To be a man, you must have money

I had a girlfriend once whom my father liked so much he urged me to marry her in exchange for a house. Ja, he said, "If you marry her I'll give you a house." A tempting offer. And I'm sure, for her too. But alas I was in no hurry to get married then (about 10 years ago) and remain fairly patient about the prospect today.

Having said that, when we broke up I was heartbroken, and then dismayed. My grandmother said to me one day, "But what did you have to offer her?"
She meant of course, what bling did I have to offer.
I found it an incredibly distasteful thing to say, particularly from one family member to another. The implication being that without money, one man's worth was interchangeable with just about any other man's. While I am sure millions would agree, I don't. Many men and women are more loutish with money than without. I have respect for a person who shows affection to an animal, or listens to a child - the sort of activities that aren't rewarded with money.

And in any event, the pursuit of money as an end in itself defies common sense and humanity, where profit tends to become most important; more important than our environment, where things are treasured as tangible and worth more than the fickle intangibles that are relationships with others...

To paraphrase the title of Gary Baker’s book, they were both Dying to be a Man in a society that sends subliminal messages that to be a man, you must have money, money and more money.

In fact, Baker’s book is a necessary but sobering intervention in a world where a man is only judged by what he has and not who he is.

When I lived in England I learned to what an extent people's vulgar judgements were actually the norm. It didn't matter what I thought, nor what my talents were, and good looks or brawn were incidental.

I learned when I studied at an advertising school in Cape Town how one could manipulate other manipulators. By living in Hout Bay and hanging out with only the most attractive people. It was a shallow, non sensical if challenging waste of time.

I remember the girlfriend I referred to above, who declared how I was like no one she'd ever met before, and she'd loved me more than anyone else, left me for someone nothing like me. He was not healthy living, or tall, or particularly good looking or handsome. He was a schemer. He wormed his way in fact into her life by taking her out to dinner every evening before I arrived back from England (she's arrived a few weeks earlier). That simple strategem (taking a women out and feeding her expensive food) apparently did the trick. She was able to transition from 20 year old who needs to find a way to get money to study, to look after herself, to simply - wife. Mother.

It turned out some time later that her husband had embezzled - with the help of his brother - over $1 million in a Venture Capital scheme, and the brother had then fled with the loot to America. It made sense subsequently that this guy had been so generous - a non cyclist and non sporty guy sponsoring cycling teams, and buying his then girlfriend a BMW. Not sure about you, but few boyfriends, even rich ones, buy their girlfriends cars. Husbands do, and often the cars are still fairly modest, a Mini Cooper, or a VW Polo. I guess in the dark night things are what comfort the wife who knows she is lying beside a fraudster and a criminal, and is, by doing so, the same.

While I admit that having no money invites a miserable existence, I've seen women that aren't happy with rather a lot. Constantly wanting bigger houses, faster cars, bigger breasts. To what end? Well, in a world where a man can only be a man with money, a woman can only be a woman with artificial breasts. And of course, the one requires the other.

I am not interested in such a world. Fake tits and big bucks.
I'm interested in a women who can look after herself pretty much, and is seeking a companion. Quite simple. It's taken a while to find someone like that, and then someone else.

The problem with our world has been a pretty poor value system. I thought for a while that I was the only one who saw it, and perhaps this doomed me to a particular set of circumstances. As it turns out, there are hard days coming for those shallow and gratuitous souls who have lived until now, for money. What will you with no money and no soul I wonder?