Who's doing the paying on your dates?

There's a recent post here asking about finances once you start taking trips with the person you're dating. I was pleasantly surprised to see many of the people commenting split bills during dating. I'm a 47 yo F and I do this also and take a lot of heat about it from my girlfriends. They are staunch believers that a man should cover dating expenses. If a guy has asked me out, I won't pay on the first or second date. Generally, first and second dates are not too pricey - drinks, not dinner. After date 3/4, I start picking up tabs too. Not splitting, I don't really like that either. More like, you got the last one, I'll get this one.

I've been seeing a guy a couple of months now and we haven't talked finances, but we seem to be finding a good pattern. He paid for a pretty pricey dinner, so I picked up the tab the next couple of dates. We enjoy concerts - I pay the tickets, he pays our expenses for that evening. From my POV, life is very expensive and men I've dated seem to make about the same that I do. I know if I had to pay everything for someone I was dating - it would get really expensive, really quick. Like them as I might, I might not be able to keep dating them cause I wouldn't be able to afford it.

All that said, this comes up in conversation with my girlfriends often. There's a relatively large group of us who are close and get together often. We all have good careers, own our homes, enjoy nice dinners and take frequent vacations. We're also all single. Of the group, I'm the only one who believes in picking up the bill on dates. They all have lots to say about it, none of it positive. I should mention that we're all Latinas, which does play a role in that our parents are Mexican born and we were raised with the mindset that men paid. My argument - we are not Mexican born and life is much more expensive now then when our parents where growing up.

I'll keep doing things as I have, but I'm curious - how do most of you handle this? Are you splitting or do you feel the man should pay?