Laid-Off & Looking: Is It OK to Be a Gold-Digger?

In early January 2009, I figured it was time for my guy to meet my mom. It had been seven months and she was beginning to think that I had something to hide. (I didn’t, but before him, I’d been single for six years. I put this relationship at a speed somewhere between frozen turtle and crawling backwards.) He picked out a nice seafood restaurant and I’m pretty sure (from what I haven’t blocked out) that I spent a good deal of the evening wishing for more Tanqueray (as I was cut off… evil people in this world).

Everything was going pretty well until my mother (whom I love—with clenched teeth) brought up a very touchy topic for me. She asked him if his family would think that I’m a gold digger (or GD). She asked him that, upon their first meeting, at dinner, while I was trapped in a booth with an empty tumbler. I don’t recall the rest of the evening. I simply remember being embarrassed.

I won’t lie, I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about how his daughter would feel about a less-than-wealthy woman (9 years her senior) hanging out with her not-close-to-broke dad…