It is surely a mark of creeping dementia and my advancing years that I know, without any hesitation at all, that I just heard about this story but can't remember where. Perhaps in a work of fiction? Perhaps in a story about a young woman who became hopelessly depressed because of the casual loss of this tree? A young woman whose boyfriend didn't share her pain at its loss?
Ah! Eureka! It figured prominently in this book, which was only mediocre, despite having been on the "Employee Favorites" shelf at Maple Street Books, which is the best book shop in the country.
Alas, "mediocre" may be too harsh. The book was atmospheric, the prose occasionally gripping, the characters reasonably well drawn, but in the end, the sum of the parts didn't amount to too terribly much.
I dunno. I'd say it was the tree that had the bad day. Currey got a publication out of it, after all; he went on to be a full professor.
Visiting the bristlecone pine forest is definitely worthwhile.
Currey got a publication out of it, after all; he went on to be a full professor.
He got his vengeance on the world early, then?
Currey got a publication out of it
He used it for paper? Asshole.
Visiting the bristlecone pine forest is definitely worthwhile.
That's no way to talk about your mother.
||
I'm a total lame-o for being disappointed to learn my local free TV stations aren't carrying the Iowa debate, only to merrily discover that Fox News has it!
|>
4: Visiting the bristlecone pine forest is definitely worthwhile.
Especially if you need good firewood.
That's no way to talk about your mother.
Your mother, Flippanter, is like a purse: was mine, is his, and has been slave to thousands.
8: I've been mildly fussing lately, like in the back of my mind, about how actually-free TV doesn't show jack shit that's actually valuable for people who might not be able to afford cable, not to mention streaming internet TV, or whatever you call it. I don't generally think it's a good idea for media to go private and more expensive: not good for the polis.
(/end frowny disapproval face)
Who steals neb's mom steals trash.
This story was featured on an episode of "Radiolab" last year. Well worth the listen, as Radiolab always is. Apparently, the guy received a lot of hate.
13: That's where I first heard about it, in fact.
|| Bad day? Okay, I'll take that cue. As I left tonight, i snet him a text asking that, until he is willing to get into therapy, he never contact me again. I then deleted his contact info from my phone. I then successfully managed to delete without response each of the ensuing texts alternately apologizing and asking to confirm that I'd made it home safely. This episode was preceded by unkind words and fetal-position sobbing. It was succeeded by xanax and a short but (for me) fast run. I am now torn between drinking and weeping softly until I sleep. Both, I suppose. I am trying to decide which real life person I should put in charge of making sure I don't give in. It all very sad. |>
Oh noes! Di, we're here for you. As much as words on a blank screen can be, at any rate.
Yes, eep. Sending waves of sympathy into the aether!
I've been mildly fussing lately, like in the back of my mind, about how actually-free TV doesn't show jack shit that's actually valuable for people who might not be able to afford cable
I remember being told very seriously that Hong Kong's economic success was entirely due to the terrible quality of Hong Kong public television. You can't just sit around idly watching TV in Hong Kong all the time, it's unwatchable, so you are forced to go out and get a job just for something to do, and/or so you can afford cable or a laserdisc player. (This was some time ago.)
Sympathy to DK, definitely. THINGS WILL IMPROVE.
Di, I'm so sorry. That's great and really impressive that you were able to set a boundary about what you needed and stick to it, though. But yuck yuck yuck.
Thanks everyone. I'm an asshole magnet.
Maybe if you turned your asshole around, you'd repel them?
Or move to the Southern Hemisphere.
Thanks everyone. I'm an asshole magnet.
Present company excepted, I'm sure.
27: Present company doesn't woo me. If you were true assholes, you'd all be madly in love with me. (Um, anyone who might be harboring a secret crush... You might want to discuss it with your therapist.)
Ah, fair enough then. You sound slightly more cheerful now, incidentally, which is good.
Di, if I may share, as a fellow asshole magnet:
At least in my case, I attract assholes because straight men like to feel needed. When I have been out with "nice" guys, who I'm sure are genuinely nice with other people, they get frustrated with me because I don't need them. I'm pretty self-sufficient. And when I do need help with something, it's an actual thing I need help with, not to prop up my ego about how pretty I am or something. It takes me a long time to feel I'm in a loving, trusting relationship with someone, and I tend to get that from friends, so I don't ask men I date to love me; it seems a lot to ask, fairly inappropriate for an early-dating scenario, and unnecessary. Most of my friendships have grown really slowly and organically over long stretches of time; shouldn't love?
But the other thing I've noticed is that, for some stupid reason, this doesn't work with dating. I can't meet someone and say, "Hey, he seems kind of OK!" and then learn to appreciate his quirks. Or rather, I do it, and then realize I'm years deep into a relationship with someone who thinks it's totally inappropriate and stalkery if I ever call him on the phone, even to return his call. Or I think about all the nice things about seeing him (good cook! great sex! excellent taste in movies!) and I ignore stuff like he's mean to waiters or won't meet my friends. I develop affection for people who, at the bottom of it, aren't nice or thoughtful.
Why, I think, does this never happen with friends? I don't suddenly realize after three years of a friendship that my best friend is actually totally narcissistic and cruel. After three years of a friendship, my friend doesn't say to me, "Ugh, actually, that's a really big favor of you to ask me for, so probably not." Hell no! Friends are people I drop everything to go help put their beloved dog down when it's dying. But my "boyfriends" are people who are afraid I might ask to borrow a book for the weekend?
So, at long last, I think I have figured out somehow that friendships and dating don't work like each other. Nice men exist. Most of them date women who will appreciate their qualities. Women who want to get married immediately and have kids never seem to have much trouble doing so. Women who either don't or have learned not to ask for anything have a hard time attracting nice, thoughtful, generous, capable, emotionally present men because those guys want someone they can just pour love into. I'm not an empty vessel, love-wise, and you're not, either.
So I try to be aware of when I meet someone who is just decent and kind, apart from dating, and flag it in my brain. Usually they have girlfriends or wives already. But I try to remember what they're like, how they act, what they say when they talk about people, so I could maybe recognize it if I ever met one who was single.
29: Christ, of all the threads to link...
I say this only to suggest, possibly, that you have a great relationship with your daughter and an intelligent, purposeful, competent way about you that suggests there's nothing you expect your partner to do to complete or fix you. So yay because you're independent and awesome! But that also, I am guessing, comes, as it does for me, from having put up with so much unbelievable bullshit from relationships in the past that you don't really probe into the small failures of your new partner. You worry about being too hard on people. It's not low self-esteem that does it; it's being made ashamed of being a woman who already has a life.
Although the other bad guy mentioned in this thread is place where normally the men are FABULOUS!
Bummer, Di.
small failures of your new partner
Ah, what the hell. The "small" failures:
(1) he's a 37 year old man 12 (13?) years into grad school
(2) he has no job and astronomical debt
(3) he is critical of everyone he has ever encountered (e.g. "omg, that guy is wearing a brown belt with black shoes, what a loser!" Mind you, he's not actually all that snappy a dresser.)
(4) he spent his adolescence tormenting his sister about her weight
(5) his only real hobby is pot and Phish concerts when he can scrape together money for tickets
(6) he is socially inept (and yes, that is even compared with me)
33: Also, thank you. I do need to hear that.
33: Also, thank you. I do need to hear that.
37: Sadly, 5 is probably what would have broken the deal for me. 3 is the sort of thing I used to not mind because I thought, wow, this guy doesn't like anyone and he thinks I'm great! but once I hit about 24 I started to realize that, no, that guy hates me too.
he has no job and astronomical debt
You broke up with Greece?
37 -- Wow, sounds like a catch! Especially No. 5. I honestly think you could do better by standing outside of a supermarket with a sign saying "Free Sex for First Taker."
OTOH that guys like this hook up at all provides hope for men everywhere.
More seriously, sorry for what you're going through. You'll find someone better.
40: 5 was a big one, definitely. Takes vulnerable things you've shared to use against you in a fight? Non-fucking-negotiable.
37. Guh. I'm afraid your passing remark upthread about therapy comes into focus a bit here.
I think one of my other problems is that I get increasingly tolerant of and kind to people as I know them. Intimacy and familiarity make me nice. I start to think more purposefully about how to make someone happy as time goes by. I worry less about what I'm getting out of the relationship, and more about how to give them what they need.
This is not my experience of dating. Guys are as nice as they're going to be right at the beginning. I keep expecting that, if the relationship continues, he'll get increasingly invested in my well-being as I do in his, but this is just not the case. There comes a time when my jokes aren't funny any more, they are no longer interested in hearing about something I was thinking about, and my enthusiasm for sex becomes loathsome.
I've talked to a few straight guys who are friends about this, and they've said they experience it kind of 50/50 and it has nothing to do with whether they thought they were in love or not. This one he was in love with, but really started to hate being around after six months or so, despite "really" loving her, and that one he was in love with and wanted more and more and desperately tried to please as time went on but couldn't seem to make her happy.
OTOH that guys like this hook up at all provides hope for men everywhere.
"I might fall from a tall building. I might roll a brand new car.
'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman, that makes a Phish fan such a star."
This guy! He's like a condensation of all the totally inconsistent crap we put up with, all in one ad. He's clearly a stupid selfish liar, and even says so, but then wants to be praised for his honesty, humor, and masculinity. Awesome!
You'll find someone better.
Wasn't looking when I got together with him. Not looking now. I was happy being single and that's where I think I'll be staying.
wants to be praised for his honesty
OMFG. "But I was just being honest when I told you in that you were being a baby when you confided in me about being upset by abusive treatment from your family." In the middle of a fight. A day later. About something completely and utterly unrelated to my family issues. And I suppose it's true. He was being honest about the utter contempt he has for me as a person.
Takes vulnerable things you've shared to use against you in a fight? Non-fucking-negotiable.
Yep. Good for you to end it there.
He was being honest about the utter contempt he has for me as a person.
God, yes, this. But I never promised you I would be kind, remember? So it's like totally unfair to expect me to treat you better than a stray dog?
I don't suddenly realize after three years of a friendship that my best friend is actually totally narcissistic and cruel.
Dear God do I wish I could say the same. (Well, I suppose I didn't suddenly realize it, it's more that I saw the behavior but kept choosing to ignore it until I couldn't anymore.)
he is critical of everyone he has ever encountered (e.g. "omg, that guy is wearing a brown belt with black shoes, what a loser!" Mind you, he's not actually all that snappy a dresser.)
Shameful confession: I do this too. But at least I have the good sense to keep it to myself!
But 50 gets it exactly right.
Argh. But you've deleted him from your cell phone, and can happily think that your life is easier and pleasanter without him.
But now she might need a new pot connection.
I attract assholes because straight menmost people like to feel needed.
55: True fact -- have never even not-inhaled. No interest. I'm sure this comes as a huge surprise.
That was depressing and tragic a lede I could not bera to read the article. Does not happen often with me.
47: when I came across that earlier today, I thought, "boy, this would be an appropriate link for that Unfogged thread." And it was!
OT: So the Eleventh Circuit says the individual mandate in the health care bill is unconstitutional. I haven't read the opinion yet.
Apparently the dissent is rather fiery (from a Reagan appointee). And as this was an appeal of Vinson's hacktacular ruling so they overturned the rest of his crap. From the dissent:
"It would surely come as a great shock to Congress, or, for that matter, to the 47.5 million people covered by Medicare, the 44.8 million people covered by Medicaid, and the overwhelming number of employers, health insurers, and health care providers regulated by ERISA, COBRA, and HIPAA, to learn that, because the health care industry also 'falls within the sphere of traditional state regulation,' Congress was somehow skating on thin constitutional ice when it enacted these laws."
I'm going to have to read that, LB. I totally think that they should just raise taxes and give people a voucher (if single-payer is too unpalatable).
62: Without a mandate (or a single-payer system), it doesn't work.
37: Jeez, Di, the debt shouldn't matter too much if he were a good guy, but, what an asshole.
Parts of the opinion read exactly like the kind of overcooked, melodramatic bullshit you'd get from the "Tea Party*."
[T]he individual mandate exceeds Congress's enumerated commerce power and is unconstitutional. This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives. [emphasis added]
For their entire fucking lives! Oh boo hoo hoo.
*Like Dubina's Republican Congresswoman daughter, Martha Roby.
64: The debt matters because of how he accumulated it and how he has chosen to deal with it. Such as, e.g., deciding he would move here and not get a job. It was something I was prepared to work with him on, but lose a lot of sympathy when he decides he doesn't have to work because he can live with family rent free.
(He is also known to make jackass remarks about how anyone can get a job as a busboy, etc. So, you know, get off your ass and get one!)
Dubina is a true right wing hack of a judge.
Did they really rule that the bar on declining for pre-existing conditions stays in place, and the individual mandate is cancelled?
(Hope you're having a better day today, Di).
Because wouldn't that lead to insurance execs surrounding the courthouse with torches and pitchforks?
More like surrounding Congress with torches and pitchforks, I'm afraid.
69, 71: I think that's right, which actually strikes me as not all that bad an outcome if it sticks -- it puts the insurance companies in the hotseat for demanding a better written law.
73: It doesn't put just them on the hotseat. It also puts everyone with group insurance on the hotseat where can only be saved if Congress can come to a bipartisan deal because both parties have noticed that to fail to do so will damage America for no real reason at all. In other words, thinks could end badly.
Yeah, but the insurance companies are going down with us. Suicide pact!
If O can't demonize the folks who want to re-instate the pre-existing conditions ban on children, he can't demonize anyone.*
*Other than men in shackles long since cleared of even the suspicion of any wrong-doing. No problem demonizing them.
Doesn't matter who he demonizes if there is no exclusion for pre-existing conditions for adults and no individual mandate.
75: Hmm, so the Constitution is, in fact, a suicide pact. I could see the Roberts Court getting behind that interpretation.
I am fortunate enough to suffer under the yoke of a health insurance mandate. I was interested to find that, by American standards, my health insurance company pulls remarkably little profit. But then again, it is profitable, and no business ever shut down because it was only a little bit profitable, that I know of.
The health insurance mandate is one of a few Friedmanite programs that are imposed on me, and it's the only one (that I know of) that's any good. (The English expats I know are horrified of anything that's not the NHS, but I have no personal experience to know whether this is parochialism or genuine.)
Not to knock parochialism, or anything. I'm sure it can be quite genuine.
The thing is, no one (for "likely to be on the federal bench" values of "no one") thinks the mandate is really unconstitutional, AFAIK -- arguments that the law is unconstitutional are arguments about whether the right magic words were used. So if the insurance companies want the law fixed, it can be fixed (restored to the functionality it now has) without losing anything useful about it.
73, 75: But if there's an insure-everyone rule and no mandate, consumers still get screwed because the rates will be much too high. It's true that the insurers won't love the new system either, but there is plenty of pain for consumers in this world.
81: I really thought that was true a year ago, but I don't know how many federal judges have to rule the other way before I start believing that they mean what they say.
And supposing you're right about that, if you think that Congress is likely to re-pass any portion of the health-care reform law to fix a technicality any time in the next 5 years, well, I guess I wish I had your optimism.
83 -- Right, but they can't leave it in place as decreed by the 11th Cir.
84: I'll buy "really, really shouldn't," but I don't think "can't" or even "likely won't" is true. Behold the power of gridlock.
I really thought that was true a year ago, but I don't know how many federal judges have to rule the other way before I start believing that they mean what they say.
I'd have to go through opinions, but I thought they were all compatible with the 'magic words' explanation -- the issue is whether the mandate is enforced by a penalty or a tax. If it were always and everywhere described as a tax, the argument for its unconstitutionality (stupid to begin with) would dissolve.
The split, as far as I understood it, really is between judges who think that magic words trump substance and the wrong magic words were used, and judges looking at the substance. I don't think there's a ruling that says that the government couldn't do this through a tax.
But I really haven't read the opinions carefully, and it's possible I'm muddled.
I suppose the circuit will stay the mandate pending cert, which was always assured anyway. So no hostage crisis just yet.
LB, I'm a little baffled here. Even if the consequence of failing to do so is an otherwise-intact Obamacare without a mandate, do you really think a bill to reinstate the mandate in the form of an explicit tax could pass a GOP-held House and defeat a GOP-filibuster? If there's one thing the Republicans stand for, it's an allergy to explicit taxes. I just don't see how any Republican could possibly vote for such a thing.
With the entire health insurance industry twisting their arms? It could happen.
Maybe you're right, LB, but the snippets from the opinions that I can recall (and I haven't read today's, so I know only what's in the reports) have lots of high-flown rhetoric about unprecedented exercises of unlimited Congressional power. That's not consistent with the position that Congress could do exactly what it did here with slightly different verbiage.
I agree that the magic-words position is, while stupid, at least defensible, where the no-way-no-how position is completely contrary to many decades of settled law. Still, these guys really seem to be in tihe no-way-no-how camp.
Maybe I'm over emphasizing the problem. Would anything in the law stop employer-based group plans from continuing as before? Because if not, with the elderly and the employed taken care of, Congress might have less of a gun to the head & reasonable negotiation could happen.
I still think the only state of the world in which that happens is where the "mandate fix" is passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a President Romney. Otherwise, I think the primary-threat pressures by Tea Partyish/Norquist sorts will be too strong.
But then, maybe you're right about this opinion, at least: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/11th-circuit-broccoli-wins/
"The most you can say is 'two judges decided the individual mandate is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, but would have been constitutional if it had been more explicitly designed as a tax. The rest of health care reform is constitutional.'"
OK, so it goes to the Supremes no question. Opinion next freaking summer in the middle of the campaign? Roberts and Alito are an absolute lock, but are Thomas and Scalia? Wait a minute, what am I saying... never mind*. So it's all comes down to a profoundly confused man**. Congress will do nothing tat advances anything in any positive direction.
*Alito and Roberts are entirely consistent in their hackery, Harvard and Yale should be pulled to the ground and laid waste for having schooled them, but the other two will have to rise to the occasion, but I'm confident they can do it.
**I'm sure he really isn't, but his opinions and questions come off that way to me.
93: Here's the opinion from the Florida district court in the same action, and I think it's pretty clearly taking the "magic words" position. Check footnote 4 on page 4, saying that the Court has rejected the argument that the penalty is really a tax. The natural corollary is that it matters whether you call it a penalty or a tax, and therefore that if you called it a tax it would have been fine.
What is the practical difference between a "penalty" and a "tax"? Surely there is one, it's not just magic words, at least not at the margins. Hoping that a lawyer-type who has been skimming the opinions has the answer to this.
And here's the Virginia district court case -- check pages 33-36. It's clear that the court's relying on whether it's a "tax" or a "penalty" as a serious issue, and that if the mandate were related to a "tax", rather than enforced by a "penalty" it would have been fine.
It really is all about the magic words.
97 crossed with 96. Um, the difference they're arguing is that the intent is to enforce a regulation rather than to raise revenue. But it really is just magic words.
Hmm, well, the magic-words argument is a little more persuasive than I thought -- it rests on the reasoned assumption that Congress definitely doesn't think "tax" and "penalty" are the same thing since changing the terminology changed votes.
More than magic words, though, the opinion seems to rest on intent -- Congress can tax something in a way that penalizes it and that's OK because it's a tax, but it's not allowed to impose a financial punishment just by calling it a tax, if the intent is to punish and not to generate revenue.
ACA is a more complicated case, I think, where they want it to be a tax-that-penalizes, but they don't want to call it a tax, so they call it a penalty. Not sure if I can blame the judiciary for not choosing to read their mind in that way, though.
In my not-a-lawyer way I don't see why they can't just impose a penalty, and on this bit of ignorance I rest my support of the mandate. Too bad they couldn't just call it a tax, though.
(a) A "magic words" fix would work, though. Change the language, state that Congress's intent really is to raise money, and bobs your uncle. If Congress wanted to (insurance execs with pitchforks) there's no problem. (b) The argument that a penalty is impermissible under these circumstances is, independently, bullshit. My point was that even if you swallow the bullshit, it still rests on magic words.
It's interesting: there's no Commerce Clause limitation on the power to tax, which is why (for example) when Congress decided to ban marijuana in 1937, it did so by imposing a punitive tax for non-stamped products (and Treasury issued no stamps) so they could get you for tax evasion. Now I'm imagining an alternate history where NLRB vs. Jones & Laughlin went the other way, but the New Deal was re-implemented by means of income taxes for non-compliers.
100: Politically, how feasible is that fix? I mean, I haven't done any serious thinking or anything, but if we wind up with Obamacare minus individual mandates, that's an improvement, right?
if we wind up with Obamacare minus individual mandates, that's an improvement, right?
Not really, no. You need the pool to include everyone -- young and old, healthy and sick -- in order for the program to function.
Also, and more important, I'm sorry you're suffering at the moment. I hope everything works out.
It's late, and it's Friday, so instead of getting into this let me just say that 99.95% of all US lawyers, including conservative Republicans, would have laughed the constitutional argument raised about the individual mandate out of court three years ago. I mean, it's just a dumbass argument. That some conservative Republicans aren't doing so now and two hacks on the 11th Circuit were willing to go along tells you a lot about the state of American law.
tells you a lot about the state of American
There was something on the front page at TPM suggesting that movement conservatives smell blood in the water and think that they can tear down the last of the remaining New Deal edifices, including in the law. It's pretty stark, really, and unfortunately the president is lending aid and comfort to the enemy.
103: If you included only the young and healthy, it would work great from the underwriter's point of view.
The tax/penalty issue reminds me not of poetic niceties great or small* but the fact, brought home to me today by a brief yet important document that no one has bothered to read for several months, that people in the financial and legal sectors tend to be crappy, thoughtless, no-one-will-care/someone-else-will-freshen-this-up writers. Poor Wallace Stevens is spinning in his grave.
Drunk on the wind in my mouth,
Wringing the handlebar for speed,
Wild to be wreckage forever.
Won't the Roberts court just solve the problem by striking down the pre-existing conditions part too? I'm sure they can find some [spins wheel] 1st amendment grounds. Or maybe have some fun with the 14th amendment. No wait, I'm sure there's something in the 11th amendment. No, no, actually it was outlawed when we repealed Prohibition. That's how the founders wanted it, anyway and we're not going to let any activist judges say otherwise.
can i drunk blog? i'm drunk blogging! met two very aweme friends for drinks/dinner. had several. smart friend insisted on driving me home. stupid me got on my bike and rode to my car. it's hard to cycle drunk -- did you know? smoking a few camels sand trying to decide when driving home will be non-reckless. drunk college kids are providing entertaintment,
I'm waiting in an airport! I must say that it doesn't sound like driving is the BEST idea.
This is obviously too late to influence events, but I do hope you get home safely, Di, even if you ought not to have driven. I'm still rather puzzled by the curious logistics that apparently involved driving to point A, then biking to destination B for dinner.
As for me, I volunteered this evening at a restaurant's food tent in this weekend's ongoing music festival, which was an interesting experience--my first, ever, of actually dealing with customers! I think I did okay.
105 and 109: Right. LB's characterization of the Right's argument charitably (though certainly not naively) assumes that the conclusions are meant to follow from the argument, rather than vice versa. Had it not been penalties and taxes, it would have been something else.
I'm not being charitable, I agree that it's obvious bullshit. But talking about how to respond to something, part of what you have to do is talk about what they say the problem is.
||
Wow. Just had a dream that I was the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Except! I was the awesome Rainbow Queer Jesus, and Original Jesus was (a) my father, and (b) evil, and he'd thrown in with a bunch of evil fundamentalist Christians, who were essentially also Satanists, and who were going to crucify me and all the friends I'd made on Earth in this incarnation. But then I was going to be resurrected and kick all their asses. It was messed up.
||>
Home safely. Waited several hours before driving, used the internet to confirm that enough time had indeed passed to make it legal. Biking back to point A to get the car, alas, was not the stupidest thing I did last night.
114: Yes. So, The natural corollary is that it matters whether you call it a penalty or a tax, and therefore that if you called it a tax it would have been fine they would have a found a different objection.
114: Yeah. I was trying to convey that I knew you knew this. And I'm interested in the actual argument, and am too lazy to figure it out myself. So thanks.
But ... in the end, I suspect that this isn't in any meaningful sense about the argument.
How many Justices do you think will vote to overturn some part of ACA? I'd bet on 4 votes, because I think there are four votes that don't much care about the argument.
116: And now you have sixty iPhones to sell.
And now Rahm's front quarter panel has a dent shaped like your shoe.
118: I'm just feeling cranky with the law in general. At the trial court level where I practice, it's fairly intellectually rigorous -- precedent and statute give you fairly unambiguous answers in almost all situations.
Appellate decisions, OTOH, have an awful lot of bullshit in them, and talking about them as if there were a real theoretical underpinning makes me tense and annoyed. I do it, because you can't do what I do (reading appellate law to get answers at the trial level) without engaging with the purported theoretical structure, but a lot of it is just contemptible, both in terms of honesty and competence.
I'd be really susceptible to the originalist temptation, if it weren't self-serving dishonest bullshit like everything else.
Biking back to point A to get the car, alas, was not the stupidest thing I did last night.
But was he hott?
And now you have to be really careful with the remaining kidney.
And now she has to rely on the Schaumburg PD not having the sophistication to know you can get fingerprints from an egg plant.
Don't worry, not everybody loved The Picasso.
I'm only giving half-assed compliments today.
Nothing nearly as exciting as all that. Deleting contact from a phone, it turns out, does not prevent drunken emailing. On the plus side, I am pleasantly surprised with how well my grammar, punctuation, and diction held up under those conditions. But not fair -- to either of us -- to give him the false impression that I'm open to communication. I mean, I was sort of a bitch in how I described things above. But the bottom line is that he needs some serious help. All of those terrible things I said aren't, I don't think, truly reflective of a character flaw so much as being symptoms of some deeper problems that I think a therapist could possibly help him get through. He has a lot of really great people in his life who are patient and understanding with everything, and I think maybe all that patience is enabling him to avoid confronting what he needs to confront.
I know, I know. I'm doing a terrible job of letting go.
I'm giving half-assed compliments and DK is giving kid-gloved criticism. Let's all go have a meh day.
Anyway, getting drunk and not doing anything all that stupid sounds like a reasonable response on your part.
ere's a funny legal story. Company A sues company B on a contract in the courts of a country in which they are both located. Company B points out that the contract has an arbitration clause, and asks the court to dismiss the suit. The court does so. Company A commences an arbitration against Company B.
As it's moving along, Company B decides it would rather be in court after all. So it commences a suit in the same court, asking for a declaration of rights and money due under the contract. Company A points out that its name is wrong in the complaint, and the correction is made. Company A then asks that the suit be dismissed because (a) the contract has an arbitration clause, and the arbitration is nearing completion and (b) the court ruling dismissing the prior suit is preclusive.
Ruling: not preclusive, because not a ruling on the merits, and the Air clause was waived by Company A when it corrected its name. Court case goes forward.
132: Wow! This will make for a nice appeal....
First, though, the arbitrator will make a final award, and then the court appointed expert will present a report based on evidence that will be quite different (but will likely include the award).
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Bleg: the floor guy is an utter jackass who has been jerking us around for the past six months. Our contractor has really been great, and replaced the floor guy on some of the tasks, but floor guy was still supposed to do the linoleum.
Floor guy is endless with the excuses and procrastination. Any excuse in isolation sounds reasonable - today, his helper buddy is sick. So they'll definitely be here Monday and Tuesday. Of course.
I want an effective way to say to him "If this doesn't get done on Monday and Tuesday, I'm going to write a scathing review of you on Yelp." What's the best way to leverage this threat into him actually showing up and finishing the damn job?
|>
Appellate decisions, OTOH, have an awful lot of bullshit in them, and talking about them as if there were a real theoretical underpinning makes me tense and annoyed.
Boy is this ever true in land-use law.
96
What is the practical difference between a "penalty" and a "tax"? ...
I think there is a difference at least to a moral person. Paying a tax does not imply that you did anything wrong, paying a penalty does.
Of course Oliver Wendell Holmes in a famous essay argued that a bad man will not care much about this difference.
Is no one around to hear my bleg? They're only open for another two hours today, for me to craft my effective threat.
136: I have no idea. Not wanting to deal with that kind of stuff is why I tried to re-grout my own bathroom. The combination of those two things is why I now stand on plywood when I go to the bathroom.
129
Nothing nearly as exciting as all that. Deleting contact from a phone, it turns out, does not prevent drunken emailing. On the plus side, I am pleasantly surprised with how well my grammar, punctuation, and diction held up under those conditions. But not fair -- to either of us -- to give him the false impression that I'm open to communication. I mean, I was sort of a bitch in how I described things above. But the bottom line is that he needs some serious help. All of those terrible things I said aren't, I don't think, truly reflective of a character flaw so much as being symptoms of some deeper problems that I think a therapist could possibly help him get through. He has a lot of really great people in his life who are patient and understanding with everything, and I think maybe all that patience is enabling him to avoid confronting what he needs to confront.
Any woman who expects to significantly change a man is likely deluded.
The key thing to remember is that subfloor is still floor.
Any woman who expects to significantly change a man is likely deluded.
That's absurd. Women make contractors show up and install floors all the time. I just don't know how they do it.
Aside from this one guy, we've had very competent builders. But this fucker, gah. He's both condescending and incompetent. His little worker bee college kid helpers are condescending as hell, too.
Any woman who expects to significantly change a man is likely deluded.
I'm with James here.
145: Well, he's officially working for the contractor. The contractor already got someone else to do 75% of what this guy was originally going to do. I would have fired him a long time ago, but I don't fault how the contractor has handled it.
Then I'd threaten him with going to the contractor (again?). If he gets the bulk of his work from a few contractors, that's where he is vulnerable.
I guess my question is: how do you make a threat that spurs action, instead of a reaction of defensiveness/inactivity/more bullshit?
I mean, I assume you've talked to the contractor before, but you could explicitly demand he be replaced. I'd guess the contractor doesn't need much of a push because eventually, this will stop the contractor from getting a payment.
In general I don't believe threats work, but I also don't believe he'll show up on Monday and finish the linoleum, and I want to punch him, and the only tool I have is that I'll write him horrible online reviews if he doesn't get his act together.
(The contractor is furious at this guy. But if we fire him then it will just take longer, is his thinking.)
149: In this kind of a situation, where there is no long term relationship, you can only make a threat that spurs action if you can withhold a check from that person.
Also he's the owner of the floor company. Otherwise I'd let his boss know how frustrated we've been.
152: Damn. That's probably the case. And that's not in my hands.
Can you call the contractor and say, "He's delaying again! This is really becoming a problem -- is there anyone else you can hire?" And maybe that will make the contractor lean on him? I have no idea. Dude needs a terrible Yelp review anyway.
(But not til he lays the lino. If it has to be him.)
The contractor has been in the loop on all this constantly. He kept trying to meet with the floor guy before going out of town, but the floor guy stood him up, and so it was me in person and the contractor on the phone yesterday. Last night I asked him "Is Ron a moron or a perfectionist? Are any of these concerns credible or does he just need me to hold his hand?" The contractor was like "I really have no idea why he's stalling, but the concerns are not real. If you can say anything that gets him going, go for it."
Maybe I will call the contractor and see about having someone else come in to finish the job, though.
Left a message with the contractor. That would be great.
I cannot wait to write his review on Yelp. So satisfying.
logistics that apparently involved driving to point A, then biking to destination B for dinner.
Eh. Could be worse.
My question is, how risk-averse are you for delays? If this guy is so unreliable, it makes me think that he could keep you hanging another 2-4 weeks or just as easily another six months - complicating the question of whether it would be faster or slower to get someone else. Also, past a certain point the sunk-cost fallacy can kick in (even with skilled people like your main contractor), horribly dragging everything out even more. Personally, I'd be more risk-averse, i.e., preferring someone reliable scheduled to come in three weeks than someone unreliable in two. But I don't know what the estimated time periods actually are.
Also, obviously, simply waiting for this guy to come in regardless of his flakiness seems like rewarding bad behavior and making things worse for the next person who hires him. But that's probably not very different from business as usual in the contracting world. I speak as someone who's never owned a house and hopes never to.
Finally, when you said above he was incompetent, did you mean just business-wise or also technically? If the latter, I'd drop him totally, since in addition to the scheduling unreliability, you're also at risk for slipshod work requiring fixing.
I dont know if he's technically incompetent, because I haven't seen anything he's done. Businesswise, he's an idiot. We sat around waiting for blue tiles which were on back order. I asked if I could get the rest of the tiles so that I could play around with layouts. The contractor said sure and retrieved them from the floor guy...and the blue tiles were there all along. That kind of thing.
To your question about risk aversion, I think I'd prefer to fire him and have the contractor hire a new floor guy altogether. I think the contractor is indeed suffering from the sunk costs fallacy.
Which lets you (a) deprive him of money and (b) spread the word about him on Yelp. The most to the greater good, I think.
Plus I'd get a bit of revenge-feeling without actually misbehaving.
Possibly. This is the exact same thing that jroth postponed his final walkthrough over.
||
The neighbors are moving! Big truck and everything. Heh. My noisier, more confrontational, more social friend moves in with me this very afternoon. They're going to miss her by hours and never know that I was the quiet peaceful one.
You'll fault me or not as you do, but truly, I am not out of place in this neighborhood. Semi's delivering paper to the newspaper nearby, noisy and profane street traffic, cops visiting across the street. My music, held relatively although not absolutely quiet during their stay, was only part of their problem.
I hope they enjoy the suburbs more.
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169: Victory!
With three weeks left to go in this apartment, I have been graced with wretched neighbors. The loud, constant music I can tolerate. I'll complain about the howling, yelling, and otherwise loud party-esque noises late on a Thursday night but deal with it. But what I can't deal with is - in the 5 days that they've been here - being awoken twice (and unable to get back to sleep ) by incredibly loud conversations/yelling at 3 am outside, when we're all sleeping with windows open because it's the summer and this courtyard amplifies all noise 100%. They're college students, school hasn't started yet, and I'm telling myself that they don't quite realize the acoustics of the situation, but I'm incredibly glad to be moving. I'd also take Meagan and her naked music listening ways any day.
169: woo!
Well-matched neighbors are truly a blessing. We got lucky with the upstairs set, who seem to be very outgoing and social and artsy, and have invited us to do stuff with them a bunch, which is great. They often take out everybody's garbage/recycling, not just their own, and they're enthusiastic about my roommate's plans to turn the back yard into a lovely shared space.
The only anxiety-provoking aspect is this: will having slept with one of them a week and a half ago disrupt the delicate dynamics of early neighborship/friendship with the whole group? I do hope not.
No, it was; I thought so, anyway. Still, sex does often complicate things. She's also in a relationship, though not an exclusive one, and super busy. It makes me feel more anxious about making "hey want to go do something fun?" overtures to any of them, for fear of it now having "whoa obsessed stalker guy!" connotations, as opposed to the entirely accurate "whoa desperate friendless guy!" connotations I was more comfortable with.
Maybe you could become an obsessed stalker and see if your comfort with the earlier connotations derived from their accuracy.
Sounds precarious but possibly great.
An intriguing suggestion, but I think I'd rather allow that particular uncertainty to remain unresolved.
171/173: Lemme guess, they're burners? In that case they're completely used to both obsessed stalker guys and desperate friendless guys, and either way you're good.
177: ha! I'm impressed by your perspicacity. She is--and that's part of her current busyness, she's getting ready; I don't think the other three are.
Oh, and: Shearer's 138,
I think there is a difference at least to a moral person. Paying a tax does not imply that you did anything wrong, paying a penalty does.
is wrong if it's taken as a full-throated endorsement of that belief--while the creation of a law does change the moral landscape somewhat, right and wrong aren't putty that a democratic state can simply twist into its preferred shape.
Still, there's a real and interesting point there, though it's one where both intutions and more scholarly arguments are, I think (as with much political philosophy) still sort of stuck in an 18th C., pre-administrative state world.
Any woman who expects to significantly change a man is likely deluded.
That's a fascinating insight, James. Has nothing to do with the thought I was expressing. But still. Fascinating. You're wisdom on human relationships is legendary.
37: 4) is the bad news. Bullying pig fuckers rarely improve, they just adapt to the reality of superior power.
180
That's a fascinating insight, James. Has nothing to do with the thought I was expressing. But still. Fascinating. You're wisdom on human relationships is legendary.
You take a jerk and send them to therapy what you have is a jerk in therapy. When they stop going to therapy what you have is a jerk who used to be in therapy.
And is it just me or does this guy sound an awful lot like UNG, an unemployed layabout looking for someone to support them?
I just had a beer and exchanged stories with a couple of guys from thedirty.com. 1-2 million hits per day. Have you people heard of this thing?
You take a jerk and send them to therapy what you have is a jerk in therapy.
Which seems fine since I'm not a therapist and every hour a jerk is in therapy is an hour they can't interact with me.
183: There was something... Ah, on this very blog in fact.
173: Last summer when I was in SF, one of my roommates and a guy living on the first floor were sleeping together. She was in an exclusive relationship; he wasn't. It ended with friends of hers (also residents of the same building) staying over as a nightwatch a couple of nights, locks being changed, and him moving out a bit earlier than his lease was supposed to end.
Something to aspire to.
Burners are the new hippies, it seems.
Rather OT: Lawyers: what is with the highlighting? From what I can tell, all you guys highlight the hell out of your law books while in law school. Which, fine, I guess, but honestly, does it really help? Is it a rule or something? One must highlight, because it's the only way?
That is. Highlighting never seemed helpful to me in any way when reading and studying. So this puzzles me.
Any woman who expects to significantly change a man is likely deluded.
This is something of a cliche, and for very good reason, but I'm going to take a contrarian view.
