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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026

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On the one hand its a natural thing. If the parents are doing really well, making sure their kids are comfortable (and, more directly, making sure their beloved Katie never has to do porn or shack up with a drug dealer) is what they would do as an extension of their established role.

The second/third order effect of "Katie now expects to live in a 5000 square foot house and drive a late-model SUV and will reject anyone who can't offer that" is a little harder to see.

The very SECOND I hear that a woman has left the country on vacation more than once (with the exception of Mexico travel, I guess), I pretty much know my chances have dropped to negligible.

I guess maybe this is another thing where my background influences what I've seen, but as far as I can tell I've never been on a date with a woman who had this kind of lifestyle. Especially the "looking for a man to offer that almost seems like looking not only for a provider who can add meaningfully to the dual household income, but looking for a man who can bankroll an entire lifestyle, and I've genuinely never encountered that. Together we can afford these lifestyle choices is familiar to me; marriage after all has financial advantages. But this is the sort of thing that appears deep into a relationship, not up front.

Is this a lower-middle-class/upper-middle-class split thing? Regional? I've tended to date people who come from modest households.

Regional?

It's a good guess. Trying to date in Northern Virginia, I exclusively encountered women like this. And this was back in the mid to late 00's, doesn't even touch the hellscape that is modern day swiping, instagram and yaslighting. Not one single woman I dated (until I met my future wife) seemed to have any concept of the value of the dollar. Even the morbidly obese ones had notions of how luxurious life would be when they "got their second income" which was a terrifying way of referring to a future husband they hadn't even met yet. One woman, on the first date, threw out as an ice breaker that she'd already picked out a $25,000 ring and any man who deserved her would afford it. I called it at one date with her. She called me utterly baffled and crying that I wasn't interested. I dated a woman for under a year that had racked up hundreds of thousands of debt, with the belief that is what you are supposed to do when you are young to have fun, and then you/your husband pays it off when you get old. I never dated anyone (until I met my future wife) that didn't have thousands in credit card debt in their early to mid 20's. It was buttfucking insane. To say nothing of how little any of them brought to the table.

Now, that's not to say I never met sane, well adjusted women. Just never dating. They were always in a long term relationship with a highschool or college sweetheart. Relationships which despite being rocky at times, everyone is kind of a selfish prick in their 20's, were genuine and sincere and sweet and loving. All their friends always tried to pry them apart with stories of how "toxic" so and so was, and how fun dating was. They often left the friend group and it's extreme neurotic dating habits and expectations to save their relationships. I hope it worked out for them.

They're a small subset really, I ran into them occasionally because I work at a financial institution and you can tell they're feeling you out for if you have one of the seven figure roles. But they're greatly outnumbered by yuppies who have their own careers.

There was a kerfuffle on twitter a while back about a Utah dating show and one of the female participants - people immeadiately lept on her appearance(she looked fine), her voice, the choice of men she had available to her(not realizing that the show itself was setup for a blind audition - neither side saw the other). But she had a list of requirements/preferences/specifications about what she was looking in regards to a parter, which includes such things as ski trips, foreign travel, scuba diving across the world, getting her home setup for themed group parties and the like -

And while you had a number of people gushing about how she had such a spate of cool hobbies and whatnot, not one person seemed to follow my train of thought and go 'Wait a minute, she looks to be in her mid-twenties and most of that are obscenely expensive hobbies with a horrendous amount of time investment! Where the holy hell is she getting both the money and the time to do all this at her age!?'

So... There's atleast one?

(Side note: Skiing doesn't count as expensive for Utah. They have alot of ski resorts.)

And while you had a number of people gushing about how she had such a spate of cool hobbies and whatnot, not one person seemed to follow my train of thought and go 'Wait a minute, she looks to be in her mid-twenties and most of that are obscenely expensive hobbies with a horrendous amount of time investment! Where the holy hell is she getting both the money and the time to do all this at her age!?'

If I recall that clip which went viral, every male contestant was thinking that because nobody picked her. All her quirk chungus hobbies read as so obviously high maintenance that every single man on the show noped out. And you know you fucked up when men desperate enough to go on a dating show nope out.

I guess maybe this is another thing where my background influences what I've seen, but as far as I can tell I've never been on a date with a woman who had this kind of lifestyle.

Well-traveled girlboss who has a family subsidizing her lifestyle: I went on first dates with two. I've worked with another two (I'm a government lawyer, so I'm hardly in a high-earning demographic).

I'd have to ask him for exact numbers, but my brother went on first dates with at least 6 women like this. More than one was very blunt up front that saving for a family was a man's job (and she had saved nothing to that point), and being in a relationship meant he would need to make sure she was kept in the lifestyle she wanted. These were not women from wealthy families, but much of their parents' money seemed to be spent subsidizing their (usually only) daughter.

Just like with trust funders, these "soft" trust funders are more numerous than you might expect.

I think there's women like this out there.

I think they are extremely hard to locate if you don't already know them or their families.

The ones who expect foreign travel are hard to locate? Or the ones who don't?

Ones who expect foreign travel.

I mean, you see them on dating apps a lot, but I think they're just harder to pin down dint of being so traveled.

Not really a big point either way. Lots of women advertise their preference for traveling.

Its slightly rarer that one has been actually well traveled in their youth.