Finding more use out of my old iPod mini, I started listening to The Wall Street Journal This Morning podcasts on my drive to work.

Recently, they mentioned that the spending habits of men are related to their dating behavior based on findings from a research study from the University of Michigan. There’s also a WSJ blog article about it:

Men who have a greater tendency to maximize their display of economic power (even if this means racking up credit card debt to do it) score relatively higher in mating effort. Punchline: those who show more bling have more partners in the short run, but the savers tend to do better when it comes to marital bliss.

Also, “financial consumption was the only factor that predicted how many partners men wanted in the next five years” and there was some correlation between men’s financial strategies and their relationships.

The 25 percent of men with the most conservative financial strategies had an average of three partners in the past five years and desired an average of just one in the next five years. The 2 percent of men with the riskiest financial strategies had double those numbers.

So the male spenders typically get the looks, while the savers get the happiness. As for the females, they apparently don’t follow the rule. We’re still confusing and unpredictable.