My WhatsYourPrice Adventure (Part 2)

So it's been a while since I've written about the online dating site for sugar daddies (ahem, generous men) and golddiggers (I mean, uh, women), What's Your Price. At the time I was intrigued by the prospects, but never got around to writing about the outcome of my adventure.

What happened? Well, honestly I figured out much more effective methods to meet women online, and no longer had any need for a gimmicky website like What's Your Price. But since so I've received so many requests to follow up my first piece, here it is, by popular demand, Part 2 of My What's Your Price Adventure.

Announcing My New Book!

Dear loyal readers,

I’m ridiculously excited and disgustingly proud to announce the release of my new book A Hacker's Guide to Online Dating, How to Train Your Computer to Get You Dates. Available on Amazon here.

If you enjoy the blog, you’ll love this book. It’s everything I've learned throughout my years in the online dating world. All the tips and tricks on how to optimize the dating process to do what online dating is supposed to do – get you actual face to face dates – as efficiently as possible. Basically, overcoming the paradox of choice. I've even included the automation code that I personally developed and use to have my computer do most of the work for me. Online dating on steroids!

I’ll be posting excerpts periodically – there’s so much good material here that I’m not going to limit it to just the book - but to wet your whistle, the table of contents is below. I also want to do something for my loyal readers. For the next 5 days, the kindle ebook is going to be available absolutely free! No strings attached. The whole thing. Free. What are you waiting for? Here’s that link again. The only thing I ask in return is this: if you like it, give me a review on Amazon. It always helps. And let me know how my strategies work out for you. You can always reach me here in the comments section.

Vaya con dios,
Dorian

Date night

Age: 24
Ethnicity: Hispanic, white mix
Met her: online
Height: 5’ 0”
Body: Somewhat disappointing. A little more than pictures indicated in the stomach, arms, and thigh regions.
Boobs: Again, didn’t live up to expectations.
Butt: Looked ok, but also looked like it took quite a bit of effort to get into those jeans.
Date: Drinks, and -- surprise, surprise -- some unplanned food.
Cost: $31 + $25 paid by her

Summary:
The date is best summed up by the following quotes:

   “Growing up, I was kind of a chubby girl.” (Uh oh)

   “I’ve never really taken care of myself, you know, aesthetically.” (Oh god)

   “Let’s do it again.” (I'll think about it)

Argument for seeing her again: She was cool, easy going. Her body wasn’t THAT bad. She was sitting down next to me at the bar the whole time, which tends to have an unflattering effect on the stomach (Ok, I'm rationalizing). Fat girls, or in this case, formerly fat girls tend to be, let’s just say, more adventurous in bed.
Argument against: Rule No. 4.

Red flags I missed: Upon further review, Nos. 2 - 4 may have been present to some extent. Again I was burned by the “average” body type. Probably should just steer clear of it all together.
Lessons: I’m starting to think the fact that I’m getting regular poon elsewhere is killing my motivation. I’m just not feeling the urgency. I’m not desperate enough. A few months ago I probably would have jumped all over a girl like this. But now? Not worth my time.

Ask Men dating survey results

As I mentioned earlier, Ask Men has partnered with Cosmo to put together a great survey on the dating habits and tastes of men and women. Check them out if you have the chance. For now, I'll summarize the best results relating to the topics of this blog:

On marriage:

• To the question of whether or not they believe in marriage, 85% of women say “Yes, definitely!”, while only 66% of men say they plan to participate. Hmm, I wonder if that is a reflection of who is favored by the rules of engagement.
• How important is a prenup? 32% of men say somewhat or very important, versus only 26% of women.  Do you see a trend here?
• When asked which sex gets screwed in divorce courts, 79% of men and 41% of women say men get screwed. 1% of men and 18% of women think women get screwed. So both sexes agree. Men get screwed. Can we update these laws now? Waddya say we make things a little more fair?

