Lovely Rita | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

In an interview not long after the time they wrote Lovely Rita , a journalist told Paul he thought the “sitting on a sofa with a sister or two” meant a ménage à trois, but Paul said (to paraphrase from memory) — “I wish!  Actually I meant that I didn’t make it with her because I had to sit with her boring sisters instead”.

meanmistermustard said
I never read it as Paul trying to get some kind of orgy going (and bringing in the sisters, yecht!), always that he was on the sofa trying to cope off with this girl who had taken him to a place of safety (probably due to knowing how randy Paul was with the opposite sex).

Date-wise letting the woman pay, not sure what that says nowadays and how it stands. If you pay you might be making an unconscious statement that men are the breadwinners and the ladies are delicate items who need a man to handle money and if you let them pay then you are cheap. What happened to the days when opening a door for a female was polite and a good show of manners and not getting hit with an umbrella? 

As for the Military outfit, maybe he has/had a fetish for uniforms.

That’s how I heard the song, too.  

I have paid for dates with boyfriends many times before.  My first real boyfriend was kind of a bum most of the relationship, didn’t have a job, so never really had money.  I worked full time so if I wanted to go out, I had to pay. 

My husband and I were usually pretty 50/50 in those first few years.  We started putting our money together just over 4 years ago now, so now there is no such thing as “buying” each other anything.  We keep our spending pretty even and we always “ask” each other when we want to buy something (expect necessities).  He makes way more than I do so technically we wouldn’t be able to buy anything without his input…  so I guess he does buy us a lot in that sense.. but I’m the one that keeps track of the money.