I hope nobody time travels and tells my girlfriends of the past they cannot date me because I was broke.
I didn't actually personally have a positive net worth until I was 32 years old. And it was a very slim, marginal positive net worth (of no more than $10K) for a few more years after that, while I was living in mega cities where my girlfriends' friends' boyfriends or husbands all had multimillion dollar net worths. I was $60K underwater living on unemployment money in my late 20s (early days of running this site, before we had any real revenue). And I had amazing LTRs 95% of the time through all this (I basically have not been single since getting into pickup).
That said... I think Velasco and Razorjack may be talking about different things here.
I suspect
@Velasco is talking about "ability to live a basic/decent life", like have a halfway decent apartment, own a halfway decent car if you are in a place that needs cars, be able to go out to eat at least occasionally to places that aren't McDonald's or KFC, and occasionally take a vacation somewhere kind of nice.
Meanwhile I think
@Razorjack is assuming Velasco means you've gotta have a high net worth to have a romantic relationship.
I have personally known a few
totally broke dudes (of the kind who cannot afford more than a broken-down old pickup truck, and who make all their money by sometimes selling drugs -- I suspect this is the kind Velasco is thinking of) dating attractive career women. However IME most of those guys' relationships are tumultuous and most of them do not last. One I knew was able to keep some of his girlfriends (and he had several at a time) longer than a couple of years, but he was very very good at relationship management, and also very personally ambitious.
I will say if you are skirting the edges of "not having money", and it is to the point that your financial constraints are visible to the woman you are with, and
especially if she is engaging in a lot of social comparison (e.g., she's following her old classmates on social media, and all their men have better jobs and more money than you do), she is going to bring the heat down on you at some point.
Usually not early on when it's hot and steamy, and she thinks you are just the throwaway lover guy giving her new experiences and a stiff dick. But if it starts to get serious and she realizes she is serious with a guy who is in a worse place than average financially (compared to where she sees the guys her peers are dating are), it is going to be a problem except during times the relationship is perfect (no cracks).
My saving grace was always "Chase is very ambitious", so it was not hard for me to do "Look, if you need a guy who is already there financially, it's not me. You could go out there and get him, and I'm sure you could get him. And if you stick with me, I might get there someday. I
think I'll get there someday. I think I'll go far
beyond there someday. But I can't promise it. And I'm not there right now. And I really have no clear idea WHEN I'll get there. Maybe never, I don't know. Or maybe someday. It's unclear. But if you need it NOW, then no, I'm not the guy."
Or I'd go into my spiel about how of course those guys have more money, they took jobs, and got promotions, which means they get decent money now, but their income levels are capped. I am starting and running my own companies, which means if I am successful, I will eventually have a bunch of those guys that she is looking admiringly at working for me, making a pittance compared to what I do. Sometimes you have to shut down the drama; sometimes you have to "sell the dream."
Anyway, do that, and the girl invariably calms down and decides you are the man for her, even if she is living the broke life with you, because ultimately it really is all about power, capability, and frame, and you can make up for lack of money with a sufficiently strong frame.
And then if you eventually reach a place where you are doing all right with money, it really does help ease that pressure off your relationships, too.
There is a reason why "money" is one of the main reasons couples divorce. If the woman feels like the guy isn't cutting it, and thinks she can do better, he is going to have huge waves of money drama to deal with at times. It was always annoying for me, but I can handle relationship drama, and when you handle drama well, it reinvigorates the relationship and the money thing stops mattering so much. I don't know how guys who aren't good at relationships deal with that. Presumably they don't (thus all the broken marriages with "money" listed as the reason).
This might be different if you like shopaholic-type girls... the kinds who NEED a male payday to finance their lifestyles. I avoid girls like that (partly due to most of my life having been broke or near broke; partly due I just don't like spending money in general, and REALLY don't like
other people spending my money). But maybe girls like that, there is just no way to make an LTR work without constant, crippling money complaints.
There are also the broke guys who never aspire to be anything more than broke, but they hook up with rich chicks who don't need money (and maybe are even rebelling against Daddy's and Mommy's strictures to only date socially acceptable rich boys), and the relationship works out.
If I was not personally ambitious business/finances-wise, I would aspire to be one of those guys. Probably the artsy philosophical metaphysical type who talks about connections and spiritual links and dismisses The Man and The System and talks about money as being "just pieces of paper" or "slavery to the banks" or something, meanwhile dating wealthy women.
But yeah, if you have a disgusting apartment in the ghetto and can't afford a car you are going to have a hard time getting many girls into LTRs, that's agreed.
However, you can very much be "broke" in most senses of the word and also have some very solid LTRs, if your relationship game is good enough. And you aren't dating shopaphiles.
Chase
).
