Are we dating in the dark ages?

The following headline jumped out at me today whilst catching up on social media on last night’s episode of First Dates.  Instantly it had got my back up:-

‘Is your CAREER holding back your love life? Dating app reveals which jobs are considered the ‘sexiest’ for women and men…’

Before you check your calendar the year is still 2016 and we haven’t reverted back to 1816 (although from reading the full article on the Daily Mail website you would think we have).

I couldn’t believe that we were all really this shallow in the 21st century when looking for love. Had we forgotten about the art of romance and instead become wooed by the size of a date’s bank account?

I think I read the article with my mouth agape, which wasn’t the most pleasant for my work colleagues, but I couldn’t actually believe what I was reading.  Apparently a leading US dating app had analysed the profiles of 1.5 million of its users and claims that job titles can have a dramatic impact on people’s love lives as data shows how professions can affect likeability.

According to the survey the ‘sexiest’ professions for women were flight attendants, speech therapists and a product manager (nothing like a bit of stereotyping).  For men it didn’t get much better with the top three most ‘desirable’ professions being a doctor, psychiatrist or a lawyer!

Now it’s not difficult to spot that the male jobs are high salary, professional executive roles which is somewhat worrying as it would imply that females choose our dates based on earning potential / potential for gifts.  

As an independent woman in her late 30’s this shocked me as I really thought we were beyond the materialistic aspect of who to choose for your date.  However, upon surveying a small sample of female friends on whether certain jobs would entice or put them off a potential lover it appeared that job title was the one box all of them would look at first.

A friend of mine bluntly put it ‘there’s no way I could date the  £10 an hour pizza delivery guy when my £200 a session psychiatrist is a much better option – just think about it, you’d get awful cheap bottles of prosecco on a Friday instead of a good bottle of rose LP.”  

I hang my head in my hands.  Really – females of society – have we resorted to this in order to find our perfect date?

Ironically the men I asked weren’t much better with at least a dozen quite happy to reinforce the ‘sexy secretary’ myth or the fantasy of joining the mile high club with an air stewardess.

This begs the question, in the world of online dating how many of us actually put our real job title in our online dating profiles?  When I tried online dating a few years back I put as my job title ‘Entrepreneur and Business Owner’, after all this was what I was.  The number of high flying corporate men who approached me was phenomenal – yet for one guy who was a self employed plumber I was deemed too ‘ambitious and driven’ and he actually commented that he was threatened by my job status.

Curious.

Surely, for those of us looking to find a long term partner one of the most attractive things about a person is their desire to better themselves and grow, and our careers are the way that we do this.  Anyone with any form of gainful employment surely is an attractive option because they are showing independence and commitment for a job even if they really really hate it!  

Me personally, I am far more likely to date an employed individual (it doesn’t bother me what they do) than an unemployed individual.  

Why?  Simply because if a person is unemployed it says so much to me about how they value themselves.  There are thousands of jobs available, and they might not be what you want but they are there.  It is better to have any job than to have no job at all.

So whether it’s the pizza delivery guy on a Wednesday or my personal trainer on a Friday if either of them ask me out on a date over Christmas I would quite happily say yes!

Have you had other online daters hit on you because or your job description on your profile? Or perhaps you have had potential dates fizz out when your job doesn’t meet your date’s expectations?  We’d love to hear from you.