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Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

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Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#591
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Random diamond story! As a freshman in college, I took a geology class and our teacher asked all of the women in our class to raise their hand if they would rather have natural or human-made diamonds. Most of the women (over 80%) raised their hands for natural. The reasons they gave all seemed to tie back to branding and natural diamonds being “real.” Then our teacher gave another analogy. He asked if people would ra…

everyone would prefer natural diamonds to artificial ones. Why? Because natural ones are more expensive. It's literally like asking someone whether they prefer to have $20 or $40.

If your partner offers to buy you a $5 McDonalds cheeseburger or a $50 McDonalds cheeseburger, which would you accept?

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#592

Years ago the natural diamond in my wife's wedding ring fell out somewhere, so she stopped wearing the ring. When our 25th anniversary was coming up I asked her if she wanted to get a new ring. Our 20-something year old daughters got wind of this and said under no circumstances could we get a natural diamond. I'd never paid much attention to the issue since I hadn't been in the market for a diamond in the 26 since ye…

Very cool, and nice to see the customization worked out.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through this not that many years ago buying a ring for my SO. My biggest mistake was including her in the decision. She described what she wanted exactly– nothing gaudy or ostentatious, just a singular, tasteful stone on a plain band. Couldn't be simpler, could it? Finding stones that met her criteria was easy. Some were natural diamonds, some lab grown, many moissanite. From the outset, she said the meaning o…

Is this an American thing? I'm polish and this whole discussion is just mind boggling. I don't know anybody who would had such high (monetary wise) demands

Yep, to a large degree, at least. American thinking is thoroughly colonized by powerful corporations. In the absence of a real culture, you are left with consumerist zombies. So when Washington comes knocking at your door to "liberate you" and "spread freedom", just know that this is a large part of what they mean.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial instinct agreed with you,but I then wondered if there would actually be a relevant gender difference in answers. In western culture, still today I think,majority of men would be buying and majority of women would be receiving diamonds. It would be interesting if this affects answers. Would a buyer go for more practical cheaper option while receiver goes for more expensive traditional options? Or a differen…

> In western culture This phenomenon has to be more localized than Western culture (the worldwide diamond consumption hints at it being US-specific?) - I for example don't know anyone who even contemplated buying one for proposing. Granted, this is purely anectotal, but over extended family and workplace colleagues this includes a bunch of milieus.

Yes I do think it's an american thing to buy a separate engagement ring, having a prominent diamond, in addition to wedding rings (which often don't have diamonds).

My family in Europe doesn't have the whole engagement ring concept.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#596
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post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't view it as gaslighting, I viewed it in the way I said it: she may have not wanted to demand a 'genuine' diamond, so she left it open-ended. What woman wants to demand that when asked for preference? Demanding it would remove the sincerity and meaningfulness of the man's gesture. On the note of carnations for Valentine's Day, I'd view it in much the same way. Unless she's told you how much she adores and pref…

> Unless she's told you how much she adores and prefers carnations on Valentine's Day, roses are the best bet. Um, she did say with regards to the gem, that's the confusing part.

A woman saying she doesn't mind carnations, and that she thinks carnations are fine, is not nearly the same as saying she adores them and prefers them for the occasion of Valentine's Day.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will be hard, women are much more conservative and care more about traditions than men.

Interesting that you are downvoted when what you are saying is quite true.

It's downvoted because it's not true. There are tons of traditions that men follow too. Gender norms just lead to men and women following different traditions.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#600
post #595

Diamonds are not forever. They burn in a fire like any carbon.

Which is IMHO a really fun example of how how unintuitive these things can be. It's a really really hard rock, shouldn't it be really stable? But it just doesn't work like that.
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