9 ms·

Diamonds aren’t special and neither is love

43 points by mxcrossb 6y ago

grishka 6y ago
This whole diamond ring thing feels uniquely American to me — in my part of the world this association of marriage with obscenely expensive diamonds is nowhere to be found.
- Lio 6y ago
  There's nothing uniquely American about it. It is common in many countries where De Beers, A British-South African company, marketed diamonds. 'A Diamond is Forever' is very well known advertising slogan. So much so that it was voted as the top advertising slogan of the 20th Century. It's even used for a James Bond film title. Since you haven't said which country is your part of the world it's hard to judge whether it's common there too or not.
  - Gys 6y ago
    Big diamond rings still seems to be mainly an US thing still: https://www.engagementringbible.com/the-most-popular-engagement-ring-styles-country-by-country/ https://www.engagementringbible.com/the-most-popular-engagem... I live in Europe and in my experience a stone in a wedding ring is very uncommon.
    - Lev1a 6y ago
      > I live in Europe and in my experience a stone in a wedding ring is very uncommon. My parents married in the GDR during early-mid 80s, for them big diamond rings were definitely out (since one wouldn't have been able to get one anyway) and AFAICT they still really like their old wedding rings from back then: gold, not that wide, the surface looks kinda woven and each ring has three or four tiny specks of diamond integrated into the weaving pattern of the gold. OT: Growing up watching TV series' from abroad (US, UK etc.) I always wondered why people would throw around huge amounts of money for engagement rings (i.e. not even the real wedding ring), then spend thousands or more likely tens of thousands on a wedding, hundreds or more likely thousands on a wedding dress (which will only be worn for one day anyway) and on and on... It just doesn't make sense to me spending such a huge amount of money making a committed relationship official when what actually matters is the sentiment between the significant others not some pathetic posturing in front of "friends and family".
      - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
        It's a cultural thing. Each culture has their own marriage-related customs. When you want to get married in the USA, you basically need to go through it, because everyone has been perfectly conditioned to expect a certain ritual and setting. If you are male, you have to offer a diamond ring. (As a feminist you could ask: why not the opposite? Or: why don't both offer diamonds?) If you are female, you have to put on a certain dress, and in general you are expected to dream about the wedding and everything related. What is especially ridiculous is that people get away with calling it "the happiest day of your life". Think about it: if it really is, then there is not much to expect after marriage. It's time people start changing their attitude to this ritual and focus more on understanding the ways they could make each one happier in the long term.
    - Ensorceled 6y ago
      Canada's right there with the US on the big diamond thing.
    - kwhitefoot 6y ago
      Traditionally the diamond ring is an engagement ring in the UK. The actual wedding ring is usually a plain gold band. At least that is how it was when I was young; fifty years ago. :-)
      - grishka 6y ago
        > Traditionally the diamond ring is an engagement ring in the UK. The actual wedding ring is usually a plain gold band. Wait, these are different rings? You have two of them? In Russia, people don't propose to each other kneeling with a ring like they do in American movies. They exchange rings at the wedding registration, and those rings usually don't have any stones in them.
        Nursie 6y ago
        In the UK, yes. Traditionally a shiny, fancy ring possibly with stones for the engagement, then a more plain wedding band. You wear the band all the time, the fancy one as well when you want to dress up.
        xyzelement 6y ago
        Grishka, DA! Well, in Russian there're definitely words for "obruchal'noye" I "svadebnoye" rings, so they aren't the same. Agree when my parents got married in the USSR, there was only the wedding band. But somehow the history of Russia and its language has both. In many cultures, the engagement is a commitment to a marriage and is signified with a ring, and then the wedding itself is signified with another ring. As the other person said, the engagement ring is generally more ornate that the wedding one. The engagement ring signifies among other things, a hefty commitment and seriousness about getting married. The wedding band signifies the infinity you'll spend together. In Judaism, the wedding ring is meant to be completely plain to not mar the infinity aspect of it in any way.
        grishka 6y ago
        Hm. I've never actually heard anyone say "свадебное кольцо". I guess the language evolved. Maybe the current tradition, as many other ones did, originated in the USSR out of its planned economy and constant deficit.
    - Lio 6y ago
      Should point out it’s the engagement ring that has the diamond. A wedding rings themselves are plain bands of metal, in my experience.
  - grishka 6y ago
    Russia. I assume when De Beers did its most influential marketing campaigns, we didn't have capitalism.
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  For example De Beers ran a successful campaign which convinced many Japanese that a diomand ring is essential to proposing in the 60's
- sn41 6y ago
  The association is not traditional, it is an association initially hammered in by De Beers. If you are in love, and your beloved expects diamond rings, take them to see "Blood Diamond".
  - loloquwowndueo 6y ago
    If you are in love ad your beloved expects to have electricity, take them to see “The China syndrome” and any number of documentaries on how power generation is damaging the planet ;)
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      You can have electricity without damaging the planet, though.
      - hashkb 6y ago
        And electricity is power; diamonds aren't.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    This is offtopic, but I found it very endearing that you used the verb "take", as if you need (or can) take someone somewhere to watch a movie.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  As long as you are including Canada in "American" ... it's certainly a big thing here too.
  - hi5eyes 6y ago
    when europeans use “American” they include canada, the cultures are very similar
    - Ensorceled 6y ago
      Ouch. But certainly true in this case. There are several comments in this thread saying that this trend is specific to the US or specific to America interchangeably.
    - dan-robertson 6y ago
