Sorry, I couldn’t resist. And who doesn’t love Abba?

So, yesterday there was this new post/study from YourTango blowing up twitter. It seems that 75% of Women Would Not Marry Someone Who Was Unemployed. Shocking!

So not shocking.

Also revealed was that 65% of those same women wouldn’t get married if they, themselves, were unemployed. Both of these stats make total sense to me. Marriage is, amongst other things, a business arrangement. And getting married while you or your beloved is unemployed sounds like a bad business decision to me.

This doesn’t mean that women can’t fall in love with unemployed men (which was certainly the implication of some of yesterday’s twitter action). Rather, 75% are sensible enough to realize that it’s probably a good idea to wait until their future hubby gets back into the workforce.

Anyway, I actually read beyond the headline and found some info in the study that is interesting. To me.

32 percent of women in a relationship make more money than their partner. 50 percent of women would marry someone who earned significantly less than them, while 41 percent wouldn’t marry someone who earned significantly less than them.

That’s half of all women surveyed saying they’d marry someone who earned significantly less than them. Not, IMO, a small number. Especially when you consider societal norms and all that.

So kids… it’s been a while. It’s time for a poll. I want to know what you think of this. Does money make the world go round?

For the women:

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For the guys:

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I couldn’t resist. Especially after watching the video. At first I was in complete agreement with YourTango‘s Experts. And then they got stupid.  Watch:

So, the correct answer is NO. But if that doesn’t work, the correct LIE is 8. Because any number higher than 10 makes you sound like a slut.

I swear my neighbors could hear me laughing as I watched this last night. 8! LMAO hysterical.

Anyway, I’ve written about this number nonsense before and I’m a firm believer that it’s a ridiculous question for grown-ups. I care that my partner has been practicing safe sex. And I care about his medical history. Numbers don’t matter to me. In fact, I’m fairly sure that some of my partners (those that haven’t spent most of their adult lives married) have racked up numbers into the triple digits. And I’m OK with that.

I’ve only had one guy, a fairly serious bf, press me about my number. I understood, knowing him, that it was an issue of curiosity and wanting to get to know me better. And that no matter what I said, he wasn’t going to care much. And still I didn’t give him a number. Because I didn’t know. I was in my mid-30s and had long since stopped counting. So I gave him a ballpark figure and he was perfectly happy. I, however, was annoyed as hell that he made me go there. Obvious statement: it didn’t occur to me to lie. Why the fuck would anyone do that?

So… I want to know. What about you? Do you keep track?  Do you share your number with your partner(s)? Do you ask your partner(s) about their numbers?  Do you or have you ever lied about your number?

I’m 40, dammit. 40. I have no idea how many dates I’ve been on in my life, with how many different men, but suffice it to say we’re talking deep into the triple digits.

And that’s something I’m neither proud nor ashamed of. It just is what it is.

But 20+ years of dating, all of those men, and there are still some questions I don’t have the answer to.

For example, does and/or should a guy’s job matter. Yesterday, I came across this post in YourTango, “Judging a Guy’s Dating Potential by his Job.”  Which on the surface, sounds kinda harsh. But then it talks about Health.com’s list of “10 Careers with High Rates of Depression”.  And that’s pretty legit.  Some careers do have much higher rates of depression. And it’s not unwise to take that into consideration, I guess.

But, beyond basic stats about depression rates? I’ve already established that my preconceived notions about guys who work in finance were unfair.  Am I ready to let go of my other “issues”. Or rather, my one big issue.

I’m fairly sure I’ve written about this before. At least once or twice.  I have a history. A not great track record. With guys in the entertainment industry. I don’t go after guys in those fields.  Far from it. I live in NYC. They’re pretty much everywhere.  I’ve always had friends who worked in theater/tv/film/music… and for whatever reason I’ve dated quite a few of them.  And no I don’t really want to go into much detail here.

Anyway, I’m starting to think (AGAIN) that I should stop dating them. It’s not just the musicians and actors (although that’s a no-brainer that I fall down on at least 1 or 2 times a year).  It’s the behind the scenes guys. The producers, writers, makers and doers of all kinds.  The successful ones are all (warning – wild generalization) wonderfully charismatic.

They woo so well.

Anyway, I mention this now because I’m likely going out with one of them this week. Unless, of course, I decide that no good can ever come of me dating a guy in the entertainment industry.  That I should learn from past mistakes and not even bother.

There are many, many things I can’t wrap my head around. One of which is the whole, “I fell in love with a friend” phenomenon.

I just don’t get it.

For instance, this post in YourTango (seems like sensible advice, if such a thing were to actually occur). Or the classic sitcom silliness of Monica and Chandler.  I just have a hard time imagining myself suddenly being romantically attracted to someone I’ve known, for a while, in a non-romantic way.

But that’s just me.  I have a limited imagination.

Anyway, I’d like to know, amongst my non-representative sample of readers, just how common this is.  Have any of you ever fallen for a friend?

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There was no delicate way to start this post, so I figured I’d dive right in.  Last week YourTango posted Male Take: When He Can’t Get An Erection (smart post, you should read it if you haven’t already) and it jogged my memory about a post I meant to write ages ago.

Two little stories, kinda related: A reader (he was in his early 20s, not that that should matter) asked for my advice. He was experiencing erectile dysfunction as a side effect of some medicine he was taking. The ED didn’t bother him (that’s what he said, and NO I didn’t probe) but he had a hard time talking about it with the women he dated.  He said that no matter what he said or did, they always took it personally.

I honestly can’t remember what advice I gave him other than to speak with his doctor (if he wanted to do something about the ED) and be honest.  And that, sadly, some women were not going to be able to understand that it had nothing to do with them. It was a self-esteem thing.  And the younger the woman, the more likely she was to take it personally.

The other: A guy I dated for a little while was in the earlyish stages of MS. He didn’t tell me right away, but I found out soon enough that there was something physically not quite right with him. It was an awkward and difficult situation for me, because he didn’t want to talk about  it. Anyway, over the time that we dated, he became less and less able. His ED became more of a regular thing. And we dealt with it.

The thing is, we had a pretty awesome sex life. You can go ahead and use your imagination as to what, exactly, that might have been like… The good sex almost made up for the fact that he was a total asshole.  Almost.

Looking at these two stories back to back, what stands out for me is that my younger self probably wouldn’t have been able to deal with my exes ED. He and I dated when I was in my mid-30s.  If I’d met a guy in that same exact situation when I was in my mid 20s, I don’t know how I would’ve reacted, but it probably wouldn’t have been good.  I probably would have jumped to conclusions at first.  Assumed he wasn’t into me, or something stupid and self-defeating like that.

I hope that young(er) reader has found a really cool, mature girlfriend.  Someone wise beyond her years.