Dear Economist,

Following the sudden and unexpected cessation of romance with a sustainable economic development researcher, am I due any recompense for giving up Christmas with my family and investing emotionally and financially in both a transatlantic flight and 11 of my 20 days of annual leave, given that there was the suggestion that ”next year we can spend it with your family” or indeed, that there would be a next year at all?

Regards,

Sophie, London

Dear Sophie,

Oh dear. You appear to have fallen for a variant of the oldest trick in the book: the promise that he will still respect you in the morning. Clearly, you are deserving of compensation, but that is hardly the point. The question is whether there is any prospect of you receiving it.

Life is full of situations in which we are asked to bear a cost today in exchange for a benefit later - salaries are typically paid in arrears, for example. We put up with the risk because we are relying on the reputation of the person or company we’re dealing with, usually backed by the courts.

If that reputation is worthless - say, he is a ”sustainable economic development researcher” - then the courts will have to do. In 1920s America, courts would enforce ”breach of promise” suits for ladies who had been promised marriage, slept with the cad and then been dumped - a situation not dissimilar to yours. Courts no longer do this, which is why it became traditional to supplement such proposals with non-refundable deposits, to be worn on the ring finger.

If you happen to have such a deposit, all is well. Otherwise, all you have received for your pains is a valuable lesson.

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