Love: Would you settle for money or looks?

 

Ladies, let’s face it: money is just about everything, and I mean everything! And regardless of that I-am-into-him banter that most of you go preaching (and I know most of you pretend), at some point it is going to boil down to one thing — the wallet. 

 

Is it fat enough? Can it buy the comfort I desire? Can it take me to that vacation on Bora Bora Island in Tahiti, where the Kim Kardashians of this world keep going? All those questions, trust me, crop up in your mind somehow, even though what you have always painted on the outside is the for-better-for-worse stuff. Isn’t comfort what we all need? Isn’t it money that provides it? 

 

The other day at a salon in Wandegeya, this beautician called Aisha was assuring me as she worked on my hair: “For me as long as he is cool, cute, has a sexy body, and respects me, I don’t care if he is loaded or not.” But her colleague Shakira cut in, interrupting her: “Oh really? Who needs a cute cuddly toy boy when you are going to wake up and yawn, and all he can do is kiss you some more and not call Nandos to order in?” 

 

The other four girls working on the clients in the salon all descended upon her like a ton of bricks. And their clients joined in the conversation while their nails got manicured, their feet scrubbed. The general consensus? Money talks. It was so interesting to see many girls, for once, agree that money is indeed key, otherwise most of them pretend. 

 

There is this saying that a successful man is the one who makes a lot more money than a woman can spend, a successful woman is the one who can find that man. How perfect!

 

How is it that where rich men go, a swarm of women will follow? Let us take the example of those loaded entertainers and sportsmen. Haven’t we all seen women tripping over themselves for those men? 

 

Do you honestly think they love that celebrity as a person and that somehow they like his personality or something? Plus, who mentions personality or character when it comes to those loaded guys? Not when they think they are the best thing that ever occurred to planet earth. Sometimes even when the guy is buried in scandal, more women go there. Why? You know the answer. 

 

In the heated salon argument, Shakira, the naughty beautician who had earlier attacked her colleague for being naïve, received this call from some campus girl, apparently assuring her to keep her hands off her man. 

 

The call went on and on, with Shakira throwing threats at the girl on the other end of the line. Then after hanging up, she shared with us in the salon: “Can you imagine the man we are fighting for is soooo…ugly, but the fool has all kinds of money, the old and the new.” 

 

We all laughed almost in chorus, and then went back to the lengthy entertaining topic at hand — fat wallet or love? 

 

“Trust me they say money cannot buy happiness. But today, especially with the ongoing financial crisis and inflation, money can buy the happiness, get you a trophy wife or yet a good gold digger. I don’t mind being labeled a gold digger as long as I have a man who can get me all I need.

 

The question is, can I just wake up any day and decide to have my dinner anywhere around the world on impulse? A man who can give me such a life looks even more attractive than he actually is,” said this one client, seemingly a corporate lady with this diva thing about her. All this while she had been quiet, as if analysing what the girls had been going on and on about. 

 

“Even those who go in for the dude’s looks, after marriage it starts hitting them that what they really need is not only the cool look…some bills have to be settled. Who doesn’t know how many bills we girls have? Broke dude?

 

Hell, no! I am no longer that fantasy-driven Senior Three girl that used to read a Mills & Boon romance novel and started fantasising about this tall handsome dude I would love to bits regardless of whether he had money or not. This is the real world, and money drives the real world. If plump and unattractive is actually the dude that is making the money, I will go in for him, I don’t care how ugly and short,” the diva-ish seemingly corporate summed it up. 

 

And I couldn’t agree more. Now majority of the girls have learnt to smell poverty from afar. We know who is faking it, we know who has it, and we know who has the potential of becoming rich. If you asked me, I would say girlfriend, run for dear life if he is broke. If he has the potential of becoming rich, well, maybe you can hang around and hope the potential grows into something bigger sooner.

 

Otherwise, you are not going to feed on potential alone. Find that loaded fool much as he has his glaring physical short comings. The money can wash them away. Don’t we all know that it is because of money that the chipmunk look-alike and philanderer Weasel TV has fathered kids all over the place? Close to 20 kids and nine Baby Mamas! Now, can you beat that? 

 

That is the power of money. So guys, much as it doesn’t always follow that every woman dating a loaded guy is a gold digger, the majority are, and they don’t give a rat’s tail about your looks. 

 

Annie Kirabo, an accountant with a bank here, has an interesting analysis of all this. “Women don’t want to get bored. More money means more fun, more pleasure in life and a better social status. It is hilarious that guys actually don’t get it. They sometimes imagine we like their looks more, hell no!

 

It is guys who obsess about our appearance. We are not obsessed with what a man looks like, du! You really think a smart woman in 2012 is going to choose a good looking guy who cannot hold down a job or isn’t financially stable? We want someone who can take care of us and sometimes our kids if it comes to that. If he complements the money with a good personality and looks, well, that is a bonus and we will not complain.” 

 

Tracy a second-year student at Makerere University, concurs: “We find success and ambition sexy; it makes us feel safe and taken care of. Sorry guys, just as you measure us by our butt size and skin colour, we measure you by the size of your wallet. Sorry if you do not like it, but aren’t both sexes guilty of being shallow when it comes to that initial attraction?”

 

Well put, right? Take a look at the world’s aesthetically challenged rich men alongside their beautiful babes. Who wouldn’t want to be Heidi Klum even though her man Seal is one hell of an ugly dude? In fact, the documentaries on DStv think Heidi Klum and Seal are one of the hottest couples in showbiz. But who doesn’t see that in reality, that is downright plain beauty and the beast? 

 

Gone are the days of our parents, when love and personality united partners, when love was spiced with a remarkable chemistry and mutual trust, with money appearing nowhere. Today, with the trend of events, unfortunately, money rules. And fortunately for us babes, we can find that dude with it, after all match making is long gone. 

 

And girlfriend, even though you would like us to believe that for you love comes first, you and I know that in your innermost self, you do fantasise about a dude with paper, just that maybe your cute one is broke. What a sorry life you are going to live! Feel free to write in and abuse me if you want, but for now this is my shine!