      Well only sometimes. Eg “American healthcare,” “American politics,” “American dream,” “American independent spirit,” or even “American salaries” don’t apply so much to Canada.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Cue the angry Canadians!! Nothing burns Canadians more than outsiders assuming they are practically Americans. I say this as a Canadian.
      - grishka 6y ago
        Canada is part of North America ;)
- FriedrichN 6y ago
  I can confirm this, I don't know of any persons personally who have a diamond wedding ring, not a single one. The only time I ever hear of it is when consuming American media.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  I think it's largely an anglosphere thing (as you might expect given the origins); you also see it in the UK and a few other places. Though the US fixation on _price_ is perhaps unique.
  - jgwil2 6y ago
    I have to admit whoever at DeBeers managed to make "three months' salary" the common price guideline was a marketing genius.
    - xyzelement 6y ago
      I actually think it lines up everyone's incentives nicely :)
  - kcartlidge 6y ago
    Unfortunately the price thing is becoming more popular here (the UK), though we still have some semblance of sense around the issue. The cost/expectations for these life events seem to spiral in direct proportion to how much so-called-reality TV is broadcast. Idiots outdoing other idiots because they are on television, and a viewing public seeing more of it and believing it represents some kind of norm.
- mrmonkeyman 6y ago
  Wealth in general is highly associated with marriage. Indians, poor ones too, take out mortgages for it.
- fireattack 6y ago
  For what it's worth, diamond ring is pretty common/popular in China. On a general note, I wish people could say "XXX isn't common in [insert your region]", instead of "I guess XXX is an American thing". There are countries outside North America and Europe.
deleted 6y ago
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michaericalribo 6y ago
> I have told myself my marriage is different Being in love does feel earth-shatteringly special, unimaginably unique, irreplaceable; but the author is right that that’s how everyone in love feels. I don’t think that cheapens love, or means that my love for my spouse is “less” because others feel symmetrically the same, or even because I could have felt it with someone else, too. I think that is what it is to be in love: an overwhelming all-consuming feeling of everything being one-of-a-kind and precious and Right. Thank God it’s not impossibly rare, or only possible under the most specific circumstances! (This is not to say that love is easy or feels like that all the time—it takes a lot of work, but that work feels worth it and important because of how it feels during the moments when it does come effortlessly.)
- mxcrossb 6y ago
  > It has to feel like the two of you cracked something open and are scamming the system, and yes, you’re technically getting married, but clearly this is something grander and deeper than the law ever scratched. This was the part that really resonated for me enough to share the article. We live in societies that simultaneously make love and marriage the end point of every movie, while also all being insanely cynical of the whole institution. So I think there is some kind of rationalization going on in our heads trying to handle the fact that we don’t believe in marriage, yet we’re getting married!
- curation 6y ago
  Perhaps love is actually the thing that makes us different from animals. We will ruin our lives for it. It is not that it is 'not special' but rather the antagonism (being stuck on someone and never being able to really full reach them across the abyss of the real)that creates our subjectivity.In love we recognizes ourselves AS universal (vs as an example of universality)through the act of falling, risking, trying to mean something. These are the ideas of the Slovenian Philosophical group including Dolar and Zizek right now. (Sex and the Failed Absolute is a good start)
lordnacho 6y ago
I really wish I'd heard of this before I got married: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite Diamonds are tainted in the modern world. It costs nothing for the internet to reveal that they're actually not that rare, that lots of corrupt practices go into making them expensive, and that there are perfectly acceptable alternatives.
- netflixandkill 6y ago
  Depending on where you are there are bespoke jewelers that can take industrially made "perfect" stones including diamonds and emeralds and make rings to spec for like 500 USD equivalent or less. In the US, the renaissance fair crowd almost always has a bunch of jewelers who's work you can preview. Gems and workable gold allows are not that expensive.
- teorema 6y ago
  We heard of them before we were engaged, and really considered them strongly. In the end my wife decided she just wanted a diamond because otherwise it always would be on the back of her mind. I mention this because my wife is extremely unassuming, and socially and environmentally conscious, and she still couldn't shake the diamond thing. She was 100 percent aware of this and it bothered her but in the end decided it mattered to her nevertheless. We ended up getting a small polar bear diamond: the metalwork (by a local metal artist) is really more what you'd notice about her ring. I'm still not sure what it was, nor is she. If I had to guess now it's that for her, once you decide to have a gem, it's all the same issues at some level, so why not use the one that has personal meaning for you, whatever that is, for whatever reason? We looked into synthetics, but at the time they weren't actually available. I think if there weren't other options she might have went with a repurposed stone? Maybe no stone? Moissonite is a great option, one I wish were more used. We learned about it from the metalsmith who made our rings, and I noticed recently she had stopped actively promoting them. I think to see a shift from diamonds, these types of conversations just need to happen repeatedly more than everyone thinks. The idea needs to be suggested when people are very young that different symbolic expressions of marriage are fine, and that what's important is whatever is meaningful to the members of the couple. By the time people are adults the schemas might already be indelibly fixed. But then again who knows what marriage and commitment will be like for my daughter. I don't envy the young in certain ways.
harshreality 6y ago
It's about showing status and wealth, proof you can afford to dump money into an asset that immediately loses most of its monetary value. It's also something the recipient can show to her/their friends, which amounts to the same thing: "look how expensive an object my fianceé just burned his/their money on!" Proof of high economic status. The ideal proposal object would be a thing that costs a billion dollars and loses 90% of that value as soon as you buy it. That would demonstrate both that your fianceé is a multi-billionaire, and if for some reason he/they dumps you, you're still more than set for life. patio11 has talked about the situation in Japan, where, if I recall correctly, expensive engagement rings are not [as much] a thing, but the ability to plan a long honeymoon (taking extended time away from in-person work, since that is or was the norm) is a much stronger signal of status that everyone's impressed by.
