Digging for gold on MySpace

Over the past couple years I’ve been on MySpace, I’ve been befriended by at least three dozen girls who are so similar that they might as well be the same person.

Most of them aren’t very good looking, but some are okay. Most of them are a little chubby, but a few are thin. All of them (no exceptions) are single mothers.

If you were going by looks alone and viewing things from a shallow perspective, then I guess you could say that I’m out of their league. I’m tall (6’4"), thin (190 lbs.), and I like to think that I’m pretty good looking - I get a decent number of compliments, a ton of those little looks in public, and the guy who does my hair thinks I look like Zach Braff. I say that not to brag, but to let you know that I’m not some hideous troll that no woman would even look at if he wasn’t rich.

I’ve gone to meet a lot of these girls because we seemed to hit things off well enough online. Often things will also go well in person - I mean if they don’t see my '96 Saturn and suddenly get a “surprise” call and suddenly have to be somewhere else and then never contact me again.

There was one that I got along with quite well. After we met the first time, she started calling me almost every day. Then, during one conversation, I mentioned that I was getting sick.

“Well, at least you have insurance. Go to the doctor!”

“Uh, I don’t have insurance.”

“Oh.”

The call lasted another five minutes. I never heard from her again after that.

It’s kind of funny that the one MySpace girl who I did have a relationship with, and who didn’t care that I didn’t have much money, was a hell of a lot cuter and smarter than any of the golddiggers.

You know, there’s a little part of me that wouldn’t mind staying poor forever. At least then I’d know who likes me for me.

What’s wrong with a '96 Saturn? In this economy you look smart for driving one. (Great gas mileage, no car payment so your money can be spent on other things.)

Hey, beats me! I like my car. They’re the ones who get that downcast look as soon as they see it. I never led anyone to believe I’m driving a Beamer or anything, so I don’t know what they’re expecting.

hm, gold on myspace. Not to say it isn’t out there, but… it’s myspace. Surely there are other resources with a higher percentage of meeting people. Like a bar, maybe? I know how hard it can be in suburbia sometimes, but come on, myspace?

If you’re really concerned about the golddiggers, try eHarmony. Put in your profile that you’ll only date Therevada Buddhists (those are the non-materialists, right?).
:slight_smile:

Speaking from what my daughter has told me (she’s 21) for her it isn’t so much that a guy doesn’t have any money but that a guy doesn’t have any money and also completely lacks ambition and is content to work a dead end job and doesn’t really want to do anything with himself.

I’m not saying that’s the case with you but maybe that’s a perception on the part of the girls.

Or maybe they are all gold diggers. Hard to say.

And we can’t possibly give you an opinion on the looks thing with out pics. :slight_smile:

Yeah I feel the same way as velvetjones’s daughter (I’m a 29-year-old woman).

I do not make tons of money. I am really really frugal too. I am 100% for splitting all costs while dating or even footing the bill myself sometimes. But I just get tired of feeling like everything we do depends on my cashflow alone, and if I really want to do something with my SO, I need to consider the cost of paying double.

I mean, there’s a time and a place for “we’re so broke but we’re so in love and we’ll get through this together,” and you spend all of your dates at the cheap drive-in or hiking in the park…but that time is usually not the first few dates. If you’re looking for someone new, it’s just more appealing to hook up with someone who is at least financially stable from the get-go, instead of someone who is one broken leg or one car accident away from being a total drain on your pocketbook.

It’s hard to say what their perception is, though with the last one I mentioned that I’d just interviewed for a much better job in the same building where I work now and that I have a pretty good “in” on that one. Didn’t seem to matter. Most don’t even give me a chance to get that far!

Heh. I’m like the least photogenic person in the world compared to how I actually look in the mirror, but this should give you some idea.

Well, I can sort of understand that, but the thing is, most of these girls are single parents working at convenience stores! It’s not like they’ve got room to talk. And in all of the dates I’ve been on, I pay for everything unless they absolutely insist on going 50/50. I have yet to take a single penny from any of them for any reason - including the one who I did date and who didn’t care that I didn’t have much money. (Hell, I helped her.)

I don’t know. I mean, I’m not all that upset about this because, to be honest, I haven’t been all that into most of these girls. The one girl I was into was the one I did date. It could be that they’re picking up on that and dropping communication for that reason, but their timing is always awfully suspect.

