Math Is Hard, But Hey, So is Life.

If women did not exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning. - Aristotle Onassis

Since a man is typing this we will walk down the road of how much do girlfriends cost? Although it should be very simple to correlate and transfer the ideas & principles over should the roles be reversed, and the question becomes how much does your boyfriend cost?

A contemporary view

Since this is a math blog, let's start off with some numbers to provide context and put the question into perspective. Speaking of black men, whether relative, close friend or casual acquaintance, the majority of black men I know are unemployed or underemployed at best. Conversely, the female counterpart of the majority of these men is gainfully employed and at the very least holds a better position should they happen to work for the same company (for example most McDonald's cashiers are females while most grill teams are comprised of men. Of course cashiers normally get paid $.25-$.50 more than the grill team). This is a very basic and narrow example I will admit, but if you consider your own life and the people you know many would find my example to ring true even if the man makes $40,000 a year and the woman makes $55,000.

I can understand how some people would not want to know the answer to the question. Because, "what if my girlfriend cost too much, should I dump her at that point?" Relationships are hard enough this is now just one more hard situation to process. However, since math equals life and life equals money then we must reject this willful ignorance.

To be clear the point here is not to monetize your relationship but rather to understand how money is used in your relationship so that you might be able to improve it!

I often tell my students that I prefer the lazy man's approach to everything. This usually interests students because a lot of them think that they are lazy. However, a true lazy person fully understands what needs to be done and goes out of his way to do it right the first time because if it's not right and you have to do it over then your willingness to do extra work disqualifies you as lazy. You are closer to a work-a-holic.

I say that living in ignorance does not make you lazy it makes you the opposite of lazy. Why? Everyone who doesn't understand these things on some level, will often suffer twice. You still pay, but through ignorance you are shocked and flabbergasted about how puny your savings account looks several weeks and months later. It is difficult to figure out how to live with it, if you are not enlightened and then honest with yourself.

Guesstimating the cost Mathematically

I am unaware of any economic studies regarding the cost of a girlfriend. But there just so happens to be a study regarding the cost of a marriage. The answer is about 10 percent.

The Social Science Research Council conducted a study which revealed that 12 months after being divorced, men’s living standards increased by 10%.

So, basically this article is saying that when men break up, their standard of living went up!

One way we can understand this is: a man who makes $40,000 a year living as a bachelor, once he is married, on average that man will settle for a $36,000 standard of living as a married man.

This $4,000 per year debt can be understood, as the, 'cost of his wife.' But where does the $4,000 go?

This $4,000 is simply the money that he will spend on her on average in a year at his current salary. It may be money he actually spends from his pocket to the cashier at the movies, money he gives to her when she goes to the spa or beauty shop, or money that he is not earning from overtime and holiday pay because he chooses to spend time and entertain his wife.

So the next question that most adolescents and young adult males in this generation might ask is why would any reasonable man pay to stay in a marriage and why are some men 'happy' to do so? If you do not yet know the answer then I will tell you what my grandmother used to tell me, "child just keep on living".

Check back in the next coming days for part two and three. I will further explain the statistic concerning women on this subject, we will explore how the calculation comes about and I will even provide a link to the full study.

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And remember: Math is difficult, but so is life and the more math that you know the easier it becomes to navigate life... So study hard!

**Remember these averages are for illustration purposes and will not shed a whole lot of light on an individual level.

Math Is Hard, But Hey, So is Life.

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