Is it really so bad to want to marry a rich man?

DDid you see the “finance man” at Glastonbury? No, he wasn’t one of the DJs. He was, instead, an imaginary, idealised figure who hovered over the festival, on banners bearing the words “LOOKING FOR A FINANCE MAN” as well as on the phones of numerous festival-goers, who broadcast clips of a viral musical number celebrating him and his kind.

If none of this sounds familiar, allow us to introduce you to a TikTok video created by artist Megan Boni, which goes like this: “I’m looking for a man in finance / Trust fund, five-foot-six, blue eyes.” In recent months, The 19-second video has racked up more than 50 million views and thousands of comments. And people on the internet have been saying that they, too, would like a partner who fits this profile. But where is this man? And why is everyone desperately searching for him? And while this is all rather ironic, what does his absolute omnipotence say about the sorry state of modern dating?

Much has been made of the fact that the likelihood of finding a man with such traits is not particularly high. According to the calculations of Rae Hodge, a Los Angeles-based corporate strategy director, there are only two men in America who fit this description. That's after you've considered the number of men who work in finance (1.7 million men in the U.S.), have a trust fund (1.2 percent of Americans), are 6'5″ (0.1 percent of men in the U.S.), have blue eyes (27 percent of men in the U.S.), and whether or not they're single.

But that doesn’t stop people from sighing and openly shifting their priorities when it comes to looking for love. Because romance is fun and all, but it’s not going to pay your water bill. Unlike other viral memes, the “finance guy” isn’t just another silly social media trend; it’s one that reflects a deeper sea change within a society plagued by economic collapse, political uncertainty, and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis. With all this in mind, it’s no wonder single people are choosing to forgo love in favor of finances. Or at least prioritize wealth over other, more meaningful factors.

Just a few years ago, it would have been considered tacky and vulgar to mention money when discussing one’s love life. Now, it’s completely normal. Among my single friends, many have no shame in wanting to settle down with a wealthy partner. “Ideally, you want someone from a wealthy generation so you know the money isn’t going anywhere,” one of them told me over dinner recently. Others are quick to use first dates to ask questions about housing and career paths to get a sense of a person’s income, and quickly jump ship if someone doesn’t meet their expectations.

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Personally, I still find the topic repulsive and I resent the idea of ​​feeling financially dependent on a partner. But I can understand why, given the current situation, many of us are “looking for a man in the financial world,” so to speak. The modern world is not made for single people, and even less so for single women. Whether it’s paying taxes or doing the grocery shopping, literally everything is easier when it’s split between two people. I know many couples who have accelerated the progress of their relationship in order to move in together and save money on rent, sometimes to their own detriment.

Given all this, is it really so bad to marry for money? It's what people used to do, of course. And while society has made leaps and bounds in terms of equality, there are clearly still plenty of obstacles preventing women from being able to achieve the same financial milestones as men. The gender pay gap has yet to close: according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the average salary for all employees was 14.3% lower for women than for men as of April 2023. Meanwhile, a study by the Fawcett Society and Total Jobs last year found that an estimated 250,000 mothers with young children have left their jobs due to difficulties balancing work and childcare. And on top of this, a recent report by the Women's Budget Group found that women need more than 12 times their annual salary to afford a home in England, while men need just over eight times.

This brings me back to the finance guy. Its popularity is ironic, really, considering how uncool it has always been to work in finance, at least in the sense that it puts you firmly outside the zeitgeist. Revealing that you work in the industry was always preceded by some kind of apology or self-deprecating explanation. Now, it seems, no such preamble is necessary. If you work in finance, you are currently the hottest property on the dating market. Height and blue eyes are simply arbitrary bonuses.

But this is bigger than the finance man, and speaks to a sea change in the way we talk about online dating. In recent months, there has been a surge of viral videos in which women pontificate about the benefits of marrying rich men and “teach” their followers how to find one. The most prolific of these women is Texas-based YouTuber Leticia Padua, known online as Shera Seven. She regularly posts videos urging women to marry for money and advising against becoming “Bob the Builder girls,” who invest too much energy in emotionally supporting their male partners and offering to split bills with them. Then there’s TikToker Mimi Shou, who built her platform by sharing stories of how she pursued finance men in New York.

Then there’s the rising “traditional wives” movement, short for “traditional wives,” which denotes women returning to housewife roles similar to those of the 1950s. They cook and clean while their husbands are away at work and spend their days caring for their children, doing it all with such Valencia-filtered enthusiasm that their videos rack up millions of views around the world.

Have we gone back in time? Or have we simply returned to archaic ideals out of sheer desperation? I suspect it’s the latter. And while I’m still too much of a hopeless romantic to be swayed by that, I can see the appeal. Because, let’s face it, times are tough in 2024. Maybe for a lot of people, the idea of ​​marrying for money isn’t old-fashioned at all. It’s not even rude. It’s simply necessary. So necessary, in fact, that people are willing to walk around a music festival with flags in search of a rich man. Whether the flags were successful or not, we’ll never know. But at least all the 6’5” men will have been tall enough to see them.