Every Girl Has Thought About Marrying Rich at Some Point

When I was in Moscow several months ago, I met up with a male friend of mine for a cup of coffee. In this case, the word "friend" is a bit of a stretch. He messaged me on Facebook a year and a half ago, flew halfway across the United States to meet me and propositioned a long-distance relationship. I was immediately freaked out by his direct actions and slowly let him down after spending a whole day showing him around San Francisco. However, when his Facebook status informed me earlier this summer that he got a job in Moscow working in a private equity fund organized by a very powerful Russian bank, I was impressed and intrigued. Which is why we met up for that cup of coffee.

The friend, whom I shall refer to as Dmitry, turned out to be quite an impressive guy. We talked about a lot of things: getting a job in Moscow when you have work experience in America (fairly easy), convincing your interviewer to hire you even though he can hire three Russian guys for the same cost who will work just as hard (really hard), cultural differences between America and Russia (too many) and things that are culturally unique to Russia's capital (e.g. if you take the metro, you are considered a lower-class person). It was a great experience for me - I learned a lot from him that would be helpful when I try to get a job in Moscow within the next several years. I also now really liked him (of course, Murphy's law...) and could not believe I was stupid enough to reject him back when he was interested. Timing is everything. We did not work out, but that is a story for another post.

One of the things that he said that really stuck with me was when we talked about what each of us wants out of this life. He said that, for a woman, a career as a high-powered executive and a good family life is much harder than for a man (don't I know...thank you, Cecilia Ridgeway). I agreed, but said that I need to make something of myself in this life and am willing to work hard at it. This, by the way, is being tested right now. Dmitry replied that a woman has a much higher chance of meeting and marrying a rich man when working for a non-profit or some kind of charity because men with real wealth often deal with organizations that are of philanthropic nature. This was in contrast to really hard working females in law, banking, consulting, and other upper middle class professions, who meet men at work and marry them. They then have combined incomes of approximately half a million dollars, which is really great, but not as high as others "out there."

To be completely honest, the statement haunts me to this day. A small part of me wants to just marry a rich guy, live the high society lifestyle and enjoy a financially-worry-free life. And then the majority of me hates the trophy-wife small part of me for even suggesting that to myself. Because it is not honorable and in the end I do want to make something of myself. So I'll just keep on working for now...and maybe watch out for some of those non-profit volunteering opportunities.

Disclaimer: I am by no means a gold digger. I think at some point every girl has felt like this...deep deep deep down inside. Even if she is not willing to admit it.

Also, this guy came off like a snob in this post, but he really is not. He is a great guy. I just best remember the most scandalous things that he said during our conversation.