How Can You Not Talk to your Spouse about Money?

MICROSOFT NEWS POLL

How often do you talk to your spouse / romantic partner about finances and money?

Not often at all 10%

Very often 30%

Somewhat often 30%

Not that often 10%

Other / Does not apply 20%

Sometimes I read and click on the dumbest damn polls. Let’s start with the differences between categories. Who defines often? Obviously the reader who must decide between “not often at all” and “not that often.” But I can sort these from high to low, I believe. They ought to have done that for the readers — start high and go low or vice versa. Still, I don’t care and I can tell they don’t care either.

The Big Question: Who are the 20% of respondents who fall into “Other/Does not apply”? Naturally, we might assume these people are partner-free at the moment, a state otherwise known as “single.” After all, how can a person not discuss money with their partner? I am betting money works its way into the discussion and “applies” somewhere for almost all couples.

Still, I immediately had to consider the question of people with partners who might not talk to their partners about finances. Some possible reasons for this seemingly inexplicable response:

We never use money because we only use little plastic rectangles.
We live in the woods of Oregon and operate on the barter system.
My spouse is nonverbal.
We talk about money ALL the time but you did not include that category.
We are spiritually advanced and have evolved beyond the need to reflect upon money, as we simply ignore those letters from the Infernal Revenue Service.
My spouse has taken a vow of silence.
My spouse became lost on an expedition down the Amazon River, although we are still holding out hope she will return.
We are too busy playing “Doom Eternal” to worry about money. We barely have time to eat.
I don’t actually read those polls before I click.
We are too busy talking about season two of “The Mandalorian.”

If the “other” category had garnered 10% of the vote, I might have moved past this poorly worded poll without a moment’s thought. The universe has plenty of inexplicable, weird behavior that I don’t need to think about. But 20% of the vote is a full one in five. That might just be many people currently not in a relationship – but it might also mask hundreds of thousands of intriguing relationship stories that we will never hear.

I want to know when that woman gets back from the Amazon, dammit.

Polls are such a tease. This relationship/money discussion topic could produce results worth reading. Instead, it seems Microsoft has found another marginally useful way to make a little extra money.

Here’s another question for anyone who clicks on these polls: What are the actual odds that the results would come back 10/30/30/10/20? Wouldn’t 11/29/27/13/20 seem much more likely? All those zeroes at the end are highly suspicious in my view. Not only does Microsoft seem to be making up substandard polling questions and responses, the math looks… extremely unlikely.

Sigh.