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How important is a man's job when it comes to dating?

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Comments

  • Posts: 451 ✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Personally I find men who brag or even subtly brag about money a complete turn off.

    Genuinely...I don't want to be some yuppy wife drinking procecco or whatever it is being 'given' choices like what kitchen tiles to choose though I do love doing up my home and buying little things for the place lol but not like that



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,766 ✭✭✭✭Loafing Oaf


    You don't see her messin with no broke paddies...



  • Posts: 451 ✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Most women I know just want a relationship where they can have fun.

    I would say there are some who have turned cynical after being hurt and will probably settle for the next best thing which is someone who earns a bit of money even if they do also earn a good living..for a more comfortable life.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,689 ✭✭✭✭Esel
    Not Your Ornery Onager


    Not your ornery onager



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,689 ✭✭✭✭Esel
    Not Your Ornery Onager


    Ha ha, quoting defeats the swear filter!

    "No Punt no ****"

    Quote this post to see.

    Not your ornery onager



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,425 ✭✭✭✭Quantum Erasure


    the swear filter takes a minute to kick in, it's more like the wealth filter rather than the height filter, in that it takes a bit of effort to find what its looking for...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,496 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx


    Indeed but seems to be a perception that it's a bigger plus than it really is.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,496 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx


    Some of us have to settle, it's that or be alone



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,067 ✭✭✭Murph85


    I dont agree. 50k in Dublin if you pay market rent or want a mortgage. How do you do it on 50k. In this posters case, he owns his own property. 50k is going to be comfortable with no or small mortgage. 50k gross and net are two different things...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,346 ✭✭✭Mister Vain


    I think I'd rather stay single. Imagine if the other person was crazy about you, but later found out you were just settling for them. Some guys have openly admitted to not been attracted to their wives/girlfriends. I don't think I could do it.



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  • Posts: 7,344 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    And using that search term I was similarly unable to find any support for the original statistic either. I still can't. And you refuse to give it too despite being asked repeatedly. You just threw a link in to a completely different larger statistic instead. And now you are once again going back to throwing out insults which is poor form and seems more like a smoke screen than anything else. You have been treated respectfully and cordially by me - maybe return the favour. Insults make you look bad - not me.

    I did not suggest you were a "liar" either. You are really over reacting here and starting to get a bit shrill. Once again - you cited a number and asked for an explanation of that number. To answer that question - seeing the actual number in situ would be required. But you for whatever reason do not want that to happen. You've decided to keep the source of the figure secret. I do not get why.

    However even then it is a really bad idea to take a general single point statistic or two over a large population and simply assume a 1:1 answer explaining it. Referring to Hypergamy in Evolution might make a pretty little story to explain such a statistic of that sort - but the social sciences are rarely that simplistic and generally "it's a bit more complicated than that" is a mantra they will run to often.

    There is any number of reasons that would together lend explanations to such statistics as you keep bringing up about how women tend to marry people who earn around the same as them or above them. The link you did provide (eventually) gave some ideas there. They tied a large part of the explanation to the effects of traditional gender roles. Also we can not assume that the disparity in earnings within a couple is entirely the result of the woman's selection for that reason. It can just as easily be men who wish to have partners who earn less than them.

    There are many more though. For example people often date and marry in the social circles they move in. And people often move in social circles of people in and around their own economic levels. You do not get a lot of McDonalds staff hanging out with Tech company CEOs for example :) A second explanation could turn out to be that women doing the same job as a male counter part find it difficult to get the same pay. Someone already mentioned the gender pay gap - contentious as it is. Another explanation - which Jordan Peterson likes to point out - is that even when women and men have equal employment potentials in a country they tend to gravitate towards traditional male and female jobs and are not getting paid the same for that reason.

    So the 50% increase in divorce rates when the women out-earn the men however is simply not a statistic that is going to be explained away by a single explanation I think. Further it would appear to be entirely irrelevant to the topic of the thread. If they are getting divorced then they are clearly married and not "dating". The thread topic the OP started is about whether "a mans job" specifically "when it comes to dating". So the fact they got married means it must not have been that important at all at the time - or it only became important later or too late.

