Expectations of men as a modern woman dating...is this unreasonable?

[Turtleneckjumpers]

I'm single. I have a decent job which allowed me to buy a house in my late twenties (by no means a mansion, worth circa 220 in 2015).

I care about a nice home and want to see a bit of the world. I'm not materialistic in the sense of buying designer clothes etc (I'm a Primark person mostly!). But money bothers me. It is important to me because it is a safety net in many ways. So I work hard and hope to always be able to support myself.

Here's the question. I date. So many men have either not bought a house (I do understand this isn't easy, but by age 38 I question this!!) or in an average job earning less than I am - significantly.

I've met a lovely man, 38, good fun. But in a recent conversation he voluntarily disclosed what he earns (45k) and said he has a good bonus and car and he's happy with that. I didn't say this but i was thinking really?! Are you just going to think ok I'm happy with that?!

I've been thinking about how awful this probably makes me and how it is probably why i have been single for a few years now. Also people into their jobs are often (not always i know) not the best partners. But i can't help being bothered by this. I want someone who wants to provide and is ambitious. Am I attracted to the wrong things here or is this reasonable?

Well of course it’s odd to not want to earn more?! Not every increase in salary means you have no personal life.

dodgeball when I said my ambition was to care for children in their first years, I was told that wasn’t ambitious.

There’s a lot of hypocrisy from posters here.

OP you derailed the thread yourself. You have so many extremely odd assumptions that folk are running after all sorts of different things you've said, because they're all so absurd.

You asked whether you were reasonable to dismiss a man for earning 50% more than the national median wage, and not to be gagging for a payrise.

You implied that he had some kind of character defect for daring, DARING I say, not to want to earn more than the highest salary that many people can dream of having. Now you are pretending that people are saying that men who earn 45k will only marry trophy wives? Come now. Try to use that ambitious and high earning brain to follow the basic thread of the argument you are engaged in.

You must be playing privileged wanker bingo.

Having said that, I will say that in my consulting work I occasionally come across high-paid individuals in the medical field who have never left their own back garden, are baffled by the idea that the working/ lower middle class exists, wonder why folk don't just Buy Property, etc. Perhaps you are genuinely one of those.

if so, good luck to you. I'm sure you will meet your match and have gaggles of clueless children. You will be perfectly happy. Ignore the proles hun x

Priorities do shift hugely as you get older and work-life balance becomes quite a thing once you’ve started a family.

As to 45k being a huge amount, these days I’m used to spending considerably more so it doesn’t feel like much at all. However, I can also appreciate that a lot of our money goes on luxuries/superfluous stuff that frankly no one needs to be happy in life (eg designer gear or 10k holidays). I also know that as a young, single teacher in London, I never came close to a 45k salary but still managed to buy a snazzy bachelorette pad and BTL properties, went on hols several times a year, had hobbies, went out etc
And I don’t think I would have an empoverished life had I married a fellow teacher rather than my ambitious, workoholic husband.

when I said my ambition was to care for children in their first years, I was told that wasn’t ambitious.

There’s a lot of hypocrisy from posters here.

I don't think it's hypocritical to point out that your future plans don't meet your own narrow definition of 'ambitious'.

Well of course it’s odd to not want to earn more?! Not every increase in salary means you have no personal life.

Don’t you ever get down about not having enough of jealous of others who have more?

It sounds like you might have the type of personality that when you get a Merc, you want s Bentley, then a Rolce, then it’sa yacht or a jet etc. If someone isn’t ever happy with what they’ve got, they risk life in misery and feeling inadequate.

It's common sense to realise that teachers and nurses don't earn £45k.

Unless you live in a self absorbed bubble you can glean that sort of information from taking an interest in current affairs.

Well of course it’s odd to not want to earn more?! Not every increase in salary means you have no personal life.

Once you get to a certain point of your chosen career, every significant increase does come with further work commitments. It doesn't take the brains of Britain to work that out.

But if you're so sure of yourself, get off the internet and go hang around with these high-earning men you apparently work with who laugh at us proles with low standards. I'm sure you have a lovely life ahead of you.

Some teachers go for promotions and end up as headteachers on a pretty good salary. But doing that takes you out of the classroom and away from what your vocation was. You become a manager, not a teacher. For many teachers, ambition is about becoming the best teacher you can be.
Have you read the current dilemma I'm facing? It's a horrible trade off: getting promoted above a certain level means doing less of the thing we're really good at.
I digress but feel your pain.

And it is not ambitious to sit back at 38 and consider your career finished and therefore no progression financially
Because the only way someone can be ambitious is to want to chase the next rung on the ladder and get more money. Those who go for breadth and try related areas in their sector are lacking ambition? Those who seek secondments on the same level to give them a better understanding of other areas lack ambition? Those who use their work life balance to develop other skills or to volunteer are lacking ambition?

