There’s a male analogy to the sex workers mentioned in What the thinking escort is thinking… young guys who enlist in the military and then blow their cash. I’m chatting with a guy via email and he brought up the documentary Girls Do Porn… it’s a sad film, for lots of reasons… the number of women suited to doing sex work is not that high, and porn is not a good idea today because the market flooded years ago… seriously, practically every porn ever made is online, on streaming sites or in torrent sites… so doing porn for money is stupid. Reddit’s full of unpaid peer-to-peer amateur porn. The market is glutted… gotta move on. The opportunities that existed for “porn stars” to make money existed from about 1970 – 2009… that window is now closed, but the high-end escort market still exists.
The guy I’m chatting with mentioned that in the documentary, most of the girls work for a couple months or a year, get paid a lot of money by teenage standards… and spend it all. One girl, however, has a boyfriend the whole time, saves her money, goes home after she’s done working, and has a bunch of investment cash at the end of her time. She avoids the purses, clothes, and whatever else young dumb girls spend their money on.
The situation reminds me of guys in the military… you’ve probably known them… to a typical 18 year old 20 – 30k and low expenses seems like all the money in the world, so it’s easy to throw that money around. Disciplined guys get out in 4 – 6 years and have 50k+ saved up… chow is covered, housing is covered in some/many circumstances. Outside every big base, though, are a bunch of car dealerships… you’ve signed the enlistment papers… that’ll get you a high-interest loan so you can get the fancy vehicle… then you have to spend money on gas, parking, transporting the vehicle, insurance. The girl from high school is tired of working her minimum wage job, so she’s suddenly interested in getting married… she’s so pretty and willing… and she’ll be loyal to you while you’re overseas… of course she will, baby… a lot of guys can get out with nothing, sometimes less than nothing. Smart guys save that cash and use their educational allotments wisely when they get out.
This equivalence is not exact, obviously, so don’t stretch it too far… an attractive woman can make a million dollars with relatively low time commitments from age 20 â 30… living in a big city is far more fun than living on bases… military guys are very unlikely to make a million, even half that, and military guys have hugely more downside… just ask the guys who spent most of their time in third-world holes… but that similarity remains, lots of people who get cash early blow it. For most people, lifestyle expands to the amount of money you’re making… I’ve been guilty of this too in some ways.
The whole American edifice is built on debt… I admire people like Mr Money Mustache, who questions the whole debt/consumption treadmill. The things that really matter in life are 1. who you’re connected to and 2. what you’re making/creating. Most big-ticket spends (housing, cars, fancy clothes, pricey restaurants) don’t really improve either… they may be net negatives for both. I like game for many reasons, but one is that game helps improve connections and is also a form of making/creating (connections in this case, more than something tangible). It’s also relatively cheap… it costs some money for drinks/coffee, some money for simple meals, some money for a gym… compared to what most people spend on the big ticket items, it’s low cost. Freedom is the best thing you can buy, and you buy freedom by not spending money, particularly stupid money… most chicks don’t care what car you drive, as long as it’s clean and runs. For a lot of chicks, riding a fun electric vespa-type scooter / bike is a more fun and interesting date than spending a lot of $$$$. Ask what really matters and focus on that…
