Did you know there’s such thing as Dating a Banker Anonymous!?!? This isn’t even what I planned on writing about today, but I’m just too excitedly horrified not to start typing immediately. And I’m not making it up. It’s true! It sounds like a bad chick flick pitch from the same guy who wrote Stepford Wives but it’s actually in the New York Times.

Above links to an article called “It’s the Economy, Girlfriend” which begins:

The economic crisis came home to 27-year-old Megan Petrus early last year when her boyfriend of eight months, a derivatives trader for a major bank, proved to be more concerned about helping a laid-off colleague than comforting Ms. Petrus after her father had a heart attack.

Dawn Spinner Davis, 26, a beauty writer, said the downward-trending graphs began to make sense when the man she married on Nov. 1, a 28-year-old private wealth manager, stopped playing golf, once his passion. “One of his best friends told me that my job is now to keep him calm and keep him from dying at the age of 35,” Ms. Davis said. “It’s not what I signed up for.”

They shared their sad stories the other night at an informal gathering of Dating a Banker Anonymous, a support group founded in November to help women cope with the inevitable relationship fallout from, say, the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the Dow’s shedding 777 points in a single day, as it did on Sept. 29.

In addition to meeting once or twice weekly for brunch or drinks at a bar or restaurant, the group has a blog, billed as “free from the scrutiny of feminists,” that invites women to join “if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.”

OK, I’m not a feminist. I’ve done enough dirty dancing and hopping up and down on tables at Pink Elephant to claim that, but really, a brunch support group for the lack of bottle service?

An entire group of women whose lives are so perturbed by the fact that they made shallow, ego-fueled life decisions by marrying men whose personality revolved 100% around their banking job and bonus that they now cannot function? And they’re claiming to suffer and need support because of it?

Here’s an idea: Marry someone whose identity isn’t big bucks and bottle service (making him normal by most wordly standards) and you’ll find your relationship (including you sex life) actually stays functional regardless of the Dow Jones.

Next:

Raoul Felder, the Manhattan divorce lawyer, said that cases involving financiers always stack up as the economy starts to slip, because layoffs and shrinking bonuses place stress on relationships — and, he said, because “there aren’t funds or time for mistresses any more.”

Whaaat? So essentially, these woman are bemoaning that fact that because the economy sucks, their relationship now sucks, likely because their significant other can no longer afford the escort they were cheating on her with.

Harriet Pappenheim, a psychotherapist at Park Avenue Relationship Consultants who wrote “For Richer or Poorer,” a 2006 book on money in marriage, said that the repercussions could be acute for Wall Street wunderkinds who define their identities through their job titles and the size of their bonuses.

“It’s a big blow to their egos and to their self-esteem,” she said of the endless stream of economic bad news, “and they may take it out on their partners and children.”
I’d go onto bash these women who could be doing things like Teach America or the Big Sister program instead of sipping pricey mimosas and complaining about the immature men they were shallow enough to choose in the first place, but I won’t. We’re all self absorbed in our own ways at this website too. Who am I to judge?

Instead, I want to focus on the most frightening thing about this article for me. This piece of journalism epitomized my biggest New York fear, which is that this city’s an ego-fueled minefield of charlatans who have no identity outside of their fortune, fame or high-paying jobs. And worse, that intelligent women fall for these men to the extent that they need a support group to bemoan the loss of someone they valued for completely superficial reasons. Sure, money makes relationships complicated, but this isn’t about affording to pay the rent, it seems to be about not being able to also afford the hooker’s rent.

Those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about when I talk about “ego,” rush out and purchase yourself a copy of an Eckhart Tolle book fast.

Now excuse me while I research getaway packages on Travelocity before this New York madness makes me self implode.