Expenses, Costs, and Investments: on the "high cost of dating"

Ok, now that I read the article (snort, sorry, lol)... it is pretty clear that the "high cost of dating," stems from bad PERSONAL FINANCIAL KNOWLEDGE...>>
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Let's start with the premise that cash is just a proxy for value (conscious-time). Cash makes it easier to talk about what we value, so it is a useful UNIT. Sometimes however, we find that we haven't mapped value to cash very effectively, and so we regret certain negative cash-flows.
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The entire discussion about the high cash-flow of dating can be interpreted in two ways. Either (a) the value of dating is accurately represented in units of cash, and we are celebrating the events which are of high value, or (b) the value of dating is badly represented in units of cash, and we are lamenting the mis-mapping of too much cash, to too little value.
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Above, I didn't use the headline's term, "cost of dating," because in accounting "cost," "expenditure," and "investment," each mean something slightly different. Technically, (i) the "cost of dating," is what you pay to obtain an asset from dating; whereas (ii) the "expense of dating," is when you pay to execute a date without obtaining any particular asset in return; whereas if we were to talk about (iii) the "investment of dating," that can only be a variety of (i) and it is not possible under (ii).
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Some dating cash-flows are costs (i), as they return an asset (henceforth "the Asset") to you. These are typically contractual agreements with people who are obligated to return a favour, in cash or kind. The clearer your legal right to claim that favour, the stronger your case for calling the cash-flow a cost. If you don't make clear agreements, spoken or otherwise, for the return of cash-flows (value-flows), then please, do NOT call your dating cash-flow a cost! I see people making this mistake very often.
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Some dating costs (i) are investments, but others are not. If you believe that your future value-flows from the Asset, exceed the cost of the Asset, then you can reasonably book this as an investment. Your auditor may disagree about the classification of your costs - what you think of as an investment, might be by industry standards a non-investment! (Always retain a team of trustable auditors, or valuers. These people may be called your true friends, and they too are assets. We can talk about how you acquire and manage those, in another post.)
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Unfortunately however, dating cash-flows often deliver no asset to you. These are cash-flows which reduce your time and money, but which do not immediately return to you an expectation of returned value of any kind. We would rightly refer to these as dating expenses (ii).
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From a financial risk-management perspective, it is always safest to book dating cash-flows as expenses, NOT costs, and certainly not as investments unless written contracts are involved.
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From a social risk management perspective, it is safest to discuss with your date, THEIR expected outcome from the date. Sometimes this is discussed before large cash-flows (this is safer), and sometimes it is discussed after (this is more dangerous). It is quite clear that dating consumes conscious-time and money from both parties, so an examination of your counterparty's EXPLICIT motives is strongly advised.
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If you obtain explicit motives from your counterparty, then at least you have performed a minimally responsible amount of due diligence, and if your counterparty reneges on their explicit motives, then you can simply classify them as bad-faith counterparties, and write them off accordingly. Likewise if you deliver explicit motives to your counterparty, then you have enhanced the probability of achieving a mutually expected outcome from the date, provided you too are acting in good-faith, and acting according to your promised motivation.
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We've barely scratched the surface on this topic! Dating protocols (and business development protocols in general) are hardly studied enough by members of our society. And that is a huge factor in why relationships fail.
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Initially posted as a tongue-in-cheek comment in the Personal Finance & Investing Malaysia Facebook group.