I must be heartless.
When I first heard about datemycreditscore.com and creditscoredating.com, online dating services for people with good credit, I thought we’d finally shattered the “soul mates” myth.
“Good,” I said. “Glad that’s over with.”
People care about money, and these websites — which suggest bad credit might dissuade you from forming a relationship with someone you could love otherwise — prove that point.
Credit Score Dating’s claim that “good credit is sexy” didn’t seem so far-fetched either.
Not surprisingly, financial woes put stress on a relationship.
A study conducted by Utah State University found that financial disputes were the greatest predictors of divorce.
It also found couples who fought over money matters once a week were more than 30 percent more likely to divorce than couples who had financial disputes a few times a month.
So how does this affect students? Nearly two-thirds of students who graduated from public and private nonprofit universities in 2010 had student loan debt, according to the Project on Student Debt.
Even with our lovely TOPS, it’s probable that any given LSU
student has at least some student loan debt, and it’s possible they have bad credit, too.
You may not be thinking about it, but getting married doesn’t just mean sharing inside jokes and furniture — you share your partner’s debt as well.
Bad credit affects a number of things, from your insurance rates to your ability to purchase a car or house. Also, you’ll be hounded by debt collectors who will invariably call at dinnertime.
However, this is the part where I stop being such a Pessimistic Patrick.
Online dating websites, with giants like eHarmony.com boasting 20 million users, are no longer the socially stigmatized services people lie about using and secretly register their friends on as a joke.
There are sites for practically every demographic, too. You have your more run-of-the-mill sites like Christian Mingle, Black People Meet and JDate.
Then there are the wackier (read: unsettling) sites like pounced.org and furrymate.com, where self-proclaimed “furries” can meet like-minded individuals.
For those of you who don’t know, furries are people interested in anthropomorphic animals. A portion of those people also enjoy dressing as animals and having sex.
Now that we’ve established it’s different strokes for different folks, it’s obvious Credit Score Dating could be completely unrepresentative of popular views about love.
To find out, I asked LSU students. And do you know what they told me? Most had never even considered credit score, but if forced to choose between financial stability and true love, love always won.
“I don’t think [a bad credit score] should affect how you feel about the person in the long run,” said marketing sophomore Brinda Thangada.
Child and family studies freshman Chelsea Rentz said, “If I loved them, I would work through all of that.”
Nearly all 16 students interviewed echoed these sentiments.
In the end, none of the struggles or heated arguments about money seemed to matter — even if it meant rolling over one night, looking at your partner slumbering peacefully next to you and thinking, “I could do it. I could totally hit her right now. Just a little smack, and I’ll pretend to be asleep. She’d never know.”
Love — and the fact that you’re hopefully not a terrible person — would be powerful enough to turn you back over in bed.
Hell, it compelled “babygary” and “loves_wet_diapers” to join the diaper fetish dating website diapermates.com, and you know what? As gross as that may be, I think it’s pretty cool.
In fact, if normal or freaky strangers across the United States can find reason to get married and knock boots, that’s great — even if those boots are furry anthropomorphic animal ones.
While credit score might be something to consider, it’s not everything, and whatever makes you love whomever you love is your business.
Thank you, LSU community for reminding me of that.
Aaron Friedman is a 22-year-old Spanish senior from Destrehan.
