Lexicon ·
high value
adjective phrase
- Stated meaning
- A person of evident worth, self-respect, and standards, whose company is a privilege to be earned.
- Operating meaning
- A pricing tier the speaker assigns to themselves before any buyer has entered the store, followed by a list of what the other party must bring in order to qualify for a viewing.
- Origin
- Carried over from sales-funnel language into men's and women's dating podcasts at roughly the same moment, where it arrived with a checklist and a paid tier.
The phrase has a curious symmetry. There is a genre of podcast for men that explains what a high value man is, and a genre for women that explains what a high value woman is, and if you transcribe an episode of each and swap the pronouns the documents are nearly interchangeable. Both recommend a morning routine. Both recommend being willing to walk away from the table. Both sell a course that covers the walking away in greater detail.
The term borrows its grammar from inventory. Value is ordinarily assessed by a buyer, and the high value speaker skips that step, setting the price first and then waiting in a quiet shop. The listing tends to include a checklist for the shopper: an income bracket, a height, a willingness to cook, an early alarm. Two people meet, each wearing a price tag they printed at home, and spend the first drink quietly checking whether the other person’s tag is authentic.
The market has yet to produce a medium value person. Everyone surveyed places themselves in the top tier, which is how you get a crowded premium aisle and nobody at the register.
The alternative to printing your own tag is to produce one from the receipts while the transaction is still open, and I can report that this is worse. This file values 90 days at $2,103.90 out, $0.00 in, 1,350 minutes in person, 815 minutes of driving, and 44.2 percent of the spend attached to no date at all. No one asked for that valuation. It is not solicited by her, it is not required by anything, and it did not exist until I produced it. A price tag printed at home is at least optimistic. Mine is printed nightly, against a balance that is still moving.