Money, Dating, Marriage

Opinion and commentary on dating and marriage by the well-to-do and wealthy:

Rich People Have Dating Problems:

But why is it that money and dating go hand in hand? Yesterday, a reader sent us a post from Craigslist written by a "spectacularly beautiful" woman who is looking for men making $500,000 or more. The post has since been deleted, but you can see it below one of the many responses it prompted. She may have been honest about her search, but she was ridiculed and lashes out at her detractors, "the reality is in New York there is only so much of the 'pie' and I didn't understand why plain or dumpy women are getting away with all the pieces." What ever happened to making your own cash and being satisfied -- and proud -- of your own accomplishments? Has nothing changed in the last fifty years? Because a woman once said, "Don't you know that a rich man is like a pretty girl? You don't marry her just because she's pretty. But, my goodness, doesn't it help?" Yeah, that was Marilyn Monroe, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes... 1953.

Money Quote: Relative Wealth

"A wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife's sister's husband." - H.L. Mencken

Research: Money Makes You Happy When...

While the various studies on money and happiness frequently conclude that the correlation between income, wealth, and happiness is weak or not as strong as 'people' may assume, one study found that "wealth generally allowed 'substantially better well-being, and less sadness and loneliness' [for those with disabilities]".

When Money DOES Buy Happiness, Robert Roi Britt, LiveScience.com, 4/6/2005

PS: When MBH comes across news articles, research, opinion, etc., related to our theme, we will post it - even when, like here - we're a little late to the game! Chances are you missed this story, and if you didn't, here's another chance to reconsider it.

Getting by on a Few Million

By almost any definition — except his own and perhaps those of his neighbors here in Silicon Valley — Hal Steger has made it.

Mr. Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. The couple’s net worth of roughly $3.5 million places them in the top 2 percent of families in the United States.

Yet each day Mr. Steger continues to toil in what a colleague calls “the Silicon Valley salt mines,” working as a marketing executive for a technology start-up company, still striving for his big strike. Most mornings, he can be found at his desk by 7. He typically works 12 hours a day and logs an extra 10 hours over the weekend.

“I know people looking in from the outside will ask why someone like me keeps working so hard,” Mr. Steger says. “But a few million doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe in the ’70s, a few million bucks meant ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. But not anymore.”

Silicon Valley is thick with those who might be called working-class millionaires — nose-to-the-grindstone people like Mr. Steger who, much to their surprise, are still working as hard as ever even as they find themselves among the fortunate few. Their lives are rich with opportunity; they generally enjoy their jobs. They are amply cushioned against the anxieties and jolts that worry most people living paycheck to paycheck.

But many such accomplished and ambitious members of the digital elite still do not think of themselves as particularly fortunate, in part because they are surrounded by people with more wealth — often a lot more. ....

In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich, Gary Rivlin, New York Times, 8/5/2007

Money & Work in the Virtual World of Second Life

A New York Times article, Even in a Virtual World, 'Stuff' Matters reports on consumerism and materialism in the online fantasy world of Second Life:

When people are given the opportunity to create a fantasy world, they can and do defy the laws of gravity (you can fly in Second Life), but not of economics or human nature. Players in this digital, global game don’t have to work, but many do. They don’t need to change clothes, fix their hair, or buy and furnish a home, but many do. They don’t need to have drinks in their hands at the virtual bar, but they buy cocktails anyway, just to look right, to feel comfortable.

Second Life residents find ways to make money so they can spend it to do things, look impressive, and get more stuff, even if it’s made only of pixels. In a place where people should never have to clean out their closets, some end up devoting hours to organizing their things, purging, even holding yard sales. ....

Second Life exclusives do exist: A magic wand was a hot item at one point, and the sex bed is currently in demand. (“If you lie on it with more than one avatar, it’s like you’re in a porn movie,” Mr. Au explained.)

But the more mundane items are what really drive the economy: clothes, gadgetry, night life, real estate. “People buy these huge McMansions in Second Life that are just as ugly as any McMansions in real life, because to them that is what’s status-y,” Mr. Wallace said. “It’s not as easy as we think to let our imaginations run wild, in Second Life or in real life.” .... “The average person wants a ranch house or a beach house” ....

Second Life players are evidently discovering what inheritors have struggled with for generations: It’s not as much fun to spend money you haven’t earned. Apparently, despite the common lottery-winning fantasies, all play and no work is a dull game, after all.

“People don’t take jobs just for the money,” said Dan Siciliano, who teaches finance at Stanford Law School and has studied the economies of virtual worlds. “They do it to feel important and be rewarded.”

And to buy more things. ...

Robert J. Bloomfield, a behavioral economist at Cornell University, studies investor behavior in the real world and recently became interested in how investors behave similarly in Second Life. “We know the little guy makes lots of dumb mistakes,” Professor Bloomfield said. “They tend to be overly impressed by the trappings of success. We see that magnified in Second Life.” ....

By Shira Boss, 9/9/2007

Charles Dickens Quote on Income & Happiness

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

- Charles Dickens, David Copperfield