NO MORE MR. BIG!
Once considered a dating catch, the hot-shot financier is now toxic in the eyes of many young New York women
WHEN Desiree Royer spotted a suave gentleman sporting a three-piece Armani suit stepping into a dingy pub in Hartford, Conn., she felt like she was starring in a rom-com.
“He was my Mr. Big,” Royer recalls of that fateful encounter in 2003, referring to the high-powered “Sex and the City” character played by Chris Noth. Back then, she was a 21-year-old artist and bartender, and he was a 26-year-old consultant on Wall Street. On their first date, he whisked her away to nearby Glastonbury, Conn., where they had dual massages, and he bought her $200 Citizens of Humanity jeans “before [they were] even cool.”
“It was very adventurous, very decadent,” Royer says of their whirlwind romance, which also consisted of lavish trips to Prague, Vienna and Ireland, as well as shopping sprees on Fifth Avenue.
“He spoiled me and put me on a pedestal beyond belief,” says Royer, now 34, who manages a coffee shop and lives in Astoria.
But three years into their relationship, after discussing plans of moving in together and having kids — Royer’s fairy-tale romance came to a screeching halt when her “Mr. Big” took her to dinner one evening and admitted that he was living a double life: He was married.
“I threw my water at him and stormed out,” she says.
“I said that if he wanted to treat me like a high-class prostitute, he could [at least] give me the option to be one.” She swore off dating finance guys then and there.
Bankers and traders were once seen as the crème de la crème of New York’s competitive dating pool, but now New York women are ditching Mr. Bigs and “Wolf of Wall Street” types for those with more creative — and less lucrative — careers.
Millennial polling app Winq surveyed 4,900 women in July and found that many don’t like dating finance guys because they act like know-italls, come on too strong and put their job first. Dating app the League reports that it’s seen a recent influx of requests to filter out “finance bros” on the platform.
“You have a growing trend of younger women who are looking for a real partner with emotional intelligence — not necessarily a Mr. Big to take care of them and that ‘Sex and the City’ lifestyle,” says Jennifer B. Rhodes, a psychologist based in Midtown, who, in the past five years, has noticed more young women coming into her office who are looking for a man with emotional depth, rather than a guy with an impressive bank account. “They make their own money, and money is not the thing that makes them want to settle down now.”
For the past five years, Royer has been dating a film location scout and says she’s far happier than she was with her Mr. Big.
“[Creative guys] have more of a soul. When I was dating finance guys I felt like I wasn’t good enough, I couldn’t keep up with them,” she says. “They have such access to materialistic things; [they] buy whatever they want and life becomes boring for them. They need [someone] to interest them or excite them.”
Anna, a 23-year-old who’s gone on dates with more than 30 Wall Street types since moving to the city three years ago, is also over Mr. Big.
“Finance guys are such douchebags,” says the project manager, who lives on the Upper East Side and was asked by one money man to sign a nondisclosure agreement after their three-month fling ended. (She refused.) “They’re supercompetitive and superdriven to personify this sharklike behavior . . . They’re full of themselves.”
Anna, who declined to give her last name for personal reasons, is now currently single and dating men who work in any profession but finance, including a “nerdy” and sweet data scientist. She’s not looking to settle down with a wealthy banker.
“Women can make the same amount now, and no one really needs to be the breadwinner,” she says.
Erin Davis, 32, says that another problem with Wall Street types are their early-opening bell hours.
“The biggest issue I had [with finance guys] was matching our schedules,” says Davis, a matchmaker who runs the Erin Davis Wingwoman dating service and also performs stand-up comedy. “I’d come home and they’d want dinner at 7 [p.m.], and we’d head to a show and they’d pass out.”
But despite competing schedules, she says she’s had “lovely” relationships with bankers.
In January 2016, Davis started dating an actor and fellow stand-up comic because their schedules and values complemented each other. They’ve been together ever since.
Some money men say their bad reputation is unfair.
“With Wall Street guys, you’re always gonna find your cocky p--cks and that’s never gonna disappear . . . [but] I truly believe they are in the minority,” says Adam, a trader living in Tribeca who declined to give his last name for personal reasons.
He insists that most men in his industry make great partners. “We’re hard workers, we’re [financially] stable, and I’m in the office 7 o’clock a.m. every day,” says the 46-year-old, who’s been dating the same woman for the past five years. “This isn’t the ’80s or ’90s where guys go to the strip clubs. More often than not they’re going to tennis clubs or SoulCycle classes with their clients.” Royer doesn’t agree and will never date a finance bro again. She says: “I was really traumatized by that experience.”