July 24, 2012

My WhatsYourPrice adventure (Part 1)

You may recall my analysis of WhatsYourPrice, the online dating site where men agree to pay for a date with a woman. Sounds a lot like prostitution, doesn’t it? Well, we’re about to find out.

Based on the amount of money I’d spent in recent months on dates with women I’d met online who turned out to be duds, I came to the conclusion that paying for quality might not be that bad an idea... as long as it increased the probability that I'd get laid. So I set out on a mission to find out what this site is all about. Here’s what happened:

July 5, 2012

Two perspectives on marriage

I was on a business trip last week, travelling with two colleagues, a man and a woman, both married, both in their early 50’s. I had a couple marriage related conversations I’d like to tell you about to illustrate four points:
  1. The significant financial and emotional risk of being married.
  2. The common dogmatic assumption that everyone should want to be married, just because that’s the way it is.
  3. The fallacy that not wanting to be married means you are afraid of commitment.
  4. The fallacy that being married is required to have kids.
My first conversation was with the man, and illustrates point #1: