I was sent the below post by a fellow trading vixen the other day and found it hilarious enough that I wanted to share it with the younger girls I know who read this blog (and anyone else who happens to find it). It's a few years old and I have no way to judge the authenticity, but that hardly matters as the response is perfect regardless of who wrote it or when!
I unfortunately grew up with and know many many women that share the same mentality as this lady, as well as several men that were too naive to dodge these women and ended up paying for it years later. I have older women in my circle of friends and family who followed this route and the few marriages that survived are not happy ones. I have also been asked a similar question directly by younger women hoping to bag millions simply by marrying the right man, and it would benefit them to read how most wealthy men actually view them. In fact, it would benefit everyone if men and women were all more honest with each other, but that's a topic for another day.
The post (I have no idea of the original source):
"A young and pretty lady posted this on a popular forum:
Title: What should I do to marry a rich guy?
I’m going to be honest of what I’m going to say here. I’m 25 this year. I’m very pretty, have style and good taste. I wish to marry a guy with $500k annual salary or above. You might say that I’m greedy, but an annual salary of $1M is considered only as middle class in New York.
My requirement is not high. Is there anyone in this forum who has an income of $500k annual salary? Are you all married? I wanted to ask: what should I do to marry rich persons like you?
Among those I’ve dated, the richest is $250k annual income, and it seems that this is my upper limit. If someone is going to move into high cost residential area on the west of New York City Garden(?), $250k annual income is not enough.
I’m here to ask a few questions:
1. Where do most rich bachelors hang out? (Please list down the names and addresses of bars, restaurant, gym)
2. Which age group should I target?
3. Why most wives of the richest are only average-looking? I’ve met a few girls who don’t have looks and are not interesting, but they are able to marry rich guys.
4. How do you decide who can be your wife, and who can only be your girlfriend? (my target now is to get married)
Ms. Pretty
A philosophical reply from CEO of J.P. Morgan:
Dear Ms. Pretty,
I have read your post with great interest. There are lots of girls out there who have similar questions to yours. Please allow me to analyse your situation as a professional investor. My annual income is more than $500k, which meets your requirement. So I hope you believe that I’m not wasting your time here.
From the standpoint of a business person, it is a bad decision to marry you. The answer is very simple.
Putting the details aside, what you’re trying to do is an exchange of “beauty" and “money": Person A provides beauty, and Person B pays for it, fair and square.
However, there’s a problem here: your beauty will fade, but my money will not disappear without good reason. The fact is my income might increase from year to year, but you won’t become prettier year after year.
Hence from the viewpoint of economics, I am an appreciating asset and you are a depreciating asset. It is not just normal depreciation, but exponential depreciation. If appearance is your only asset, your value will be much worse in 10 years.
By the terms we use in Wall Street, every trade has a position and dating you is also a trading position. If the trade value dropped, we would sell as it is not beneficial to keep long term. The same goes for the marriage that you wanted. It might be cruel to say this, but in order to make a wise decision any assets with great depreciation value will be sold or “leased".
Anyone with over $500k annual income is not a fool; we would only date you, but will not marry you. I would advise that you forget trying to marry a rich guy. And by the way, you could instead make yourself become a rich person with $500k annual income. If money is your goal, then this has a better chance of success than finding a rich fool.
Hope this reply helps.
Signed,
J.P. Morgan CEO"
I don't believe this was actually the response of Jamie Dimon or anyone else at J P Morgan. However, it reflects the views of many wealthy men that I have known over the years. Unless they are incredibly naive (unlikely, if they managed to build a successful business), they understand that most of the women chasing after them only want their money. Unless a woman has an independent source of wealth, then they will be on the lookout for an easy path to a nice lifestyle: a man's wallet. It's just the way we are biologically programmed. We are attracted to intelligence, physical strength and material resources to provide for our theoretical babies (even if we never have them). I've met women who live a 'hippie', minimalistic lifestyle and swear they hate materialism, who completely switch gears the second a man comes along with money. Prostitutes should be praised for at least being honest about their intentions.
* I should note that the same argument applies when it is an attractive young man chasing wealthy cougars for their money (although historically it was rare for single women to have that much money, so the opportunity wasn't there for men in the same way).
Despite what many women believe, dating a man for money is a terrible idea for myriad reasons. First and foremost, it creates a completely unbalanced power dynamic like that of a parent and child. Instead of developing skills, knowledge, and intelligence to compete with other humans in the world, the woman just latches onto her husband and learns to whine or complain if they want anything; much like a spoilt child learns to sweet talk or nag their parents if they want a new toy. At 20, this might be cute to some people (or, at the very least, easy enough to ignore). But after years of marriage it gets old fast. A 40 year old whining to their husband that they want a new car, a pretty dress or a day at the spa is painfully awkward to watch! Someone forced to depend on another person out of necessity is one thing. But using someone out of choice because you lack the motivation to compete as an individual is pretty pathetic. Not only does the husband quickly lose respect for his wife, but the wife loses respect for herself. Everyone knows deep down when they are taking advantage of another person and it isn't a good feeling. Over time it damages your self esteem and that of your partner.
I've known a lot of young women who think this lifestyle will make them happy. They view it as a much easier route than having to grow up and work for a living. If they want something, they just grab their husband's credit card and it magically appears. They rarely see the other side of this type of relationship; what this dynamic looks like a decade or so later, when they are both older.
I have.
