The sleazy old adage that, even through courtship and dinner dates, men are going to end up paying for what they want, namely sex, might not be true after all.

Perhaps guys deserve a little more credit. Or maybe American men are just getting soft.

Because a new survey out of Los Angeles claims that the male nation would rather fork out more money during a date if they knew they were headed for true love.

The data comes to us from WhatsYourPrice.com, a dating website that says 50,000 men were surveyed online.

So what's the price of love?

$73 more than a date where “casual or no-strings-attached relationships” were being sought, according to the site.

The full-on, falling-in-love, Sleepless in Seattle date would cost a guy $194, according to dudes told the dating service. That's three-star restaurant money. Bouchon money. Maybe.

$121 was the cost of the casual-track date. We assume that would all be spent at the bar, too.

But while the love-seeking bro pays more on his dates, he has less of them. The lady cruiser ends up on first dates more, and thus pays twice as much for his dating experience, according to the survey, which calls this particular homo erectus the “casual dater.”

Site CEO Brandon Wade:

We often hear the stereotype that men value sex and women value love. Our online dating study shows this stereotype is wrong. In fact, men value love more than sex by over 60%.

Yeah, sure. And 100 percent of men love having post-dinner-date sex, too, according to, oh, everyone.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

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