There are old popular sayings that probably aren’t backed by any scientific theory. Sayings handed down from our elders that, for some reason, turn out to be true. “Cuando el grajo vuela bajo, hace un frío del carajo” (a Spanish rhyme: when the rook flies low, it’s bloody cold) could be one of them. In fact, you only need to check the temperature when you see a rook flying low (obviously, there’s a catch to this saying). And “all that glitters is not gold” is, frankly, pretty obvious.
Now, “the size of your show-off spending may be a way of making up for a lack of size in another department” isn’t quite a popular saying, but it’s something people say very often. And while it may not be very accurate about the size in question, it could well be accurate about the quality of use. “What on earth are you talking about?” Let’s explain it in more detail.
Why are big spenders worse in bed?
It’s obvious that most big spenders and compulsive buyers of luxuries (which they can’t really afford) tend to be rather vain. Their one and only goal is to attract attention through appearances.
Social media has made this phenomenon more visible, because a new kind of job has been born that isn’t well paid (in fact, it usually costs money) but produces false self-esteem, which is not the same as “low self-esteem”.
Low self-esteem means lacking self-esteem. False self-esteem means appearing to have high self-esteem while lacking it. They seem the same, but they’re not. Someone with low self-esteem is aware of their insecurity and accepts it (although we recommend they work on their low self-esteem). Someone with false self-esteem is even more insecure than the first, but tries to fool others. In fact, they can even be cocky and flaunt a forced arrogance.
This person’s job is full-time. He works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week perfecting his strategy to achieve his goal: impressing others. Sometimes they manage it with a small group of people, but as a rule, they don’t.
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He’s easy to spot at a glance. He’s usually young, although since divorces became more common and relationships got shorter, men over 40 have joined this select club too.
You’ll notice his presence in a nightclub from 20 metres away. Young, in most cases with a gym-built body (especially the upper body) and wearing clothes that leave no doubt that he goes to the gym.
Hair freshly cut that very morning (in fact, they visit the barber five times a month).
So far, he could just be the typical young man who takes care of himself and wants to look good so that the night’s “hunt” goes well.
But to complete the character we want to identify, we’ll make him more visible through his spending. A bottle of Moët & Chandon in hand is a distinctive trait of this type of person, along with accessories meant to signal that we’re looking at someone with a lot of money (a Gucci belt, a Versace shirt, a Bulgari pendant, a chunky watch…).
What gives away this fake-rich big spender?
In many cases he’s just a student living on Dad’s credit card. In many others, he’s someone with a €15,000-a-year job who saves nothing. He puts everything into his image and his goal of trying to impress.
In the most serious cases, besides having a very ordinary, badly paid job, this strange character also runs up personal credit. And they tend to lie. In fact, they tend to lie a lot to try to impress.
If you simply switch off the part of your brain that lets itself be impressed and open your ears, you’ll see through the act after listening to him for 10 minutes. These people aren’t exactly known for intellectual conversation.
And here’s the funny part about the big spender
From the description so far, you’ll have pictured the typical nightclub show-off nobody wants to go near or touch with a bargepole. But that’s where we’re wrong.
There’s a small segment of the population that orbits around this sun. They tend to be young women attracted by the special shine and glamour he gives off. In fact, they compete with each other for the attention of what they see as a rock star. (The profile of the girls who are drawn to this rare human specimen deserves an in-depth analysis, and we’re not going to do it today.)
That’s why, for them, everything is going wonderfully, because this kind of big spender isn’t aware that there’s such a thing as “the long term”. Thanks to easy credit or Dad’s credit, these big spenders can keep up their apparent lifestyle for a while.
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Some of them are constantly worried that they’ve lied so much to the people around them that they have no choice but to stick with this strategy and with a high level of spending they won’t be able to sustain for long.
The ending is almost always the same. When he gets hooked on one of these “gravitational, planet-like girls”, he’s forced to increase his spending to keep up appearances, and the girl ends up either getting bored, since he’s not much of a talker, or realising it’s all a sham once there’s no credit left to draw on.
In fact, over the years, most of the women you find orbiting these specimens end up orbiting a man with real money, often quite a few years older than her.
But what drives this financially reckless behaviour? What motivates them?
Do you even need to ask? Sex. Let’s just say the idea of attracting women.
And here’s the next problem. The kind of big spender we’ve described has enough insecurities to invent a life for himself and put his financial health at risk in order to attract someone of the opposite sex. In other words, he believes he can’t win a woman over on his own merits and seduction skills.
And the thing is, he’s right. Our brain only understands insecurities. It doesn’t know where they come from or why, but it treats all insecurities and low self-esteem the same way.
Low self-esteem and insecurity cause a drop in testosterone, although if this person goes to the gym, that would help raise his testosterone levels, offsetting the effect of his insecurities.
Basically, we can say that in many cases it may well be true that a smaller “manhood” gave them complexes in the past that they now try to make up for. But in reality, the most common problem isn’t the size of the equipment but how it works, and in many cases a lack of creativity in bed. Insecurity makes people less creative.
That’s why it’s very common for these big spenders to also be good customers of the “little blue pills” or similar. These days it’s easy to fix the problem of getting the equipment to work.
A fairly large representative sample of the women who once orbited these “suns” agree, by a wide majority, that these men were boring, tedious, self-centred and horribly bad in bed.
Because the blue pill seems to help with performance, but there’s still no red pill to help with creativity in lovemaking.
See also: Fake rich: how to tell them apart from real millionaires
Featured image: Håkan Dahlström from Malmö, Sweden, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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