Surely you didn’t think you could toss that out with no explanation…
Really? So if Bill Gates came knocking, you’d tell him to hit the road?
That’s pretty much it. He had a British accent and he was only about 5’3". I just couldn’t get into him physically because his voice and shortness didn’t jibe in my head. The sex thing just wouldn’t register. So I stopped seeing him.
He also doesn’t meet my unmarried requirement. Link. I’m not into bigamy, either.
But while I admire entrepreneurs who have worked hard and become financially successful and achieved their goals, that’s not what I’m looking for.
I’m beginning to think that arranged dating (what a great expression, anu-la!) would be the only way I can meet someone. But I have to use the Anglo ‘random-encounter’ method and hope I meet someone single and close to my age.
(Yes, being single and in your forties sucks.)
As for money in a potential mate? I agree with the posters upthread that it’s the attitudes towards money that count. I wouldn’t mind dating a rich woman or a poor woman, but I would avoid someone up to their eyeballs in Stupid Debt, unless they were working on getting out of it and weren’t digging themselves in deeper.
More important would be attitudes towards other things, like respect for the environment and education, live-and-let-live attitude towards social things like gay and plural marriage, etc. My attitudes would tend to filter out the more Machiavellan and avaricious women, anyways: the ones who believe that money is the only goal.
Now, how likely is it that I would meet a rich single women? Pretty unlikely. As a corporate wage slave/weekend environmental designer, I just don’t move in their circles.
Hey, my sister’s new husband’s good friend is a single engineer who actually has social skills - is Muslim okay, anu-la? He’s a super-nice guy with a young daughter that he adores (okay, his ex might be a psycho bitch, but no guy’s perfect, eh?).
Why haven’t we set up that Straight Dope dating service yet?
featherlou, I’m sure he’s a great guy but I’m Hindu so, no, um, can’t even think of going there…my dad is on lipitor these days. 
I’m doing alright…it’s not a really high priority for me.
Speaking of which - where is the wedding details thread?!
It is much easier for women to marry into another bracket than it is for men. The woman I worked with who had the 3.2 carat engagement ring was a moderately successful salesperson in a small company; I don’t think she made more than about $75K/year. She married a multi-millionaire and now has homes in London and numerous homes in the U.S. She did it by learning about fine art, fine food, and fine wine. She only went to upper class clubs. She never wore jeans. She frequented gallery openings and shopped at nice boutiques. She bought the most inexpensive, yet chic, condo on the edge of a better neighborhood. She read the right magazines and discussed the right topics. I think she received some financial help from her family, at times. She just looked like she belonged there, and pretty soon, she WAS there.
That’s “moderately” successful?
Damn, that makes me feel like I’m on the doorstep to the poorhouse.
Well, it’s just middle class, and she wasn’t all that good at what she did.
I don’t make as much as she did.
I might.
I wouldn’t want to date someone who was rich but thought that getting a college degree was a waste of time. If he did think education was a desirable and valuable thing but some circumstances in his life kept him from getting one, I’d take that on a case-by-case basis.
I’m shallow about intelligence and education. I don’t think I could love someone the way you should feel about a spouse who I thought was intellectually inferior to me. And I do find advanced degrees in the sciences attractive in a guy…
And someone who wasn’t interested in learning about stuff that wasn’t relevant to his daily life wouldn’t be very interested in me. That’s the kind of thing I like to think and talk about- my daily life isn’t nearly interesting enough to maintain a conversation.
If I weren’t happily married, I’d ask you to send him by. I don’t mind short guys (I’m 5’3", and in college had a huge crush on a guy who was shorter than me), and I love British or Australian accents… mmm…
Seems like I recall you mentioning that you are Hindu. Okay, back to the drawing board.
HoosierMama, the wedding went off so well there’s not much to tell, but I’m working on uploading some pictures now so everyone can see how lovely we all were. 
So, er, how you doin’? 
Uh oh. Advanced degrees, even. Just a regular degree isn’t enough. I guess a technologist’s diploma is out of the question.
Never mind. I’ll go away now.
:: slinks off ::
Sounds like she was good with social skills, tthough. Which, I am convinced, are more important to romantic success and happy relationships than any amount of intelligence. Or possibly even money.
75K won’t let you support a family of 3 or God forbid 4 in some of our more expensive metro regions these days or even in a middle-middle class lifestyle if you are living off of straight income. According to many mortgage standards, that would let you afford a $300,000 mortgage which will put you and your family in a decidedly crappy area of Boston these days with no outstanding desirable qualities and bad schools.
It could be done nicely in cheaper areas of the country and you could live just great most places if you were single. It certainly isn’t great wealth however. Even 100K and beyond is become dicey in some places for a family.
I don’t think a degree is a sign of intelligence, nor do I think that someone without a degree is ipso facto my “intellectual inferior.” I know way too many people with advanced degrees–lawyers, doctors, MBAs, Ph.Ds–who are complete morons.
What I care about is intelligence and intellectual curiosity standing alone. I once dated a lawyer who took pride in the fact he didn’t own a single, solitary book. He was a loser. Currently, I’m dating a guy who took two years off after high school and then started making too much money as an electrician to make it worth his while to go back to school. He has an apartment full of books and is anything but a loser. I’m a lawyer, by the way.
So long as the guy is smart and has his life together, I couldn’t care less about whether he has a college degree. It means nothing to me.
That’s exactly right. And she wanted to marry money and she insinuated herself into situations that made her look as though she was born wealthy. [Bill Murray hat on] Beeeeeeee the rich chick. nananananana…[Bill Murray hat/off]
I’ll clarify here. Back in my dating days, I would have been willing to date someone without a college degree. I would not have been willing to date someone who thought that college and graduate school were a waste of time. Especially not if he took every opportunity to tell me that I wasted several years of my life getting my master’s degree.
Oh, and an advanced degree is just something I find attractive, not a deal-breaker if a guy doesn’t have one. Sort of like a nice accent or chest hair…
I’m 5’1" and I dated a guy who was about my size. And I adore a British accent. Just not on short guys, I guess. This is all ancient history. Like 25 years ago. I’m sure he found someone who dug the whole package.