Ran across a video of a young woman talking about her struggles to find love at her level of success. 

Here are her words.

“I hate to say this, but all of my friends who are married or engaged, they are not as successful as my friends who are single. My friends who are not damsels in distress; all single. My friends who are damsels in distress; all taken. 

I’m looking for a partnership. I’m not looking for my other half. I’m a complete person. I want someone who’s the same. What’s the quote? “Be a boss. Date a boss. Build an empire.” That’s the plan.

I’m fiercely independent, successful, have all the accolades. I have a great car. Guys are obsessed with my car when they see it. There’s like that first initial like, ‘Whoa!’ And then you see it’s someone you’re about to go on a date with and they don’t have something equivalent, I think they’re kinda like, oh.

I travel all over the country. I go to the most beautiful places. I fly first class everywhere. All my food is gonna be paid for. I stay in these beautiful suites overlooking the ocean. I think I’m pretty mature for my age; I’m 30. I know you don’t say this word… but it’s perfect. I have everything. I think that weirdly scares guys off. 

I have no one to share this cool life with. I’m concerned that the older I get, I’m going to have to make more sacrifices because I’ve “aged out.” When I’ve been on dating apps I don’t know if anything promising is coming out of it anymore. I don’t want to be 36 and single.“ 

The young woman is very attractive. So why can’t she find a partner?  

First I’d like to know what she means by ‘damsel in distress’. Typically it means a woman who is in some kind of trouble, who presumably is looking for someone to rescue her. By extension, and I’m guessing this is what boss-babe (the woman in the video) thinks; her friends who are damsels in distress are not successful enough to take care of themselves, so they need someone (a man) to come along and save them.  

The second definition that might need more careful scrutiny is “successful”. Success means different things to different people, and while boss-babe is independent and financially successful, she is also unhappy.  

I have always thought of success as just generally being happy and content. Lots of people think the key to happiness is financial success. But I’ve seen enough unhappy people who are financially successful to know that financial success isn’t the same thing. So she is, out of the gate, defining her damsel in distress friends who have relationships as “not as successful.” But if those friends in relationships are happier, then that would be successful. Boss-babe, at least in her own theory, doesn’t think so, but then she’s also not happy being single.  

But I feel the damsel in distress remark reveals where the crux of the problem is, so I’m going to try and figure out how to articulate this.  

Boss-babe sees this character of damsel in distress as less than. “She’s not looking for her other half”, she says she’s already “a complete person. She’s a boss and fiercely independent.” 

I believe she sees damsels in distress as weak and unable to take care of themselves. They are dependent, instead of independent.  

But this is where the problem is.
I think one of the foundations of relationships is mutual help. There is certainly some freedom in not having to be accountable to someone else and being able to make decisions on your own. But just as often, there is a blessing in being accountable to someone else. They often think of things you don’t and will act as counsel and help in making decisions.  

Part of relationships is recognizing weaknesses, in both ourselves and the other, and then working together to shore those things up. Admitting to needing someone else isn’t weakness, it’s human. And I don’t think that needing someone else is a feminine, damsel-in-distress thing either. Men need women as well. Traditionally, men were supposed to be the providers, and therefore be financially independent, while women would provide the domestic side that men couldn’t because they were at the job. Both of those things are necessary to making a home, and if one person can’t do both, then help is needed. That’s not some deficiency in the person, it’s recognizing we can’t do it all and we need some help. 

These days, most couples will both work and both take care of elements of the home. But the point is, a woman wanting a man to help make a life doesn’t make her a damsel in distress, any more than a man wanting a woman to help make a life doesn’t make him a dude in distress.  

Boss-babe never tells us what she does or how much she makes. But if what she says is true, let’s assume she makes quite a bit. Several hundreds of thousands per year. If she lives in NY or LA, maybe half a mil per year. It’s also fair to assume she’s fairly driven if she got to that point by 30, since she’s already in the top .3% of earners nationwide.  

She wants someone else like her: another boss. But if she doesn’t need her partner, and conversely her partner doesn’t need her, then they’re only with each other for kicks. 

I do feel like the “I’m a complete person” comment needs some commentary of its own. 

She IS a complete person. But she seems to think she’s a complete person because she’s financially independent. I know she’s making the comment with respect to the common phrase “looking for my other half”. That phrase is probably problematic in itself, and there are other phrases that people use about looking for a mate that clue us in to wrong motives, but that would be another post, and this is already long. It does make me want to ask: Does she think her damsel in distress friends are incomplete persons because they want a mate? If that’s the case, why would she even want to try to find someone to share her life with? Why does she want to be not-single by the time she’s 36? Hasn’t she already told us that she’s complete, self-sufficient, and doesn’t need anything? That her life is perfect?  

Clearly, she’s off somewhere, and I think it’s that she has bought into a model of self-sufficiency that precludes other people. She give off the vibe that would tell any guy: you’re superfluous. 

Would anyone, male or female, want to be in a relationship where their contributions are pointless, where the other person can take them or leave them? I’d bring nothing to the relationship and be incapable of adding anything to it… I’d essentially feel like I’m of no value to the equation at all. Why would anyone want to sign up for that?  

I had hoped to find the source of this video and watch more of it, because the clip I saw is clearly incomplete. Maybe she said other things that would clarify her meaning more. I shouldn’t be too quick to judge her because I don’t know enough about her, and further, who am I to judge. But I intuited a connection between her comments on damsels in distress revealing an attitude she has, and her lack of a partner that she can’t understand. She believes her high level of success had made her intimidating to guys, and that’s why she is partnerless. I believe her attitude of independence renders her unattractive as a partner because potential mates would feel worthless. 

Does a high level of success inevitably produce this attitude? I don’t think it has to, but then again, the process of achieving such high levels of success probably selects for driven, independent personalities. I would also guess that women, more than men, find themselves victims of it simply because of the general difference in approaches between men and women. I would imagine women who do find themselves in the position find it harder to find men who will adjust to them, than men can find women who will adjust to them. High achieving women who don’t seem to want men who achieve less, which will more severely limit their pool of options. Men don’t tend to care what level of success their woman achieves.