Hey, Baby: What's Your Credit Score?

Forget about your sign, the new hot first date question is, "What's your credit score?" As the New York Times reports, more and more daters are getting questions about their financial history, and in some cases, a weak credit score (under 660) could yank some of those fish out of the sea. Daters looking for long-term love are often put off by a low score, since it could make it hard to get housing, good interest rates, and even cell phones.

Credit scores are a "shorthand way to get a sense of someone’s financial past the same way an STD test gives some information about a person’s sexual past," explains one financial expert. The focus on credit scores has even spawned dating sites such as CreditScoreDating.com, which carries the tagline "Good Credit Is Sexy." And the shift is all too clear for one woman spurned by an otherwise "perfect" date: She says she got a kiss-off text telling her it “wasn’t me, it was my credit score.” (More credit score stories.)