- Nursie 6y ago
  I think that is an Americanism, to some extent. Clearly diamond rings are a big thing in other countries, but I'm not aware of other places that have such rules around them like numbers of months of salary, or such an obsession with having a huge shiny diamond on your finger. Or maybe it's generational. Either way, none of my friends or family in the UK seem to have gone in for this stuff. That's not to say that there have been no diamond rings, just no stupidly gaudy rocks. Perhaps it's down to changing traditions - the "big day" is no longer the start of life for a couple, they've usually been living together for some time, may even have kids already. And perhaps it's down to changing gender roles, now that most couples have two earners, the 'signal' you talk about may be out of place. It certainly seems old fashioned. Either way, I don't think diamonds are important as once they were. If I marry my current partner in a traditional ceremony, any diamonds involved will be synthetic, because science is amazing and De Beers are manipulative exploiters.
- dazzawazza 6y ago
  >proof you can afford to dump money into an asset that immediately loses most of its monetary value that is a terrible way to describe your partner ;)
- ryandrake 6y ago
xwdv 6y ago
This title is needlessly pithy. “Special” is relative in this world. Something doesn’t have to be special to everyone for it to be special to you. Fuck this author.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  Yes, even if the only special thing about my marriage is that it's the only one in the world with me in it, it is still special to me.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Can you really consider it special if you don't consider it worth waking up with your partner every morning and sharing two cups of Forever™, The Coffee For Real, Special Marriages©?
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      I’m putting this at 90% chance of being a joke, 10% chance of being astroturfing for Big Coffee, who are worried about how long they can string out the ‘third wave’ thing and looking for the next sales hook. :)
drdec 6y ago
The specialness and rarity of the love I share with my wife is not based on how few other couples have the same relationship but on how few other people we have the same feelings for. But the author does have a point concerning diamonds.
lytefm 6y ago
> Matt left a key for me for when I returned, and I waited in their bed, eating boxed cookies they had left and listening to a playlist they had made, until my eyes rolled shut. As a non-native speaker, can anyone explain to me why „they” is used here? To me, this reads as if another person was involved here and is utterly confusing.
- AlgorithmicTime 6y ago
  It's called singular they. It's been a thing for centuries.
  - lytefm 6y ago
    Indeed, but for centuries it has only been used as a pronoun when referring to a non-specific person. The usage like in the article is only a recent phenomenon [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
- StavrosK 6y ago
  I had to read that paragraph four times, trying to see who the second person I missed was. It turns out the author doesn't want to mention Matt's gender, which is very confusing to me. She definitely didn't go for clarity here. EDIT: Apparently Matt identify as "they". I like to think of them as a collective.
- cko 6y ago
  I think it's known as a singular they, which is gender neutral and possibly more politically correct. When I was learning grammar back in the day it was a no-no.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    Languages change, often quite quickly. English, in particular, does not _have_ universal hard and fast rules about grammar; the correct grammar is what is used, not what’s ordained. Particularly in the late 19th and early 20th century, there was were attempts to impose hard rules, sometimes _new_ rules by reference to Ancient Greek and Latin, which were then believed to have immutable rules. Some of the grammarians writing the books introducing this even complained that great works of English literature didn’t obey the rules they’d just made up, which you’d think would have given them pause. In a sign that there’s nothing new under the sun, there’s at least one example where we have fragments from important second century Roman historical texts only because a fourth century Latin grammarian used one as an example of ‘incorrect’ grammar (in reality the language had just changed).
sam_goody 6y ago
"Love" is the word we use to describe the feeling that you are connected to something you want to be connected to. "Hate" is the word we use to describe the feeling of being connected to something you do not want to be connected to. So, obviously, it's totally possible for anyone to love just about anything. And even so, the feelings of love, contentment, and accomplishment are absolutely life changers. If you don't love someone other than yourself, you are missing out. If you feel that you need for no one else to be able to love their spouse in order to appreciate your own relationship, you are.. selfish? confused? On another note, this is a girl marrying a guy. The pains she takes to keep everything gender neutral (eg. I waited in their bed, where "their" is her future husband Matt) is so woke and childish, it hurts me to read it.
- lcc 6y ago
  I found that confusing at first too, but then I realized that 'they' is probably Matt's preferred pronoun. Which, while non-traditional, is a totally valid choice in 2021.
  - Kye 6y ago
    Likely correct. I know plenty of people who continue to use their traditionally gendered names while using neutral or opposite binary pronouns. Nonbinary experiences are highly variable. Longtime video game commentator Jim Sterling just did a whole video on their own experience with this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkAZhm5zdrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkAZhm5zdrY
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I remember reading a paper that showed the length of a marriage is inversely correlated with the amount of money spent on the wedding.
peter_d_sherman 6y ago
Diamonds, despite being very expensive, aren't really all that expensive -- compared to the price of most marriages... You know, the long term fixed and recurring costs... You know, the EBITDA, the COGS, the line items, the Chart Of Accounts, and all of that good stuff from Accounting... <g> In other words, if someone is getting married, the high cost of a diamond, while indeed substantial -- is still probably only going to be the least of that married person's financial problems, present or future... <g>
