It describes itself as 'A safe place where women can come together, free from the scrutiny of feminists, and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships.'Dawn Spinner Davis, 26, recently signed up to Dating a Banker Anonymous after her husband stopped playing golf and she began to feel the pressures of supporting her 28-year-old private wealth manager man. Megan Petrus set up the group after her relationship with a trader of a major bank suffered when he seemed more concerned about a colleague being made redundant than her father having a heart attack.

She explained: 'One of his best friends told me that my job is now to keep him calm and keep him from dying at the age of 35 but it’s not what I signed up for.'Her situation is shared by Christine Cameron whose financial analyst boyfriend kept getting drunk and would disappear while they were out together, then accuse her the next day of being the one who had gone missing.

I will forgo my own opinions and analysis–I am sure you will reach your own with little difficulty.When a NEWSWEEK photographer asked for a Wall Street bar recommendation, she couldn't name a single one—although she'll have plenty of time to look into that now. In an editor's note prompted by questions from NEWSWEEK, the Times contended that the DABA girls had misled their reporter, that it should not have described the site as a support group and that it was caught unawares by word that much of the site's content was pixie dust. She insists that DABA is rooted in truth—the romantic ramifications of economic decline—and that she and Petrus launched it as a way to poke fun at themselves when the recession turned their men into "emotional train wrecks." "Did my boyfriend want to watch 'Gossip Girl' rather than hang out with me? "Yes." Her agency, Janklow & Nesbit, says that's enough for a book deal.Crowell was recently canned by her employer, the online fashion channel Style Caster, because DABA had become too much of a distraction. "It's a character," says agent Rebecca Gradinger, "but it's a little bit of them as well." Just not as much as everyone thought.If not, these bitches better start pumping out the little insurance policies before hubby marks them down and moves on to a younger, perkier model.Obviously, the site is a satire, and badly done at that.Last month, Dating a Banker Anonymous broke out as the hated, irresistible Website du jour, and it has earned its self-pitying, gold-digging authors some national press, not to mention promises from Hollywood agents of a "Real Housewives"–style media franchise. Crowell and Petrus fill the blog with a liberal mix of their own experiences, anecdotes from girls they meet out on the town and stories from people who e-mail the site, which they make no effort to verify.But hold on a minute—are the DABA girls even for real? DABA cofounder Laney Crowell tells NEWSWEEK that what The New York Times and many other outlets portrayed as a serious Web site is, in fact, a full-blown parody by Crowell and her sidekick Megan Petrus, a Manhattan lawyer. Often the DABA girls invent fresh details for maximum satirical effect."That isn't my life," says Crowell, 27, from a coffee shop near her apartment in New York's West Village. Given the recession, gloomy financial forecasts, tight purse strings, disappearing purses, pink slips, dirty linen and all of that – this is pop-ethnography at its best. If so, we are here to support you through these difficult times.Now, where’s the blog for the SOBS (Spouses of Banker S)?Women: it's urgently time to prefer guys working to end poverty and unburden the planet!-----Dating A Banker Anonymous Are you or someone you love dating a banker?The support group meets for lunches and cocktails where they share sad tales of credit card cancellations and reminisce about the good times, and have even launched an online blog to cope with the fallout of the financial crisis.Wall Street WAGs console themselves at the Dating a Banker Anonymous meetings and accompanying website (posed by model) The blog invites women to join 'if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life'.If you think bankers have got it tough on Wall Street as the economy crashes around them then spare a thought for their poor little rich girl WAGs.Supporting their greedy husbands in boom time came easy with a platinum credit card and a house in the Hamptons but the privileged princesses have found the pressures of tightening the purse strings, and the strains it puts on their relationship, so hard they've set up Dating a Banker Anonymous.