We all know it’s bad to be a gold digger – independent, grown-up women with a modicum of self-respect certainly don’t go around selecting potential partners based on their bank balance, do they? But is choosing someone primarily because they’re loaded any different to going out with someone primarily because they’re hot? Yep, forget gold digging – look digging is apparently the new dating crime du jour, and so the theory goes, we’ve all done it at some point.
A piece this week on Elite Daily defends gold digging for this very reason: ‘One of the most prominent, yet under-acknowledged, issues in society is that many of us penalize someone for seeking a mate who is successful, ambitious and ultimately, more confident than Kanye West. Yet, it is standard procedure for us to turn down someone simply because he or she didn’t hit the jackpot in the gene pool. If you agree, you might just be a “looks digger.”’
Does the writer have a point? Assuming that we’re subconsciously picking good-looking partners because it will give our kids a leg up in the gene pool (rather than because we want something nice to look at on a Sunday morning) is that any different to picking someone who will ensure you have a materially comfortable life?
While it’s wildly unacceptable to openly admit you might be with a guy for his money, or chasing someone because they’re loaded, admitting that you’re after someone because they’re really hot and ‘you’d have beautiful babies’ is fine. Even if you admit that the only reason you’ve stayed with your dullard boyfriend because he’s easy on the eye – that’s still LOLZ. But if you tell everyone who'll listen that you’re only going out with your short, fat, bug-eyed banker boyfriend because he’s minted? You’re basically Anna-Nicole Smith, the Octogenarian years.
That said - being physically attracted to someone is a huge part of any relationship, especially at the beginning – and how we look forms a huge part of the first impressions we make, so surely it’s a little more complicated than that?
Maybe the real problem arises when we start (consciously or unconsciously) rejecting potential partners because they aren’t on our perceived ‘level’ of attractiveness, or if their face doesn’t fit into the picture of our life we’ve imagined for ourselves. Basically, if you’ve just chucked a perfectly lovely bloke because his face is too ‘ordinary’ and spent the next day complaining to your friend about how ‘there are no nice guys left' you might want to consider the possibility that you’re a looks digger. Just saying.
Follow Rebecca on Twitter @Rebecca_hol
Illustration: Beth Hoeckel
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.