Finding Mr & Mrs Right: The gold digger

Jane and John met during first year university.  They didn’t do the same course, they weren’t in the same classes.  Their paths did not cross each other through their university lives.  It was through an extended network of friends that their paths crossed.

University, after all, was a time of discovery.  One where the nerd is reinvented, the gamer is no longer criticised, the geeks no longer ostracised.  It is a place where like minded individuals can meet and discuss their dreams and desires.  At least, that’s the PG version.

Jane had always had great dreams for herself, she was going to go places, be someone important, and there was nothing that was going to stand in her way.

John was a simple boy who became a fairly simple man.  He wanted to play video games, watch TV, kick a football around, and go on a holiday every year.  He didn’t want to achieve great things, he just wanted to be left alone and live out his life simply.

When their paths crossed, John was dismissive of the ever perfect Jane.  After all, she was too feisty, too ambitious, too fashion forward for him.  He was also awkward and terrible dresser.

Jane looked at him and saw the potential the boy could become.  She also saw that he was the only one around who had a car whom she could easily date.

They started dating each other, much to my surprise.  I didn’t think that they were a suited couple.  To me, her alpha mind was too much for his sloth passive aggressive persona.  Even in looks, there was at least a 4 point disparity between the two of them.

As the ever succinct Dr. Gregory House put it, he must have money.  I didn’t know how much money, I just assumed that he had it, otherwise, she would not have invested the time that she did on him.  And boy, did his family have money.  The girl did her research when she asked her friends about his background.  This girl was playing the long game.

Theirs was a frustrating relationship.  One where Jane dominated John, she didn’t emotionally dominate him at first, she played the perfect girlfriend, the perfect future daughter in law.  The hand was played to perfection.  Jane had hidden away her true nature for years.  She was fun and easy going, doing the fun things that wealthy young adults do.  His entire income (pocket money) was devoted to playing, John had no other expenses.  So, the high life they lived, whilst the rest of us had rent and bills to pay.

But the cracks were there, the constant complaints that she subjected the rest of us to, John’s lack of ambition was proving to be a problem.  He was not finishing his three year degree any time soon, and five years had already passed.

She questioned whether or not she should continue with her investment, or whether she should cut her ties and go find someone else.  She decided that she’d wasted too much time and effort on him to let some other girl come along and swoop him up.  She had made him presentable now and would soon make him a productive member of society.

Jane was my friend, I often wondered why we were friends, I didn’t really like her that much.  She annoyed me with her constant materialism and brand whoring.  She also annoyed me with how she made John buy her things.  It was her life, and his.  They were adults and who am I to disagree with him buying her things?  Just because I did what Destiny’s Child chanted, doesn’t mean that it’s for everyone else.

I genuinely liked John.  And if he had been my friend, I would have told him to ditch Jane.  But with most relationships, it is best to not stand in the way of it, and let people make their own mistakes.  Unless you’re family.

John finally proposed, they were still very young she was eager to accept.  Jane had bagged herself a whale.  Her wedding, a lavish designer affair, from her Vera Wang wedding dress, to designer everything else, including a hatted restaurant with killer views for the reception.  A lavish wedding that was worthy of John’s parents’ wealth.

With a gold digger love, the problem is that when you have money problems, the love that you claim to have for the other person quickly fades.  And resentment is quick to show itself.

Jane quickly learnt to resent John for his lack of money and ambition.  He was happy with a remedial job, wouldn’t even consider going into the family business.  He was not interested.  He wanted to work in IT, and that was that.  He didn’t want something challenging, he wanted an easy job with no responsibility.

Jane’s nagging started to become more prominent.  From their finances, to the house that they were renovating.  John’s inability to time manage properly.  Jane was a true alpha, and she was letting it out now.  Her ambition for herself was clear.

Jane and John move in with his parents once they married.  With parents who gallivant about the world, why would you need your own place, when you’re essentially house sitting for most of the year anyway?

John’s parents, started to reduce their support for the household finances.  For the first time in their lives, John and Jane were now responsible for a fraction of the bills that the rest of us had been enduring.  And they did not like it.

The inherent problem with gold digging the offspring is that there is very little money there, until the wealth holders are dead.  That’s a seriously long game you’re playing.  So, the cracks really start to show, and they all inherently came back to money.

Jane is not maternal, she never had any desire to have children.  But John did, and his parents wanted nothing more than a grandchild.  Jane, being the selfless person that she is, gives up her body and has a baby.  In her words: “I want to be a hot young MILF.”

The child is a difficult one, he’s the type of child to make you run for the hills with his problematic behaviour.  I shall fondly refer to him as Devil Child.  He tormented everyone who came into contact with him for the first year of his life.

