is there hope for me

what are we supposed to do with your disclaimer? do you want an answer or not?

Take what you read on here with a grain of salt.

I can assure you there are plenty of "finance couples" I have met in my life and not every guy wants kids. I don't see how this would be difficult.

the one question you may want to clarify for yourself is why you find dating so hard in your city. that, I can not answer.

Not the female POV you’re looking for but don’t take what you read on here too seriously. Only a small minority of posters actually works in finance, the rest is nothing but clueless high schoolers and college students 

Not a female, but it would help if you clarify what field of finance do you work in. Are you actually an associate in private equity?

My honest opinion. No, I would not go out of my way to date a woman in IB/PE/CO. (I work in the high tech industry)

Why would I want to talk to a boring banker girl who stared at an excel spreadsheet all day, when there are athletes, scientist, models, professors, artist, and people with really interesting lives out there. Going to Harvard and getting a job at Goldman is about the least interesting thing someone can do with their life in my opinion. Most bankers are very adverse to risk, making them extremely conserved and boring people, similar to big law. I have yet to have a conversation with a lawyer at one of the big law firms, that does not scream boring personality; if any personality at all.

As previously stated, "I would not go out of my way to date a female in finance". This still leaves room for the possibility. If you do in fact have a decent personality, you do not take yourself too seriously, and you are kind to people I am sure you will find love. But love can mean different things for different people which is why communication is so important in a relationship. 

Either way I wish you the best on your love endeavors. 

I don’t think I’d be completely opposed to dating a girl in finance. Only thing I’d be concerned about is how busy we’d always be and the fact she’d not want to start a family eventually.

Kids are a something that I personally want, so specific to me, I'd obviously want to find someone who wants them as well.  Have plenty of buddies who don't want them though so it really just depends.

With respect to your career; I think it'd be ideal to a lot of guys to date someone who is hard-working and career oriented such as yourself.  Excuse my blunt delivery, but yea, some guys just want their partners to be housewives.  Nothing wrong with that at all, but it doesn't sound ideal for someone like you.  I can appreciate, being a guy, the idea of working a long day and then having to come home and talk about what you just left at the office (within reason, of course).  On the contrary, I know a ton of guys who explicitly want someone who is hardworking and ambitious, regardless of whether that manifests in their career or somewhere else in their life.  I think the short answer for you is there are (obviously) guys out there who have similar ideals to yours.  Maybe in finance specifically you're running into some trouble, but I don't doubt for a second there isn't a lawyer or software engineer out there that is equally devoted to their career that would fit what your looking for.

short answer is yes. if you are an independent woman who's interesting and not ugly, you can find a man. disregard most of what you see on this forum regarding dating, especially from unverified accounts as they're likely to be high schoolers or college kids.

also, the guys who constantly pose dating questions or platitudes like the hot/crazy matrix, that graph that shows men shouldn't marry until they're X age are likely unsuccessful with women. I've never met anyone in a happy relationship who believes that bullshit. it's usually guys who just went through a bad breakup and are trying to justify their promiscuity, or someone who's never been successful and is justifying their lack of a SO as biological. RED PILL BRO

tagging InfoDominatrix for an actual female perspective.

I’ll back this. High earning partner who doesn’t want kids? Major value prop from my perspective

You’d be surprised how many guys don’t want kids, they are just not going around advertising it. In fact, my friends who really should be having kids are the ones who don’t really want them

As long as you're feminine I couldn't care less what your job is. If you're the kind of "type A aggressive businesswoman" that is not what most guys want. But I know plenty of girls who work in finance who are very attractive and have / would date

The moment you try to start to put your future SO in these boxes is the moment you lose. You've never met this person.

Also, PE isn't that complicated. Most decently smart guys should be able to understand what you do. They don't have to be in finance. If you restrict it to only looking for guys in finance, you might be waiting forever. Honestly, WSO is probably the best place to meet your future SO if you demand they be in finance. Or move to NYC if you don't live there already. Good luck.

Associate 2 in PE - Other

have hobbies outside of work 

Do you workout? 

I promise that you'll find a suitable mate. Working in finance and not wanting kids is less of a dealbreaker than you think.
Happy to take this offline and discuss further in my dms.

What city are you in? Depending on what part of the country you are in COVID could be heavily correlated to the lack of successful dating. I am in NYC and it is almost impossible to go anywhere with anyone, even if it's just for a casual drink. 

