The Lowly Finance Marketer

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I’ve found that whenever I go on dates, inevitably at some point the fact that I almost went to law school will come up. It’s because living in France and Spain are some of the most interesting things about me, I think – and definitely two of the most exciting things ever to happen to me.

You see,
I was seriously considering law school after my undergrad, but then I realized belatedly that it was totally wrong for me. All my friends could see it so clearly from the beginning, but I didn’t realize that law school was not for me until I’d already done my LSATs, written my application essays, and submitted them*.

So when I wanted to change my mind, my family was packing on enough heat and pressure to make a diamond – especially Superwoman, who’d always wanted to go to law school**. I ended up running away to Madrid, under the legitimate excuse of doing an internship in my original chosen field.  Leaving to live in a foreign country with no plan, just to explore the world and “find myself” wouldn’t fly in a Chinese family, you see.

Anyway, I find that almost going to law school tends to come up in conversation on dates, as it did not too long ago when I first started dating Sweetheart. With that almost out-of-place boyish smile playing on his very angular face, he told me, “It’s a good thing you didn’t end up going to law school, or you wouldn’t be here with me!”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you were a lawyer, you’d probably be working on Bay Street, rushing past me in your expensive suit, and you wouldn’t even have looked at me.”

“What are you talking about?”

He went on in the same vein for a little while longer, making jokes about how I’d be “too good for him” – which is ridiculous, because he’s an electrical engineer as well as a successful entrepreneur and no one would be too good for him – and I was bristling with irritation after a few minutes***.  But I realized that he wasn’t the only person to say these things. Almost all the guys I’ve dated have reacted this way.

Why? And more importantly, what’s wrong with what I do now? Do they meet me and think, ‘Good, she’s just a lowly finance marketer, her work is beneath me and therefore she’s attainable’? Do they think that my work doesn’t require hard work, intelligence, dedication, and talent?

I could be working on Bay Street – in fancy suits, no less – if I wanted to. But I do what I do because I like it and I’m good at it. Does my career choice make me inferior as a professional? Does it make me a more desirable romantic partner because it means that I don’t have a Serious Career That Requires Brains?

*And spent a sh!t ton of money on my applications. Seriously, it’s ridiculous how much it costs to even apply. I dropped what must’ve been the cost of a pair of Louboutins on something I didn’t really want to do – that is money that I’m never getting back! :’O

**She didn’t get to live vicariously through me attending law school but she did get to live vicariously through me when I went to my alma mater, which, legend has it, she would have gone to (because a distant cousin was an alum and highly recommended it), if not for my dad. Dad had crappy grades and only got into two universities, so she stayed in Nowheresville Ontario for love, and attended a university she wasn’t particularly proud of. My dad will insist that he could’ve gone to a (better) university in Toronto and led a much more vibrant post-secondary life but stayed in Nowheresville to stay with my mom, who was still attending high school or something.

***Which, of course, was his original goal anyway, because he loves to see me bristling - be it with irritation, indignance, shock, or what have you.