On infidelity, sex, and attraction:

10 more reasons not to get married

1. If you don't get married, you'll never have to stand next to your wife and look like this chump while she gushes over her uncontrollable spending habits.
2. If you don't get married, your wife can never claim she has a right to your music catalog.
3. If you get married, your spouse might attempt to electrocute you after you tell them you want a divorce.
4. If you don't propose, no one can keep the engagement ring after refusing your proposal.
5. If you don't get married, you don't have to worry about perfecting the art of arguing.
6. The founder of eHarmony thinks you shouldn’t get married.
7. If you get married in NJ, your wife can plant a GPS tracker in your car.
8. If you don't get married, you won't have to come up with terms like "none-ogamy" to describe your sexless marriage.
9. Nor will you have to train your marriage dragon, whatever that is.
10. And finally, if you don't get married, you won't have to divide your apartment in half.

Rich women don't want to marry either

Charlize Theron isn't interested in marriage.

A long-term relationship...That's the kind of union that I want. The actual ceremony is not something that is important to me.

My guess is that it's because she's able to support herself financially. Is it just me, or is this sort of attitude common among celebrities and other women who are independently wealthy? If you are a breadwinner, male or female, our family law system makes marriage a losing proposition.

And let's not forget that richer people also want fewer children. Gee, I wonder why. Do you think it has anything to do with child support?

Men vs Women and the Great Recession

If you’re frustrated about the harsh impact of the latest US recession on men, read this article to make yourself feel better:

[Men] have been benefiting disproportionately from the modest job growth during the recovery... [W]hile the number of jobs held by men has grown by 768,000 since the recession officially ended in 2009, the number of jobs held by women today is actually lower than it was at the recession’s end: There are 218,000 fewer nonfarm payroll jobs employing women today than there were two years ago.

Or if you subscribe to the women-as-victims narrative try this discussion of the same study with the headline Recovery Is Bypassing Women. But if you want the whole story, you're going to have to read the original source report:

Reason #849: Jamie McCourt strikes gold

If you live in LA, are a Dodgers fan, or even follow Major League Baseball, you’ve probably heard about the McCourt divorce. Frank McCourt, the owner of the Dodgers, and his wife Jamie filed for divorce nearly two years ago after being married since 1979. And then, the bitter divorce battle ensued. Here’s a recap:

He says:

• His wife Jamie had an affair with her Dodgers bodyguard and driver, Jeff Fuller
• Jamie was fired by the Dodgers for "insubordination, non-responsiveness, failure to follow procedures, and inappropriate behavior with regard to a direct subordinate"
• Jamie and boyfriend Fuller spent more than two weeks on a summer vacation in France and billed the team for it
• He's low on cash and can't provide the hundreds of thousands of dollars Jamie wants in monthly compensation
• He's the sole owner of the Dodgers

She says:

• She's the equal co-owner of the Dodgers
• She was "unceremoniously" fired by Frank so he could steal her share of the team
• Frank is understating his net worth by hundreds of millions of dollars to avoid paying her
• She needs as much as $989,000 a month to maintain her lifestyle, assuming she's not reinstated as CEO (That's nearly $12 million a year).
• Her monthly living expenses include the upkeep on the McCourt houses (including a $34 million mansion in the Holmby Hills), salaries for a household staff of eight, tuition and living expenses for the couple's four sons, private jet travel, accommodations at five-star hotels, security escorts when traveling, as well as house calls from her hair stylist and make-up artist, according to the Wall Street Journal.

You might ask why any of this matters.

The cost of raising a child vs child support

You may have heard, it costs a lot to raise a child. A recently released report by the USDA estimates that it will cost an average of $287K to raise a child born in 2010. But as others have pointed out, the study comes up short by two measures.

First, it’s based on out of pocket expenditures, so it doesn’t include opportunity costs such as career deferral, etc. Second, it’s based on what people actually spend, not what they need to spend on raising a child.

I’d say lost income trumps the fact that some people may overindulge their children, so if anything the study's results are probably an underestimation. But let’s assume for a moment that it’s any accurate accounting of the current cost of child rearing in America. Exactly how much does it cost to raise a child these days? And what does it tell us about something else we care about... child support?

