Who pays for the coffee?

How many times have I missed my chances?
How many times I have missed the cues and innuendos?
How many times have I said something which was complete opposite of what I wanted to say?

These question were killing me about 2 months ago when I was finishing my last semester and was about to be kicked out from the job. Thats when decided to take more chances.

I decided that first desi gal ( still not attracted to firang gals, i dunno why) I see that evening I am gonna go for it. Well fortunately it was a cute looking gal and I had spoken to her several times before. So starting the conversation was no big deal.

Me: Hi.
Her: Hello. You seem to be busy.
Me: yeah, organizing events is a big responsibility.( I am a part of student organization committee and always use it to try and impress gals. It never works and I dunno why I say that.)

Her: So thats why you don't even return the smiles these days. I smiled and you looked the other way.
Me: I am sorry, I must have missed that. And in my defense, pretty gals throwing a smile at me is a pretty rare phenomenon. ( can't get more cheesier).
Her: You sure are a funny guy.

For the better part of rest of the evening, I kept looking at her direction and kept smiling. She caught me looking at her couple of times.By the end the day she was unnerved by my unashamed (for the lack of better word) staring.

Her: What is it gonna take for you to stop staring at me?
Me: Well I am usually very demanding but since its you I would settle for a coffee. ( I am on a roll, so many stupid lines in one day )

Her: Coffee ?? ha ha....high hopes.
Me: (Alarmed , thinking Damn ye ladki bhi gayi haath se , but I persist shamelessly) Come on, what is it gonna take for you to go out on a coffee with me? Its just plain starbuck's coffee.
( Starbucks is just outside my campus. I hate it. The thing I least hate there is chai latte I still prefer home made Nescafe over starbucks. I don't why, but gals are usually crazy about it.)

Her: How come suddenly you ask me for coffee? It has never happened before.
Me: Well everything has its first, this is definitely the first for me. So what do you say?

Her: After pretending to think for a while ( or was it real. ) Ok, sure.
Me: Its a date.

Her: Lets call it a coffee treat instead of the date, I insist.
Me: Sure. (You can call it whatever....I got myself a date he he ::) )

Her: But let's do it after a week becoz I am really busy this week.
Me: Sure anytime is good with me.

Her: And remember YOU are paying for the coffee, rite?
Me: Yeah rite.( wht the hell???)

What happened after that evening?
Well I never called her up. We never went out on a coffee date. Being a pretty gal she had many guys to keep her company, so she didn't care. But why did I back out after investing so much effort in it?

Well...I didn't like her asking me who is paying for the coffee?. It wasn't that I wouldn't have paid if date had materialized, but her asking me this question put me off some how? Did I look like jerk who would ask the gal out and wouldn't pay? I am not saying the girls should pay on dates, in fact I believe in the opposite, I believe guy should pick up the tab every time. My mantra is simple...if you are not man enough to pay, don't ask her out.

But I also don't want women expecting that dates are fun and free of cost. I would respect a gal who tries stops me from paying ( which I would anyway) her share of the tab. I told this incident to some of my friends and they didn't find anything wrong with it. Some of them instantly called me jerk and declared that I would remain single for next 25 years if I didn't stop this nitpicking behavior. I politely showed them my finger.

Anyways, the bottom line is...
I don't want women to pay on dates, I just want them to be wiling to pay.

Song in background:
Ek garam chai ki pyali ho,
koi mujhko pilane wali ho, chahe gori ya kali ho.....

( did not find any song on coffee...so had to do with Chai)