Oh, this is more statistics bullshitting, the kind Gould complained about decades ago wrt variation.

14% of Americans say the average date costs them nothing, up from 12% a year ago. At the other end of the spectrum, 14% say a typical date costs $300 or more, up from 11% in 2025.

It's high income people drawing up the mean.

But I'm also skeptical of 1) the implication this is self-reported 2) the broad measurements that include grooming before the date for instance 3) the lack of publicly available methodology 4) the clear ragebait advertising BMO is doing here