Washington Post: love in a recession

[Leporello]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/24/AR2009022403925_pf.html

Dating in the time of the pink slip means feeling the squeeze of the drastically reduced paycheck, the sudden sting of the layoff. From investment bankers to real estate developers to construction workers, no job means no buying rounds of $15 martinis for a pretty woman and her girlfriends. No hosting parties in the bachelor loft. And often, no idea how to present one's new self on the dating market.

"It's been incredibly stressful for me," said Neil Welsh, 27, the guy in the suit, who until last year was marketing director for a booming real estate company. "I was so used to using my financial situation to leverage my dating."

For many affected by the recession, dating is the least of their worries. But the market crash has had a particular impact on young adults who developed their dating skills in fat times, the twentysomethings who spent lavishly to show that they could afford the finer things. Now, with national unemployment rates at 8.8 percent for people 25 to 34, they are looking for more creative ways to attract partners -- and reassessing what all that big spending really meant.

Formal studies on the matter are hard to find, and Washington area employment rates are still higher than those of many other metropolitan areas. But interviews with young singles in area nightclubs and cafes and at parties reveals that financial stress is affecting the romantic lives of those who have lost sizable disposable incomes.

Alexandria native Niko Papademitriou, 27, became an investment banker with a Cleveland firm soon after he graduated from college. The money was steady enough for him to fly regularly to Manhattan to see his girlfriend and take her to upscale restaurants such as Bond Street and Cafe Gray.

"A large aspect of my life -- three out of the first five conversations that we had -- I told her, 'You're not going to see much of me in the next 15 years if we start dating, because I'm going to be making a lot of money.' " He thinks that worked in his favor, "not so much for the money, but for the drive. It's one of those things in men that women find attractive."

Ha ha. As a guy who's never been a yuppie (still time though) i find this pretty funny.

 

[Hardstylin_Rebel]

He flys in regulary to the city to see his girlfriend and take her out to posh restaurants?!?....Make her fly in to visit me..shhytt numero uno: she likes him because of the money #2: shes prob hooking up with other guys while he is away.....these guys use money as the big factor in their so called "dating game"

signing off,
Hardstyle Lovah like no Otha

 

[eaglez1177]

hahahah wowww what a bunch of pathetic AFCs