I don't know. I like buying diamonds because it means that somewhere, someone was killed, probably in a war of some kind, because I bought one.
I'm mean. Deal with it. ;)
Oaky - I'll be the first to admit it: I LOVE pretty stone and shiny sparkly objects. But my husband and I custom designed a matching set of large rose-gold bands for ourselves MINUS the diamond for me. Why? Mainly because of the justice issues surrounding the mining of diamonds at the time - plus I thought they were overpriced.
I still love stones, but not at the expense of my conscience...
I too have Magpie Syndrome, but I have found that fake diamonds make me just as happy, have fewer flaws and cause me to cry less when I loose them in the fish pond.
I HATE that commercial.
For one reason only. When the man announces his love for this woman by yelling it out loud in a public square, her response is, "Oh stop. You're being foolish." or something akin to that.
Only when he produces a box with an expensive trinket in it does she start to gush and coo, "Oooh, I love this man."
Materialistic beeyatch.
Cz's are just as pretty and a hell of alot cheaper!
A quad 3.4 gHz Xeon box or a 60" widescreen LCD TV works fine for me.
As far as the 'why' goes, besides the advertising I think it is a combination of symbolism and part of the constant testing of men by women.
Any woman who bases her worth on the size of the diamond her fiance can buy her is a fool. And any woman who judges a man based on the size of the diamond he can buy her isn't worth the price of a cubic zirconia.
When my husband and I married 15 years ago, he was too poor to buy me an engagement ring at all. We bought each other a simple gold band and had a very modest wedding (paid for in full by my husband and me). I shudder to think how foolish I would have been if I'd passed him up simply because he was poor. I would have missed out on the best gift from God I've ever received. A diamond is just a fancy rock. A loving husband is a jewel beyond compare.
As for the diamond to cubic zirconia comparison, the same could be said for any natural stone compared to a synthetic variant (the synthetic should actually look "better" because it is less likely to contain flaws). The same argument coould also apply to an original painting versus a reproduction.
Did you ever hear Larry the Cable Guy do his take off on DeBeers? (I think it was him.) Totally hysterical!
Having been married 22 years and having only a plain gold band (no money back then for anything else), I am toying with the idea of a ring "enhancement" as it's called.
If I take the plunge, I will be getting synthetic stones, not cubic zirconia but lab stones. I personally can't tell the difference and the synthetic stones I can afford are actually better looking than natural diamonds in my price range.
This way, I can spend more on updating my setting. So, not all women are dying for the real thing. Actually, when you think about it, diamonds aren't all that pretty compared to colored stones.
Diamond buyers=Sentimental............NOT an investment!
*Important Diamonds* are rare - the kind most of us purchase are not. *Important Diamonds* are those with a provenance to Royalty or scandal; with a hefty price tag to match.
The kind most of us purchase are not a good investment and certainly aren't important. DeBeers has created an entire culture of diamond giving to support their business. My great Aunt's engagement ring was an Alexanderite - and that was only 60 years ago - and Great Uncle was LOADED!
I have seen a film of a warehouse with literally millions of carats worth of gems DeBeers is hoarding. Diamonds are an artificially priced commodity that should sell, in a free market, for lots less than rubies, emeralds or sapphires.
Whatever. I’m quite happy with my 2 carat platinum setting. Oddly, I get a lot of compliments on it from men. Women glance and act like they didn’t see it. It’s kind of amusing. I also hope it is a conflict diamond. I'm mean too >:)This gal likes pearls and opals. I don't see any big deal about diamonds. If a setting is pretty it would be just as pretty with a CZ. But, I'd still rather have pearls.
I don't think that's entirely true. There's a lot of below awareness associations going on. What she loves is security.
The fact that you can give her a diamond means you can give her security. The fact that you gave her a diamond means you're hers, so the set of the behaviors that we know as an expression of love is directed at you.
Should you at some time lose all, with some evidence that you will never recover, she will divorce you and the reason given for the divorce will never be the above. She can't be forthcoming with the real reason because it is universally acknowledged to be bad and few will willingly think of themselves, and want others to think of them, as a bad person.
This is not bad. This is nature. It's the driver software that comes with the womb feature. Just as it's the driver software that comes with a man's linear/logical feature the makes him listen to a tearful problem and try to solve it instead of sympathizing with it.
There are exceptions but most of them reside as characters in works of fiction.
I'm sure that if they had done the same experiment with real Rolex watches versus fake Rolex watches, half the people would have said that they liked the fake Rolex watch more. If two items look exactly alike, and you can only compare the two items by looking at them, why should anybody be surprised that about 50% of the people would like one item and the other 50% would like the other item.