Whenever I think about the diamond market I think about the episode of the Twilight Zone where gold becomes worthless in the future because it's manufacturable.

As evidence by the diamond market, even if we could manufacture gold (somehow) even higher in quality than the purest gold available naturally, people would still want the, objectively worse, natural stuff, because for some reason the human rights violations that go into getting it makes it more valuable.

TL;DR: it's the child labor that makes it special

Don’t marry women too materialistic to accept this, loving diamonds is a big red flag imo

https://diamondssuck.com/

Moissanite ftw

Tough shit she still wants that drill bit for Christmas

Am girl

Just grow em in a lab. Dirt diamonds are for boomers.

I took my now wife window shopping for rings when we were getting close to engagement time so that I'd know what she would want. It was clear that the answer was gonna be yes no matter what, but I knew she'd have a ring preference anyway. She saw prices and explicitly said that she'd like white sapphire on sterling silver. I found a bridal set that she adores which very much did not cost a month or two of salary.

Because we didn't blow a ton of money on engagement/wedding shit, we've had much more resources to support the marriage itself. I've heard of regular everyday people spending $3-4k on a fucking ring. We spent 9 days in a few different places in Spain for about that cost instead lol.

Just to be devil's advocate.

Sky diamonds

There are a lot of cool minerals out there that don't make you go bankrupt if you purchase them.

"But diamonds are forever!" No they're not, in fact, they're actually flammable. *

*in an environment of pure oxygen

looks sadly at his angle grinder blade for concrete

"ill buy you a diamond if you buy me an equally-expensive gaming pc"

"never mind"

In case anyone needs to hear it: big red flag for lots of reasons. Don’t put yourself through a relationship like that. Find someone who wants you for you.

Luckily my girlfriend is on board with this

Honestly, they are ugly too. Get a real stone, like charoite or iolite. Oh, maybe moonstone. Anything but basic bitch clear rock.

Can't I just punch myself in the face to demonstrate my love and call it a proposal instead?

Use that money to improve the honeymoon instead of an artificially expensive rock?

There are synthetic diamonds, also used as jewelry.

Get her welsh gold instead

Just buy the fucking fake diamonds 90% the same, but less fucking slave labor and 1/100th of the price

Just microwave some ruby

They are shiny though. Get some lab-grown ones.