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Love in the Time of Layoff: Bankers Are to 2007 as ________ Are to 2009

Last week we found ourselves on a two woman bar tour, consisting of just ourselves. We were flitting between two groups of guys, one group was at Spitzer’s and another across the street at ‘inoteca. After a glass of wine and some assorted cheeses at ‘inoteca, we would dash to Spitzer’s to chow on truffle mac and cheese with some Aussies. Had we not been so amused by our own antics, we would have gone home pleading a ‘breakfast meeting,’ well that and the cutie in a suit stationed in the doorway of Spitzer’s, who had been frantically blackberrying for the better part of an hour. So stoic was his demeanor that we just had to dub him the Downtown Centurion. One of us and we won’t say who (we do write for Dating a Banker Anonymous) was about to make her fourth entrance of the night when the Downtown Centurion deigned to speak to her. She had taken to switching up her hair and taking off her leather jacket that was “totally giving her street cred” every time she switched locations.

Downtown Centurion:  You forgot to take your hair down.

DABA Girl (smooth): Huh?

Downtown Centurion (eyes still on BlackBerry): You’ve been taking your hair down and putting your jacket on every time, you come in. Don’t mess up your flow now. Although personally, I’d be interested in seeing the jacket off and hair down combo, but maybe you’re saving that for later?

As out of favor as bankers have become, it’s surprising how many guys in other professions we hear from on www.dabagirls.com claiming to be the “new bankers.”

DABA Girl (pretending to read over his shoulder, her sense of cool perhaps rebounding a little too strong): Is she going to be jealous when she finds out you’re flirting with me?

Downtown Centurion: Depends which girl you’re asking about.

DABA Girl: Touché D-town Centurion.

Downtown Centurion: What did you just call me?

DABA Girl (ignoring his last question): So what do you do that demands you spend so much time glued to your blackberry?”

Downtown Centurion: “A girl asking what I do? How refreshing.”

DABA Girl: “I blog about finance guys and you are obviously one, I was searching for a tactful way to warn you that anything you do can and will be used against you in the blogosphere.”

Downtown Centurion: “Thanks for the warning.”

DABA Girl: “Anyhow what are you? I-banker, trader, private equity, in-house research analyst?”

Downtown Centurion: “I don’t really want to talk about what I do.”

DABA Girl: “Ohhhh, I get it. Laid off and interviewing. Sorry I brought it up.”

Downtown Centurion: “No, I’m employed I just don’t want to be defined by what I do, ok?

Me (coping some ‘tude right back at ‘em): “A defensive wall street guy? Refreshing.”

Banka’ please. People looking for a work-home balance don’t go into finance. He’s just tired of being the scapegoat of an over-leveraged nation.  A mere seven months ago this banker boy, along with all the others out there, would have proudly announced where they worked. Touted their place of employment as if it were an official seal of approval. Masters of the Universe with full, or almost full, heads of hair they were the most desirable guys to date and they knew it.

Fast forward past the mortgage based market crash, the 8.1% unemployment rate, and the “We’re in a recession” state of the nation. Finance guys are now the poster children for the fall of our nation’s greatness. They are the reason, or at least what everyone has decided is the reason in order to make themselves feel better about knowingly having bought a house well above their means, why we are in our current economic situation. Understandably these Masters are no longer so pumped about the Hello I’m Cute Finance Guy stickers stuck to their suit lapels.

DC, it turns out, is part of the new generation of finance guys. He “doesn’t want to be defined by” what he does. Oh, how times have changed. I vividly remembered a drunken banker in 2007 at Tenjune yelling from the rafters “I’m rich b*tch!”

As out of favor as bankers have become, it’s surprising how many guys in other professions we hear from on www.dabagirls.com claiming to be the “new bankers.” For example:

There was a time when you couldn’t have a conversation with a transactional lawyer without them offering up an unsolicited explanation of why they chose law and not finance. Just this weekend I spotted a bankruptcy lawyer making it rain on a group of fashion PR girls with his business cards.

Let’s not forget about the doctors (they wouldn’t let us if we tried). Those shameless mofos might as well be tap dancing on David Kellermann’s grave. Their joy in being bumped up a few spots on Newsweek’s best marriage material list is frankly too celebratory for polite company.

The media men. They range from fast-talking Ari Emmanuel types to dark and stormy screenwriters—both quick to stress that, “Movies provide escapism! The people will want more of them in bad times!” If you say it enough times, maybe the financing needed to make a good action flick will magically appear.

Trust funders. Back in the ‘80’s they would explain breezily that they were in “imports and exports.” With the fall of the finance guy, they’ve dropped the act and will now proudly tell you that they don’t do jack but who cares—they’re recession proof! They’re not a bad replacement, unless of course you want to date someone with a sense of reality.

Entrepreneurs. Unable to hang on the mean street of Wall, they went West, to offices where yoga balls doubled as desk chairs. And man are they psyched about the more even playing field. You’d think Urkel just got took home Cosmopolitan’s Hottest Guy award.

Lastly, there are the unsung heroes of the recession: the Repo Men. We hear they’ve been making a killing taking back yachts and other luxury goods from people who have fallen behind in payments. It’s a dirty, thankless job, but somebody’s got to make a buck off it.

Still, we are not convinced that bankers are yesterday’s news.

Due to layoffs and work days that are now so long that in any other industry they would be considered double shifts, the supply of finance guys is way down. We’re not so naïve to think that demand for finance guys has zero elasticity or anything like that. Of course demand for finance guys has decreased with their reputation and bonuses being what they are, but we don’t think that it is enough to compensate for the large decrease in supply. This supply deficit will only increase the demand because rich boyfriends are like luxury goods— the more rare they become the more they are coveted. This is going to snowball into a major finance guy dating deficit, rendering them more desirable than ever.

Yep, you heard it here first. The DABA Girls predict that bankers are the new bankers.

Tags: bankers, dating, Love in the Time of Layoff, relationships, romance