On Dating Men with Potential - Redux

On dating men with “potential”

A better encapsulation of what many women find valuable about men in America has almost certainly never been written. Money in the bank, boats in harbor, kids, dreams, organized men with direct reports. Businessmen, bankers, they are the best. I guess a scientist with a big enough salary would be ok as long as he was organized and could prove that he had fulfilled at least one of his dreams.

Of course it would have to be the right kind of dream. Like if he said he had always dreamed he would read all of Einstein’s original manuscripts and did it, that might be suspicious. I think I’d go find a banker. Even better a Silicon Valley upper management type. They make serious bank. Of course it’s so expensive to live there. Anyway if the scientist gave me that example as his dream fulfilled I would probably be suspicious but give him a second chance.

I might proceed by enquiring into his line of work. If he says any of the life sciences it’s a hard no at that point. They do good work but are vastly underpaid compared to engineers and most other scientists. I keep an updated excel spreadsheet on my PC at home, on my tablet, and iPhone. It lists the average salaries of every scientific profession. That way I can always access it quickly if a potential suitor science nerd asks me out. I have a big yellow line in the table at my make or break salary level. Above the line proceed. Below the line move on. Be careful though salary is not the only indicator of financial success. I bet you wondered when I would explain why the line was yellow not red. If you move on too fast you might overlook the fact that the man you are evaluating drove up in a very sleek Benz. Usually scientists no matter their profession could never afford a car like this. However don’t forget about the possibility of your nerd coming from an old money family.

This same foolproof strategy can be applied to evaluate potential mates in almost any profession. When do you find out if he is you know a good guy. A nice person and all that you might ask? I call all that nonsense the mushy stuff. It varies. I use a sliding scale calibrated to net worth with a credit score offset. I added a career factor last year, and my latest tweak was a future income potential s-score. I use an algorithm I built to calculate the s-score. The s is for success. You see predicting future income potential is very difficult. Anyway you feed all the important financial stuff in first of course than you talk to the dude for at least ten minutes. Exhausting right? You take notes mentally during the conversation. I use a system based on several important traits. You give a plus for each one he successfully demonstrates and a minus for the others. Try to talk about things you know in advance will allow you to hit all the traits. It’s usually things like grammar, general knowledge, world history, geography, movies. I try to think of it almost like a game of Jeopardy. Finally with the mushy stuff out of the way you calculate the mush factor and plug it into the model. I have mine heavily weighted to the financial metrics. Like 95%+. That way I avoid getting sucked into a dead end relationship with a really great guy. You know the type. Kind. Patient. Loving. All that crap. The problem is if your mush factor is too high you might be tricked into thinking he is a good potential mate, only to find out he is a high school biology teacher and only makes $35k a year. What a waste of time that was. I should have realized when he took me to Chili’s for our first date. Do not fall for this trap. I see it all the time ladies. Anyway with my financial weighting set so high this never happens to me. Hit enter and you either get a yes no output. If yes proceed to date 1.

I’ll describe my system for first date ratings and performance factors in my next post. It’s a doozy.