Don't Class Hop

Now, I’m not going to discourage anyone from dating someone richer than them that can give them a life they aren’t accustomed to. I am going to tell you you’re less likely to actually be in love if you do it. Dating outside of your socioeconomic range will almost inevitably cause some incompatibilities. Dakota and I grew up in similar households… despite our economic statuses being a bit different.

You see, my parents had me as teenagers. We did not have a ton of money growing up, although we definitely weren’t impoverished or anything like that. Because my father felt bad about having me young and with less resources, he worked multiple jobs and spent basically every extra dollar to give me and my brother fun childhood things. Power Wheels, trips to Disney World, stuff like that. Stuff I appreciated but stuff that perhaps shouldn’t have been the priority when they were racking up credit card debt and behind on the light bill.

Dakota’s parents were the opposite. He was led to believe they couldn’t afford hot school lunches so he had to take a lunch everyday. Spoiler for you guys: they definitely could afford school lunch. They could afford the shoes he wanted instead of the knock offs. They could afford the school trips he didn’t go on.

So, despite the fact our parents actually had very different levels of income and savings, the different philosophies led us to live relatively similar lives. Mine seemingly “higher class” but by a forgivable margin.

Dakota and I are very in sync financially. With two STEM careers and a splash of autism in both of us we optimised our two (now one) above average salaries, lived below our means, and invested the difference. We live similar lifestyles to the rest of our friends. We still argue about money sometimes, as I assume nearly all couples do, but it is not a major strain on our relationship.

Being married and financially stable means money doesn’t mean a lot to me when I’m dating. I care about someone’s career because it indicates whether our personalities will mesh, not because of the “success” they have achieved.

Well… to a point. I have learned there is still definitely a level that is too broke for me to be interested in. I went on a date one of the 18 times Ryan and I broke up. They guy was cute and nice. It wasn’t necessarily a fantastic first date but it was definitely good enough for a second date. Because of that I invited him to my house to meet Dakota. As I’ve mentioned, it’s a rule we have that we meet each other’s dates/partners before we move anywhere private. We live a bit outside of town but definitely still a reasonable drive. He decided to raincheck on coming over because he “needed to save gas” until his next paycheck. Yikes. I never reached out to him again because, quite frankly, I’m not trying to date someone that has to penny-pinch like that.

Vice versa, I was talking to a man who, supposedly, was very rich. But he was obnoxious about it. We never ended up meeting because if he was rich he was going to be so annoying about it. But more likely than that he was not actually that rich. I suspect we have about equal money and he just uses every cent of it to flaunt. I wouldn’t be able to last a day without making fun of him for it if that was the case.

I don’t want to date anyone that thinks they can buy me. Even with Dakota, the love of my life with whom I helped build our modest wealth, I had some feelings about quitting my job and being completely at his mercy. He’s never done anything to make me feel this way, I just never imagined not being an independent woman. So if I had hesitation about him, you can imagine I don’t fuck with anyone else trying to use money to start/sustain a relationship with me.

At the end of the day I personally get along with people that grew up lower-middle or true-middle class that have worked their way up to upper-middle class. I cannot imagine dating someone that grew up in actual poverty. To be clear, not because I think I’m better than them, but because we’ve just lived very different lives and don’t share a lot of common experiences or mentalities. I’ve had a thing for rich white boys since college but it was also very clear that too rich was also a sticking point. I don’t blame them, I’m sure they felt the same way I do about dating people below my tax bracket, and combine that with the cis-hetero white male privilege… well. Different worlds.

I’m not suggesting letting anyone’s background stop you from true love if you’re compatible with who they are now. But just take an extra moment to really think… Are you?