I Dated A Super Rich Guy One Time—Don’t Believe The Hype

He was bragging about the tens of thousands of dollars in his bank account on the first date. That should’ve been my first warning sign. Dating rich guys is SUPER overrated.

  1. The bragging game never stops, like ever. I’m not sure that he intentionally droned on about his expensive purchases, but it happened all the time. He would call me to justify that he couldn’t buy a flat screen television without buying a brand new PS3 video game console. If we forgot lifejackets on the way to his expensive jet ski, we wouldn’t turn around and pick them up. He would stop at a store and parade an arm-full of expensive lifejackets, explaining to the cashier why we needed all ten of them. (The cashier really didn’t care.)
  2. You feel financially inferior. I was working on my Bachelor’s while juggling three part-time jobs, and I still felt inferior to him. Sure, my education would be worth it several years down the road, but my $10 per hour was overshadowed by the thousands of dollars that he raked in each month. Not to mention, he never encouraged me to finish my education or praised me for working hard to pay for school. Those were more warning signs that I completely missed.
  3. The showy gifts he showers you with are embarrassing. When I said that I wanted to go to dinner, I didn’t mean that I wanted him to pay for dinner and a souvenir. Food is always the best gift a guy can give to me, so I didn’t need a $30 stuffed animal whenever we went somewhere. I was nice and cordial, always accepting the gifts with a smile, but they were a little too showy for me.
  4. He looks down on anyone with a five-figure income. It was hard for him to understand that my family had to work hard to pay the bills and to afford nice things. We didn’t come from money, and we didn’t own and operate our own business. Sometimes his lack of understanding turned into judgment, like he couldn’t be around anyone who wasn’t in the multi-million dollar work industry. He didn’t want to come over for my mom’s homemade meal when he could pay for a five-star restaurant. That eventually caused some serious problems.
  5. You can’t leave a jacket or some earbuds in his car. It’s always convenient when you can leave an extra jacket or earbuds in his car, just in case you need them later. But that’s a problem when he has lots of vehicles. I couldn’t ever leave an extra pair of tennis shoes in his brand new hunting truck because he might pick me up in his Infinity sports car. Maybe this is petty, but I got tired of having to clean out his truck/car every time I got out of it.
  6. His only love language is gift giving. He never understood words of affirmation, acts of service or any other love language. Seriously, the only way he could express his “love” was by swiping his credit card. Romantic, right? Sometimes, I just wanted him to say, “Hey, I know you’re working hard in school. Keep it up.” Other times, I just wanted him to help my dad with yard work since he’s a disabled military vet who can’t get around as much anymore. When he never came through on those sorts of things, my affections started changing drastically.
  7. The way you two approach finances is polar opposite. It was impossible to talk about a future together because we would always end up in the middle of a financial disagreement. He wanted to spend thousands on a wedding, on furniture and even on dogs, but I never liked big weddings, yard sale furniture suits me just fine and dogs are free if you go to the pound. Soon, I realized that we couldn’t share a life together because we would never balance each other’s financial expectations.
  8. He can’t understand your meager beginnings. A big part of who I am comes from the way that I was raised. I was taught that hard work pays off and that each dollar you earn matters. These ideas infiltrated into other parts of my life, too. I learned to work hard in school, to work hard at growing my faith and to work hard by serving others. He genuinely couldn’t understand that part of me that’s so important.
  9. You’ll never know which is more important to him: money or you. You actually know which is more important- it’s always going to be the money. Just don’t be the girl that he can buy. Don’t get talked into sticking it out with him because there are fancy rings and fine dining in the deal. Respect yourself by dating someone who values you above the dollar sign. Trust me; it’s no fun dating a checkbook when you could date a human being who’s capable of love and compassion.
Peyton Garland is a boy mama and Tennessee farmer who loves sharing her heart on OCD, postpartum life, and hope in the messy places.
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