An online survey by Virgin Money to assess South Africans' attitude to dating, shows that traditional values still hold when it come to things like who should pay, and time spent preening for the big occasion.

The survey showed that over 61 percent of respondents said that the guy should pay for the first date, and just shy of 20 percent believed that the costs should be shared.

Surprisingly, and perhaps proving the adage that the best things in life are free, 13 percent said they would like to go on a first date that costs nothing.

Different expectations

Only 6.5 percent of people said that women should pick up the first date tab according to the Virgin Money survey.

When it came to how much should be spent on date one, around 40 percent of both men and women say that between R100 and R350 is what should be spent.

Just over 16 percent of men said they will spend up to a R100 on the first date whereas 25 percent women said they would expect a man to spend that.

There are men with deep pockets out there but they are as rare as finding a handsome, straight, unmarried man with good dress sense over 30. Only 5.5 percent of men said they would spend between R500 and R1000 on the first date. Compare this to the 10 percent of women that expected a man to cough this amount, and you might have an explanation for the Sugar Daddy phenomenon.

Still, 22 percent of men would spend between R350 and R500 and 10 percent of women expected the same.

Just over 11 percent of men say they would spend absolutely nothing on the first date and 15 percent of women say they can pay their own way.

No man said he would spend over R1000 on the first date and not one woman claimed she would expect a man to fork this out for the pleasure of her company.

Getting ready?

When it came to probing how long it would take to get ready for the first date, it shows the fairer sex still take longer to get date ready: 10 percent of women respondents said they spend more that two hours getting pretty, with 30 percent taking between one and two hours. Five percent said they're never quite ready.

No female respondents got ready in less than 10 minutes; 25 percent spent between 10 minutes and 30 minutes and 30 percent get done in between 30 minutes and an hour.

When it came to the unfairer sex, 26 percent of men said they would spend more than 30 minutes grooming, 21 percent between 20 to 30 minutes, 26 percent between 10 and 20 minutes and nine percent between five and 10 minutes.

And 13 percent of men claimed they were born ready.