When I worked in finance I saw it many times and it was pretty sad. The women still hadn't mentally matured at 40. They had an older body, but still thought and acted like entitled 16 year olds and had become dependant on their husband for everything. Except now they had to work harder at demanding things and the 'cute whining' had become passive aggression, insults or constant fights. The second their husband was out of the room, they would be joking about how easy it was to get what they wanted from 'idiot men', how little they valued their husband as anything more than a walking wallet, or complaining that he wasn't earning enough to meet their ever increasing requirements. It wasn't attractive. Their husbands were now sick and tired of dealing with someone who was essentially a demanding brat and were either in the process of upgrading to a new wife or were busy running around in their free time with other women. Divorce was the usual route. After which, the entitled woman was forced to grow up and either learn to manage the finances she was left with (this is where people like me had to get involved, since they inevitably failed) or try to start a new career without any marketable skills or recent experience.
Even during the 'good years' of this type of relationship, the woman doesn't get the perfect lifestyle she expects. Yes, there will be a lot of shiny, expensive stuff. Lots of stuff. If stuff is all you care about, that might work for you. But along with the damage to your self esteem, there will be a lot of boredom. A lot of time spent alone while your successful other half is out working for all that money he has. And since you don't have your own career to keep you just as busy, you will notice all that spare time. Even if you try to fill it with random tasks like shopping, manicures, housework, pets, TV, endlessly redecorating the house, you will notice it. Rich guys tend not to have much time or inclination to entertain you when they aren't busy with clients. They live in a world of busy, successful, motivated people and rush around all day. They will want to relax or do something they enjoy when they finally get home, and after climbing the walls all day you will struggle to spend yet more time doing not much of anything. I frequently heard the same complaints from these women: "I'm bored!", "He never pays me enough attention!", "It's always about what he wants to do!", etc.
And just because a man has a lot of money doesn't mean he will spend it on you. I've known a few women that were appalled to hear that they wouldn't be receiving diamonds on their birthday, despite their partner having enough in the bank to buy the entire inventory of Ernest Jones. The men in my circle of friends and family who have money generally don't throw it around very often. They worked hard to get where they are, understand what it's like to not have much, and don't see the point of wasting their cash on shiny bling. In fact, one of them could be described as incredibly 'tight', so any young woman chasing after him for the money would be very disappointed. He is a gold-digger's worst nightmare, as he will happily give you pointers on making your own money but you'd more easily get water from a stone than get a single penny out of him!
After a few years of her living off his hard work, a husband's attitude towards his dependant wife changes completely. Either she has learned to bring his self esteem down to the same level as her own (in the same way that young girls are taught that most men can physically control a woman, young boys should be warned that most women can psychologically control a man), or he has turned into a control freak. I've seen the latter happen a few times, once the man is frustrated enough paying for his wife's free ride and has lost respect for her. Instead of just ending the relationship, he becomes domineering, aggressive (at least verbally), and angry. Since it is obvious to everyone that she is using him for money, he starts to expect incredibly high standards from her in all other areas to rebalance things. This is where you get the 'trophy wife' stereotype - the rail thin, botoxed, bleach blonde, perma-tanned bimbo with zero personality and a permanent smile, who has to be on call the second her husband randomly decides he wants to do something. Her views, interests and hobbies no longer matter. She is basically treated and viewed as a non-sentient sex toy and berated the second she steps out of line. I've heard the way these men talk about their wives behind their backs, or even in front of them, and always feel sick at the way the women just accept it in return for the continued access to money. I don't feel sorry for them, as they agreed and continue to agree to that exchange, but I could never do it. A gilded cage is still a cage.
The writer of the above response is correct that anyone relying on just their looks will quickly depreciate in value. When judging someone as a potential partner, humans generally consider a range of factors and calculate that individual's overall score - their 'net worth' as a mate. The higher the overall score, the more valued you will be as a potential partner. Appearance and wealth are the two most influential factors, although there are several others that can close the gap if you lack one or both of those - celebrity, charisma, a sense of danger (the 'bad boy' phenomenon), potential future earning ability, etc. Generally, women will date young men for looks and older men for money. Men will date young women for looks and, in today's economy, older women for money (getting propositioned by much younger guys has been a huge eye opener for me since hitting my mid 30s!). But if there is nothing else keeping them with you, then going broke or getting old will usually put an end to the relationship. A bad investment or over-levereging can wipe out a formerly successful CEO even faster than the most experienced gold-digger, and there is only so much that botox can do once you've hit middle age!
Find someone that you would still enjoy being around if they were old and/or broke; someone who makes you laugh, who you respect, with similar intelligence, interests, values, someone who makes you feel motivated and respected and knows how to calm you down and make you smile when everything around you is going to hell. If looks are really that important to you, then money can turn a 5/10 into at least an 8 or 9 (male or female). But you can't buy the rest for any price.
Unless you have an army of young children at home, then there is no good reason to rely on someone else financially. Even in that situation, I know women who run profitable online companies from home that they scale up once the kids are older and less of a handful. They don't just quit the economy because they can, and their marriages are much happier and balanced because of it. They aren't cut off from the corporate world and retain the skills, experience and self esteem to compete on their own terms if they return to a PAYE career later on.
I try to give any young person I meet as many pointers as I can on creating their own wealth, so they never feel as though they have to be reliant on another person. I've seen what the lives of gold-diggers are really like and in the long run they are nothing to be envied. The novelty of expensive restaurants, sports cars, and exotic holidays will eventually wear off (honestly), and once your rose-tinted glasses have disappeared you are left dealing with an empty and psychologically destructive relationship that will struggle to survive.
