was just like, you know, just take it.
Take it for what he's here.
We're going to do this.
No buyers for ours.
But was that worrying to you that he was like yeah, he was saying he wanted to do it, but he clearly wasn't like maybe that into it?
I mean, I did ask him, are you sure about this?
Because...
And I didn't necessarily say because your body is saying everything opposite of what your mouth is saying.
But she's like, yes, I'm sure.
So I was like, okay, we're doing this.
And so we walk in.
We didn't have an appointment.
But, you know, they weren't busy.
And we sat down and we said we want to open a joint bank account.
And...
Wait, did the bank tell her, ask, like, so how long you guys been married or something?
Like, did that come up?
I mean, the assumption is that we just got married and we're opening this bank account, you know?
Yeah.
And so did you tell them, like, we actually just met?
Yes.
How did they react?
Okay.
That's unusual.
But...
Business is business.
So let me tell you about overdraft fees.
So yeah, it was quite a moment where it was just like the two of us were looking at each other and we're like yeah, let's just go through this.
This is our fourth date, but we're just going to pretend that this is totally normal fourth date behavior.
At any point when you were sort of going over the fine print, were you worried he would like pull out?
Absolutely.
The whole time we were there, I was worried he was going to pull out.
Every second I had to look over, I was checking in on him to make sure this was still okay for him.
And what surprised me was when we finally got to signing the documents.
He spent an inordinate amount of time reading through the terms and conditions of this bank account.
And it's normally something that I would just like sign my life away for.
You know like I'm, I don't read it.
It's too small to take time to look at.
But he was going through page after page and after page of terms and conditions to the point where I was getting annoyed because I was like this was supposed to be a 15 minute thing and it's turning into a 45 minute experience.
What does that mean to you, though, that he was doing such like due diligence?
He was serious about it.
He was very serious about it.
And it almost felt like I couldn't get.
I mean, I'm not in his brain, but it felt like he was taking the time to really think about what this meant, what this joint bank account meant, what the terms and conditions of this relationship was, of what signing this document meant for our relationship and our time together.
So you get, do you end this appointment with your debit cards?
Like you have your new debit cards in hand?
We had temporary debit cards.
Yep.
Wow.
Mm-hmm.
And it felt like such a big moment for me because it felt like I finally got what I wanted.
This was the physical manifestation of the thing that frustrated me so much about dating that I had found a solution for and that I finally had in my hands and that I could finally use to be myself in a relationship.
Yeah.
So were you like, let's go to dinner right now?
Yeah.
Want to go have lunch?
Yeah.
We went to lunch after that.
Just to shake off all the weirdness of that date too.
It was like let's go back to some sense of normalcy for what a full date is supposed to look like, which is a lunch or a coffee or something.
So how did it feel when the bill came now that you have your new debit cards?
What was that like?
What did you do?
It felt like such relief.
Like it felt like I didn't have to, like... be uncomfortable anymore.
It felt like I could just be myself.
And it felt like he was on the same page with me.
And it's like, he didn't fight me back on it.
Because again, it's like- On the bill.
On the bill.
Yeah, he didn't fight me back.
He didn't fight me to pay the bill.
He let me pay.
And of course, I'm like, I can't expect him to fight me back, right?
That's just something my family and I do.
Like, he's not Chinese.
He wouldn't understand.
It's not intuitive to him.
Yeah.
But the fact that he opened a joint bank account, the fact that, like me, fighting for the bill can happen without me feeling like I was being robbed, or feeling like I was being taken advantage of, or feeling like- If you had no safety net yeah,
Exactly.
Exactly.
And so that moment felt glorious.
And it went through, right?
Like you can use money from a checking account that you just set up.
I don't know, because the bad end to this is like you're like proudly put down your new joint debit card and they're like ma'am, this was declined.
That would be really funny.
But it didn't happen.
It went through.
No, it went through.
So you just you deposited however much money into it biweekly.
And anytime you went out to dates, you would use that debit card.