- pessimizer 6y ago
  You could use that same argument to justify buying a solid gold coffee mug, and you'd be able to sell the mug for a reasonable price when you got sick of it. The argument "Over my lifetime I'll have lots of expenses, and this $50K that I withdrew from my bank in cash and burned in a barrel in my back yard doesn't even represent 5% of them!" is a weird argument.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    Gold’s highly conductive, so that would be almost unusable, though. The diamond ring is at least, I suppose, unlikely to give you first degree burns
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      I don't actually drink out of the mug, it's a symbol of my love of coffee.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Marriage, or at least long-term cohabitation, is fairly financially efficient; two incomes, one home.
- covidthrow 6y ago
  > <g> Wow. I haven't seen that form of emoticon in a long time. Thank you for sharing, fellow time traveler... <bg>
timwaagh 6y ago
I'm pretty sure the authors relationship is special. I don't think real love is that common. People get together for different reasons. Children. A house. Sex. The status of having a partner. Yes, were always supposed to pretend those reasons do not exist. But they do. And they are common.
- varvar 6y ago
  Let's see if this comment is still too real for the current beliefs. It's ok people. Mandatory romantic love is a few decades old social convention. Before that it still existed and it was optional, and it was understood that people appraise one another more on ego level, and materially first. You could have marriage and children with or without romantic love. It was an extra some people had the luck to have. We still do these things automatically, but unfortunately in secret. Before that it was done openly.
  - lytefm 6y ago
    > Mandatory romantic love is a few decades old social convention. [...] You could have marriage and children with or without romantic love. It was an extra some people had the luck to have. I'd even say that the „mandatory romantic love” might do more harm than good for quite a few people. Women fall in love with abuse/violent men and stay together with them because they let their feelings decide. Loverboy ploys. Catfishing and other scams. Losing a fortune in a divorce after a rushed marriage. If falling in love was seen seen as an optional bonus for an already healthy relationship instead of the current „all you need is love”/ Disney - ideal, a lot of harm would be prevented. After all, it's just a biochemical reaction to ensure that genes are passed on. Romeo and Juliet was supposed to be a book about the perils of romantic love, not about idealising it.
trabant00 6y ago
There's a lot of marketing in diamonds like in everything else. But there's also a lot of work involved in getting one fit for jewelry. And today with the competition of lab grown diamonds the price has gone down quite a bit. Speaking of lab grown: the price is not 1/10 of a natural one so you can see the prices while big are not in the riduculous territory like articles like this would have you believe.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  The price of natural diamonds has not gone down, quite the opposite, they’re at a multi-year high. With all the easy money floating around the economy, just like other pricey assets, they’re more in demand.
Clewza313 6y ago
The linked-to article is far more interesting and informative expose of the world of diamonds: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...
xyzelement 6y ago
There's an idea in yogic philosophy that you can't truly know a thing until you experience it. The classic example is a mango - you can read about them, you can study their chemistry, you can ask questions of mango eaters, but until you taste a mango you can't know what a mango tastes like. For most of my single life I thought of diamond engagement rings as something I'd like to get away without, or at worst begrudgingly buy. I understood the economics and history of diamonds and reached a logical conclusion. And then 2 year ago, I bought a high grade diamond to propose to my wife and I loved it. From the process of visiting diamond dealers, to seeing it sparkle, to seeing her reaction - it's some of the best money I ever spent. I love seeing it on her hand now as she plays with our baby. I'll probably get joy out of seeing it for the rest of our lives. That comes out to cents per day over the next 40+ years. Worth it. To be clear, it was never "the ring or the downpayment" kind of choice. I've seen people be dumb here. Don't do it. My point is that there's something to these rings beyond the analysis, much like tasting a mango. The ring also indicates that I am serious. Yes that's "signaling" but with so many marriages failing because people are half-assed / don't have their shit together, it's a valuable signal. So let's say DeBeers nailed product-market fit. As for how special love/marriage is: we are partners in an enterprise of life, we chose to face the future and make people together. We both made the choice and understood its weight - and chose each other. What could be more meaningful?
- billfruit 6y ago
  Thing is there are much cheaper stones that is virtually indistinguishable from real diamonds, so in that light it does seem a spurious expense even considering the enduring experiential qualities of it.
  - xyzelement 6y ago
    Part of the experience is knowing it's real...
    - swat535 6y ago
      Yea I don't know, I wouldn't want the symbol of my life be the symbol of the thing that has had blood and child labor all over throughout history (and even to this day). Unless the dealer literally mined it himself, I wouldn't want to have 0.0001% chance of my wife waring a rock that a child took out from the earth with armed guards watching him.
bambax 6y ago
It's probably true, but a little bit silly to repeat that diamonds aren't special because there are many of them still in the ground. It's like saying furniture is worthless because there are so many trees, or music doesn't exist because air is all around us. A diamond isn't just any stone, it's a stone that has been selected for its visual qualities and cut by an expert craftsman. It's a beautiful human artifact. Sure, there is no fundamental reason to associate diamonds and "love", and the whole diamonds politics are horrifying -- but that doesn't mean diamonds aren't interesting or fascinating.
- karmakaze 6y ago
  I don't know much about the cutting of diamonds. It seems to me that it's about yield, more carats/clarity/etc and less waste. It shouldn't be long before this could be ML trained. I'm rarely moved by visual art and imagine such a ML-cut diamond would satisfy most (if they didn't know?).
sjg007 6y ago
It’s more important to work on your emotional maturity together than anything else.
mrlonglong 6y ago
Two words: Diamonds burn.
bnix 6y ago
"Carbon is forever."

