Once upon a time, like literally starting in the fairy tale days, it was just understood that men would be the ones to pursue women for courtship.

Cinderella could pine away for her handsome prince, but she had to wait for her fairy godmother

glow up to make it possible for him to even notice her.

And then, after all the shoe nonsense, the prince made the first move that led them to happily

ever after.

Since Cindy was back in rags at the time, we all assume he paid for their dates, right?

In our world, though,

a sizable number of young women are further along in their careers than men of the same age that they might want to go out with. From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

Assuming those women are open to relationships with men who don't out-earn them, it seems like norms around who treats might need to evolve.

But my guest is finding that many young couples are struggling to figure out how or whether to rewrite the age-old economic rules around courtship.

Myesha Battle is a certified clinical sexologist.

Her article for Time magazine is titled The Dating

Welfth Gap is Getting Wider. She's also author of a book called This Is Supposed to Be Fun, How to Find Joy in Hucking Up, Settling Down, and Everything in Between.

Myisha, welcome to think. Thank you so much for having me, Chris.

For as long as heterosexual dating couples have consisted of two employed people,

there's pretty much always been one person, right, who out-earned the other.

How did this shape dating behaviors when the assumption was that a man would have more disposable income than a woman?

You know, it's interesting because our courtship rituals have really changed.

It didn't always happen that men dominated the courtship in terms of making their first move and paying.

But in recent history, that's what we have to go on.

And I think that what I'm really seeing as a dating coach

is this shift where men are unsure of what their role is

...