What's Your Price? Dating Site Lets You Pay Up Front for Women, and We Still Strike Out

One of the eligible women at What's Your Price?

​Modern dating is a jumble of websites, speed dating, matchmakers, online personals, and even more recently, quick sex meet-up apps on cell phones. Even with all this new electronic dating technology, the pattern still remains essentially the same: Boy meets girl, boy takes girl out, boy tries to have sex with girl, girl says no, boy mopes and begs, and then girl eventually gives it up out of a sense of obligation.

Then, while listening to satellite radio, I heard an advertisement for a website called What's Your Price? The idea is very simple: Normal looking men make financial offers for first dates with beautiful women. They sell it as men bidding on dates with beautiful women like a charity auction, while women field monetary offerings weighing how seriously a guy wants to date them.

Of course, it is also obvious that What's Your Price? is just a stone's throw away from being an escort service.

I had to find out why any woman would be on this site, so I went ahead and made my free profile. It was fairly simple; the oddest part of the process was deciding whether I was an "Attractive Male" or a "Generous Male." The women on the site are actually very beautiful, and in the first couple of days I immediately received several "winks" (invitations to make a bid on a first date) from women that are typically way out of my league.

After going back and forth with some girls I settled for a 25-year-old Eastern European model named "Lana." We agreed to a $60 "fee," and made plans to meet at Books and Books on Lincoln Road. My goal for the night was to make up for how much I was giving her by doing the absolute cheapest things possible.

I told her to dress casually since we were going to be doing a lot of walking. We found each other in front of Victoria's Secret, and she's wearing shorts that a 15 year old girl wears when she's unaware that her body has matured, and a tacky "I Love Miami" t-shirt that was hilarious just for the unintentional kitsch. She also didn't have on any makeup, and I'm pretty sure she hadn't washed her hair in several days. This girl was dressed to un-impress.

We walked up Lincoln Road, and made our way into Art Center South Florida. I picked mostly it because it was free, and is also a great place to check out local artists. We looked at the latest exhibition and went through the studios. I marveled at the art work, while she blankly looked around, and eventually said that she liked the floor.

We hit the mall again, and walked and talked some more. I figure we'd spent enough time together that I can start interviewing her about the website.

She told me that What's Your Price? is the only dating site that she's on. She got tired of other sites where she would have to waste a lot of time going through tons of banal and grossly sexual messages, she said.

I asked her about other guys that she's met through the site, and she said that while some are alright, other guys are very, very creepy. She told me about one guy who was very grabby, telling her in the first five minutes of meeting that she has a nice body and that he wanted to kiss her all over.

I told her that I'd anticipated that would be a big downside to the site, that a lot of men would assume that they'd be paying for sex and not a date. She countered that she went on one date with a guy who paid upwards of $500, and she said that he was a gentleman the whole time and didn't push sex at all.

We made our way into a bar, had a couple of drinks, and talked for another hour. We were having a pretty good conversation. She definitely wasn't acting like she wanted to leave, which I take to mean she's not just using me for the laughably small amount of money I'm "paying" her.

At no point in the date had she even brought up the money. It got to the point where I felt the need to get it out of the way. I told her, "I don't know the polite way to go about this, but here, before I forget." Then handed her a folded up envelope with the $60 inside. Thankfully, she didn't count it in front of me.

We left and walked up Washington Ave., still talking the whole time. At one point I reached down and grabbed her hand, and thankfully, she didn't yank it away like I had Ebola.

We strolled, chatted, and looked in stores. Eventually we walked back in the general direction of where she lives. It had been a couple of hours at this point, and I'd managed to only spend $11 beyond the $60 "fee."

The date was about to end, and I got myself ready to make my move. I was thinking to myself that if this website makes it possible for me to make out with a model, who may be kind of lame but still hot, then they may actually have something going on. We reached the corner where I have to turn to head back to my car. I turned to say goodbye, grabbed her by the jacket, and pulled her in for the kiss. The tension rose, I saw the look of expectation in her eye, and at the last moment she pulled back abruptly and got a look on her face like, "You have got to be kidding me."

Can't blame a guy for trying.

We said goodbye, and who knows, maybe we'll see each other again. But hopefully it won't cost me another $60.

--Ric Delgado

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