43 points by mxcrossb 6y ago

This whole diamond ring thing feels uniquely American to me — in my part of the world this association of marriage with obscenely expensive diamonds is nowhere to be found.

Lio 6y ago
There's nothing uniquely American about it. It is common in many countries where De Beers, A British-South African company, marketed diamonds. 'A Diamond is Forever' is very well known advertising slogan. So much so that it was voted as the top advertising slogan of the 20th Century. It's even used for a James Bond film title. Since you haven't said which country is your part of the world it's hard to judge whether it's common there too or not.
- Gys 6y ago
  Big diamond rings still seems to be mainly an US thing still: https://www.engagementringbible.com/the-most-popular-engagement-ring-styles-country-by-country/ https://www.engagementringbible.com/the-most-popular-engagem... I live in Europe and in my experience a stone in a wedding ring is very uncommon.
  - Lev1a 6y ago
    > I live in Europe and in my experience a stone in a wedding ring is very uncommon. My parents married in the GDR during early-mid 80s, for them big diamond rings were definitely out (since one wouldn't have been able to get one anyway) and AFAICT they still really like their old wedding rings from back then: gold, not that wide, the surface looks kinda woven and each ring has three or four tiny specks of diamond integrated into the weaving pattern of the gold. OT: Growing up watching TV series' from abroad (US, UK etc.) I always wondered why people would throw around huge amounts of money for engagement rings (i.e. not even the real wedding ring), then spend thousands or more likely tens of thousands on a wedding, hundreds or more likely thousands on a wedding dress (which will only be worn for one day anyway) and on and on... It just doesn't make sense to me spending such a huge amount of money making a committed relationship official when what actually matters is the sentiment between the significant others not some pathetic posturing in front of "friends and family".
    - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
      It's a cultural thing. Each culture has their own marriage-related customs. When you want to get married in the USA, you basically need to go through it, because everyone has been perfectly conditioned to expect a certain ritual and setting. If you are male, you have to offer a diamond ring. (As a feminist you could ask: why not the opposite? Or: why don't both offer diamonds?) If you are female, you have to put on a certain dress, and in general you are expected to dream about the wedding and everything related. What is especially ridiculous is that people get away with calling it "the happiest day of your life". Think about it: if it really is, then there is not much to expect after marriage. It's time people start changing their attitude to this ritual and focus more on understanding the ways they could make each one happier in the long term.
  - Ensorceled 6y ago
    Canada's right there with the US on the big diamond thing.
  - kwhitefoot 6y ago
    Traditionally the diamond ring is an engagement ring in the UK. The actual wedding ring is usually a plain gold band. At least that is how it was when I was young; fifty years ago. :-)
    - grishka 6y ago
      > Traditionally the diamond ring is an engagement ring in the UK. The actual wedding ring is usually a plain gold band. Wait, these are different rings? You have two of them? In Russia, people don't propose to each other kneeling with a ring like they do in American movies. They exchange rings at the wedding registration, and those rings usually don't have any stones in them.
      - Nursie 6y ago
        In the UK, yes. Traditionally a shiny, fancy ring possibly with stones for the engagement, then a more plain wedding band. You wear the band all the time, the fancy one as well when you want to dress up.
      - xyzelement 6y ago
        Grishka, DA! Well, in Russian there're definitely words for "obruchal'noye" I "svadebnoye" rings, so they aren't the same. Agree when my parents got married in the USSR, there was only the wedding band. But somehow the history of Russia and its language has both. In many cultures, the engagement is a commitment to a marriage and is signified with a ring, and then the wedding itself is signified with another ring. As the other person said, the engagement ring is generally more ornate that the wedding one. The engagement ring signifies among other things, a hefty commitment and seriousness about getting married. The wedding band signifies the infinity you'll spend together. In Judaism, the wedding ring is meant to be completely plain to not mar the infinity aspect of it in any way.
        grishka 6y ago
        Hm. I've never actually heard anyone say "свадебное кольцо". I guess the language evolved. Maybe the current tradition, as many other ones did, originated in the USSR out of its planned economy and constant deficit.
  - Lio 6y ago
    Should point out it’s the engagement ring that has the diamond. A wedding rings themselves are plain bands of metal, in my experience.
- grishka 6y ago
  Russia. I assume when De Beers did its most influential marketing campaigns, we didn't have capitalism.
Synaesthesia 6y ago
For example De Beers ran a successful campaign which convinced many Japanese that a diomand ring is essential to proposing in the 60's
sn41 6y ago
The association is not traditional, it is an association initially hammered in by De Beers. If you are in love, and your beloved expects diamond rings, take them to see "Blood Diamond".
- loloquwowndueo 6y ago
  If you are in love ad your beloved expects to have electricity, take them to see “The China syndrome” and any number of documentaries on how power generation is damaging the planet ;)
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    You can have electricity without damaging the planet, though.
    - hashkb 6y ago
      And electricity is power; diamonds aren't.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  This is offtopic, but I found it very endearing that you used the verb "take", as if you need (or can) take someone somewhere to watch a movie.
Ensorceled 6y ago
As long as you are including Canada in "American" ... it's certainly a big thing here too.
- hi5eyes 6y ago
  when europeans use “American” they include canada, the cultures are very similar
  - Ensorceled 6y ago
    Ouch. But certainly true in this case. There are several comments in this thread saying that this trend is specific to the US or specific to America interchangeably.
  - dan-robertson 6y ago
    Well only sometimes. Eg “American healthcare,” “American politics,” “American dream,” “American independent spirit,” or even “American salaries” don’t apply so much to Canada.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Cue the angry Canadians!! Nothing burns Canadians more than outsiders assuming they are practically Americans. I say this as a Canadian.
    - grishka 6y ago
      Canada is part of North America ;)
FriedrichN 6y ago
I can confirm this, I don't know of any persons personally who have a diamond wedding ring, not a single one. The only time I ever hear of it is when consuming American media.
rsynnott 6y ago
I think it's largely an anglosphere thing (as you might expect given the origins); you also see it in the UK and a few other places. Though the US fixation on _price_ is perhaps unique.
- jgwil2 6y ago
  I have to admit whoever at DeBeers managed to make "three months' salary" the common price guideline was a marketing genius.
  - xyzelement 6y ago
    I actually think it lines up everyone's incentives nicely :)
- kcartlidge 6y ago
  Unfortunately the price thing is becoming more popular here (the UK), though we still have some semblance of sense around the issue. The cost/expectations for these life events seem to spiral in direct proportion to how much so-called-reality TV is broadcast. Idiots outdoing other idiots because they are on television, and a viewing public seeing more of it and believing it represents some kind of norm.
mrmonkeyman 6y ago
Wealth in general is highly associated with marriage. Indians, poor ones too, take out mortgages for it.
fireattack 6y ago
For what it's worth, diamond ring is pretty common/popular in China. On a general note, I wish people could say "XXX isn't common in [insert your region]", instead of "I guess XXX is an American thing". There are countries outside North America and Europe.

