“You don’t know me so this is going to sound really shallow. The reason why I’m single is because, based on previous heartbreak, I won’t date a man who earns less than me.”

I paused to absorb what the woman I’d just met had said. I completely and utterly agreed with her, and realised the taboo of admitting something that 90% of my girlfriends feel emphatically.

Why is it considered shallow to announce that you just won’t date a man who earns less than you?

Because we don’t want men to think we’re “gold-diggers”- out for the bling, hot air balloon rides, drinking Moët and languishing on 18ct gold speckled sheets.

As far as I’m concerned, that says more about the man than it does about us.

What’s wrong with wanting to date a partner who is generous and won’t whip out the pen at a dinner date he invited you to and tally up who ate what?

It’s human nature. Men are from Mars. Mars is a place which spawns testosterone minded humans with 3 dangly bits between their legs who happen to want to provide for the female of the species they choose to drag by the hair to their cave.

Far be it for yours truly, mere mortal, to question evolution.

Plus, you should know after a date or 2 if you’re dealing with a gold-digging moron.

So many women are in this situation- dating a man who doesn’t earn as much as she does. It is mostly situational, but it’s always like that 3^rd day after a bikini wax- awkward, embarrassing and then finally you need to just scratch.

Yes.

The sort of friends I have don’t date absolute wankers with no feelings, so it’s pretty safe to bet that the underpaid and/or underworked man in question is feeling emasculated. Which really can’t be all that fun. On a primal level, I imagine feeling emasculated must feel like being 8 months pregnant while your husband is a Wonderbra model contest judge every day. Not awesome.

I have loved someone who earned less than I did and it was unpleasant, and unfair. For both of us. I really believe that it’s easier, and encrypted in our DNA for the man to be the provider, and the woman to be the nurturer. Even though nowadays it’s common for a man to be a stay-at-home caregiver and the mother of his children to be at work. It works beautifully for the friends who do that, because it’s a fair exchange and one that’s been deliberately chosen, a far cry from the fraught situation many women find themselves in- she works a 50 hour week, he doesn’t, and she also assumes the archetypical female role at home- cook/clean/nest/swing from the chandeliers in the bedroom.

Woman can multitask like a boss, but that’s just ridiculous.