Woman's Boyfriend Calls Her A Gold Digger Even Though 'He Has No Gold' — 'This Is Boy Math Personified'
There definitely seems to be a gold digger in this relationship, it's just not the woman who's being accused of it — while working two jobs, no less.
PR Image Factory, sjharmon, Tony Anderson / Canva It's one of the oldest tricks in the book — accusing a woman of only dating a man for his money. But typically, we hear these accusations when a man is independently wealthy, or incredibly successful in business, or set to inherit a fortune.
For one woman on the internet, none of that applies, and it's left people not only chuckling but seeing lots of red flags.
The woman has been called a gold digger by her boyfriend — even though he 'has no gold.'
And by 'no gold' she means, really and truly, no gold. Not that he just has a humble job with a normal income like most of us do; he's well and truly struggling financially.
As the woman bluntly put it in her Reddit post, "We are poor." And then, putting a finer point on it: "We live in a small flat with a bathroom so small I can take a [expletive], wash my hands and have a shower all at the same time."
Well, that's evocative, isn't it? Interestingly, however, their relative penury hasn't stopped her boyfriend from accusing her of only being with him for his money in response to her requesting he start pulling his financial weight. Because, it turns out in his case, their poverty is by choice.
She's the breadwinner, paying all their bills, while her boyfriend invests his part-time earnings in crypto.
"I work two jobs to keep us afloat," she writes. "I’m a bartender at night and a hairdresser by day," while her boyfriend works as a delivery driver for "three hours and spends the rest of his time 'investing in crypto.'"
Cryptocurrency, of course, has become very controversial recently because it has been collapsing in value for quite some time, leaving millions of investors in the lurch. Many economic and financial experts have even likened crypto to a pump-and-dump scam, in which influential voices spread disinformation that inflates an asset's value, only for that value to subsequently collapse when the scammers sell everything at a high price before the rank-and-file can cash out.
It sounds an awful lot like this woman's boyfriend is one of the people who have fallen for this particular okey-doke, and she's had enough of their one-sided relationship. "Anytime I ask him to work more and earn money, he says he will and never does," she writes, and lately it's caused major issues.
When she asked him to start pulling his financial weight, he accused her of trying to get to his investments.
"Our landlord has increased our rent recently and I’ve asked for his financial help for OUR flat," she said, "but he says he’s put his money into investments the 'government can’t touch,' and by that, he means his crypto scheme."
So she put her foot down and told her boyfriend he needs to stop investing and start paying for "housing, electricity, water, food." In response, he said that "all I talk about is taking his assets, that I’m a gold digger."
Understandably, she was furious, particularly since he seemed to have no cognizance, let alone appreciation, of how hard she was working to support them. She bluntly told him, "If I wanted to be a gold digger I wouldn’t be in this tiny shoe box flat with him."
He was so offended, he asked her to give him space but their apartment is so tiny that's not even possible. As she wittily put it, "We live in a one-room apartment, where am I supposed to go, in the kitchen sink? The more I think about it the more angry it makes me."
Experts say relationships with financial inequality are frequently rife with conflict.
"The key to working out money differences is clarity and communication," financial guru Robyn Crane told us in 2020.
Of course, it's pretty hard for this woman to be any more clear or communicative, and if anyone is the gold digger in this scenario, it's her boyfriend, who really seems to be projecting (which is actually a common sign of male gold diggers).
Experts also say that one of the keys to a successful relationship where financial contributions are unequal — and especially when the breadwinner is the female in the relationship — is identifying and valuing the non-financial contributions the lower-earning partner brings to the relationship.
But it's hard to argue this guy is actually making any. As she hilariously put it in her post, "Even the local... addict who sleeps on my apartment complex patio thinks he's delusional."
So where does that leave things? In the opinions of a lot of people on Reddit, it leaves only one option: a breakup. "Anyone who can write this well [deserves] much better than supporting a 32-year-old who's still waiting for his crypto scheme to pan out," one person wrote. "This isn't getting better and you aren't responsible for training an adult man." Hard to argue with that.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.