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michaericalribo 6y ago

> I have told myself my marriage is different Being in love does feel earth-shatteringly special, unimaginably unique, irreplaceable; but the author is right that that’s how everyone in love feels. I don’t think that cheapens love, or means that my love for my spouse is “less” because others feel symmetrically the same, or even because I could have felt it with someone else, too. I think that is what it is to be in love: an overwhelming all-consuming feeling of everything being one-of-a-kind and precious and Right. Thank God it’s not impossibly rare, or only possible under the most specific circumstances! (This is not to say that love is easy or feels like that all the time—it takes a lot of work, but that work feels worth it and important because of how it feels during the moments when it does come effortlessly.)

mxcrossb 6y ago
> It has to feel like the two of you cracked something open and are scamming the system, and yes, you’re technically getting married, but clearly this is something grander and deeper than the law ever scratched. This was the part that really resonated for me enough to share the article. We live in societies that simultaneously make love and marriage the end point of every movie, while also all being insanely cynical of the whole institution. So I think there is some kind of rationalization going on in our heads trying to handle the fact that we don’t believe in marriage, yet we’re getting married!
curation 6y ago
Perhaps love is actually the thing that makes us different from animals. We will ruin our lives for it. It is not that it is 'not special' but rather the antagonism (being stuck on someone and never being able to really full reach them across the abyss of the real)that creates our subjectivity.In love we recognizes ourselves AS universal (vs as an example of universality)through the act of falling, risking, trying to mean something. These are the ideas of the Slovenian Philosophical group including Dolar and Zizek right now. (Sex and the Failed Absolute is a good start)

lordnacho 6y ago

I really wish I'd heard of this before I got married: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite Diamonds are tainted in the modern world. It costs nothing for the internet to reveal that they're actually not that rare, that lots of corrupt practices go into making them expensive, and that there are perfectly acceptable alternatives.

netflixandkill 6y ago
Depending on where you are there are bespoke jewelers that can take industrially made "perfect" stones including diamonds and emeralds and make rings to spec for like 500 USD equivalent or less. In the US, the renaissance fair crowd almost always has a bunch of jewelers who's work you can preview. Gems and workable gold allows are not that expensive.
teorema 6y ago
We heard of them before we were engaged, and really considered them strongly. In the end my wife decided she just wanted a diamond because otherwise it always would be on the back of her mind. I mention this because my wife is extremely unassuming, and socially and environmentally conscious, and she still couldn't shake the diamond thing. She was 100 percent aware of this and it bothered her but in the end decided it mattered to her nevertheless. We ended up getting a small polar bear diamond: the metalwork (by a local metal artist) is really more what you'd notice about her ring. I'm still not sure what it was, nor is she. If I had to guess now it's that for her, once you decide to have a gem, it's all the same issues at some level, so why not use the one that has personal meaning for you, whatever that is, for whatever reason? We looked into synthetics, but at the time they weren't actually available. I think if there weren't other options she might have went with a repurposed stone? Maybe no stone? Moissonite is a great option, one I wish were more used. We learned about it from the metalsmith who made our rings, and I noticed recently she had stopped actively promoting them. I think to see a shift from diamonds, these types of conversations just need to happen repeatedly more than everyone thinks. The idea needs to be suggested when people are very young that different symbolic expressions of marriage are fine, and that what's important is whatever is meaningful to the members of the couple. By the time people are adults the schemas might already be indelibly fixed. But then again who knows what marriage and commitment will be like for my daughter. I don't envy the young in certain ways.

harshreality 6y ago

It's about showing status and wealth, proof you can afford to dump money into an asset that immediately loses most of its monetary value. It's also something the recipient can show to her/their friends, which amounts to the same thing: "look how expensive an object my fianceé just burned his/their money on!" Proof of high economic status. The ideal proposal object would be a thing that costs a billion dollars and loses 90% of that value as soon as you buy it. That would demonstrate both that your fianceé is a multi-billionaire, and if for some reason he/they dumps you, you're still more than set for life. patio11 has talked about the situation in Japan, where, if I recall correctly, expensive engagement rings are not [as much] a thing, but the ability to plan a long honeymoon (taking extended time away from in-person work, since that is or was the norm) is a much stronger signal of status that everyone's impressed by.

