NURSE OR PURSE
There’s a moment in the lives of many men when the mirror begins to betray them. The jawline softens, the jeans widen into what are politely called “relaxed fit,” the hairline creeps backward, and somewhere between the second beer belly and the third cholesterol check, a panic sets in. The panic doesn’t usually lead to therapy, or a financial advisor, or even a gym membership. It leads to what our rich, single aunties warned us about: men “settling down.”
But beware. This settling is not about love. It is about labor.
The old adage has it right: these men aren’t looking for partners—they are looking for a nurse or a purse.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that single women now own 10.7 million homes, compared with just 8.1 million owned by single men. Women also outpace men in higher education: as of 2020, women earned nearly 60% of bachelor’s degrees. And while wages still lag, women are more likely to save, budget, and plan for emergencies. One Bank of America survey found that 65% of millennial women had set aside emergency funds, compared to just under half of millennial men.
Meanwhile, nearly half of single men report having less than $500 in savings. A man may once have rested on his coital laurels—his charm, his body, his confidence—but now, as those laurels wither, he turns to the woman with the 401(k).
65% of millennial women had set aside emergency funds
The dynamic is not new. For decades, the term “gold digger” was weaponized against women who pursued financial security in marriage. Rarely has there been an equivalent term for men who seek financial stability from women, though the phenomenon is no less common. Today, we call the “fuck boys.” the fuck boy. A fuck boy is not just a man who avoids commitment; he is one who commodifies intimacy without reciprocity. He thrives on access to women’s bodies and attention while offering little in return—no stability, no accountability, no future. In his twenties and thirties, he survives on charm and bravado, often rewarded by a culture that glamorizes detachment as masculinity. But when the body slows, when the hairline fades and the metabolism betrays him, the fuck boy evolves—not into a partner, but into someone searching for a nurse or a purse. Yesterday’s playboy becomes today’s dependent, trading swag for sympathy. The transformation reveals the through-line: an entitlement to women’s labor, whether sexual, financial, or emotional.
With women outpacing men in financial literacy, homeownership, and upward mobility, the “purse” dynamic is increasingly visible. He is not looking to build a life; he is looking for a bailout.
The Nurse
If money is one pillar, health is the other. And here the data is even starker.
Men die earlier than women—by nearly six years on average, according to the CDC. They are more likely to suffer from heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity. They are also far less likely to seek medical help. A Cleveland Clinic study found that 60% of men will avoid going to the doctor, even when they suspect something is wrong.
What happens when these avoidances catch up to them? They look for a nurse.
Not a registered nurse, mind you, but a girlfriend, a wife, a woman whose labor is not paid, not recognized, but expected. Women perform more than 75% of unpaid caregiving labor in the United States, from tending to elderly parents to managing the invisible emotional labor of households. Add a man with high blood pressure, untreated depression, or a lifetime of self-neglect, and suddenly romance looks a lot like home health care.
The nurse is not just a caretaker of bodies. She becomes the therapist, the nutritionist, the emotional regulator, the one to remind him to take his pills, book his appointments, manage his crises. What he calls love is often disguised dependency.
Women perform more than 75% of unpaid caregiving labor in the United States
To be both nurse and purse is to live a double shift. Women already make up nearly half of the American workforce while continuing to shoulder the majority of household responsibilities. To then absorb the health failings and financial irresponsibility of a partner is not love—it is labor.
And the danger of confusing labor with love is that women are taught to romanticize sacrifice. To give until empty. To hold together households, relationships, and men who cannot hold themselves. But love is not service. Love is not a retirement plan. Love is not an unpaid job. We know these men. The once-hot bachelor, now mid-fifties, who suddenly talks about “settling down” after decades of avoiding commitment—not because he’s found the one, but because his friends are married and his mother is worried. He’s looking for stability, not passion.
The divorcé who dates much younger women, not to build a future, but to siphon youth like a vampire. He offers dinners and charm, but beneath it all, he is counting on someone to stretch his remaining years into something more comfortable. The man who, after a tumble—financial or physical—decides he cannot stand on his own. He is stable enough, but lonely. He does not want to be alone with his body’s decline, so he finds a woman to witness it.
These men are villains and thieves, they are products of a culture that taught them to prioritize independence until it failed them, and then to lean on women to bridge the gap. But recognition of the pattern is essential—because women deserve more than to be the safety net of last resort.
When men search for a nurse or a purse, they are in fact searching for security. They want what women have already built for themselves: stability, safety, care. But instead of cultivating it on their own, they look for women to provide it.
The irony is sharp. For centuries, women relied on marriage for financial survival, as laws and norms excluded them from ownership, credit, and autonomy. Now, as women surpass men in education and economic stability, some men are turning marriage into their fallback plan.
And yet the narrative has not shifted. The fear of the “gold digger” lingers, even as evidence suggests that men are increasingly the ones who dig—not for gold, but for security, for care, for labor.
The truth is this: women are not rehabilitation centers for wayward men. They are not ATMs, not long-term care facilities, not therapy couches. They are whole human beings with their own lives to build. If men want love, they must come with more than an empty wallet or a prescription bottle. They must come as partners. Settling down should not mean finding someone to settle for.
When Juliet leaned from her balcony, she did not imagine Romeo arriving with medical bills or an unpaid credit card statement. She imagined passion, devotion, risk. She imagined being met with equal measure. If your Romeo calls, let him rise to meet you. Let him come with love, not labor demands. Let him come with responsibility, not dependency. Because if he is knocking with a bottle of Lipitor in one hand and an empty checking account in the other, he is not Romeo. He is looking for a nurse or a purse. And you deserve far more than that.