I see a lot of people dunking on this Nickh guy for giving his honest opinion. As of this post, the majority of the people slamming him identify as analysts, interns, or prospects (yes, I'm aware titles can be outdated). If he wants to try to date athletes and models, he can try to do so. They could be minor leaguers or struggling models... still counts; still "interesting" in the typical sense. Or if he just totally sucks, then I guess he fails and doesn't get what he wants. But people are entitled to their preference, and I'm always surprised when people try to knock ambition down a notch on WSO of all places. Seems more like a Reddit thing to self-deprecate for its own sake.

Anyway, I'm not like Nickh. I fully acknowledge and embrace the fact that I'm a pretty boring person by most metrics. Relative to other quanty people, I actually have a pretty "good" personality when I'm operating in the dimensions of my life I care about. I can even fake it for short bursts when I am out of my element. To the extent I fake it, it's more so out of mutual convenience to keep the topics moving until the occasion is over and I can get back to what I want.

But really, I don't care about most hobbies for their own sake. I'd rather spend time on a few things that deeply interest me, rather than on those that interest others. I just love working hard at my job (and being as duly rewarded as a mere employee in a meritocracy can be), being productive by myself in my free time to enrich my human capital in dimensions that I can't focus on at work (such as working out), spending meaningful time with my friends in any capacity, and getting some good sleep. Every once in a while I like to do something cool to have some memories to reflect on when I occasionally daydream, but I don't need to elevate them to the level of frequent hobbies.

I see a lot of posters -- including those in this thread -- who post about interesting active hobbies or the kinds of parties and experiences they have. They seem pretty cool! I'd love to experience a lot of what I've seen at least once or twice. I also love reading the passion when these guys talk about it. But for me, I think I disproportionately prefer hearing the passion that comes from somebody enjoying what takes up the majority of their waking hours.

If I were a woman, I'd be exactly the kind that Nickh and other posters would want to avoid, and that's fine. Even the way I write my sentences make me sound like some weirdo. I fully acknowledge it. But while I'm cognizant of it, I'm not embarrassed by it, because I have different objectives and interests in my life. In my relationships, I've sought out women who are deeply passionate about few things. I haven't ever wanted to have kids and have intentionally only ever been with women who felt the same. I've intentionally focused on women who care about their careers. The busier, the better, because I'm busy, too.

There were some other consistently solid posters here who hopefully assuaged your concerns in the general sense, or at least mentioned that they knew of people who felt that way. Hopefully my post also helped, coming directly from the perspective of someone who is happy being that person.

Yeah, of course, there are a lot of guys looking for serious relationships and are looking for a successful partner.

To share my opinion though, work shouldn't matter that much. There are great people doing all sorts of things for a living.

I'll be honest in saying that I'm somewhat "intimidated" by a girl that works in high finance. I'm going to generalize here, and say that most guys in finance are like me as well. By "intimidated", I mean that I don't want a wife that shares my same goals and has the same drive. What I want, which is what I think most guys in IB/PE/HF want, is a woman who I can see helping raise my future children. I think a lot of guys who get into banking are very forward thinking, and, even as a young analyst, are looking towards a future family that they want to have. To conclude my generalization, I think most guys in finance share those two characteristics. Obviously, these are the two concerns you pointed out and I just wanted to affirm them, but don't lose hope. I know of several guys who would be down with a woman who makes more money than they do and doesn't want to have kids. However, you may need to widen your pool of potential partners to outside of finance if you're scared about not ending up with anyone (and let's face it, if you weren't worried about that right now, then you wouldn't have made this post). 

I hope I don't come off as a dick in saying this, but if you were hoping for people to come on here and tell you that your current notions of the finance-female dating scene are incorrect, don't expect that to happen. Good luck, and I mean that sincerely.

You said you are not ugly, but you didnt say you are not fat or hot for that matter. Maybe hit the gym more and lift some weights. It funny that this advice also goes for women and not just lazy fat man 

I wouldn't date a girl that works for the same company as I do (for obvious reasons).

Just my 2 cents, but as someone who also works a lot, I think the main reason I wouldn't is because if she works a lot then our free-times would be tough to overlap. That's probably the primary reason. 

Wow, this thread turned into a trainwreck really quickly. OP, please don’t take anything you read on this site seriously. A lot of the people who post here are either high school kids, college kids, or random trolls.

Lol some of these comments are at best funny and at worse, shockingly out-of-touch with modern dating.  As a women in finance, I personally wouldn't recommend dating other finance people either because they either fall into 2 categories: frat "bro" or socially awkward.  Neither of which are my type.  I would recommend dating within other careers that require a lot of ambition like engineering or law (although keep in mind they kind of fall in the same stereotypes as well).