    I think another large barrier to the question the OP is asking is that "Dating" is not one single identifiable thing. There are many ways to do it or go about it. And I somewhat suspect that the relative importance of any one mediation point (like career, since that is what the thread is about) will be different from type to type. My suspicion is - no study just a suspicion - that people find it a lot more important on dating apps. Especially for women who tend to get quite flooded by interest on such apps so the need to have criteria to filter that mass down will be useful. Contrast this to two people who happen to meet in their social circles and one of them asks the other out on a date. I suspect more personal and individual measures come into play more easily there.

    Other than that - in the absence of any useful studies or data being cited on the thread - I can only turn to anecdote. And certainly my experience of my own relationship and vicarious experience of those of the friends and family I know - has never given me the impression that career is all that important when dating. Connection, looks, comfort in their presence, sense of humour, and general decorum all seem to be. Mostly talking to people about their career is done because that is a useful way to get people talking. I am the middle earner in my own relationship myself and I was clear from the beginning I intended to focus on work/life balance and not pursue (and even reject) promotion and raises where it would compromise that goal. So essentially saying "I do not earn all that much and expect never to". It was never an issue. The fact I had/have a clear life goal and agenda and had my sht together. Being outearned by my partners is not something I expect to cause the relationship to break down. There are many things people can bring to the table in a relationship. Sure money is one of them. But only one.

    So for the OP - I guess the only answer is that it is important to some and not to others in the same way any other thing is. There are studies too on things like a man's height or weight. Similarly there some find it very important. Others do not. Individuals are individual :) Who'd have thunk it :)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,202 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    The first question any self respecting Irish parent will ask their child: "Has she/he got land...with frontage?"

    This notion of marrying for love is a very recent construct. I work quite a lot with people from South East Asia amd "love" does not come to it. Arranged marriages between first cousins. It's all about ring fencing assets.



  • Posts: 3,754 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Money can attract women, but the wrong kind.



  • Posts: 18,046 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    It's a mixed bag. For most of my Vietnamese colleagues, it was a natural relationship. But some are arranged, yeah. I went to a wedding two years ago where the bride barely knew the guy. Then she popped out a baby ten months later and gave up work for good. My girlfriend's family wanted to arrange a marriage for her, but my ex's parents didn't.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,202 ✭✭✭partyguinness



    It's mostly Indian, Pakistan and Bengalis I deal with. What surprised me was that it is common among the educated professionals also. I have seen doctors and auditors entering into arranged marriages. The hubby to be is shipped in from Pakistan. I always assumes arranged marriages were confined to the poorer sections of the community as in highly educated and 'well off' professionals would have a wider field to play with.

    I also see quite a bit of emotional and financial blackmail by families. They will give the child all the financial support in the world. We are talking property gifts of £200-£300k- no mortgages. But of course the child is now on the hook and dances the tune of the famaily.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,496 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx


    I was fairly attracted to mine for the first two years but then she gained weight and you can't ask a woman to loose weight, you're just meant to look past it.

    It's why I'd never really judge a guy for cheating, no real expectation on women to change



  • Posts: 1,271 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Happy to clear this up, OP.

    A job is important, but blow jobs are of equal, if not more, importance. Hand jobs are of less importance of course, as are second jobs such as delivery driving or moonlighting as a neurosurgeon.



  • Posts: 3,754 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    That's happened to me a couple of times. You enter a relationship with someone who has a nice figure and then they decide to stop going to the gym and start eating cakes.

    The final outcome is always the same.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,202 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    I known a few women in my time and when past a certain age they will accept any low hanging fruit for fear of being left on the shelf. They definitely 'settle'. No doubt plenty of men do the same.



  • Posts: 18,046 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Those countries are generally referred to South Asia? SEA basically starts with Myanmar.

    Yeah, it's poor and also rich. My girlfriend's family is very rich and the mother sees me as completely below their class. They're starting to accept me now but resisted a lot at first because they had some suitors in mind.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,496 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,202 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    Every woman marries below their station...so I'm told.😁



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,346 ✭✭✭Mister Vain


    I'm not sure what you're getting at. How do you define twice as desirable? You're either attracted to someone or you're not. I was with a girl who I thought was out of my league but I got lucky in that I met her when she was not long out of a relationship. If I had of waited a bit longer I might have missed my chance. Is she twice as desirable as a less attractive woman with a great personality?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,235 ✭✭✭Pussyhands


    As someone in early 30's single, it's difficult to know what the woman is like at this stage.

