Are You Dating a Copper Miner?

You’ve all heard of gold diggers, but what about the copper miner?

“Huh? What’s a copper miner?”

Here’s the story.

A while back, this woman I know met a guy. We'll call her "Jane" for anonymity's sake. So, Jane thought this guy seemed really great at first, checking every box she had for a potential partner. He was attractive, intelligent, funny, and seemed her equal in every way.

Even his family was lovely. They owned a large but cozy home on the river and were fond of weekend gatherings with friends and family. Jane's parents were deceased and her own family scattered to the winds across the country. His family took her in as one of their own and made her feel like a part of theirs.

She was happy for the first month or so, but then things began to get weird. First, the guy lost his job. His money was tight, so she invited him just to live with her to conserve his funds while he found another job. He was there most of the time anyway. When he couldn’t pay his cell phone bill, she got him a new one with a spare line on her account. She wrote it off as a bad patch that he was going through and thought nothing of it. They were happy and he would get past this.

But he didn’t get past it. He was content to lay around on her sofa and let her pay all the bills while he pretended to do some side work to support himself. He began taking his phone outside to take calls when she was there, claiming he didn’t want to disrupt her studying. He grew short and impatient with her over the least little thing. She chalked it up to the stress of being unemployed. She wanted to believe that he wasn’t using her, but she had her concerns.

As her suspicions grew and their relationship soured, she discovered that he was texting with an old flame behind her back. A visit to his parents home revealed that he had been coming to their house during much of the time he was supposedly working. They let it slip without knowing about his lies to her. Things became clearer to her and while she was hurt, she also felt a sense of relief that she wasn’t just imagining that something was wrong.

Back at home, he apologized and told her he was just ashamed of his work situation and wanted her to think it was improving. She confronted him about the old girlfriend and he told her it meant nothing, that he was just trying to bolster his self esteem. She wanted to belief him, but she’d been burned before and was skeptical.

She told me about her situation with him and what was happening between them. I told her he sounded like a gold digger. Her response was merely to point out that she worked long hours and went to school. Her money was tight. She didn’t have any gold to dig. I nodded knowingly and amended my statement.

“You’re right. He’s a copper miner.”

“A copper miner?” she laughed.

“Yes. He doesn’t need gold. He just needs enough to get by. He’ll settle for room, board and a few copper pennies to see him through.”

Thus, the term “copper miner” was born. As I considered my impromptu assessment of her situation with this man, I had to reflect on my own dating history and how many men I’d come across that were copper miners in disguise. The copper miner is always charming and appears thoughtful until they know the grift is up. They always have a backup plan for when the piggy bank runs dry.

But what, you ask, did she do about her copper miner? Well, because he knew that she was on to him and his days were numbered, he did what all copper miners do. He moved on to another victim, the same woman he’d been texting with behind her back. He left her a note letting her know that he just couldn’t be with her anymore with no further explanation, but we knew the reason.

He’d found a new copper mine to strip.