So it worked.
It worked.
It worked.
And were you like, automatically boyfriend and girlfriend, because you'd opened up this checking counter?
How did the relationship progress from there?
Oh, gosh.
We never had the DTR conversation.
Wow.
You guys are really not talking about much.
No, but it's so funny because, like I remember, with other relationships that let's define the relationship conversation was also really fraught.
But it was almost like when this joint bank account opened, we were each other's person.
You know, it's like we were linked to each other financially, but also symbolically, through this bank account.
Like we were doing this thing together.
We had taken, this was our compatibility test.
You know, this was our first step towards commitment.
And so we didn't need to have the DTR conversation.
Because that kind of was it.
The opening of the bank account, yeah, was the defining the relationship conversation for you guys.
Yeah.
Wow.
And now I will do a spoiler, which is, You've been married for nine years, right?
Yes, we've been together nine years, yes.
You've been together nine years.
Married how many?
I think seven.
I've lost count.
Is this joint bank account still active?
So the only time we ever talked about it again was when we closed that account to open another joint bank account with better benefits.
Did it feel, I don't know, bittersweet to sunset that checking account, which is not a question I asked ever.
Thought I'd ask someone, but did it.
It did.
For me, it did.
Yeah.
Because it was my moment.
You know, it was like the first time I ever asked for what I wanted.
That meant something to me in such a huge, important way.
And I got it.
And so when we closed the account it was sad, you know, because it was like oh, that's a part of that moment for me in our relationship that was so crucial.
That changed the rest of our lives, you know.
But now we have lots of joint bank accounts.
Damn a dozen.
Oh, gosh.
Well, I want to ask now, like did you ever ask him, now that you've been, you know, together for nine years?
Did you ask him what was going through his mind in those like days between ending the third date and meeting at the bank?
What did he say?
You know, I had always thought it was because I had such a solid pitch.
But it wasn't until years later, when I was sharing the story with friends, when one of them asked You know, so he just agreed to open a joint bank account with you.
Because, of course, like why would anyone do that?
And my response was, yeah, he did.
I had a solid pitch.
He bought it.
You know, he really leaned into what I was saying.
And it only occurred to me that night that I should actually ask him if that was true.
So I went home and I said, hey, do you remember that crazy thing we did?
I was like, it's because you bought my pitch, right?
And he was like, no, no, no, you were bonkers.
I said yes because I needed financial stability.
I needed a way to build credit in a country that I had just arrived in less than a year.
Whoa.
That is not as romantic as I thought.
Yeah, I agree.
But what it did...
So it was after all these years, when I thought it was because of this compelling thing, I said to him and learning that it wasn't, that it kind of reframed everything for me, because in a good way, because what it made me realize was I had specific needs, he had specific needs and in our different unmet needs, in trying to fulfill our different unmet needs, we had stumbled upon a solution that worked for both of us.
Hmm.
I needed a way to practice care in a relationship the way that my family did.
And he needed a way to build a foundation for a new life in a new country.
And so what it taught me was, you know yeah, he wouldn't necessarily understand my traditions, but what he did in that moment, in accepting this proposal for me, was that he understood that something was important to me and he honored that.
He didn't necessarily need to intuitively understand what fighting for the bill meant.
He didn't need to understand that or even practice that or perform that.
All he knew was this was important to me, and he was going to help me get what was important to me in the same way that, like for him, this joint bank account meant he could finally establish himself in a new country, and I helped him do that.
And so, nine years later, finally realizing the other side of the story, I look back in our relationship and I'm like, oh my gosh, that was a template for our relationship.
Like he's Irish, I am Chinese.
He doesn't understand most of what I do.
I don't understand him.
But when we express what's important to us, we both are working towards helping each other achieve those things.
And that has been our recipe for success.
My knee-jerk response when you shared his, he needed to build credit.
I said, that's very not romantic.
But then at the end of you saying, of you describing how this has been your template, I'm like...