Naturally, when you have a marriage where you’re not actually in love, but claim to be.  And you’re frustrated with your partner, nothing quite like a baby to patch things up and mend those cracks.

Those cracks didn’t mind, they became giant gaping holes.

Jane quickly learnt the full extent of her husband’s failings.  His easy going persona was also one of laziness.  His parents’ wealth also meant that he never learnt to do any chores or take proper responsibility for his own life.  Let alone know how to take responsibility for a baby.

John learnt that she was a dragon, constantly telling him off for one thing or another.  Divorce quickly came into the equation once the baby came along.  They had both hoped that the other person would initiate the proceedings and then they would not have to be the bag guy.

But like most marriages, the bad times pass, tempers taper and the situation properly assessed.  John and Jane continued to stay together, with his frustration manifesting in aggression in sport and driving.  Jane’s bitchiness became so annoying that most of her friends dumped her.  She would complain constantly about John, irrespective of whether he was there to listen to her vent her frustration on the phone to a friend or not.  She had belittled him so much, it was frustrating to watch.  I often told her to be quiet, and wish that John would stand up to her and tell her to just shut up.

The more she belittled and nagged him, the more he would rebel against her and not do as she wanted.  He lacked control in his household, and the only way of showing control was to not do what was asked of him.

They had gotten into a depressing cycle, which was filled with aggressive nagging and downright belittling, from Jane.  To John’s credit, he held his tongue and his temper against Jane.  John is a good guy.

Gold digging doesn’t work when you’re playing the long game and are expecting a certain level of lifestyle which your combined income cannot support.  That said, it can afford you a multi-million dollar house which you would never have been able to afford ever in your lifetime, and cars which you can only afford to pay the insurance on.

Gold diggers come in all shapes and sizes, not all are sexy hot bimbos with giant fake who-hars who parade around the hottest night clubs trying to land a banker, lawyer or tech nerd.  Granted, these are the more typical stereotypes.

John, a high level bank executive, married for over twenty years to his wife.  He started to go out more and more with his younger colleagues, as his children reached adulthood.

John met Jane in a bar. She was out with her friends, as an eighteen year old.  She was dressed provocatively, and flirted with men.  She was in the city to find herself a banker, and she wasn’t going to go home without one.

Jane got John’s business card, he was considerably older than she is, older than her father.  John was a Napoleon type of man.  Small in stature, but was definitely an alpha male in the banking world.

With his business card in hand, Jane started to contact John.  It wasn’t long before they had their one night stand.  And for John, it was just a one night stand.

For Jane, it was the pregnancy that she needed to trap herself a whale.  With this pregnancy, she ended his twenty-odd year marriage and got herself a man.

The divorce was messy, and took over 5 years to complete.  John’s first wife took him to the cleaners, but that did not deter Jane from her man.  By the time of the divorce, Jane had given birth to two children and was heavily pregnant with the third.

I had only had the odd conversation with Jane, she was not worldly, she was not an intellectual, she wasn’t even what I would call savvy, she was simple woman.  A simple woman who bagged herself a middle aged whale who longed for some excitement.

John was the quiet laughing stock of his peers, a man who had lost the respect of a lot of the men with his indiscretion.  He was still respected as a banker, but not as a man.  It wasn’t because he cheated on his wife, it was that he got trapped into an unwanted pregnancy from a naïve eighteen year old girl who had just left high school.

Funnily enough, we observe many gold digger type relationships in our lifetime, from the people we come in contact with to celebrity couples.  Whether it be your boss, boss’s boss, your friend’s father and his new wife, or your idiotic friend. They pretty much unfold the way it does in a movie, it’s a cliche for a reason.

The relationship is one where financial support is the major point of concern.  The arm candy is arm candy, and needs to stay that way.  Inevitably, the arm candy ages, and the ATM will stray towards a younger arm candy model.  The arm candy is frustrated and angered by the betrayal, believing that they are more than arm candy and yet, unwilling to admit that the purse is nothing more than an ATM.

The arm candy will not necessarily leave the ATM during the bad times, not if they don’t have a better prospect, or if they will receive nothing from going their own way.

Gold diggers are not specifically female, they are sometimes male too.  It just so happens that they’re just not as common and society is not so quick to label the male gold digger as such.  Personally, I have encountered one male gold digger.

Men are quick to denounce a woman for being a gold digger, and yet, they are horrified at being called superficial.  The ATM which vies for the super hot, slightly brainless, anti-personality type hates to admit that he only enters into the relationship for the outter shell.  Your decision to be with someone purely for their looks and barely tolerable personality is your choice, just own it.