Gay Sex in the Philly City: Bragging About Money on a First Date is a Major Turn-Off

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“Well, to be honest, I’m still sucking on my mother’s tit. … Oh, and I think I’m older than you.” That’s how my date described himself during our first face-to-face encounter at a restaurant along Walnut Street.

Is it any wonder I didn’t feel a magnetic attraction, that I didn’t beg for date two?! There was something utterly gross going on—tit-sucking mom talk aside. (I had seen pictures of his mother on Facebook, and it was not pretty). Don’t get me wrong: He was handsome. But he spent half the evening bragging about how much money he had.

It started with him making it very, very, very clear that he lived in an upscale Rittenhouse condo and that he was a “big boss” at a corporate office on Market Street. I could barely get in a word as we nursed our cocktails: He pontificated about how he purchased an $8,000 camel-hair couch and asked me where my last vacation was. When I told him Las Vegas, he rolled his eyes.

“I could never go there,” he said. “It’s tacky, and with all the work I’ve had done on my face, there is no way I could just sit at a pool and lay in the sun.”

I know what some of you are wondering: “Did he at least pick up the check?” The answer is no, but I didn’t want him to. There was no freaking way I’d let him pay: That would give him a sense of power—as if he needed any more entitlement—and I knew it wouldn’t be coming from a genuine place.

As an undergraduate student, I was a supervisor at a Pottery Barn store. During my experience there, I quickly came to realize that the wealthy could be boiled down to two categories: There are the folks who really have money, who are gracious, well-mannered, and dignified; and then there are those who think they have money, who are rude, crass, and boastful about the $2,500 whatever they just put on their MasterCard. It’s a lot of false refinement, a lot of B.S. Don’t think that because you have money that it magically gives you manners (ahem, NeNe Leakes).

And if you’re bragging about money and bringing all this pretense during the first time we’re hanging out, what the hell is going to happen during round two? Of course, there’s the real reason why people shove money in your face: It’s a shield to hide behind, and it gives them a false sense of importance. If they lost it all tomorrow, who would they be? They’d have no clue.

That was this dude: He admitted that even his face was fake. To be honest, I sort of felt bad for him come the end of our meal. He had to quickly exit to meet his friend, “one of Howard Stern’s exes,” and spent the last 20 minutes of our time together ordering a $250 blouse as a gift for her via his iPhone. We hugged goodbye, and haven’t talked since.

I wouldn’t say I dodged a bullet as much as I reaffirmed that we all have our insecurities. Money doesn’t change that, and cash is not the building block to any sort of relationship. Duh.

Oh, and another thing: Never mention anything about your mother’s tits during a date, okay?