I actually think that's really romantic.
And it even goes beyond romance.
It's this deep, this deep level of care that you've achieved between the two of you.
And you achieved, in fact, on date, between dates three and four.
Or date four, let's say.
You achieve when you walk into that bank in San Mateo.
I was kind of joking, but I actually mean this.
Like do you think if someone's listening to this and they want to do it for themselves, do you recommend that?
Yeah.
Uh, yes, I do.
In fact, I'm going to go to a bank and pitch this to them as like... I know, girl.
I'm like, we got to make sure that Janine isn't sponsored by like Citibank or Capital One.
Like, this is some spawn con.
Yeah, no, it's like, well, I do joke.
I'm like, instead of promise rings, we should have promise accounts, you know?
Um...
But no, I don't necessarily think that opening a joint bank account is right for everyone.
But I do think that it is worth having a conversation early on about what our relationship to money is.
Because not enough people talk about it.
Like I said, we are so scared of talking about finances.
And I'm not talking about radical transparency.
You don't need to go out and say, this is how much I make annually.
This is how much I make on my bonus.
This is what my mortgage costs.
No, it's just like.
Let's just talk about our relationship to money and what that means for us and what that meant for our family, because that's who we inherited it from, you know.
And so I think at least that level of conversation to me feels like an intimate step in getting to know each other.
Yeah.
That doesn't happen often enough.
I wonder too, like between you and Adon, what are your conversations about money like now?
You have multiple joint bank accounts, as you've told me, but yeah.
So we talk a lot about... what we want to invest in.
We talk a lot about building a financial foundation for our son.
We talk a lot about my salary, his salary.
I'm a writer now.
I used to be in advertising for 14 years.
And between the two of us... Well, that's why you were so good at the damn pitch.
Okay.
No, my deck was amazing.
Yeah.
And so we talk about, you know...
Now that I'm a writer, how he's going to have to financially support us, whereas before, when I was working in advertising, I was financially supporting us.
And so we talk about how we want to handle that and how we want to minimize our overhead.
We talk really like we're the CFO of our family, like it's a company.
Is there anything you find difficult or uncomfortable to discuss about money still?
No, not at all.
Wow.
Yeah.
I think that is extremely rare.
Yeah.
Well, you know, when you open a joint bank account on your third date, like everything's on the table from there on out.
Well, I have a first date tonight.
I know you don't know me so well, but I wonder what you'd recommend I do.
Should I do the slow reach for the wallet?
Should I just kind of sit back?
I mean, in my ideal world, frankly, like I wouldn't pay.
So I wonder what you think I should do.
Should I just say that?
I think you should be bold and just call out the moment and say, okay, the bill's here.
How do you feel about it?
Oh my God, I'm getting legitimately nervous.
You're saying that.
Let's just talk about it.
It's such a big moment.
Like it's such a slimy, gross moment.
Let's just talk about it.
I hope I have the bravery to do that today.
I'll report back.
Please do.
And by the way, I really will.
And I'm inspired by this approach.
I truly am.
Janine Lynn, thank you for this conversation.
I learned a lot.
Oh, thank you for having me here.
This was so much fun.
All right.
Before we end this episode, I just want to say if you enjoyed today's conversation, you'll definitely want to tune in next week.
We're talking more about money and all the complicated uncomfortable, tricky situations it can cause in relationships.
Ramit Sethi, he's the host of How to Get Rich on Netflix.
He's going to be here to weigh in on your stories, and he's got some really useful advice.
You won't want to miss it.
The Modern Love team is Amy Pearl, Christina Josa Davis Land, Elisa Gutierrez, Emily Lang, Jen Poyant, Lynn Levy, Rifa Goldberg and Sarah Curtis.
This episode was produced by Elisa Gutierrez and Sarah Curtis.
Thank you.
If you'd like to submit an essay or a tiny love story to The New York Times, we've always got the instructions in our show notes.
I'm Anna Martin.
Thanks for listening.