You have so many extremely odd assumptions that folk are running after all sorts of different things you've said, because they're all so absurd.
Exactly. There's so much say one thing, people question or challenge it... Oh that's not what I meant, then a page later something that confirms the original view.
E.g. wanting to be provided for, not wanting to be financially provided for, not seeking financial subbing but wanting a particular lifestyle, then happy to accept a decline in lifestyle, filtering potential dates by money, but it's not about money because I've turned down wealthy men, ok so it about money because I want a certain lifestyle and it's not a bad thing, I can't believe anyone could manage on £45k because I'm only just comfortable on it, I want a man who will chase promotion because that way he matches my levels of ambition and I couldn't be with someone who isn't as ambitious as mebut I also ignore my definition of ambitious because I want a few years out, looking for modern dating whilst seeking a very 50s arrangement where the woman should sacrifice her career for her husband's important job, then saying but I'll still pull in good money (ignoring the impact of years out of work has).

Good old capitalism. We've all been so thoroughly conditioned to be obsessed with continual and unsustainable growth on a personal and global scale. We're all signed up to the notion from both that "hard worker = good character". I strongly suspect actual happiness comes from being comfortable with what you have (outside cases of actual poverty obviously). We work ourselves to death to be able to afford holidays where we go and visit far flung cultures where people have lived on the same land and worked in the family businesses for generations and declare them "authentic" yet if we encountered a man with that attitude in our own culture we'd say he was unambitious and parochial. My DP (the lucky freelancing bastard) works just enough to be able to take up to half the year off to do his hobby. He has to pinch in those times he's not working but he loves it.

You want a man to keep you and any kids you might have in the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed. Fair enough. Own that. Start chasing men earning six figures and hopefully you'll find one who can provide all that and be a good hands on Dad because, trust me, doing all the childcare whilst your DH works away or can't get home from the office, SAHM or not, is hard work and my DH doesn't earn six figures.

But don't look down your nose at people who earn 'only' £45k or thereabouts and have very fulfilling lives, single or as a family. It just makes you sound like a massive twat and if that's the attitude you project to the 'lovely' men you date then it's no wonder you're still single.

All the teachers I know earn more than 48K - just saying. But people don’t just keep on earning more throughout their lives. There’s a point where you stay still and then earn less, often much less, in my experience.

I genuinely hadn’t realised this expect for maybe waitressing and hairdressing sorts of jobs.

What on earth are "waitressing and hairdressing sorts of jobs"? These jobs have nothing in common with each other!

And if you think only "waitressing and hairdressing sorts of jobs" earn less than 45K then you're either willfully ignorant or trolling, with a tough of the humble brag thrown in.

All the teachers I know earn more than 48K - just saying.

Can you give more details about these teachers pushing 50K - or more? - a year. I work in a uni and not one of the tutors comes close to that, even with decades of experience. That's the type of money a dept head would make.

I have never once met a teacher who earns that sort of money. Not one.

I’m in my 50s in London and earn mid-30s. I’m happy with that. I couldn’t earn more unless I retrain.

I know no teachers on 50K plus!

My dad has been teaching for 35 years and doesn't earn this and hes head of dept!

Top of pay scale with some extra responsibility. Earn 48k.

I know no teachers on 50K plus!

That's because there aren't any.

My dad has been teaching for 35 years and doesn't earn this and hes head of dept!

The head in my small uni dept earns low 40s. The head of a bigger dept might earn 50K, but they'd have to be highly qualified with a PhD, years of experience, publications etc. So not really a 'teacher'.

No teacher earns the sort of money claimed above.

Exactlyiced I'm a senior lecturer and the top of my scale is £50k. It's starts at 39k so takes nearly a decade to reach the top of the scale.....but apparently we've no drive or ambition 🙄

The average wage for a teacher is £38k.

Top of pay scale with some extra responsibility. Earn 48k.

Where do these teachers work? And you honestly don't know a single teacher who earns less than that? Because I don't know a single one who earns even close to it.

45k sadly is not a huge amount of money and I repeat what I said earlier that the fact people believe it is, is what makes people at the top so rich.

How do you get to that conclusion ?

All the teachers I know earn more than 48K

Unless you only hang around Head Teacher conferences, that is such an odd thing to say Daisypond. It only takes a quick google to see top of the Upper Pay Scale (that is if you school lets you on to the Upper Payscale - all schools don't), is under £40 000. Yes, in some areas there are TLR points you can apply for - or could before the budget cuts made them rarer than hens teeth - , but you must know a very small band of teachers to come to that conclusion.

There’s a lot of hypocrisy from posters here. - er, you do realise you aren't arguing with one person, but dozens and dozens of different people saying different things ?

As for you playing the "I work hard" card. Surely you can't believe a paramedic doesn't work hard (£24 - £37K), and presumably doesn't fit into your 'waitressing and hairdressing' group of people ? Loads of others, but seems a good comparison as you say you are medical and knw nothing about other salaries.

The average wage for a teacher is £38k.

That sounds like total bollocks and only possibly true by counting all the grossly overpaid executive heads whose salaries skew the average. I wonder what the mode and median are?

I have been teaching for 20 years and am at the top of the pay scale. I earn about £39k. There are no TLRs given as our budget is in deficit. EVERY other teacher at my school earns significantly less than me (I know that by how long they have been teaching) except the head and deputy.

I only know two teachers and they both earn about 48, which is a lot more than I earn. I’m only going by what they say.

I mean, out of those teaching many years, not newish teachers- in London.