The Times has a story about income disparities in relationships:
For the first time, women in their 20s who work full time in several American cities — New York, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis — are earning higher wages than men in the same age range …
The shift is playing out in new, unanticipated ways on the dating front. Women are encountering forms of hostility they weren’t prepared to meet, and are trying to figure out how to balance pride in their accomplishments against their perceived need to bolster the egos of the men they date. …
YOUNG affluent women say they are learning to advertise their good fortune in a manner very different from their male counterparts. For men, it is accepted, even desirable, to flaunt their high status. Not so for many women.
Rather than just tell you what I think, I decided to do some research using Technorati on what other people were saying. Chatty Latina put it, “We’re not talking about a shy 5-year-old who’s nervous about his first day of kindergarten. These are GROWN MEN, so why the need to bolster their egos? Who wants to date someone she has to baby-sit?” (Some of these guys just seemed like insecure losers, from the way the women described them).
Then there was this little tidbit from Hilary Rowland, 28, who bought her own condominium at age 18 (using money she’d earned from an online business she started when she was 15) and has decided she’d rather date people in her own income bracket.
“I love traveling, going to the opera and good restaurants,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be Per Se, but good food is important in my life. It’s sometimes hard to maintain the lifestyle I’m used to when I’m in a relationship with a guy who makes less than me, since I don’t want to be paying for the guy I’m with all the time.”
I basically agree with that. My lifestyle is probably decidedly less luxurious than Ms. Rowland’s — I’ve never flown first or business class in my life — but I still enjoy eating out, going drinking and going home in a taxi rather than waiting for the subway late at night. I’ve dated one or two women who made much much less than I did, and just couldn’t afford to do those types of things. And it is a drag to always be paying for someone once you’re in a relationship with them. I didn’t mind it when I was a 23-year-old dating a college senior, but at a certain age you expect people to have a little financial wherewithall.
Mario puts it a little differently, tho:
Big earners cultivate expensive tastes and high expectations. In other words, when a man is thinking french fries and a woman is thinking foie gras, neither is going to be happy.
Reverse the roles, and tradition takes care of things: the man pulls out his wallet and no one bats an eyelash. But — as the article notes — it only goes one way.
“The discomfort over who pays for what seems to be not really about money, plain and simple,” the article says. “Instead, it is suggestive of the complex psychology of what many of these women expect from their dates (for him to be a traditional breadwinner) and what they think they should expect (Oh, I just want him to be a nice guy).
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
It comes down to an inescapable truth hammered into our genes by millions of years of evolution — women want men who are leaders and who help them enjoy a higher social status than they could by themselves.
Miss Sunshine might agree with that:
After reading the article, however, I began to reflect on how, as women, we really want it all. Is it possible for us to ever truly be happy? What we want is impossible to achieve. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we want a man who makes more money than we do, despite the fact that most women will tell you it really doesn’t matter how much he makes.
Oh yeah, I went there.
We want someone who will pick up the check, take care of us, buy us little gifts so we know they are thinking about us . . . but not feel threatened if we happen to make more money . . .
We don’t want a glass ceiling, we don’t want anyone to stop us from achieving our goals, but we always want our man to be someone we can be proud of, personally and professionally. Professionally speaking, that usually means a step or two up the ladder from us.
Anyway. I’m curious what my readers think. Also, after googling Ms. Rowland, I’m deliberating about trying to see how flexible she is about those income bracket limits.
P.S. I had my “blockquotes” messed up earlier so it seemed like the last two paragraphs of Mario’s post were written by me.
i’m thinking it’s a good thing we didn’t exactly work out… i’m too poor for you! 🙂
Oh PLEASE …. I def. did not have in mind graduate students (or women more than a few years younger than me) when I wrote that… a HOT, sexy triathlete /flutist… what’s not to like?
It’s not like I couldn’t see myself marrying a pretty, athletic, smart and charming girl who made minimum wage. Everyone has different things they bring to the table, as it were.
I think most people– men and women– are more interested in a partner’s drive and ambition than finances per se. If a high-powered chick lawyer started dating a great director of a homeless shelter determined to make a dent in the problem in NYC, I bet she wouldn’t have too much concern paying for most of their dates. On the other hand, if she’s dating an administrator at a construction firm, that guy may not necessarily have a life plan that inspires confidence.
Likewise, if I’m dating a woman who is passionate about her job and is determined to do it well and make a dent in the world, I don’t care that I make more than her and subsidize our dating. I’d take a woman like that over some shallow Sex-in-the-City type who earns $100,000 any day of the week.
I just love Miss Sunshine’s take on it. By her prescription, men will pay for everything, and women with six figure incomes will do what with their money — invest it in high-yield securities and real estate?
