This reminds me of the constant ads I see now for different things to "help you with your side hustle"... It's so depressing to think that having 2 or 3 jobs at once is now just considered a normal part of daily life and worse yet we have a cutesy name to try and make it sound fun
For most of my life if someone told me they had a gig, I would assume they were in a band playing at a local venue. Now it means they're a part time delivery or cab driver...
I was married and opted out of rings also. waste of money. jewelry uncomfortable anyway. I don't want anything around my fingers, neck, or my wrists, no.
Also I get extremely angry when men buy me flowers. What a waste of money. They're overpriced and they're going to die.
Let's spend our money on skydiving and traveling and adventures.
Yup, we didn't bother with rings either. I wanted to retire but needed health insurance, so we decided to finally get married after being together for 22 years. We kept it as minimal as we could. No ceremony (in Pennsylvania you can self-unite thanks to the Quakers), no rings, no name change, no fuss. Nothing changed which is exactly what we wanted!
LPT: Silicone rings are superior in every way if you use your hands at all for anything. I have never taken mine off. Meanwhile I just fidgeted all day with the fancy one. So uncomfortable.
Plus the good ones go for like $20. The cheap ones are like $8 for pack of 5.
De Beers has spent a lot of money to make them not the first thing you think about.
Hijacking this reply to talk about estate jewelry! It has a better history, it's probably more well-made, it's often more beautiful, and it's cheaper. Plus, you're recycling!
My friend, who comes from a pretty wealthy family, was all excited when he told me that he spent like 15 grand on his wife's engagement ring.
I also love hearing ads from a local jeweler that keeps shitting on lab grown diamonds, because he sells natural diamonds, and is most likely losing money. He was like "Lab grown diamonds don't hold their value, but natural ones do! In order to "prove" this I'll give you a lab grown diamond if you buy a natural one! "
"I'd like to refund this natural diamond and keep the lab grown one.
What do you mean no? You are the one who told me natural diamonds hold their value."
This is why my wife and I got matching tattoos. I have a tattoo of her butt on my butt and she has mine on hers. Its cute to us but big enough that it would be very off putting to others if either of us tried to cheat. It also cost pretty much nothing because she's a tattoo artist.
I highly recommend anyone looking to marry to work with their partner to find your own personalized symbol. It will cost less and bring you closer together.
I know a guy who used to be in this situation. He'd spent all his money and even loan money to take his dates to weekend getaways. He'd come around my place on Tuesdays to Thursdays to bum food, because he couldn't afford it.
It eventually resulted in a marriage, a child, a house, a divorce, joint custody, depression and single life in the 50s.
I'm not going to preach. This is the circle of life. Starts with a lie, dies alone. What more could you want.
Point is: Everyone is trying to impress their potential partner. Nobody wants to marry the slob on the coach that we all really are.
While I think that taking a loan to get piece of metal is a stupid idea, I can't really see any reason to blame someone for taking the opportunity if it makes a difference to them.
If you need to bankrupt yourself to declare and validate your love, it probably isn't genuine love. The right person would be happy just being with you. Yea a ring is nice, but if it is ring or food on the table food wins every time in my book.
.... Well, you probably can... As in, you have the physical capability of shoving it in your face hole and squeezing it down your throat; but doing so doesn't provide any nutritional value.
I'm so fortunate to have found someone who, like me, doesn't give any shits about gifts to show affection. Whether it's a ring, or other jewellery, clothes, or other stuff... It's not really a good use of money. If you need something, go buy it. Don't wait to be disappointed when someone buys you a blender and you really wanted a toaster... Or whatever. You spend your money on you, you know what you want, so you're most qualified to buy it.
The gifts I've purchased for her are usually nice things that aren't too expensive, which are usually things she wouldn't spend money on for herself. I'll give you some examples.... One year I got her a travel mug. We gave plenty of travel mugs, but this one is special. It's one of those self heating mugs that can keep your coffee at a set temperature. It's nice and a nice-to-have kind of thing; but she can usually get by with a regular travel mug, and she's usually happy with that. It has seen some good use. Another year, I got her some lightbulbs. Not regular old incandescent or LED bulbs, but rather smart bulbs from hue. This was back in the days when smart bulbs and smart IoT home automation stuff was very new. It came in a kit with four lights and a controller/hub thing, and I helped her set it up in her bedroom (we were living separately at the time), and get it working. She's been hooked ever since. I also had previously bought myself the same, and have since replaced most of our lights with the same brand of smart bulbs. Once when we were moving, the system was not set up yet and she complained that she couldn't turn off the lights from bed with the app because if it. She is pragmatic enough that she would normally never buy expensive smart lights for herself, but now she can't imagine living without them.
There's more, but I think I've made my point. She does much the same for me. Useful gifts that help out, stuff I wouldn't normally buy. One year she bought me some pretty nice headphones. I'm a bit of a sound fanatic (slash-borderline-audiophile), and I had been captivated by a new set of headphones that I wanted. Ordinarily, I wouldn't spend more than, say $300 on a pair of headphones, I'm always looking for the "bang for the buck" option, and these mostly fit that description, but were a bit above my usual price range, and I didn't need them since I had pretty good headphones already. She picked them up for me and anytime I want to listen to high quality music, they're the first thing I reach for.
Again, I could go on, but I think the point is clear. We're not about to spend 3-4k on a hunk of metal and rocks. Neither of us would be happy about that.
I mean, I'm thinking about buying one, but.... Not a diamond. The SO doesn't care for them and bluntly, neither of us enjoy the thought of thousands of dollars spent on a ring that serves no purpose other than to advertise that you have an agreement for affection with another person.
I've even been thinking of picking up some side work (and skip has been one that I've considered) to afford it. Though my cost would be significantly less than the debeers version.
When we got engaged my wife and I agreed to get a cheaper ring with a synthetic stone in it, which in our opinion was much more sparkly than the diamonds in the case next to it and cost a damn sight less. We decided it was much more important to spend what money we had on actual things that matter, like a house.
A rock is just a rock. An object. It's the sentiment that counts, and if you're involved with somebody who places more value on the monetary cost of the rock versus the sentiment behind it, what you have for yourself there is a problem. Fuck all that noise.
As for me, I got one those tungsten carbide bands. It is likely -- nay, inevitable -- that I would destroy a silver/gold/platinum/whatever ring in short order.
And then I bought that bitch a motorcycle. Bitches love motorcycles.
The worst part is it's a grub hub ad, but it doesn't say grub hub anywhere on the screen except for the logo. They're hoping to get na extra click out of you, which won't meaningfully affect their throughput, but it's the metric that some poor software dev needs to optimize for a promotion.