Rarely does anything I read online ever cause me to react other than the occasional raised eye brow as I rarely stray from the political, news or gossip websites. So when I chanced upon a story about dabagirls.com, via Huffingtonpost, I had to pull my chin from the floor. At first read I was livid.
Then I smugly laughed it off thinking that dabagirls.com was a wickedly funny spoof website—a social commentary on the plight of the economy. I mean this screams of Stephen Colbert or Chris Rock humor. But upon further research I found an article in the New York Times, “It’s the Economy, Girlfriend”, that was the first outlet to bring attention to “Dating A Banker Anonymous”. Read this Caucasian Craziness, and try to keep your breakfast down.
The economic crisis came home to 27-year-old Megan Petrus early last year when her boyfriend of eight months, a derivatives trader for a major bank, proved to be more concerned about helping a laid-off colleague than comforting Ms. Petrus after her father had a heart attack.There’s a good reason why the two women who created this website and support group offer protection from feminists. Because they know that once a feminist like me reads this shit our heads will explode. After which we’ll tell these trifling princesses to get a job, live within your means and stop relying on a “sugar daddy” to pay or subsidize your way. This initial blurb doesn’t even do the website justice. You’d have to read the posts from the various women that log on to lament about their personal woes during the financial crisis. When you get a second pour yourself a beverage and check out dabagirls.com.
For Christine Cameron, the recession became real when the financial analyst she had been dating for about a year would get drunk and disappear while they were out together, then accuse her the next day of being the one who had absconded.
Dawn Spinner Davis, 26, a beauty writer, said the downward-trending graphs began to make sense when the man she married on Nov. 1, a 28-year-old private wealth manager, stopped playing golf, once his passion. “One of his best friends told me that my job is now to keep him calm and keep him from dying at the age of 35,” Ms. Davis said. “It’s not what I signed up for.”
They shared their sad stories the other night at an informal gathering of Dating a Banker Anonymous, a support group founded in November to help women cope with the inevitable relationship fallout from, say, the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the Dow’s shedding 777 points in a single day, as it did on Sept. 29.
In addition to meeting once or twice weekly for brunch or drinks at a bar or restaurant, the group has a blog, billed as “free from the scrutiny of feminists,” that invites women to join “if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.”
Once it was seen as a blessing in certain circles to have a wealthy, powerful partner who would leave you alone with the credit card while he was busy brokering deals. Now, many Wall Street wives, girlfriends and, increasingly, exes, are living the curse of cutbacks in nanny hours and reservations at Masa or Megu. And that credit card? Canceled.Holy shit. You mean raise your own damn kids—sans nanny? That’s where these wealthy yuppie broads draw the line. They might have carried them babies for 9 months but they’re sure not going to raise them! That’s what immigrants are for.
Raoul Felder, the Manhattan divorce lawyer, said that cases involving financiers always stack up as the economy starts to slip, because layoffs and shrinking bonuses place stress on relationships — and, he said, because “there aren’t funds or time for mistresses any more.”
Many of the women said that as the economic crisis struck last fall, they began tracking the markets during the day to predict the moods that the men they loved might be in later. On big news days, like when the first proposed government bailout failed in Congress, or when Lehman went belly-up, they knew that plans to see their partners would be put off.
Some women in the group said the men in their lives had gone from being aloof and unattainable to unattractively needy and clinging. Others complained of being ignored — one, who called herself A.P., wrote on the blog that three weeks had passed without her boyfriend “asking a single question” about her life. Another wrote, fearfully, that her beau had told her to make a list of their favorite New York restaurants before the bad market forced a move to the Midwest.
I know you’re saying, V Latte, you’re making this up just so AB will post your story. Oh, if only that were true **shakes head in disgust**. So, while folks have had their 401k’s cleaned out and are seriously hurting due to unemployment, lack of medical insurance or something basic like hunger, these ladies gather at upscale clubs and restaurants in their designer threads and drink expensive vodka martinis while they commiserate.
Every time I read shit like this I get an eye twitch. These are the kind of women who make it very difficult for the rest of us to be taken seriously—on any level. We wonder why men use the term “gold digger” to describe us? We wonder why pre-nups are becoming so necessary? These dabagirls reinforce the old stereotype that we just a need a man to pay the bills, take us on nice trips and buy us Jimmy Choo “fuck me” pumps.
My husband recently commented that not enough bankers, Wall Street brokers or financiers are jumping out of their windows in light of the decimation of the financial industries. These people knew that between the deregulation snowball from the 90’s, lack of oversight and unethical practices that they could make their money on the backs of honest folks like you and me. And that’s what they did. Now’s the time to pay the piper. I say that in the honor of the first Great Depression more of these financial people need go to a ledge and take the leap. And when you lying, stealing, pieces of sh*t do make the final plunge, take your girlfriends, wives and mistresses with you. A few less yuppies in the world is always a bonus.
Question: Do you have sympathy for the DBA Girls or do they need to go sit down and find a real job to support their Jimmy Choo addictions? How has the worsening economy affected your personal relationships?
“It’s the Economy, Girlfriend” [NYTimes]
DBA Girls [Official Blog]
