Male friend sees romantic relationships as transactional and thinks lower and middle class men should go to Asia to find wives

[Primrose86]

I am 33 and have been married for 10.5 years with a 7 month old son. When we married, my dh was a poor student and we supported each other through unemployment, burnout/sickness, family drama, 3 year stint of living with his mum in our 20s (to save a deposit to buy a london flat) etc. There has been times when our disposable income was great and we could afford lots of holidays and weekend breaks plus overpay 1k into our mortgage. Other times less so.

My friend is in his early 30s and is convinced that women only like rich men (he thinks my dh is rich because he has an income of 75k which isnt that amazing in London). He thinks that another guy we both know (let's call him Friend A) who has been unlucky in love, would be much more successful on dating apps if he wrote ' I have a mortgage free 2 bed house in North London, no student loans, a car paid for in cash and am a lawyer'. All true BTW but of course Friend A is still single and has been single for most of the 11 years i have known him. He thinks that it is because Friend A is much too modest about his money or the women would all be lining outside his door.

Is this why so many younger men struggle now with relationships. Cos they have this view that they need to be the provider and women are only attracted to providers. He thinks love marriages are the minority. And says he would encourage all lower and middle class men to go to Asia to find a wife cos they have more economic power in Asian countries. When I tried to counter with examples, he thinks I am in denial and cited that men in the top 20% of the income quintiles are mostly in relationships but most in the poorest quintiles are single (i think personally its because higher earning men can afford to go on lots of dates which increases their chances; also attributes that command a higher salary are also attributes valued on the dating market like charisma/emotional intelligence).

Its honestly quite warped because most married men are not millionaires and marrying someone solely because they aren't high earning isn't even that lucrative anyway given frozen income tax thresholds and also job insecurity (many HENRY jobs can be lost during redundancy or are very high stress leading to burnout). Also this is based on the assumption that he will share his money with you...

Your 'friend' sounds like an incel. FWIW I earn quite a lot more than my husband and always have. Women these days can pay their own bills, we are not interested in men for that.

I have known him for a long time and he always seemed very normal hence why this convo shocked me. He complained a lot about dating apps in the past but now he is outright saying that it is a function of evolution that women look for higher earners because we want to feel protected and in a capitalist society higher earners are 'protectors' like wtf

I'd stop hanging around him, sounds like an incel. Hasn't he given you the ick?

Hmmmm, I wonder why women are choosing to stay single? 🤔

Especially when there is such a fine specimen as your male friend available?

Curious......curious

Only read the title.

he would not be my friend anymore under any circumstances.

If you met him you wouldn't think he is an incel! Which is why this shocked me. Educated, eloquent, has female friends etc but eternally single.

I wonder though if it's because he wants to believe he can't get a local girlfriend so he is saying its due to his income and not the other attributes.

Why are you spending your precious time on him?
genuine question.

He'd probably have more chance of finding one to sleep with him if he didn't open his mouth and let all his inadequacies and entitlement fall out of it.

I wouldn't be friends with someone who thinks it's acceptable to go to Asia and buy a wife as though they are goods to be purchased. Sorry OP but I think you're sort of skimming over what a disgusting person this man is.

Is he dating?
If he is, I wonder if his incel bells are ringing and the women are picking this up.

He may be a great educated, eloquent friend, but maybe towards women he wants to date all sorts of red flags are flying like a parade in communist China.

Either way, it's definitely not due to his income.

He was dating locally, no luck, then met a woman online. Flew to Asia to see her, and she is nice and apparently from a middle class family. But I guess a long distance relationship. He is going to go travelling with her again this year. He likes travelling anyway..

But he is now saying the only reason why he has a girlfriend is he looked abroad and of course a lot of countries out there are much poorer than the UK.

He isnt buying her, his Asian girlfriend hasn't asked him for money but he thinks he is attractive to her because he is obviously richer in absolute terms than most men in her country. Or she can't tell. I bet its the latter tbh.

For example if I had never been to the UK or out of Asia and didnt know much about life here, and my dh told me he grew up in a terraced house in London (and he didnt even live with grandparents), I would have thought he was absolutely minted. Cos in my home country, only 5% of homes are houses with gardens (everyone else lives in condos or government housing) and while i grew up in a house with garden, I did live with my grandparents. Of course this isnt the case in London and my DH's mum had every benefit under the sun (while also owning a house in London). I can quite imagine how someone who has never been to the UK could make such assumptions (but these assumptions would be corrected fairly quickly and then what?)

Women are earning more now. Men need to get used to it. Many of us want to be on an equal financial footing with our spouses, which is why it’s important to ambitious women. We don’t want to be the default partner that gives up our career because of kids. Many of us want that to be equal. My DB and SIL both work four day weeks so neither is disadvantaged professionally and no one is the “default parent” that is expected to come home if their kiddo needs to be picked up from childcare early.

I earn more than my DP, but it doesn’t bother him. Some men really do have a problem with not being the higher earner, even if they’re not “high earners.”

I wouldn’t have been able to keep my mouth shut about this misogynistic and actually pretty damn racist view. Is he insecure about his career?

tell your friend he is ridiculous and that is prostitution

Wow incel

YABU for maintaining this ridiculous idea that £75k "isnt that amazing in London."
I'm 60 and have lived my entire life in London. Very few of my friends earn anywhere near that. Most people earn the same kinds of salaries as are earned elsewhere in the UK.

Your friends sounds like a cunt who is looking for a prostitute not a relationship.

In fairness to him, a great many marriages in the world are arranged and transactional.

My dh is a Londoner and his mum would say the same. But London is a different place now. Let's just say its not the kind of salary that can make up for not having family money with buying a home. What we can afford on our income is a 2 bed flat and 1 child (no second child as flat is too small).

Sure, it's just in your OP you say that he would encourage middle/ working class men to go to Asia to find a wife because they have more economic power. It's such a gross mindset for all kinds of reasons.

True. But not in mainstream uk culture.

is he not a good looker?

Also curious this analysis never makes them into socialists, but instead into far right Wannabees who would only embed the issue with further economic inequality.

I’d hope any Asian woman who meets him and has the misfortune to marry him takes him for every penny he’s got when they inevitably divorce.

I knew a blind man locally who got into a relationship with a Chinese (I think) mail order bride. It didn’t last though they lived together for a while. I’m
sure she thought he was well off.

I agree with pp that he sounds really dodgy with the Asian wife thing but aside from that I think he has a bit of a point. My DH's career was an important factor in me choosing him. He didn't have much when we met but i knew his earning potential was big and he now earns ten times what I do. It makes my life much easier now we have kids. I would never have married only for money- i absolutely adore him- but career was a factor in narrowing down who I wanted to date in the first place. Does that make me an awful person? I think a lot of the time women still end up carrying so much more of the load than men when kids come along, and if he's not bringing much to the table earnings- wise either then resentment can set in. Maybe it's really old fashioned of me and i wouldn't admit it in real life but I think a lot of women feel this way. Several friends have strongly hinted they are envious that I don't have to worry about money in this stage of life. Sometimes I don't like feeling like the power balance isn't in my favour in the marriage (economically at least) but my DH values everything else I'm bringing to the relationship so it works.