I got totally rejected by a guy the other week.
Baffling, I know.
So, we met online, organised to meet for a drink and he walked in and looked pretty cute.
He’s gainfully employed, seems to have his life together and has a command of basic English – all of which you can’t take for granted in modern dating life.
We are having a good conversation and it turns to investment. He has a couple of investment properties; one of them is okay-ish and one of them is a dog. But he’s planning to buy another one.
So in my very direct way I’m like, ‘what about diversification?’ and ‘why go further into something you’re clearly not great at?’. Then I continue, ‘Haven’t you thought about shares? Can I recommend you research low-cost indexed funds? Your investment strategy sounds pretty dumb’.
In the retelling of this to my friends, the general consensus was (in Whitney’s words) ‘boner-killer’.
Whereas I thought I was helping him reassess his life choices in a positive way, apparently I was just coming off as a difficult, mouthy blonde.
You won’t be surprised to hear I didn’t get asked for a second date.
All week I kept thinking of Clueless, when Cher says, ‘did I stumble into some bad lighting?’.
Money, men and masculine energy
But my sad/non-existent love life is not the point of this post. What I started thinking about was the great sense of confidence old mate had about his investments, even though, in truth, he was not that good at it.
To his credit, he has done something. He’s made a move, and he’s owned it.
I think of this as a masculine kind of energy. Apparently I have a bit too much of that myself, because no guys ever want to date me. But what’s wrong with backing yourself sometimes?
What I see sometimes in the women around me is a lack of confidence in their financial ability. They see money as something complex and threatening. They think of ‘investment’ as a big, scary word.
So they leave it alone, do a budget that gets them through to payday, buy a house they can just afford, pay their compulsory super … and that’s it. They don’t plan world domination.
Or they let their partner do the heavy lifting on the finances, and thereby open themselves to him making a bad decision on his own.
So I’d like to throw a challenge out to all my ladies. How about we all be a little more blokey when it comes to money?
And I don’t mean ‘use things without reading the instructions and then screw it up’.
I mean ‘hell yeah, I’ve done the research, spoken to the experts and educated myself. I’m going to take action’.
What sort of action? Well that depends where you are on your journey. Perhaps it’s starting out with the above-mentioned low-cost index funds. Maybe it’s buying an investment property. Maybe it’s adding more to super. Maybe it’s just setting up a high-interest savings account.
The key is to make a decision. Don’t second-guess yourself to the point of paralysis. Educate yourself to the point of confidence. Then go out and OWN IT.
Just don’t use it as a dating strategy, or you’ll end up like me, watching Chvrches concerts on YouTube, in my underwear, writing blogs and eating 85% dark chocolate.
Wait, that sounds fucking awesome … no wonder I’m single.