    If a woman is single around their 30s and they're goodlooking, you'd wonder what's wrong with them. It's different for a man, they choose to be single a lot of the time to have a bit of fun and men have to go actively find a woman whereas a goodlooking woman could click her fingers and there'd be a selection of men lined up. Most women seem deadset on settling down in mid 20's now. Most of the women I know have the engagement pics up on the facebook before they're 30.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,184 ✭✭✭85603


    I said "over 30%". And as a question.

    Upon the demand for proof a figure of 50% was linked. Which is over 30%. So thats the burden of proof satisfied. If you want evidence of similar results closer to 30% then I can tell you they are out there if you really want, but Ive provided a result "over 30%" so Ive done my part. Go get it yourself.

    I dont have time to read the rest. Try making one point at a time, if you like.

    OP can search Gad Saad's google talk which will explain whats going on in evolutionary terms, and why the cliches about women and rich men are well known.




  • Posts: 7,344 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Exactly. And if you ever find the stat - I will happily answer the question :) Since neither of us seem able to find it at this time though I think its time to let it go. The "go get it yourself" cop out is just smoke screen I suspect. You no more can find it than I can it seems. But without seeing the source - no one can answer the question. Simple as.

    As for the 50%, the study does not really support the notion that earning differences are causing this per se - but what the earning differences underlie. Such as - as the study said - deviations from gender roles. As in the earning potential would be the symptom not the cause. It's not the stat itself I am addressing so much as merely urging caution on what interpretations of it we leap to. It has nothing to do with "dating" though which is what the thread is about. As people getting divorced are long past the stage of dating each other.

    There is more discussion on it here if anyone is interested (https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200121-why-promoted-women-are-more-likely-to-divorce). Again this article puts the issue not on the difference in earning - but on "mismatch of expectations".

    What is also interesting here is noted that they did not track who actually initiated the divorces. Though they are less sanguine about how fast these norms are going to change going forward. I notice also they did not seem to address the "correlation causation" issue. They just note that promotion to high end positions is correlative with the increase in divorce. But not causally linked. There could of course be other issues explaining that correlation. For example perhaps the type of woman who will get promoted to such roles are the kind of women more likely to divorce. As in it's them - not the job or the promotion.

    But it would still be the opposite of answering the OPs question because at the stage of getting the promotion and then the divorce they are long past the dating stage. So no evidence there that - specifically while dating - the "mans job" (which is what the thread is about) was important or even relevant at all when they got together. It became an issue much later in the process. And the article notes "Couples who were closer in age and took a more egalitarian approach to childcare were less likely to divorce following a wife’s promotion."

    As for "women and rich men" that's a smaller group of people. I am not sure how safe it is to extrapolate any generality from outliers. I am not sure what we could find useful in that group that would lend any answers to the OPs questions.

    Post edited by [Deleted User] on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,346 ✭✭✭Mister Vain


    Well yeah obviously, but what's that got to do with being in a relationship with a partner who is twice as desirable? Twice as desirable as what exactly?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,330 ✭✭✭facehugger99


    I'm not one to humble-brag but I have a high-paying job and am getting regular hot-bedroom action from a succession of attractive women.


    What was the question again?



  • Posts: 7,344 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    If I even remotely suspected I was just someone that was "settled for" I think I would leave the relationship tomorrow and not look back. :) I would prefer to be alone for ever than even remotely suspect I was just someone's last resort or consolation prize.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,184 ✭✭✭85603


    But I never asked you.

    Women, in dating or marriage, have an instinctual drive to secure resources. It makes evolutionary sense, the biological purpose of a heterosexual couple is procreation. Pregnancy and bringing up a child will (historically) see the woman left largely incapable of work for an extended period. A man capable of securing resources for the woman and child will ensure survival. This is what has normally happened, and those women who had this instinct survived more often across evolution. Passing on this instinct, generation after generation.



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