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The price of being desirable: €3,000 a month or 25 centimetres
The threshold sits between €3,000 and €5,000 a month, but money alone isn't enough: stability, age and status decide. The full breakdown of the dating market.
From €3,000 a month to 25 centimetres: the price of being desirable
The question is put bluntly: at what level of monthly income does a man stop being invisible to most women? The answers traded back and forth range from €3,000 to €5,000, with a qualitative leap at €10,000 and an oligarch tier at €50,000. But the consensus breaks down before the first figure is even reached. Some argue that money can't buy desire, while others reply that without money there is no status or power, and without power no amount of charisma counts.
The starting point is a harsh thesis: women say income doesn't matter, but they choose the richest man they can attract based on their own looks, kindness and cooking skills. Hence the operational question: **from what payslip do you enter the radar of 99%**, leaving out the 1% of models and footballers. The range thrown around in the conversation is wide and contradictory, and that contradiction is the story.
How much do you need to earn to be a good catch?
The figures being tossed around are far from uniform. One calculation puts the threshold at **€3,000**, arguing that from there the field opens up. Another raises it to **€4,000 or €5,000** and adds a condition that isn't financial: **25 centimetres**. The joke has its own internal logic: if physical attractiveness and net worth are competing in the same auction, the starting price depends on what's being sold.
At the top end, the conversation turns more sober. With **€10,000 net a month**, one participant flips the question: why worry about women when you can put €3,000 towards living and €7,000 towards investing? His conclusion is that being with someone interested only in your wealth is worse than being alone. The figure stops being a conquest target and becomes an argument against marriage.
The reference to wealth is no accident in a space where people talk about stocks. The logic of return-on-investment calculations creeps into the romantic conversation: **marriage as a contract with counterparty risk** and separation of assets as a safeguard clause. The original question was romantic; the answer is financial.
Money isn't enough: the status theory
The most repeated objection is that money is necessary but not sufficient. The argument goes that **status can't be bought**, and that an heir can have plenty of money and little prestige. Charisma, in this reading, isn't a sarracena quality but a form of power: whoever has it attracts resources, and whoever attracts resources attracts attention. The chain runs that way, not through the bank balance.
The counteroffer is just as blunt: without money there's no status, and without status charisma is a footnote. The example given is a young woman with ten suitors who all have wealth behind them. Personality, in that scenario, is a secondary variable. The discussion gets stuck here, and it's no minor jam: it's the heart of the matter.
There's a third way that shifts the focus from wealth to spending. What matters isn't how much you have, but **how much you're willing to spend on her**. It's the difference between the rich man who saves and the one who earns less but burns it all on appearances. The image projected by money weighs more than money itself, and that explains why some profiles with modest payslips perform better on the dating market than others with healthy accounts.
Age as the variable that changes everything
The time factor appears early and becomes central. The thesis gaining ground is that **interest in status grows with age**: in youth looks carry the weight, and over the years money moves to the foreground. Hence the defence of a pattern of relationships with young women and systematically breaking up once a certain age is reached. It's not a wild remark: it's presented as a wealth strategy, with the argument that there's a fortune earned that won't be shared with just any partner.
The counterpoint comes from personal experience. One participant describes a stable relationship with a woman **23 years younger**, which began when she was 18 and had no significant income of her own. His conclusion is that physical attractiveness and personality can sustain a relationship without money. The reply he gets is that such an exception has an expiry date and that economic stability will end up mattering. The exchange heats up, but it leaves a useful datum: **individual cases don't refute a trend, they only qualify it**.
Civil servant, police officer or the €1,000-a-month earner who fakes it
The conversation gets down to the details of the Spanish labour market. The claim is that a **civil servant earning €2,000** is more appealing than a freelancer with a higher income, because stability and the regularity of the paycheque are worth more than the amount. Job security works as collateral. Along the same lines, it's argued that a police officer with a fixed salary and a uniform has a better track record than a media personality without a steady income.
The threshold is lowered even further: some maintain that **€2,000 as a civil servant** is already enough to count as a good catch for the majority. The condition isn't the figure but the certainty. A freelancer with higher but irregular earnings ranks below. The practical conclusion is uncomfortable for the entrepreneur narrative: **the dating market rewards the secure payslip, not the potential**.
The original question asked for a figure, and the conversation returns a map of variables: income, stability, age, looks, spending and the ability to project power. No answer settles the matter. With the numbers on the table, the €3,000 threshold appears and disappears depending on who's looking at it. What nobody disputes is that the question, framed this way, is already an answer.
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication.
Read the full discussion (71 replies).
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