“There’s no free lunch.”
That’s what I blurted out to a friend who was struggling to make ends meet with her creative work. It came out harsher than I intended. Later that night, I messaged her to apologize.
The best advice is often the honest one. But honesty also carries bias, as we tend to give advice through the lens of our own experience.
She wanted a partner who’d provide. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.
“I just want to focus on my passion and take care of the family.”
She sighed.
The downside of pretty privilege.
Research shows attractive people are more likely to be hired and earn higher wages1, and plenty of influencers openly admit their looks have accelerated their careers. But what’s rarely discussed is the downside: the conditioning that tells us there will always be a Plan B, that a Prince Charming on a white horse will eventually arrive to save the beauty.
Beauty can feel like a built-in safety net. Someone will always step in, pick up the bill, shoulder the burden, or offer an escape route. I see this pattern play out again and again among some of my most beautiful girlfriends.
Disney taught us to expect a savior, a prince who would pull us out of whatever mess we were in and lead us to a happily ever after. We daydreamed about what he would look like, how we’d meet him, and the wedding that would seal the fairytale.
But Disney was not always the reality.
Your white horse comes with a price tag.
I always thought of Hong Kong as a city that empowered female leaders. I went to conferences, panels, networking events, and even high-end parties. I was so used to being in those rooms that it never occurred to me how exclusive they really were, or how what felt “normal” to us was considered “high income” for much of the world.
In my early 20s, I started hearing stories of Taiwanese flight attendants planning layovers in Hong Kong with a different goal: to meet a wealthy husband. The strategy, apparently, was running on Bowen Road or walking dogs in Mid-Levels, placing yourself in the right place at the right time, in the hopes of being noticed.
But why was I so surprised? Throughout history, societies have always curated spaces for matchmaking. Shakespeare lived in an age of entrepreneurship and exploration, where newly rich London merchants had money but not status. Their solution? Marry their daughters upward.2
From Elizabethan ballrooms to Bowen Road, the stage has sometimes carried a familiar purpose. The venues change, but the principle endures: orchestrating proximity to opportunity.
“Money or love?”
A friend once pushed me to give an answer. She’s married now, a self-made woman who’s navigated the fine art world with grit and grace, yet still holds fiercely to her values.
I couldn’t give her a clear answer. Somewhere beneath the surface, I knew the truth: in every relationship, my worth could be measured not just by love, but by intellectual and financial compatibility.
Throughout history, marriage has often been about consolidating power. My own family history has taught me the same.
What if the white horse also comes with a burden?
For years, I wanted to run faster than men, outscore them in school, and climb higher in my career. I carried a burning urge to prove I could do better and that I didn’t need marriage to validate my worth.
I wanted to stand on my own feet and claim my own space. Even when I dated men who seemed “good on paper,” I bristled at how quickly my value was measured by who I was with rather than what I brought to the table.
Between my hands, there is fire. I can make. I can build.
A fire to prove I have a place in the world, even if not everyone sees it yet.
A fire to prove I belong.
I nearly missed the point of womanhood itself: being underestimated can be a hidden strength. When the world expects less of me, delivering more becomes impossible to ignore.
And being a woman can be a gift: my worth isn’t always measured by financial output. That freedom gives me space to grow into the person I want to become, without the constant expectation to provide. Still, the narrative hasn’t always set us up for success.
“I think men just feel emasculated around me.”
A friend once confessed.
The startup world doesn’t have enough of us. Sometimes I wonder why. Is it simply because the game is actually built for financial upside? Or because, for many men, founding a startup is also about proving they can provide?
The other day, I bumped into a potential cofounder I had interviewed for my first startup. By then, I was onto my second one, with a clearer financial path. She questioned my decision:
“The money problem will never go away, right?”
She was right. Money is never enough.
Embracing femininity.
In many ways, I began to see the root of my fears. I was afraid of being trapped in the traditional Asian family dynamics I grew up watching. A life where I might feel overpowered in a family that didn’t raise me, where I’d never truly come first. At its darkest, I feared becoming someone’s property rather than someone’s partner.
I never dreamed of a “soft wife” life. I wanted to live a big life. Early in my startup path, someone older once told me:
“Maybe you’ll fall in love and realize all these things don’t matter.”
And later on, I did meet someone who said to me:
“I wouldn’t mind you being a trophy wife.”
It was sweet, in its own way, when someone offered me the passenger princess seat.
For the first time, I wondered if all those years of fighting, with myself, with the world around me, with the need to prove I could stand alone, were battles I didn’t need to keep waging.
At a Polish wedding party the other day, I learned about the salt and pepper tradition, a symbol that marriage means walking through hardship together.
I laughed with my Hong Kong friend about how different it is from our culture, where the bride is expected to wear layers of gold, as if wealth alone could guarantee happiness.
Maybe there isn’t such a thing as “happily ever after.” What we get instead is a vow, through sickness and health, through salt and pepper, through it all.
Fairy tales endure because they speak to what we crave: ambition, love, danger, survival, transformation. But what if the thing we crave most was never someone else’s rescue? What if it was the strength we find within?
"The life I want - there's no shortcut." - An Education (2009)
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240882
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-02857-4
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-did-you-marry-that-person/