Recession Survivor’s Guilt

Greetings DABA Girls,

First off let me offer you both my most heartfelt and sincere thanks for shining a tiny, though desperately needed ray of humor on our economy and general state of being that seems devoid of laughter in general.  It’s refreshing that someone finally has the chutzpa to come out and just say what most already know, and to do so in such a well written fashion!

(Thanks for the compliment, but just so you know, FBFs don’t use exclamation marks, kinda gay)

            A brief introduction: I am suffering from a case of survivor’s guilt. For the past six years of my life I have been a luxury yacht broker. I rode the wealth obliterating “easy credit” super-tsunami that allowed every Tom, Dick, and Vito to 120% finance anything from a dugout canoe to a small cruise ship. We sold yachts when nobody cared what the price was, just so long as it was bigger than the one in the slip next to them. I undoubtedly have encountered many of your FBF and FBF prospects. 

           We raped, pillaged and plundered for five straight years, utterly unimpeded.  We made just shy of Wall Street money while enjoying a Jimmy Buffet worthy life of beer and tanning.  Between finance guys, and the throngs of middle aged “Rodney Re-Fi’s” (folks that borrowed ungodly dollars against their homes to live a lifestyle worthy of Robin Leach narration), it was literally shooting the preverbal fish in a barrel.

              Cut to yacht-land “AR.”  As the credit crunch struck, the Dow took a 90 degree vertical dive much like a kamikaze pilot with a Dear John letter, and things generally went to hell in a Fendi handbag…things got BETTER for me.  How you ask can it get better for someone who makes his living off the most discretionary of purchases such as a luxury yacht?  One word…REPO.  

               I managed to secure a position (20% partner in new brokerage entity), whereupon I can profit from the misfortune and poor judgment of others!  (We warned you, tread carefully; our readers are quick to sniff out a gay man posing as a straight man for artistic delight.  Gays writing as gays are of course always welcome on DABA Girls)  Given that we sold said vessels to people that had NO business buying them, the amount of repossessed yachts coming in is mind numbing.  “Sir, this document is from XYZ finance stating that you are more than 90 days behind on the payments of your Blah Blah craft, hull number..bla-de-blah….your collateral will now be collected by a licensed captain…please contact your lender for further details.”  Note: Yours truly does NOT physically repo yachts…though he does go at times for the amusement factor…I simply re-market them once they are collected.  Thanks to your FBFs, as awful as this sounds, I am doing better than I was BR.  A 21st century form of piracy if you will (just substitute peg leg and parrot with Brooks Brothers suits and stacks of legal paperwork).

              Point of the story being this: Oh wise DABA’s, should I feel any sense of survivor’s guilt here?  I’m additionally curious where luxury yacht brokers fall on the grander DABA-designed hierarchy of male professions to take note? (Prays “right below Best Buy employee” is not the response in return”).

Dear Captain Repo,

We really hadn’t given much thought to recession survivor’s guilt or the rising stock of the repo-man prior to receiving your email.  Nonetheless we have given your questions serious consideration and shall address each issue in turn.

            First, if you are going to have any chance of dating like an FBF, you are going to have to start thinking like an FBF.  Do you think the finance guys who shorted stocks based on insider information and cashed in on this recession are sitting in a coffee shop feeling bad for all the finance guys who were on the wrong side of their trade?  Hells no Capt. Repo.  Those guys are on a yacht moored off the coast of Punta del Este having a cocaine-fueled orgy while you sit by your lonesome on a yacht masturbating to your little moral quandary.  It’s a winner takes all game.  Stop feeling bad and get out there and do your best to get some DABA a$$.

             Before you get too excited, we still have to answer your second question regarding where you fall in the dating hierarchy.  Let’s be clear about one thing: DABAs don’t date the help.  This is precisely what you would have been as a mere yacht salesman. However, we are as confused as you are about whom the new head honchos are.  

             Let’s start with the Doctors, who are taking unprecedented amounts of glee in the demise of the FBF.  Like the FBF, Doctors were good at math and science as kids.  Unlike the FBF, they chose 4 years of graduate school and another three years of indentured servitude over instant riches.  They paid the price for that decision.  No self-respecting New York women would have been caught dead in public with a doctor in 2007.  Do Doctors have ability to get you into the newest trendy club, know the reservation email for The Charles, or which winding street to take in Chinatown to get to Apotheke? Probably not, but wealth is relative and without the bankers skewing the scale, Doctors may once rise to live below 14th street.  Plus, there is the added perk of access to doses of anti-depressants in amounts that your psychiatrist can’t legally prescribe (which should help you get through your recession depression).

As it stands, the DABA dating hierarchy looks like this right now:

             Import/Exports (read: unemployed with trust fund)

             Media Men (celebrities, and their well-heeled agents)

             Doctors

             Bankruptcy Lawyers

             Luxury repo-men

In short, if you want to stop feeling guilty and start living the FBF dream, we recommend you shore up at Pier 11 pump some yacht rock, and let the DABAs live out their Love Boat fantasies.

Sincerely, 

The DABA Girls