Does Your Date Think You’re a Gold Digger? 5 Things You Should Never Ask

“Gold Digger” is a crass label no one wants, but after interviewing 1,000 single men,

Ho scoperto che viene applicato alle donne più spesso di quanto pensino (e spesso ingiustamente). David, 37 anni di Long Island, NY, ha descritto il suo recente appuntamento in questo modo: “Cercava un Perfect 10: ‘il ragazzo che è un 5 sulla scala dell’aspetto con $ 5 milioni in banca”.

Come allenatore di appuntamenti e matchmaker, ho trascorso gli ultimi dieci anni a condurre ricerche sugli appuntamenti non convenzionali utilizzando una tattica di “uscita dall’intervista” che ho imparato alla Harvard Business School e applicata al mondo degli appuntamenti. Ho intervistato 1.000 uomini per scoprire cosa è successo veramente dopo una disconnessione di appuntamenti. Molti uomini hanno descritto le donne che hanno stereotipato come eccessivamente interessate al denaro o eccessivamente concentrate sull’acquisizione o sul mantenimento di uno stile di vita sontuoso. In altre parole, percepivano certe donne come “Principesse di Park Avenue”. In realtà, la Park Avenue Princess è stata la 4 ragione più comune per cui gli uomini hanno perso interesse per una donna dopo aver visto il suo profilo di appuntamenti online, scambiando e-mail o andando al primo o al secondo appuntamento.

Gli uomini hanno il loro radar per i cercatori d’oro che pensano stiano cercando di sposare uno stile di vita insieme al loro uomo. Nella nostra economia traballante, la sicurezza finanziaria è più volatile che mai. Gli uomini sono sempre più sensibili nel trovare qualcuno genuino che resti con loro “per i più ricchi o per i più poveri”. Spesso evitavano una donna se scriveva nel suo profilo online qualcosa del genere: “Amo lo shopping” o “Adoro i vini pregiati e lo champagne”. In uno scambio iniziale di e-mail, gli uomini si vergognavano se una donna scriveva “Sto cercando un uomo generoso” o “un uomo che ha raggiunto il successo nella carriera”. Gli uomini credevano che si trattasse di dichiarazioni sostitutive per “Voglio essere curato finanziariamente”. Of course, these were often misperceptions, but in the early stages of dating, perception is reality.

Men complained in my interviews about women on first dates who thought they were being subtle-but were completely transparent-when they tried to play “the money detective game” (a.k.a., “Are you rich or not?”). These gold-digger questions were reported most frequently:

1) Does your company give you stock options? Gordon, a 36-year old entrepreneur from New York, NY, claimed to know every trick question in the gold digger handbook: “Women hear that I’m an entrepreneur, and they don’t know how to evaluate my financial situation. So they slip in proxy questions like Does your company give you stock options?'”

2) What kind of car do you drive? George, a 48-year old from Los Angeles, CA, says it’s very hard to find sincere women in L.A.: “I actually own two cars-a Prius and a Corvette- but I purposely drive my Prius on a first date to fend off the gold diggers.”

3) What does your dad do? Paul, a 24-year old in Seattle, WA, is upfront during his dates about being unemployed. But women get confused when he takes them to expensive restaurants. He says, “So they ask me what my dad does, sniffing around to see whether I might have a trust fund.”

4) Which hotel did you stay at on your trip? Sam, a 31-year old in Dallas, TX, loves to travel and wants women to ask questions about the adventure side of his recent trip, not whether it was a luxury excursion: “When women ask me where I stayed, it’s obnoxious. The hotel is so irrelevant to my travel passion and so obviously an indication that she’s looking for a certain lifestyle.” He said one woman even asked him if he “flew commercial” on his trip!

5) Do you pay alimony? When you’re talking to a divorced man, the key is to focus on sympathy for what he’s gone through emotionally, especially if he has children. Ryan, a 55-year old from Providence, R.I., says he’s immediately turned off by the “alimony question” which several women have asked him on first dates. In his mind, that’s code for “How much money remains for me?”

And look out ladies for this Park Avenue Princess test I heard from Gerry, a 64-year old from Hartford, CT. He told me, “I like to mess with women when I think they’re gold-diggers. Sometimes I’ll let it slip (falsely) that I owe five months of back-rent or I maxed out my credit cards, just to test how fast they’ll look at their watches and calculate when they can politely go home.”

Men – both rich and poor- know that money is a factor on the dating circuit. But like a bad country western song, they just want to be loved for who they are. They don’t want to be taken advantage of financially or wonder if her feelings are genuine. Call me nave or a hopeless romantic, but I’m betting that most of these supposed Park Avenue Princesses aren’t really screening their men for money. I think in many of these cases men reported, women were simply making casual conversation and sincerely trying to get to know their date better. But if a woman happened upon a few wrong questions inadvertently, the gold digger label was slapped on her fast by faulty, knee-jerk assumptions which a man made after watching too many bad reality TV shows. Now that you know what’s happening, you can simply avoid these types of questions so you’re not wrongly accused.

You’ll find all the other reasons men don’t call back (and what you can do about them) in my new book, Why He Didn’t Call You Back: 1,000 Guys Reveal What They Really Thought About You After Your Date.

Rachel Greenwald is the author of the new book: Why He Didn’t Call You Back: 1,000 Guys Reveal What They Really Thought About You After Your Date.

È anche l’autrice bestseller del New York Times di Find a Husband After 35 (Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School). Rachel è una frequente ospite di relazioni su The Today Show, The Early Show, CNN, National Public Radio, The Dennis Prager Show, ed è stata descritta in Oprah Magazine, Fortune Magazine, The New Yorker, People, USA Today e molti altri. Lei è un allenatore di incontri professionale e matchmaker.

Visita il suo sito web e fai una domanda a Rachel su www.whyhedidntcallyouback.com