Daba Daba Do!

So I stumbled upon the Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) blog last night (missing the NY Times article about this on Monday). In case you missed it, the members of DABA, which started as a sort of informal social get-together/group therapy session for those whose boyfriends and husbands work/ed in the financial business, now blog about their experiences and how their upscale lifestyles have succumbed to the downturn. They refer to their beaus as FBFs, which stands for “Financial-Guy Boyfriend” (though for years I have been trying to popularize the acronym a friend penned:  IBDB, which stands for “investment banker douchebag”) Woe are they, as their loved ones  (pun intended, as may of them have broken off with their adored partners who they no longer love) lose status, job security, and discretionary income.

[caption id="attachment_22" align="alignright" width="300" caption="NYT article 27 Jan 09 "][/caption]

My problem with this blog is the tone. Lord knows that I enjoy a wry witticism, a gut busting one-liner, a silly play on words and even an occasional fart joke or two. But these postings are only kind of funny. The women themselves describe their blog as “very tongue–in-cheek,” but there’s no very here. Their posts are not dripping with over the top descriptions of the Bergdorf shopping sprees or lavish nights inebriating flitting from club to club. It’s just whining. There’s not even a nod or a self-reflexive moment to let us know that they’re being ironic – no fourth wall break, no wink to the reader or apology to clue us in as to how to read what they’re writing.

I’ll admit there’s a certain lightness to it. These women are savvy – they don’t write about their losses entirely sincerely. But the tone is more snide than sarcasm, like these women have this we-know-it’s-a-little-ridiculous-but-we're-entitled-to-our-moment-to-bitch-and-if-you-don’t-like-it-then-suck-it attitude that makes me agree with the commenter who wrote "makes me want to laucgh and punch you in the face at the same time" - good thing these ladies are anonymous.

There’s not an ounce of genuine empathy or concern for what their partners are going through: the very real loss of identity their husbands/boyfriends professions suffer as the careers they have invested their identity in crash alongside the market. That's kind of what we do to them as a society - ask them to put their emotional and personal stock in success and providing. Then these men lose that, and you're upset about not going to the ballet? If it were the other way around, the feminists would want to string these heartless folks up by their testicles.

What's worse (and forgive me for waxing too bleeding heart like the loyal NPR listener I am here), but a lot of hard working people who aspired to be homeowners were sold on the American Dream by your boyfriends and husbands and got really hurt. Really. The aspiring middle class (albeit, not entirely devoid of their own responsibility for signing on to huge amounts of debt) got taken advantage of by those FGFs.  And you, you ate and drank and shopped your way through the housing bubble, and spent the commissions and earnings and bonuses of your loved ones, income that destroyed people’s finances and jobs and retirements and drove the world’s economy into the gutter. You, yes you, have some role in that.

So have some shame, and keep your grousing to cocktail hour at Nobu. Infinte bandwith be damned, there is no room for your whimpering drivel here and that gentle dusting of what you call sarcasm doesn’t exculpate you from responsibility for what you write, or from your role in sowing this economic mess.