Breaking all the rules of dating

Amy Loudon of The Independent thinks you should make your own dating rules. I did. Anyway, Amy's real point is that women shouldn't follow the common rules they make for themselves to sabotage their own dating lives. I agree. Most of these are unnecessary and/or counterproductive. Here's my take on each one.

1. "Don’t kiss on a first date." Don’t follow this rule if you’re interested in a second date with me.
2. "Don’t text [immediately] after a first day [to say what a great time you had]." Yes it does come off a bit too eager, but no I won’t hold it against you. Bottom line, it makes no difference. I’ve probably already made up my mind. And if I haven’t, whether or not you texted me afterwards isn’t going to sway me one way or the other. BUT, it will give me an opportunity to tell you how I feel, either by not responding, telling you directly I'm not interested, or telling you I'm interested. So if you're itching to know, this is probably a good way to get a quick answer.
3. "Do not accept a Saturday night date after a Wednesday." Ladies, you are totally over-thinking this. Don’t outsmart yourselves.
4. "Play hard to get." Agreed, this is counterproductive.
5. "Picking up the bill." It’s refreshing when a woman wants to pay for anything. It means she can take care of herself, and she’s there because she actually likes you, not just because she had nothing better to do. All good things… Or it means she doesn’t want a second date and doesn’t want to send the wrong signals. Not such a good thing... So you can see why I’m not going to read too much into it, other than I just saved a few bucks, so I’m happy.
   
   But know this: We’re not going to ask. You have to take the initiative. The default is guy pays.
   
   I’ll tell you what’s NOT cool though. When a woman finagles her way into a more costly date than originally planned and then doesn't help pay for it. When I invite you out for drinks, I’m planning to buy you a few drinks, not dinner. So if you’re hungry and want to get dinner too, fine. But you shouldn't expect me to pay for it. I don’t like to be taken advantage of any more than you do.

Marriage getting cheaper?

Leave it to the free market to work around problems created by over-regulation. Now you can offset some of the financial risk that comes with marriage by buying divorce insurance.

“WedLock” is a new type of casualty insurance that gives the unhappily married a payout after he or she is divorced.

It’s seems the founder came up with the idea after being burned by divorce himself:

[He] conceived the idea for Wedlock following his divorce 10 years ago. “My finances went to hell in a handbag,” he said. “I thought I can't be the only schmuck this is happening to. That was my ‘aha' moment.”

If you ask me, this is a welcome innovation that addresses one of the key issues I have with marriage. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a solution. Without prohibativley expenisve premiums, your payout probably isn’t going to put a significant dent in what you might be on the hook for in terms of alimony and/or child support:

Rich people have fewer kids

Justin Wolfers summarizes some pretty convincing data showing the correlation between income and children... that rich people have fewer kids.  But the question remains: What is the cause and what is the effect?  Do people have fewer kids once they get rich, or does having fewer kids make you rich?  Does some third variable, like being well educated, cause you to both become rich and have fewer kids?

More on workplace (in)equality

I wrote a few days ago about difference in median income growth between men and women over the last half-century.  Now the Atlantic has added some data, supporting the explanation that women have been becoming better educated and increasing their participation in highly skilled, higher paying jobs.  Over the same period, men's average education levels have stayed relatively constant, and they have continued to dominate low-skilled jobs requiring manual labor.  Makes sense to me.

Workplace (in)equality

Marginal Revolution has some striking data comparing the median male and female income, and how each has changed since the late 40’s.  It’s clear from the plots that the median woman, which as MR points out, is not actually a person, but a statistical construct, has done a lot better:

My reaction:

50 reasons (not) to get married

Happy Valentine’s Day…

I came across this list of 50 Reasons Why Marriage Rocks via a Facebook friend who is apparently getting married.  I don’t really know.  She’s one of those Facebook friends that I met once, friended for some reason, and then never talked to again.  You know those.

Anyway, the list is at various points humorous, repulsive, and sad.  But what’s ironic is that it basically reads as a list of reasons NOT to get married.

Most of them are typical romantic fluff and/or are reasons to be in a relationship, not specific to marriage. I could go through these one by one and tear them apart, but I think I’ll just focus on my favorites: