For a woman to submit, you must be a leader who she feels is suitable to completely submit to. A man fussing about a tab is not leader material. It's a trivial, small-minded mentality. You pick up the tab. In return, you expect and get complete deference.
you remind me of another point I wanted to bring up, another thing is that women won't feel obligated to do anything for you because you bought them dinner or paid for whatever the activity was, you're basically doing charity for them, which is fine, but charity is voluntary, if you don't want to donate to the red cross you don't have to.
I've seen women say that they only pay half when they don't want to sleep with the guy, or that they'd refuse to sleep with a guy who didn't buy them food, but that's phrased in the negative, those girls sounded like manipulative gold diggers or egotistical hookers, you know? I've never actually seen a girl phrase it in a way that's like "if a guy buys me dinner I want to sleep with him more" or "if a guy buys me dinner I'm more likely to agree to a date two"
(note: buying dinner here is a general euphemism for taking someone on a date and paying for it, not literally referring to dinner)
I wouldn't be fussy about the tab though, I'd just frame it as me treating women fairly, like "I didn't want to make it look like I assumed you were poor or anything like that, some people might take offense to you automatically assuming they don't have their own money to pay, you know?"
and it's up to you to decide if it's worth turning off a potentially great girl over saving 20 bucks. There are things that men do that turn women off (although they may even still stick with us even though we do it) and then there are things that women do that turn us off. It's all just a matter of finding what you're comfortable with.
I'd probably say, that the same applies to her, if losing out on a free meal makes her not want to go out with you, what does that say about her priorities? it would be petty of her to make a big deal of it, just like it would be petty of the guy to make a big deal of it.
imo, you're not making a big deal if it if you just say, comment on the place you're going like "woah that place is expensive, careful not to spend your life savings when we go haha." or "I've heard that place is nice and cheap, you won't break your bank no matter what you order." or something casual like that.
but if she outright refuses to go out with you or outright refuses to pay for her own food, that's making a big deal of it lol.