One of my friends from uni dated a girl for a few years.
He was rich and he suspected the girlfriend was a gold digger.
People believed that she had actually dumped her previous boyfriend when she found this current one – because the current boyfriend was richer.
So he tried a few things (not all of them were designed to test her but some were):
(1) He stopped taking her to expensive restaurants and took her to Macdonalds or just regular hawkers and coffeeshops instead.
Not the most upscale place. The guy personally did not mind eating at regular places. He wasn’t a typical show-off. He liked doing a lot of regular stuff. She had a major problem with this.
(2) He took her to a cheap show at a community center.
(3) He took her on a backpacking trip to Europe. Earlier he always made her stay at the best and most expensive hotels. This time, they stayed at inexpensive hostels. This wasn’t really a test. The guy actually liked backpacking trips where he could stay at hostels and meet a lot of “real” people.
(4) She always demanded that he buy business class tickets for them. He started buying economy. He personally didn’t mind flying economy so much. But the girl got very agitated with the idea of having to fly economy and not having lounge access.
(5) He used to give her very expensive presents earlier. He’d already bought her a car and the latest cell phone (this was in the era before smartphones). He gradually shifted to gifts that were more “personalized” and less expensive – collages of their photos together, poetry that he’d written for her etc. She didnt care for those things.
(6) She used him to further her career. She’d ask him to make a referral to all the companies where he had great contacts. She’d get in to these companies without much of an interview (the boy’s dad who was very well-connected usually pulled strings to make this happen….he was a super generous guy). The girl always left the jobs within a few months. She just wouldn’t last anywhere. The guy stopped making those referrals. The girl threw a huge fit.
(7) The last thing he did was the truest test. He told her he doesn’t want his father’s wealth and he wants to build his own career without his dad’s assistance. He won’t accept anything from his father. The guy was actually pretty good at his studies and in my opinion, was capable of building a career of his own. But quite obviously, she didn’t want to take that chance. She didn’t have the patience to wait around till he built his career from scratch. She left him a few days after he told her this.
The guy is now very happy and is married to a very sensible and self-made young lady.