There was a time when I thought gold-digging was a simple, well-defined sport, like tennis or synchronized swimming. You could spot the players easily: usually a young woman with an alarming number of designer handbags and a much older man who seemed perpetually jet-lagged, even while standing still.
I assumed their arrangement was transactional and tidy, as clear as a receipt from a luxury boutique. But lately, I’ve begun to suspect that gold-digging isn’t limited to bank accounts. It might not even be about money at all. It could be that gold comes in many forms, and that most of us are quietly panning for it in the rivers of each other’s lives.
There are the attention gold-diggers, those rare souls who can turn any casual gathering into a one-person parade. They have an instinctive knack for redirecting all conversational traffic toward themselves, like human roundabouts. Then there are social gold-diggers, who seem to orbit the popular as though basking in the reflected warmth might leave a golden tan. Emotional gold-diggers are a different species altogether, mining for affection the way prospectors once hacked at rock, convinced there’s a nugget of unconditional love just one layer deeper. They don’t want your money. They want your undivided tenderness, preferably shrink-wrapped and handed over with a small card.
And this is where the mirror turns, annoyingly, toward me. I used to regard the gold-diggers who passed through my life with a kind of wry detachment, like characters from a soap opera I didn’t quite follow. But the more I watch myself, the more I see it. I might not be collecting credit card points off anyone’s platinum account, but I am guilty of digging. I fish for approval in conversation, pan for admiration in my friendships, and hope for little flecks of emotional reassurance to appear whenever I swirl the silt of human interaction.
It is possible that I, too, am a gold-digger, just of a subtler, less taxable variety.
Once that thought occurred, it became impossible to unsee. Suddenly everyone seemed to be digging for something. The stoic coworker collecting respect like rare stamps. The neighbor angling for admiration about his lawn as if it were a living résumé. Even the child showing off a macaroni necklace, waiting for the gleam of pride to light our faces. We’re all down there in the same metaphorical mineshaft, headlamps glowing, pickaxes clinking, each of us hoping for that rich vein of whatever it is we think will make us whole.
And the strangest part is, realizing this hasn’t made me cynical at all. It has made me softer. Less quick to roll my eyes at the person who insists on recounting their vacation in real time, complete with a slideshow of airport snacks. Less judgmental about the friend who needs constant reminders that she is loved. Maybe all of us are just looking for gold in our own ways, and maybe the least we can do is offer one another a glimmer now and then.
Who knows, maybe we’re all better off if we admit it. Maybe there’s a kind of shared humanity in acknowledging that none of us are quite as self-sufficient as we pretend. If being human means wandering through the world with a tiny hopeful pan in our hands, then I suppose the least we can do is sprinkle a little gold into each other’s rivers. It seems only fair, especially if we expect anyone to leave a little shine in ours.
Join us in making the world a better place. You’ll be glad that you did.
Cheers, friends.