"So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset."
So says a guy making over $500,000 a year to a beautiful woman asking on Craig's List why she can't find a rich husband.
posted by Helen at 10:17 AM
25 Comments:
The thing I find so funny about the back and forth is that the woman just entirely takes for granted that the only thing a guy is looking for in a woman is looks:
Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east
side so plain? I've seen really 'plain jane' boring types who have
nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys.
In my experience, my appreciation for the looks of a woman are highly mutable, based on personality. There are women I've met who've seemed plain, and after a while their intelligence and humor changes my perception to the point where I think that they're cute as a button...and there have been very attractive women who reveal their inner ugliness, and pretty soon I begin to actually perceive them as somewhat ugly.
I'd guess that many of these "'plain jane' boring types" are funny, intelligent, well-read, loyal...
And, honestly, any guy who'd prefer a vacuous bimbo over that is welcome to her - it takes her off the market, and makes the average quality of the remaining women that much higher.
Well, I think looks and money are both important. But there's a catch.
How do you know what somebody looks like, upon first meeting them? Does that funny little quirk to their mouth mean a sense of humor? Or does it mean they think they've gotcha, but you don't realize it yet? After a while, that quirk will look a lot better if it's humor instead of gotcha.
And money? Take my sister's husband - please. He has lots of the stuff, and debt to overshadow it, and one of the least healthy relationships with money I've ever met. He makes enough to get into big trouble, but not enough to shield him from it.
Money and looks are kind of a snapshot. But you need a longer timeline than that. Where did they come from? Where are they going?
I'm a member of a great health club. This club has 2500 members, most of which know a great deal about health, fitness, nutrition and beauty (both the men and women). Many of the members aren't just pleasing to the eye but spectacularly good-looking. Good looking beautiful people these days can be a dime a dozen. So if you are going to catch the rich or powerful spouse you should be prepared to bring something additional to the table along with your incredible handsomeness.
Me thinks the 25 year old needs to move from Manhattan to Miami, before the looks fade. If she is as knockout gorgeous as she states, then the Ford Agency is her ticket. Equally, she could possibly end up on the other side of that equal sign down the road. She'd have the money, and a young buck with six packs and deer eyes could be her trophy pecker.
The guy's response is a classic. It's what happens when men start thinking with their brains instead of their gonads. And the irony of the situation is that this is exactly where women say men SHOULD do their thinking.
Be careful what you wish for, ladies. You may get it.
I had girlfriend who asked me to introduce some of my friends to her friends who were having trouble finding suitable men. These women were all attractive professionals intent on marriage before age 35. It came as no surprise that their requirements for a mate were fairly stringent: He must be over six feet tall, earn more than $500,000 a year, be educated and cultured, not into sports, own his own home, drive a nice car, and not have mother issues – whatever that means.
Oddly enough I had an available friend who fit the bill and introduced him to my girlfriend’s friend I found most attractive. They dated for a few weeks then he broke it off with her. The next time I saw her she grilled me on why he dumped her. Long story short - he felt he could do better and did. He met and eventually married a much, much prettier woman who was not a lawyer, but a surgical nurse. It was fascinating to listen to this poor woman rant about how superficial men are after providing me with a list of criteria that excludes 99% of eligible men she will ever meet. I wonder if she ever married and if so, if her five foot nine CEO husband is aware his bride settled for him.
This makes it a little easier for me to understand why so many women seem to be trying so hard to compete with men and build careers.
I think intelligence is at least as important (and possibly more important) than looks, so falling in love with a brain would seem to make more sense than falling in love with a body. I don't think all men would agree with this, though. As to women, who knows?
Isn't there an old stereotype about men being threatened by women with brains? How does this square with the new stereotype that men are stupid and incompetent?
So I can't figure out the rule. Do men want women to be less intelligent than they are? Or do women want men to be less intelligent than they are?
Maybe it depends on whether you're out to get something. If the goal is simply money, then money plus stupidity would seem an ideal match. Ditto if the goal is simply attractiveness. But if the latter is the goal, why not wait until androids are perfected?
It's plain as day that no guy in his right mind is going to give her what she wants.
If she wants the benefits of a 500k plus salary per year, she is going to have to go out and earn it for herself. Having done that, and armed with the knowledge of how difficult and stressful such a job really is, she may prove herself worthy of the man of her dreams.
But she doesn't seek to give (or even receive) love, she doesn't offer respect, she simply throws herself out there - offering her short lived good looks and the use of her temporarily hot body for money.
What did we guys ever to to deserve to be treated like this?
How sad.
I just finished reading Men & Marriage (previously titled Sexual Suicide). What an eye opener!
I think the biggest problem she is going to run into (after she gets over her own superficiality) is that majority of men the caliber she is aiming for are all ready married. All of the friends I have who have had monetary success had humble beginnings and met their spouses before they became financially successful. It's true of my husband and I.
In Men & Marriage, Gilder points out that married men are the only ones in the population who in general tend to reach the high echelons of earners.
What she needs to do is find the one with "potential" to earn what she is looking for and roll the dice. She is focusing on a target group that are for the most part already married while she wastes away her most marketable years.
In addition, she needs to promote her "maternal" values and not her "sexual" values if she wants a husband. Women willing to give themselves sexually are easy to come by and men know it. It's actually getting more and more difficult to find one who is willing to "wait" for the right guy to come along. I would think that most marriage minded men want a women who hasn't made themselves appear so "easy" before he came along.
wilbedone:
Agreed 100%. My wife and I (our marriage is going on 25 years now) met when neither of us had a pot to pee in. I think it was apparent to each of us that we both had great potential, and now our income exceeds what "Miss I Want it All Right Now" desires - so much so that we give most of it away; but that never would have happened if we hadn't worked together through some very tough times to make our dreams a reality.
