Copyright dailymail
I have stumbled upon the biggest turn-off I've encountered in months, nay, years. It was the ultimate ick. We were at a dinner party. He was a short chap (I refuse to give him the title 'Short King,' a type I'm actually quite fond of) with thick 'artsy' glasses, which I was horrified to later learn had no lenses in them – cringe. But that wasn't even the deal-breaker. Within seconds of meeting my blind date, he told me he was a surgeon. Then came the question: what did I do? When I told him I was a sex columnist for the Daily Mail, he smirked, snorted and snarked: 'Oh nice, you write for a little blog!' Reader, I wish I were making that up. As the dinner went on, it turned out being a sex columnist was a brilliant conversation starter, and people kept asking about my job. But each time, the short surgeon interrupted to downplay it: 'Oh, her little blog.' Apparently, it's hard to maintain alpha energy when your date gets more attention than you. Then I realized: There's still a whole breed of men who get twitchy around successful women, and not just at bad dinner-party dates. I see it all the time in my DMs. One woman told me her husband sulked for weeks after she got promoted, insisting it made him 'the wife now.' Another said she earned $60,000 more than her boyfriend, until he dumped her saying, 'You don't need me.' A Chicago lawyer messaged me that when she bought her first investment property, her fiancé refused to move in. 'He said he didn't want to live in a place I paid for,' she wrote. 'We broke up three months later.' In fact, research shows that when women earn more than their male partners, relationships often wobble. In fact, a recent Business Insider analysis found that couples are significantly more likely to divorce when the wife is the breadwinner. But psychologists say some men can't help it: they were raised with the belief their worth equals what they provide. When that flips, some feel lost. And instead of adapting, they get defensive, distant or competitive. Meanwhile, back at our dinner table, my short surgeon couldn't handle a columnist being the center of attention for even a minute. Bro, please. And yet, look at Travis Kelce. On paper, he's a textbook alpha. An NFL star, a millionaire, a sports podcast host - adored by men and women alike. The man is six-foot-five of swaggering masculinity. But what does he do? He dances like a teenage fangirl in the VIP tent at Taylor Swift's concerts, cheers her from the stands, hugs her parents and even joins her onstage. He's completely secure being the supporting act in her world tour. He's not self-conscious about her broken world records nor her estimated $1.6 billion net worth (compared to his $70 million, per Forbes). But not all celebrity couples are immune. Jennifer Lopez admitted in a resurfaced 1998 interview that her then-husband Ojani Noa 'struggled' with her earning millions more and supporting their lifestyle. 'This business is tougher on women who are doing better than men because men are raised to be the supporters. We still live with those sensibilities,' she said. She continued to say of Noa, calling him 'macho': 'Even though he's doing his own thing...he's not gonna make as much money as me. That's something he has to deal with and to live with - which is tough for someone like him.' You can almost feel her frustration. There she was - at the height of her fame - and still forced to make a man feel comfortable about her success. If JLo can't pull off the balance, what hope do the rest of us have? (Spoiler alert: they're now divorced.) That resentment can bubble long before a split. Money shifts habits. The partner earning less sometimes withdraws emotionally or starts hiding spending. Therapists even report women 'down-playing' their salaries or taking on extra chores just to keep the peace. A UK survey published last year found that in households where women were the main earners, one in three said the arrangement had 'introduced tension' or 'undermined intimacy.' The same report noted that women who out-earned their partners were twice as likely to say they handled all the household management as well. And a 2023 Pew Research Center study found that in 29 percent of heterosexual marriages in the US, women out-earn or earn the same as their husbands - triple the rate of the 1970s - yet they still shoulder more housework and childcare. Basically, she's winning at life, and paying for it at home. Talk about a raw deal. There's a cruel irony here. For decades, women were told to strive, study and succeed. Now that they are, and graduating at higher rates than men - and, in cities like Los Angeles and New York, often out-earning them - the dating pool feels smaller and relationships more precarious. Which is why men like Travis Kelce feel like a breath of fresh air. They're not threatened by a woman's power. Nope, they celebrate it. They understand her success doesn't diminish theirs; it multiplies it. I call them 'cheerleader men.' They clap from the sidelines, they post your wins on Instagram, they brag about you to their mates and they aren't secretly tallying who earns more. And before anyone assumes these 'nice guys' are dull - think again. I've found that they are way better in bed. Because when a man isn't busy protecting his ego, he can actually focus on his partner. He's confident enough to ask what she wants, try new things and make sure she leaves satisfied. I can hardly imagine Travis being a snowflake between the sheets. That kind of self-assured energy doesn't clock off at bedtime. (Heck, Taylor even penned a song about his 'Redwood tree.') So fellas, in a world where women's pay checks keep increasing, the hottest thing a man can do (and is sure to get him laid) is clap loudly, kiss proudly and absolutely never call her job just a 'little blog.