Nursie 6y ago
I think that is an Americanism, to some extent. Clearly diamond rings are a big thing in other countries, but I'm not aware of other places that have such rules around them like numbers of months of salary, or such an obsession with having a huge shiny diamond on your finger. Or maybe it's generational. Either way, none of my friends or family in the UK seem to have gone in for this stuff. That's not to say that there have been no diamond rings, just no stupidly gaudy rocks. Perhaps it's down to changing traditions - the "big day" is no longer the start of life for a couple, they've usually been living together for some time, may even have kids already. And perhaps it's down to changing gender roles, now that most couples have two earners, the 'signal' you talk about may be out of place. It certainly seems old fashioned. Either way, I don't think diamonds are important as once they were. If I marry my current partner in a traditional ceremony, any diamonds involved will be synthetic, because science is amazing and De Beers are manipulative exploiters.
dazzawazza 6y ago
>proof you can afford to dump money into an asset that immediately loses most of its monetary value that is a terrible way to describe your partner ;)
ryandrake 6y ago

xwdv 6y ago

This title is needlessly pithy. “Special” is relative in this world. Something doesn’t have to be special to everyone for it to be special to you. Fuck this author.

Ensorceled 6y ago
Yes, even if the only special thing about my marriage is that it's the only one in the world with me in it, it is still special to me.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Can you really consider it special if you don't consider it worth waking up with your partner every morning and sharing two cups of Forever™, The Coffee For Real, Special Marriages©?
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    I’m putting this at 90% chance of being a joke, 10% chance of being astroturfing for Big Coffee, who are worried about how long they can string out the ‘third wave’ thing and looking for the next sales hook. :)

drdec 6y ago

The specialness and rarity of the love I share with my wife is not based on how few other couples have the same relationship but on how few other people we have the same feelings for. But the author does have a point concerning diamonds.

lytefm 6y ago

> Matt left a key for me for when I returned, and I waited in their bed, eating boxed cookies they had left and listening to a playlist they had made, until my eyes rolled shut. As a non-native speaker, can anyone explain to me why „they” is used here? To me, this reads as if another person was involved here and is utterly confusing.

AlgorithmicTime 6y ago
It's called singular they. It's been a thing for centuries.
- lytefm 6y ago
  Indeed, but for centuries it has only been used as a pronoun when referring to a non-specific person. The usage like in the article is only a recent phenomenon [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
StavrosK 6y ago
I had to read that paragraph four times, trying to see who the second person I missed was. It turns out the author doesn't want to mention Matt's gender, which is very confusing to me. She definitely didn't go for clarity here. EDIT: Apparently Matt identify as "they". I like to think of them as a collective.
cko 6y ago
I think it's known as a singular they, which is gender neutral and possibly more politically correct. When I was learning grammar back in the day it was a no-no.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Languages change, often quite quickly. English, in particular, does not _have_ universal hard and fast rules about grammar; the correct grammar is what is used, not what’s ordained. Particularly in the late 19th and early 20th century, there was were attempts to impose hard rules, sometimes _new_ rules by reference to Ancient Greek and Latin, which were then believed to have immutable rules. Some of the grammarians writing the books introducing this even complained that great works of English literature didn’t obey the rules they’d just made up, which you’d think would have given them pause. In a sign that there’s nothing new under the sun, there’s at least one example where we have fragments from important second century Roman historical texts only because a fourth century Latin grammarian used one as an example of ‘incorrect’ grammar (in reality the language had just changed).

sam_goody 6y ago

"Love" is the word we use to describe the feeling that you are connected to something you want to be connected to. "Hate" is the word we use to describe the feeling of being connected to something you do not want to be connected to. So, obviously, it's totally possible for anyone to love just about anything. And even so, the feelings of love, contentment, and accomplishment are absolutely life changers. If you don't love someone other than yourself, you are missing out. If you feel that you need for no one else to be able to love their spouse in order to appreciate your own relationship, you are.. selfish? confused? On another note, this is a girl marrying a guy. The pains she takes to keep everything gender neutral (eg. I waited in their bed, where "their" is her future husband Matt) is so woke and childish, it hurts me to read it.

lcc 6y ago
I found that confusing at first too, but then I realized that 'they' is probably Matt's preferred pronoun. Which, while non-traditional, is a totally valid choice in 2021.
- Kye 6y ago
  Likely correct. I know plenty of people who continue to use their traditionally gendered names while using neutral or opposite binary pronouns. Nonbinary experiences are highly variable. Longtime video game commentator Jim Sterling just did a whole video on their own experience with this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkAZhm5zdrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkAZhm5zdrY

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

I remember reading a paper that showed the length of a marriage is inversely correlated with the amount of money spent on the wedding.

