Just curious, I see it as very old fashioned and don’t think I’ve ever run into someone my age who would even bring it up. But I notice older people seem to be almost shocked by this, and they do think its important.
Then again I don’t know anyone my age(late 20s) who is deeply religious or idealistic or etc, so if you have no deeply held believes I guess it is easier to be compatible.
I also find older people don’t understand that your “official” class, culture, etc means little. To hold it “against” someone seems wrong to me.
This does not include protecting yourself from predators or gold diggers of course, I understand that.
Oh, people DEFINITELY care about social status, perhaps even MORE than they once did.
To be sure, SOME differences that would have been deal-breakers a few decades ago are no longer important. A secular Jew and a Cafeteria Catholic don’t think twice about getting married any more, and neither do their families (though that might have seemed unthinkable 50 years ago). Interracial relationships are no longer a big deal, either.
But social/economic status is still HUGE! Even small differences can derail a potential relationship.
You think someone who eats organic foods from local co-ops is going to have a happy relationship with a girl who shops at Wal-Mart? Guess again.
Hmm I’d say there is no way to tell from that whether they are compatible or not, but I do avoid the purity obsessed vegans and organic food eaters out of principle lol.
I agree with astorian. I’ve been using OKCupid a lot lately, and my experiences have shown me that social status still matters a lot. People tend to be attracted to others with the same level of education, the same tastes, the same religious beliefs, the same political beliefs, the same income. It’s hard to say how much of this has to do with social status and how much of it is just looking for someone with similar interests, but I think a lot of it is wanting to be with someone from the same social class.
What do you do for a living? What do most of your friends and acquaintances do? i.e. are you all professionals like accountants and lawyers? Working class laborers? Do you all work in the arts? In a service industry as waiters / bartenders? How much real difference is there?
What is your education level and that of your friends?
What part of the country do you live in?
What is your income level? Are you you or any of your friends overly wealthy or overly poor compared to the others?
I would submit that you probably don’t “care” about social status because, like most people, you probably aren’t exposed to a lot of people who would be considered outside your socioeconomic class.
I think it is possible that social status has become less of a linear hierarchy for young people, due to education no longer being a ticket to success. I have a B.Sc. (and plans to return to school) and no job, my girlfriend has no post-secondary education and works in retail. So I guess were are of different statuses, but I don’t see either as being obviously “higher”. Of course I am lucky that we were both unemployed teenagers when we met, because now I’d probably be considered undateable as well as unemployable. Personally, I don’t care much about social status because I’m just not very social.
Exactly right- on the plus side, we’ve reached a point where people no longer judge each other by race. But that doesn’t mean we no longer judge people. We judge them by their beliefs, their interests and their lifestyles.
Two very well educated people who both make good incomes may actually look down at each other, for completely different reasons. To use a hypothetical, let’s say Michael and Chelsea are both 30 years old and live in Austin, TX. Michael is a devout Baptist who got an engineering degree at Texas A & M and makes a lot of money working at Dell Computers. Chelsea, a lapsed Catholic turned borderline pagan, got a MFA and owns two successful “fair trade” exotic coffee shops.
Michael buys his dress clothes at mall department stores and his casual clothes at the Gap. Chelsea buys her clothes at eclectic local shops. Michael likes to eat at Outback steak house, while she likes to eat vegetarian fare at small, local hippie-owned joints. Mike likes Brad Paisley, while she likes Third World folk music.
Is there any doubt that, if friends fixed them up, they’d BOTH come home scoffing at the weirdo loser they just went out with?