Sounds like a plan.
I don’t anyone is interested in finances or money …. just the things money can buy. People get accustomed to their lifestyle. If a girl is into taking the shuttle to Boston to see Red Sox games, weekends in Paris or whatever, it’s going to to be tricky for a guy making an average salary to sweep her off her feet. Tallman has a good story about a girl he went out on a handful of dates with and realized he’d never be able to afford, but I’ll let him tell it.
Wimmin like equality, competing for the high paying jobs and all.
Until it comes time to reach for their wallet.
Then euqality isn’t so important any more. If dating a guy richer than her, she expects him to pay.
So, if the chickie-poo is richer, why does she have a problem paying?
So, it is the old “you make it sound like a business deal”. Well, it IS a business deal. If the guy always pays, what is he buying? He is buying YOU, sweetie. You are selling the same thing that the gals in Times Square are selling–so I am told, anyway) It is just more sanitized.
Equal pay–Equal responsibility–Equal accountability.
Like the poster above says, he pays, and she uses her big paycheck to do what with?
The Geez has spaketh.
I think it’s a bit myopic to equate the ability to buy gifts and pay for dinner with caring for someone, or thinking about someone. My husband is a student and musician. He couldn’t take me out to dinner for anything more than tacos. But he can fix my car, he can load my iPod with fabulous new finds, and he can crank out a spectacular pie on my birthday. If anything, when faced with that kind of gift-that-took-hours, my ability to take him out to dinner looks pretty tired.
Welll… I don’t know I’m equating those things Jen. And I know some people really don’t care that much about material things like shopping or fine dining. Others do, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
There’s actually a tremendous amount of evidence that who we marry is closely correlated to our own intelligence, socioeconomic status, attractiveness and race.
Here’s a question: you said your husband is a student — so presumably he’ll be able to buy you more than tacos at some point. Do you think that you’ll always out-earn him? Was that something you thought about at all when he was courting you?
Are the men hostile at women who make more, or at women who FLAUNT making more (as the article implies)?
Cause the people flaunting how much they make are the insecure losers. Men don’t tend to tolerate that kind of dick swinging from each other – so I don’t know why we’d overlook it in a date.
The last paragraph of this clip suggests that women accept and desire men who flaunt their wealth.
Why does it come across as an indictment of men for not toletating obnoxious behavior? Why should we? Why do women (as suggested by the article?)
But what does it mean to “flaunt” making more, esp. in the context of a city like nyc where no one has manicured lawns or ornate fountains in their front yard?
I mean if I had more money I would probably go see a lot more playoff sports, spend the odd weekend in Paris, and eat a lot more $200 dinners. That doesn’t mean I’d be doing those things to “flaunt” my wealth or impress anyone — but if you can afford it, why not?
I don’t think spending your money qualifies as flaunting – and I wouldn’t consider it obnoxious.
The article uses the words “flaunting” and “advertising.” In other words, the editors went out of their way to make it clear that it’s not about men dating women who make more than them, but, as the article says, how women “advertise their good fortune,” and “flaunt their high status.”
If the article said something along the lines that men can’t handle it when they realize that the woman makes more than he does, then I think it would call for a different line of interpretation, because it would reflect the man’s ego. But this clip didn’t really say that.
It seems that readers are projecting. Not that the comments aren’t interesting or based on shared experience and wisdom, but they bring in external arguments.
But it’s an important disctinction, because I’d agree that I would be put off by a woman (or man) flaunting that she makes more money than I do, but I wouldn’t be put off by the fact that she makes more than I do. Hell, I’ve been a social worker and a newspaper reporter – Most people in New York City make much more than I do!
I think it is harder to date when there’s an income disparity. I met one girl, where I was a grad student earning about a third of what she was. We had a great evening eating and hanging out, and we split the tab easily – the problem came at the end of the night, when it turned out the bus service had shut down for the evening. I had to request her to give me a lift for 15 minutes to my home. She was very nice about it and obliged, but she was put off :P.
We got along well (and she’s the nice sort), so she did me the courtesy of explaining afterwards why she didn’t want to be friends. As a woman working a white-collar lab job, and earning a high salary, she felt she was in a very different place in life than a grad student, obsessed with his thesis, struggling to make ends meet, and traveliing my bus.
It was a little disappointing obviously, because I think doing a doctorate doesn’t require any less commitment, maturity, intelligence or drive than a full time professional job. On those levels , we were comparable. But it is a very different set of priorities and means, and that is ultimately important as to whether two people have compatible lifestyles as hangout buddies and more. It just is the way it is.