She needs to grow up.
If she wants access to the best men then she has to be among the best women: She's evidently not among the best women.
I met my wife when I was recently back at work after off on disability for two years. My wife was a farm laborer. We worked up from there. She's a beauty, but doesn't think she is. What she has that made and makes her desirable is a tenacious thirst for justice, fairness and decency.
Formal mate selection studies have been around for a long time. In fact, there is one study that has been done about once per decade since the 1930s. Both men and women prefer mates with attributes that correlate with high potential: intelligence, ambition, good health, etc. These are human universals, but there are additional attributes which correlate with high status in the particular culture. It is much more important for men to have these attributes than for women to have them. Women just have to look good.
There are, however, other issues which are just as important. (1) Does the other person seem willing to use these positive attributes for the sake of the self? (2) Is the other likely to possess those attributes over the long haul? (3) Perhaps most importantly and most difficult to determine, is the other likely to use those positive attributes for the sake of the self in the near and distant future? (4) Is there any way for the self to manipulate the social environment and its incentives to increase the likelihood of the other person doing whatever the self wants? (This is what feminazis have done very skillfully for the last 30-40 years.)
Point 1: Men earning $500,000 per year in Manhattan are a dime a dozen.
Point 2: Women looking for men earning $500,000 per year in Manhattan are a dime a dozen.
Point 3: There are more models in Manhattan than in Miami because, well, the fashion magazines are based here.
Point 4: The women, if genuine, does not sound like one who would want to model; to model implies to work. Better to live off your husband's capital than to create your own.
Point 5: The man's financial analysis is spot on; women are, in every way, a depreciating asset.
Point 6: Those women who aspire to be trophy wives would do well to understand the implications of point 5 (hello, Marla Maples).
Point 5(a): Point 5 applies in general to the depreciating value of gold-diggers. A good woman, who supports you through good times and bad, who tolerates your shortcommings, who provides a good home for your children, and whose wisdom grows along with yours over the years, is treasure whose value continuously appreciates.
As a man far wiser than I once put it, "If it flies, floats, or fucks, it's better to lease."
Incidentally, $500K per annum in Manhattan means you probably don't have to sleep in the subway, but doesn't get you much more than a closet with a bare bulb and junkies nodding in the corner.
Most leases have a one year or more contract. Better to rent.
"rent" and "lease" are synonymous; it is not "better" to do one over the other.
Dave F., not really. In the contraction or equipment purchase game there is a difference between renting and leasing. With a rental, when you are done with the equipment you bring it back to the rental company. With a lease you have the option to purchase the equipment at the end of the term.
From this site:
"With a lease, you are paying for less than 100% of the equipment, so payments are lower, and you have more flexibility with the equipment at the end of the lease term.
“That is, you can buy it or return it,” he explains. “Returning it allows you to keep your fleet refreshed by bringing in new equipment.”
Gee, dave, of all the things to get picky about.
Lease, would be generally thought of as a / the contract, and over a particular time frame, where rent may be considered a payment itself. You can find reference to those lines of thought in a dictionary definition of the two words, I'm sure. When you were younger, before you bought a house, I imagine you leased an apartment, as most of us have. However, every month you paid the rent. So rent, (to me) means a one time payment, a one time transaction. Once a month, over the course of the lease, one makes the transaction. So if it floats or flies, I prefer to rent it. Once.
I've yet to dish out hard earned cash for the third item. Well, not directly.
I don't know anyone with enough money to worry about this, but I still think it is an interesting exchange. She admits that a great body is her most important asset and he admits that he wants more than that in a wife. My uncle was married to a gold-digger for about 12 years. He just wasn't as interested in money as she was so she left him for someone who earns a lot more money (I think he owns a construction company). She is also doing well herself, I would bet she is earning over 100k.
br549 said, "She'd have the money, and a young buck with six packs and deer eyes could be her trophy pecker."
How about a not-so-young buck who drinks six packs and has a deer-in-the-headlights look?
I just thought of this, but I'd be very interested to meet her parents and visit thier home.
I left a slightly longer version of this over at Freakonomics, but the best places to meet guys who ultimately turn out to be rich are:
- in school, and the earlier you start the better. Prep school is great, elite college and graduate school are also very good.
- at work.
- through family and friends. Potential partners met thusly are considered much safer and esp. in the case of family, vouched for.
I would suggest that this woman's biggest problem is that she is starting way too late. Her odds would be far better if she had started in prep school. She is 25, and is likely mostly looking at older men than that, and many, if not most, of the better catches at the level she wants are already gone, likely to women who are not nearly as good looking.
What does she have left to pick from? Guys who haven't grown up enough yet to want to get married; divorcees playing the field; and maybe some who are trying to trade up to a trophy wife. But all are more likely to rent than buy.
I hate it when men state in an online personal ad that they are "drop-dead handsome", just as this girl states that she is "spectacularly beautiful." First of all, if she really is all that, then why didn't she include a picture with her profile? Secondly, the level of physical attractiveness isn't up to you (the person placing the ad) to decide; it's up to the people viewing your picture and those who get to know you personally. How presumptious and arrogant.
Goretrogirl, this wasn't a request for dates, but a request for assistance to a quandry. The lady says she is spectacularly beautiful so you have to assume she is so, why would she lie?
We could maybe assume that she is spectacularly beautiful as compared to the standards set for a US based pageant.
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