peter_d_sherman 6y ago

Diamonds, despite being very expensive, aren't really all that expensive -- compared to the price of most marriages... You know, the long term fixed and recurring costs... You know, the EBITDA, the COGS, the line items, the Chart Of Accounts, and all of that good stuff from Accounting... <g> In other words, if someone is getting married, the high cost of a diamond, while indeed substantial -- is still probably only going to be the least of that married person's financial problems, present or future... <g>

pessimizer 6y ago
You could use that same argument to justify buying a solid gold coffee mug, and you'd be able to sell the mug for a reasonable price when you got sick of it. The argument "Over my lifetime I'll have lots of expenses, and this $50K that I withdrew from my bank in cash and burned in a barrel in my back yard doesn't even represent 5% of them!" is a weird argument.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Gold’s highly conductive, so that would be almost unusable, though. The diamond ring is at least, I suppose, unlikely to give you first degree burns
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    I don't actually drink out of the mug, it's a symbol of my love of coffee.
rsynnott 6y ago
Marriage, or at least long-term cohabitation, is fairly financially efficient; two incomes, one home.
covidthrow 6y ago
> <g> Wow. I haven't seen that form of emoticon in a long time. Thank you for sharing, fellow time traveler... <bg>

timwaagh 6y ago

I'm pretty sure the authors relationship is special. I don't think real love is that common. People get together for different reasons. Children. A house. Sex. The status of having a partner. Yes, were always supposed to pretend those reasons do not exist. But they do. And they are common.

varvar 6y ago
Let's see if this comment is still too real for the current beliefs. It's ok people. Mandatory romantic love is a few decades old social convention. Before that it still existed and it was optional, and it was understood that people appraise one another more on ego level, and materially first. You could have marriage and children with or without romantic love. It was an extra some people had the luck to have. We still do these things automatically, but unfortunately in secret. Before that it was done openly.
- lytefm 6y ago
  > Mandatory romantic love is a few decades old social convention. [...] You could have marriage and children with or without romantic love. It was an extra some people had the luck to have. I'd even say that the „mandatory romantic love” might do more harm than good for quite a few people. Women fall in love with abuse/violent men and stay together with them because they let their feelings decide. Loverboy ploys. Catfishing and other scams. Losing a fortune in a divorce after a rushed marriage. If falling in love was seen seen as an optional bonus for an already healthy relationship instead of the current „all you need is love”/ Disney - ideal, a lot of harm would be prevented. After all, it's just a biochemical reaction to ensure that genes are passed on. Romeo and Juliet was supposed to be a book about the perils of romantic love, not about idealising it.

trabant00 6y ago

There's a lot of marketing in diamonds like in everything else. But there's also a lot of work involved in getting one fit for jewelry. And today with the competition of lab grown diamonds the price has gone down quite a bit. Speaking of lab grown: the price is not 1/10 of a natural one so you can see the prices while big are not in the riduculous territory like articles like this would have you believe.

bluedevil2k 6y ago
The price of natural diamonds has not gone down, quite the opposite, they’re at a multi-year high. With all the easy money floating around the economy, just like other pricey assets, they’re more in demand.

Clewza313 6y ago

The linked-to article is far more interesting and informative expose of the world of diamonds: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...

xyzelement 6y ago

There's an idea in yogic philosophy that you can't truly know a thing until you experience it. The classic example is a mango - you can read about them, you can study their chemistry, you can ask questions of mango eaters, but until you taste a mango you can't know what a mango tastes like. For most of my single life I thought of diamond engagement rings as something I'd like to get away without, or at worst begrudgingly buy. I understood the economics and history of diamonds and reached a logical conclusion. And then 2 year ago, I bought a high grade diamond to propose to my wife and I loved it. From the process of visiting diamond dealers, to seeing it sparkle, to seeing her reaction - it's some of the best money I ever spent. I love seeing it on her hand now as she plays with our baby. I'll probably get joy out of seeing it for the rest of our lives. That comes out to cents per day over the next 40+ years. Worth it. To be clear, it was never "the ring or the downpayment" kind of choice. I've seen people be dumb here. Don't do it. My point is that there's something to these rings beyond the analysis, much like tasting a mango. The ring also indicates that I am serious. Yes that's "signaling" but with so many marriages failing because people are half-assed / don't have their shit together, it's a valuable signal. So let's say DeBeers nailed product-market fit. As for how special love/marriage is: we are partners in an enterprise of life, we chose to face the future and make people together. We both made the choice and understood its weight - and chose each other. What could be more meaningful?

billfruit 6y ago
Thing is there are much cheaper stones that is virtually indistinguishable from real diamonds, so in that light it does seem a spurious expense even considering the enduring experiential qualities of it.
- xyzelement 6y ago
  Part of the experience is knowing it's real...
  - swat535 6y ago
    Yea I don't know, I wouldn't want the symbol of my life be the symbol of the thing that has had blood and child labor all over throughout history (and even to this day). Unless the dealer literally mined it himself, I wouldn't want to have 0.0001% chance of my wife waring a rock that a child took out from the earth with armed guards watching him.

bambax 6y ago

It's probably true, but a little bit silly to repeat that diamonds aren't special because there are many of them still in the ground. It's like saying furniture is worthless because there are so many trees, or music doesn't exist because air is all around us. A diamond isn't just any stone, it's a stone that has been selected for its visual qualities and cut by an expert craftsman. It's a beautiful human artifact. Sure, there is no fundamental reason to associate diamonds and "love", and the whole diamonds politics are horrifying -- but that doesn't mean diamonds aren't interesting or fascinating.

karmakaze 6y ago
I don't know much about the cutting of diamonds. It seems to me that it's about yield, more carats/clarity/etc and less waste. It shouldn't be long before this could be ML trained. I'm rarely moved by visual art and imagine such a ML-cut diamond would satisfy most (if they didn't know?).

sjg007 6y ago

It’s more important to work on your emotional maturity together than anything else.

mrlonglong 6y ago

Two words: Diamonds burn.

bnix 6y ago

"Carbon is forever."