Ever wonder why some really plain guys have beautiful girlfriends? - (if you're a local, I'll bet you assume it's because the guy's rich.)
The locals may not be totally wrong
From what my GF told me, a woman here will seldom consider a guy which is of lower living standard than her. Not impossible, but you need to put in 2x the efforts. And they also assume the guy pays for everything and give her spending money ... Kinda far from the 50/50 we are used to where I come from.