A lot of it really has to do with where you are. I have the misfortune of having mostly idealistic artistic friends, read, rather poor, a misfortune in the way that most of THEIR friends are also idealistic, hence, turned off by that "greedy Wall Street stuff". I think that because we are all crushed together in close proximity every day in New York City, wealth inequality becomes very apparent, and resentment develops towards "the people who caused the recession". Now, going on a date, one of the first questions is "what do you do for a living?". I trade part-time, and help run a cool business selling art and antiques from Russia part-time, but every time I say "trader" the girl I guess gets visions of me stealing pensions from old people or something like that, so I just mention the "Russian valuables" part. The reaction is overwhelmingly negative to that "trader" label. Obviously finding a pool of gold-diggers would be the polar opposite of the problem I am describing here, but they are all over in the Hamptons, and seriously, you get table at a cafe, one girl will ask to join you, and then call her friends over if you accept, and there is no end to their sweet attention as long as you foot the bill. It is very easy to get girls there, highly recommended. But for someone looking in NYC for more natural love (or something cheaper), being a trader is a tangible disadvantage. 

I remember I went on a first date with a hot Puerto Rican (Gissel, I still remember her name, I really liked her) in the Upper East Side, back when I was new and naive, and I was really excited about trading, and was really eager to share all the fantastic and clever things I was learning...but she became quiet while I was talking, and she had these eyes that broadcast something wasn't right, and once I finished and allowed a brief silence to elicit approval....she vented angrily "you steal money!"...aaaaand that was awkward. I wish I could say that was unique experience, but it wasn't (not among the naturalized Americans, for what its worth). Trying to explain what a "trader" is to foreign women is a different problem, though, because whatever you say will be technical and abstract and hard to understand unless you buy them something really expensive, after which no further explanation is needed.

I've tried to be diplomatic about myself, because I truly enjoy what I do, and what I enjoy is an important part of myself that should be constructive when sharing with a date, so I came up with a strategy where I make a big thing about the difference between a retail trader and those supposedly consciousless institutional traders. "blah blah blah I trade my own money, not other people's money blah blah (then my favorite) business is not my life, but I do business so that I can have a life blah blah"...and that causes enough smoke and confusion to move the conversation to hand-painted Russian dolls or something like that. That has worked to keep the conversation going, but I still feel like I am lying.

Right now I am into a fantastic Russian girl with these amazingly huge green eyes and red hair, I see her and I have to remind myself to keep breathing, and I want to tell her what I do. I came up with an idea of comparing trading to art, because traditional visual and musical arts used Fibonacci ratios. I am pretending I am an artist, because I trade visual patterns. I am hoping I appear "natural", artistic, because I know she digs stuff like that.

So, any of you bachelor traders coming to NYC looking for love, keep this in mind....