What’s Love Got to Do with It

Ambition is a wonderful thing to have in life. Most people want to get a good job, work hard, get married, and raise a family. This is certainly a noble goal. It’s not exactly my goal, but then again, I’ve never been known to be noble. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have ambition. As a matter of fact, I’ve been rather ambitious for most of my adult life. Whether or not my behavior classifies me as an adult is another thing entirely. The law says I’m an adult, and the law is just smart like that.

So, what is the great and wondrous goal that I have been chasing for so many years? No, it has nothing to do with hard work, self-reliance, or even winning the lottery. My lifelong goal is to marry a rich chick. I don’t want to have to work for my money, I want my incredibly attractive and very intelligent wife to work for my money. Meanwhile, I’ll stay at home and play Halo on Xbox Live. This is my dream, and one day, with a lot of hard work and perseverance, it might just come true.

Now I know a lot of you women out there would be outraged with a life plan who’s only two steps involve: marry a rich chick and play video games. But you really have to look past the shallow nature and selfishness of my goal. If you’re paying attention, and I’m sure you are, you’ll notice that I am, in fact, a pioneer in feminism. You should be proud of me, feminists aren’t people I usually associate myself with. But in this case, I really am in league with them. I don’t mind a wife who’s the bread winner and I’d be perfectly happy being a stay at home dad. This is a clear breach in traditional manly values.

Isn’t that what women want: a guy who is comfortable being in the background while the wife is obsessed with work and promotions? If this is what you want, then I’m the guy for you. I’m totally cool with the woman making all the money. And as an added bonus, I can do minor electrical and plumbing work and I can make cookies. How many stay at home dads can say that? If that doesn’t get the ladies’ juices flowing, I don’t know what will.

All joking aside, this is my dream in life. I want to marry an attractive girl who has a good job, and even better prospects for future earnings. In fact, I’m willing to be more lenient on the how attractive my prospective mate is when her projected future earnings are higher. I can do this on a very simple and very unbiased method. Simply discount the projected future earnings of the woman over the next ten years to the present value. Here’s the formula we’ll be using:

AI = AS [( 1 / (1 + .03)^10 )/(.03)]

AI = Attractiveness Index
AS = Average Yearly Salary

In this formula, the 10 represents the number of years my prospective wife will be making her average salary. Each .03 represents an estimated 3% increase in the cost of living year over year. All I have to do is input the estimated average yearly salary for the woman in the “AS” spot and I can come up with a usable number. For every increase of 800,000 in the Attractiveness Index, I’ll be willing to lower my future spouse’s beauty by one point on the classic ten point model (to be furthermore referred to as the Classic Index, or CI). I think we’re all accustomed to the Classic Index with a perfect ten being the hottest girl you’ve ever seen and a lowly one being a woman who looks like the unholy offspring of Jabba the Hut and an abominable snowman.

Now we all know that money isn’t everything. Looks are important too. But we’ve already addressed both of those. Some of you may be wondering how the woman’s personality fits into all of this. Well, let me just assuage your fears: it doesn’t. Let’s be honest with ourselves here, personality is not important. Heck, it’s never been important. When you hear someone say “That girl has a great personality,” what does that mean to you? It means she is neither rich nor physically attractive.

What would you rather have: a spouse who has a wonderful personality, or one that is rich or incredibly gorgeous? May I remind you for just one second that supermodels are both rich and insanely hot? So which is it? The supermodels in bikinis or the girls who can make you smile and laugh? Personally, I think laughing is overrated. Laughs come and go but money, spendola (as it is called in certain European circles) lasts forever.

You don’t believe me about money lasting forever? Just ask your local jeweler. When you go into the store to buy an engagement ring for you fiancé with the superb personality, he’ll tell you that you can make three months salary last forever by buying her a rather small, shiny rock. Oh sure, that shiny rock will be surrounded by gold, which has existential value, but most of your hard-earned cash will be going towards that shiny pebble. I know this is true because a commercial on TV said so, and commercials don’t lie, it’s against the law.

Like I said, marrying for love or trust or even mutual respect is totally overrated. Let’s look at the figures, approximately 40% or more of married American couples will get divorced. And after your inevitable divorce (hey you can’t argue with statistics), what are you left with? The laughs, the trust, the respect, it’s all gone. This is why I am using the relatively short span of ten years for my marriage when discounting a perspective wife’s future earnings. I honestly don’t think that my money making scheme would ever end in divorce, but I’m just going to play it safe anyway. Did I say money making scheme? I meant marriage, my wonderfully happy and splendidly fruitful marriage.

I would like to point out that the formula that I gave you earlier can also be used when evaluating potential investments. The reason I’m using it as a scale for finding a suitable wife is merely coincidental. But hey, who would have thought that I’d actually give you something scholarly in my writing? I’m not only entertaining and informative, but also educational too.

I should be rewarded for providing you with such unparallel educational content. Specifically, I should be rewarded with money. Thank you notes are nice and all, but they waste the life of a tree and add to our already overburdened waste disposal systems. Money, on the other hand, is forever. So prevent over logging and send me some cold hard cash (and no, money is not made of paper; it is created from a unique blend of cloth and fabrics, so you won’t be hurting the forests by sending me money, thank you).