You split the tab.

A blind date is putting two people in a dating situation that is mutual.

You were set up by friends or coworkers, or you met this person by chance and mutually decided to stop by a local place for a quick lunch or drink.

It is a blind date that has occurred through a shared agreement to meet.

No one took the initiative to make the date happen by being the aggressor.

Thereby, you approach it as a date that is on neutral grounds.

Splitting the tab alleviates the pressure on either person.

Blind dates are a testing ground for what comes later.

No one person is responsible for carrying the tab.

You don’t want either party to feel like they are being pressured to fulfill a preconceived role.

This is a blind date.

You have mutually agreed to be there.

You have never met each other until now.

This is when your focus stays on learning more about this person as opposed to worrying about whether to split the tab.

When you are so concerned about whether to split the tab, you won’t be present.

You aren’t completely immersed in the conversation.

In the back of your mind, you are constantly thinking about what to do by the end of the date.

You wonder about whether to split the tab.

While your thoughts are full of this line of thinking, you are missing precious moments during the blind date that require your attention.

Your date senses that you are uneasy and worries about why you are.

This is when they draw their own conclusions.

Your blind date worries that she is saying something wrong or something about her demeanor is making you uneasy.

At that moment, your blind date pulls back.

She stops being herself and is guarded.

She decides to avoid certain topics that she would have loved to talk about, worried that she is making you uneasy about something.

This is how the blind date that was leading somewhere nice and possibly to a second date has now collapsed into ruin.

This is not the position you want to be in.

There is an awareness from either party that this is a blind date and either party is responsible for their own tabs.

This is the mentality you go into your blind date with so that you don’t ruin it by being uneasy throughout the date.

By the end of the blind date, you split the tab.

It is that elementary.

In deciding to meet again for another date, you get better acquainted and familiar with each other.

On these subsequent dates, you naturally take turns splitting tabs.