The High Cost of Loving

Wooing a sophisticated lady can break a most happy fella

Romance is not dead; it is just very, very expensive. While the CPI (Consumer Price Index) rose 258% in the past 25 years, the CLI (Cost of Loving Index) soared 420% during the same period. Moonlight still comes cheap, but a dozen long-stemmed roses, $5 in the '50s, sets the sender back $60 today. A couple of drinks at a cocktail lounge will cost about $4.50, compared with $1.50. Going to the movies, once a couple of bucks, is now about $10.

These whimsical, if melancholy, statistics are cited by Market Strategist Raymond DeVoe, 51, writing in the April issue of Inc., a magazine for the small businessman. Serious passion, DeVoe has found, is even more pricey than casual dalliance. A candlelight dinner at an excellent New York restaurant, about $18 then, now costs $80 (up 344%). If music be the food of love, one might be tempted to tell the circling violinists to play on. The problem is the tip: $5, up 900% from the 50-c- that would have satisfied a '50s fiddler. Dom Perignon champagne, to celebrate a month (six months?) of togetherness, bubbles over at $65, a 442% increase over $12. A little silver "something" weighs in at $13 per oz., up 907% from $1.29.

In New York City, wooing a sophisticated lady can break even a most happy fella. Take Broadway tickets. In 1953 it cost $7.20 for an orchestra seat to Cole Porter's musical Can-Can, starring Gwen Verdon. The 1981 revival (same show, same seat) costs $30 on a Saturday night. Taking a cab from Times Square to the elegant Plaza Hotel would have cost 60-c- in 1953, but today it is about $2.20, without traffic jams--or tip. Once at the Plaza, French pastries in the glow of the crystal hurricane lamps of the Palm Court come dear: $3.95 per gateau, vs. $1.90. To top off the evening in the best romantic tradition, a horse-and-carriage ride in Central Park is now around $20, instead of $7.

DeVoe recognizes that a quarter-century has brought changes in the rituals of courtship. "Our typical affectionate consumer," he writes, "may now only whisper 'Your place or mine?' at a neighborhood dating bar." On the other hand, to perpetuate old-fashioned nights out, many damsels have come to the aid of gentlemen in financial distress. With women earning better salaries--sometimes more than their beaux--affirmative action demands Dutch treats at the very least, or even that the lady pull out her own American Express card ($6 in the late 1950s, now $35 annually).

If a man pops the question (that is still the custom), a yes may really set him back a bundle. An absolutely unflawed one-carat diamond of the finest color, only $2,000 in the 1950s, now costs about $50,000, or more than many three-bedroom houses did not so long ago. The blood test and marriage license have remained affordable at $20 and $5 (formerly $7 and $2), but once the honeymoon is over and tax time comes around, the newlyweds discover that the party is really over. If they both work and earn $20,000 apiece, together they pay Uncle Sam almost $1,700 more than if they had stayed single--making that bill at the Plaza seem like peanuts.

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