I think what's sad here is not the desire for the respect of one's peers, but the means chosen to attain it; or rather, the arbitrarily-established mechanisms for doing so.

She should change her friends.

> Wanting the respect of others in your peer group is sad now?

Wanting superficial respect based on material things is sad.

Why do you care what the respect is based on? What differentiates "superficial" respect from genuine respect? I guarantee you the criteria you use to judge people look equally ridiculous to other people too.

What's your point, exactly? Slaveholders and abolitionists certainly chose to respect different people in the 19th century. That doesn't change the fact that slaveholders who judged people based on how large their plantation was were horrible people not worthy of our respect.

And to drive the point home: those diamonds you see in rings have a non-negligible chance of coming from child slaves, who have been torn from their families in civil war and will probably be setting off land mines once the diamond mines run out. I actively disrespect the choice to purchase them.

The point is not about who you should or should not respect. The point is that other people are going to respect certain aspects in people that you don't agree with, and it's silly to say that respect is not real just because you don't agree with its motivations. It's the same reason we don't like c# developers who say that python devs aren't real programmers.

Are you from debeers or did are you someone who bought a huge rock for their wife?

> What differentiates "superficial" respect from genuine respect?

This question is quite telling.

Do you honestly believe that you are so obviously correct, anyone who disagrees with you must only be doing it because they are financially invested in presenting that way?

Respect for something you are or something you do is not the same as respect for something you buy.

Not sure why you got downvoted.

There is an interesting couple of articles on the subject here:

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/01/what_would_you_do_if_...

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/02/what_would_you_do_if_...

I'm not sure either. Weird.

I found it quite hard to extract anything from those articles. I think what it's trying to say is that if the ring becomes an issue then the relationship may be far from perfect anyway.

The main thing I took away was in this passage: "you prove to me I'm worth it. ...make me know how valuable I am. Because I don't have any idea..."

But then, I don't see how she'll be satisfied with any ring. Surely if a guy could sacrifice this much he could sacrifice just a bit more - so she may not be that valuable to him. I don't even want to start thinking about a guy who can afford a bigger rock suddenly showing up :D

Basically, the moral of the story, for me, was: 1) Avoid women who don't know their worth and require external confirmations; 2) Develop your own sense of self-worth by doing something worthwhile, then finding a like-minded woman would be easier.

I think.

Earning money and buying things with it is something you do, no less than climbing a mountain or writing a play.

That's not the point though. If anything is worth the respect of your peers there it's what you do to earn the money, not shiny rocks that you spend the cash on.

Wanting respect is fine, but not respect based upon the size of an arbitrary stone.

What's worse about that than any other silly thing to respect someone for?

It's important to think about how this is a product of the people with whom one surround oneself.

I think my SO would be happy with an alternative stone (or perhaps no stone at all!) and that's because her and my friends largely aren't the type to ogle a ring, a watch, or a car. Friends that do fancy material things are able to recognize it and laugh at their own materialistic tendencies because they are the outliers in our circles. Watches are cool but experiences are cooler (plus my g-shock from '98 happily survives the abuse travel and hobbies give it).

Now, we aren't a couple that will settle for tying human hair around our fingers and calling it a wedding band, but I sure as hell won't be spending 20 grand on a rock. And my friends will happily accept the free rounds that savings can cover over the next xx years.

Exactly. If you aren't into those sorts of symbols, odds are the friends you select aren't, either. None of my friends had diamonds - including me - and none of the rest of us cared, one way or the other.