I'm a different man because of the woman I married. (Indeed, I'm a different man for both women I've married.)
I was always honest, responsible, and hard-working. I always drank too much.
I was also arrogant, selfish, self-involved, non-empathetic, discourteous and physically inactive. In these latter categories, I've improved a lot, and a lot of the credit properly goes to the women I've married.
It's fashionable nowadays to say (as I think you've said, James) that people don't change - that one's heredity locks a person in to certain modes of behavior. I actually take that claim quite seriously, but I think it leaves a lot unexplained.
Here's what I'd say: There are basic human attributes - integrity is an example; laziness is another - that aren't likely to change. There are other attributes - more superficial, perhaps, but extremely important to many people - that are, in fact, mutable.
Highlighting never seemed helpful to me in any way when reading and studying. So this puzzles me.
Regardless of whether it's helpful, highlighting a book always struck me as desecration. I'd never do it.
Many books are commodities, vehicles. I just don't get why highlighting helps.
I'm a different man because of the woman I married. (Indeed, I'm a different man for both women I've married.)
Sure, but if it took a bunch of work by two different women just to deal with one guy's rough edges, you can see why women might not want to try it.
193: Well, and another reason not to try it is that treating a person like a project, like some thing you can fix, is kind of a dick move. People change one another all the time. If a relationship isn't a significant part of your growth as a person, a factor in how you develop, well that just seems weird.
...treating a person like a project, like some thing you can fix, is kind of a dick move.
If you're really gentle with the sandpaper and use a high quality shellac, you can make people shiny.
It's fashionable nowadays to say (as I think you've said, James) that people don't change
I did agree above that it's delusional to think you'll change someone. However, let me qualify:
1. People change all the time. Just not the way you've planned.
2. I didn't think Di was trying to change her guy.
Highlighting never seemed helpful to me in any way when reading and studying
I second this.
It doesn't help you organize material, make connections, or save time on reviewing the material later. All it does is make your first quick pass through tedious. Maybe the point is to help you hold your attention on task.
People change all the time. Just not the way you've planned.
I second this.
That's why you try the shellac on an inconspicuous area before you do the whole person.
The only useful highlighting I did on paper was when I had a bunch of printouts of correspondence - like, over 1000 pages printed from microfilm, this was in the old days - and I used a four color system. It helped with the research I was doing but I never wrote down the key and when I looked at it again a few years later, I was glad I was on to other things as it would have taken a while to figure out what each color was supposed to mean.
I do a fair bit of highlighting in pdfs. But it's essentially a form of note-taking and anyway, it's not nearly as tedious. Plus, you can usually search just the highlights.
190.last makes a good point.
There are basic human attributes - integrity is an example; laziness is another - that aren't likely to change. There are other attributes - more superficial, perhaps, but extremely important to many people - that are, in fact, mutable.
F'r instance: I used to wear makeup and paint my nails and so on. Now I've become somewhat of a hippie, political junkie, mostly vegetarian. I can credit involvement with a series of men -- as well as with their friends and way of life -- with that change, to tell you the truth, though it happened 20 years ago now, and they didn't try to change me in any way. I was just attracted to and enjoyed the new perspective. It fit.
I remain, though, full of integrity and somewhat lazy. Also an, erm, intellectual. That's pretty unchangeable.
194
Well, and another reason not to try it is that treating a person like a project, like some thing you can fix, is kind of a dick move. ...
Well I think cutting off contact with someone because they won't go into therapy is kind of a strange move. Of course I think therapy is a bunch of nonsense but it would really have to have magical properties to make any significant difference to the guy described in 37. Who would probably manage to find a therapist who would take his side on everything. Btw who would be paying for this?
I sort of lost track of my point, there.
196
2. I didn't think Di was trying to change her guy.
So what was she trying to accomplish by pushing him to go to therapy?
After Jammies and I had been seeing each other a few months, I told him it was over unless he saw a therapist for a while. I had no delusions that he'd change because I thought he should be different, but unless he developed some conflict resolution skills - ie you have got to talk to the person you're in a relationship with about the stuff that bothers you - we were going to be toast. It is untenable to never bring stuff up. And within a few sessions he started bringing stuff up with me, and we could then talk about it. I think he only went for a few months, but that jumpstarted him.
206 before seeing 205. To answer 205 more directly, I wanted Jammies to go to therapy because I didn't want to date someone who lacked the skills of discussing intense topics. I suppose that falls under the giant umbrella of changing someone, but asking someone to develop a skill isn't asking a leopard to change its spots.
206/7 seems a really smart strategy!
Of course I think therapy is a bunch of nonsense
James, have you ever actually been in therapy, or is this another one of those cases where you're reasoning from first principles again?
(Secondarily, do you make any distinction between different kinds of therapy?)
I'm impressed by your perspicacity.
Don't be! It's a simple consequence of having lived here for a while, not any particular skill or perceptiveness on my part.
206 is interesting. I wonder if there might be an age/generational difference here in perspectives on therapy.
When I was in my, say, late 20s, it would never have occurred to me that I or anyone I was involved with should go to therapy to address an inability to talk. Rather, we'd just break up. The acceptability, viability, and perceived merit of therapy has changed quite a bit in the last decade or two.
209
James, have you ever actually been in therapy, or is this another one of those cases where you're reasoning from first principles again?
Actually I was dragged to family therapy as a small child but I don't remember much about it.
My low opinion of therapy is based on the lack of evidence that it works.
211: I've never asked anyone to go to therapy to gain skills, but probably part of the reason it strikes me as a good idea was being in therapy as a youngster - something probably more common for my generation than yours. (Pretty much the only thing I see as high-value from my therapy - beyond having had an ally outside of the family (important enough not to discount, I suppose) - were some conflict-resolution skills. Though I'm kind of crap at using them.)
It only occurred to me because I'd found therapy so immensely helpful. At that point I was only going in for occasional tuneups, and out of affection for my therapist, but I did a year and a half of hard work around age 25-26. And sent jammies to my therapist, which slightly rigged things in my favor, except she was indisputably amazing.
I might clarify that I went to therapy for about 6 months when I was 25 or so, and it helped tremendously (absolutely wonderful woman): I learned to ask myself things like "What do you want to happen? Is what you feel inclined to do likely to achieve that? If not, maybe you shouldn't do that. Why do you want to do it?" And so on.
Extremely helpful, and obviously I remember it. I was also pretty vulnerable and open at the time, and we had a real rapport. I cried fairly often; she actually did as well at our last session.