Yeah, if they are single parents with low-paying jobs and they are taking off once they find out you aren’t rolling in dough…you’re really lucky that they took off before you had to tell them to take a hike :slight_smile:

For what it’s worth, they’re the ones pursuing me. I have yet to contact a single girl on MySpace that I didn’t already know in real life. So I’m not looking there as much as I’m being looked at. I’m not really aggressively going after anyone on any front; though I’ve been divorced for nearly three years now, I’m still kind of enjoying being alone… or at least I’m not bothered by it.

ETA:

This is a good point. :slight_smile:

Actually, I think this makes a lot of sense. If I were struggling to make ends meet AND had a kid to take care of, I’d probably be looking for a wealthy guy to take care of me and my kid just like they are. Can you really blame them for wanting a better life for their kid than they’d be able to provide if they hooked up with the fry cook at the McDonald’s next door?
In my actual situation, I’m fortunate enough to be financially comfortable (and don’t have any dependents), so it doesn’t matter to me how much my boyfriend makes. In fact, I knew before we even started dating that my current bf will most likely never be in a lucrative career, but didn’t mind because I’ve always planned my own career on the assumption that I’d be taking care of myself.

Actually, what I find very strange and irrational gold-digging behavior is when females who earn a comfortable salary on their own insist on only dating men who make as much or more money than they do. You know what I mean: the female doctor or lawyer who will only date other highly-paid professionals. I think that’s silly (and I suspect it has a lot to do with why it seems like so many of these kinds of women that I’ve known are very single). They end up rejecting A LOT of nice guys in normal-paying careers, and therefore end up competing with all the other, lesser-paid (but quite possibly hotter-looking) females for the handful of rich guys out there. I don’t see the sense of it, when a female doctor is not going to be living in a shack eating Ramen noodles even if she were just living off her own salary.

Ohh! Ohh!

I can see the nitch websites now.

And for the senior crowds…

Oldspace.com.

I checked and they’re already taken. Guess I’ll have to find another million dollar idea.

You hear this meme of “golddigger single moms” a lot, but let me tell you a story from another perspective. I’m a single mom who a few years ago started dating a guy who made probably 10-12 dollars an hour. He rented a bedroom from his friend, who had a wife and family living in the rest of the house. He drove a 25-year-old, bondo-covered, noisy, smoky truck. He had absolutely nothing and no savings. He’d come to my house right at dinnertime 3 or 4 times a week, never bring anything or offer to, and eat as much as the rest of us put together. The one time he took me out to dinner, it cost $37, and he complained for a week about how he had to dig out change from the couch for it. He was a nice enough guy save for the obliviousness, but I just couldn’t afford to add a 250 pound child to my expenses. It obviously doesn’t make me a gold digger to dump his broke sorry ass. As I always say, I can be poor by myself, thanks.

Maybe those girls have all had a Chad (or whatever the hell his name was, I can’t even remember) in their lives and are trying to avoid that. Not having health insurance is a red flag that you may not be solvent. Just sayin’.

And that would make you a gold digger.

Why yes, yes i can. If someone wants a better life for themselves and their children they should work for it themselves, not try to reel in a wealthy shmuck and ride the gravy train. Of course adding another financial burden in the form of a lazy bum boyfriend would be a pretty bad idea also.

Not making a lot of money doesn’t neccessarily make one a mooch or a lazy bum, but thanks for projecting your lousy experiences onto me and everyone else who doesn’t rake in the big bucks.

Aside from one girl who insisted on cooking dinner for me one time, nobody has had to spend a single penny on me, and I’ve also paid for plenty of dates and never complained about it. I’m pretty sure I said that already in post #7, but I’d hate for little things like facts to get in the way of your ire. :rolleyes:

My point was, it doesn’t necessarily make a woman a gold digger if she doesn’t want to be messin’ with no broke broke.

After my experience, I made a dating rule for myself that I wouldn’t date a man that had less than I do, which, believe me, is NOT a high standard, as I don’t have much. But I do have health insurance.

That was very fair and reasonable of you to judge millions of men by your experiences with one (1) person.

Meh, relax. The rule only applies to my own dating life, and I have not held seminars or printed newsletters encouraging any other single mothers to adopt my rule as their own. :wink:

Well yeah, but I’m sure you’re not the only person who goes by that rule.

OTOH, it’s really hard to imagine a guy ever rejecting a woman because he isn’t satisfied with her job.

Maybe not, but for women the pressure comes to be thin and have big boobies. Same problem, different form. That’s life, huh?

I don’t think it’s quite the same, but whatever.

I mean, I can’t control what is and isn’t physically attractive to me. A gold digger is making a conscious decision to exclude people based on their income brackets.