But I sought therapy on my own, then. Being told you should see a therapist strikes me as something different.
215: I think how you phrase it matters. "You're fucked up, go get therapy" is a lot different than "Hey, we don't seem to be able to discuss certain topics. Would you consider going to this therapist I visit to learn some helpful techniques?" Then again, I'd think with many people any such discussion would be problematic. Thankfully, none of this seems to be an issue in my relationship.
I don't think I phrased it as gently as the latter option.
217: Well, you're a stronger (not really sure how to put this, exactly, but I'm going with it) personality than me in most respects. I'm pretty sure if that scared Jammies, it would have scared him before you had that conversation. And I'm occasionally tactful to a fault.
216: Yeah, "You're fucked up, go get therapy" isn't likely to go over well with many people who are (just) suffering from an inability to communicate. With those who are more fucked up than that, maybe it's warranted.
Also, I'm not used to thinking of therapists as, like, life coaches.
And don't think we haven't noticed. We all wait until you're in a safe place before we slip.
220 to 218.last.
219: I don't think of CBT therapists as life coaches, per se, but I do see them as offering life skills, techniques to deal with problems you face. And perhaps that's part of the difference - it didn't seem to me that heebie was suggesting jammies go into psychoanalysis to explore his issues, but instead to develop a skill, as you might with CBT.
220: And it's true that I've never been in a major earthquake caused by the San Andreas! Thank you!
Well, there's "I want you to go to counseling to work through relationship issues" and there's "You have a serious problem that you need to address before I can be in a relationship w/ you." I mean, I do absolutely agree that being told you need to see a therapist is different. I think there are situations where it's the loving thing to do.
223: IME, it's not so helpful (at first) to be forced into therapy, but what gets you there are generally wake-up calls of some sort or another. Something like a loved one telling you that they can't be with you in your current emotional state is definitely a good wake-up call. And I think it is perfectly reasonable* to tell someone that for your own mental health you can't be in a relationship with them until they deal with their issues.
*Not that what I think matters much.
I don't understand enough about the nature of Di's ex-beau to say. We're all pretty aware, I figure, that weird power dynamics emerge if one party says to the other that he needs to see a therapist to work on his issues (or however it's phrased). It does kind of cast a pall on future equality of relationship.
It does kind of cast a pall on future equality of relationship.
Really? I wouldn't think that would necessarily arise at all.
224*: Of course it matters! I value your opinion, and agree with 224 from start to finish. I do find it difficult to differentiate "I can't be with you unless/until..." from thowing down an ultimatum, at least from the perspective of the person on the receiving end. I am leaning, at this point, toward just going with "I can't be with you right now." Period. If he chooses therapy, yay. If not, that's his decision. If the day comes that things are different and we want to try again, then when that day comes, we'll go with it.
226: Well, right. It would be a different case entirely if i were purporting to be a model of psychological stability. He knows I'm my own special flavor of fucked up. I've needed help at different times and got it. There is (or should be) no shame in admitting when you need help.
We're all pretty aware, I figure, that weird power dynamics emerge if one party says to the other that he needs to see a therapist to work on his issues (or however it's phrased). It does kind of cast a pall on future equality of relationship.
What Paren said. That doesn't follow at all. (And despite your parenthetical, the way it's phrased makes quite a difference.)
226: I think it makes a difference whether the entreaty is to see a therapist in order to gain communication skills, or in order to work on your personal issues (which makes it sound like there's something wrong with you, the person, you). In the latter case, I can easily see the person feeling like now they're always going to be potentially looked upon as the fucked-up one.
I'm not being very clear; it's late. Bed time.
I do think what Parsimon is saying makes sense from the perspective of a culture that still to a significant degree stigmatizes this sort of thing. If you suggest someone have a mole looked at because, it wouldn't create equality issues. But unfortunately, people still treat mental health issues as if they were a moral failing.
231 makes sense, particularly if you take 230 to be assuming that the person who suggested therapy sees themselves as morally superior for having some measure of mental health. And I do see how in an unhealthy relationship - or coming from a person who didn't mean it with love - such a statement could be utterly damaging to a relationship. But if we're assuming as I was that the two individuals are loving adults - I don't see how it implies inequality.
Hmmm. I definitely endorse 190, indeed even a more radical version as far as mutability goes. i'm a contemptible human being, but I would have been much much much worse were it not for various girlfriends.
And re: 188-- thanks, I'm always looking for new narratives of doom to aspire to and internalize!
God, I wish someone I'd dated had made me a better person. My friends have helped a lot. Dating has improved my.... taste? In some things? I guess? It's occasionally been good for me sexually, and that is totally important and meaningful. But I would definitely be a better person, barring frustration-induced homicide, if I were a virgin.
You old people have such a plodding drawn out way to deal with break ups,
I say with sympathy.
Modern Love, Facebook era:
In that pursuit, organizers encouraged the crowd to eschew parting ways over text message or Facebook, the most common teen breakup methods. (A bisexual 15-year-old confessed in a morning session that she learned that her girlfriend of two years had dumped her only when she changed her relationship status to single.) Attendees were advised -- with mixed results -- to bravely confront the awkwardness of face-to-face breakups. When the facilitator in a session titled "Breakups 101" suggested that teenagers meet with "and come to an agreement or mutual understanding" with a soon-to-be ex, a skeptical 19-year-old nearly leapt out of her chair in protest. "So, you're telling me that you're crying at night, you're not sleeping, you're eating all this food to make you feel better, and you're supposed to just come to an agreement?"
That sounded like wishful thinking to at least one teenager, who insisted that dating in high school is for suckers. "Who needs the drama?" she said, adding that many peers choose friendships or casual sexual relationships over formal romantic ones. "I've got enough problems without some stupid boy breaking up with me on Facebook."
Ha. I have literally never been broken up with to my face, nor not even on the phone, and I am almost 32. In many cases, they don't bother telling me we're not seeing each other any longer in any way.
insisted that dating in high school is for suckers
Maybe so, but you still have to cool out your marks.
I will never cease to be shocked and horrified by AWB's dating c.v.
They're all perfectly nice people until you get to know them. I'm not attracted to assholes.
Maybe this is just a Kael ' no one I know voted for' thing, but still: I just can't imagine a person who would do the various things you've reported here. I either keep being shocked and horrified, or radically revise my already deeply hostile view of men.
Sure, but if it took a bunch of work by two different women just to deal with one guy's rough edges, you can see why women might not want to try it.
Oh yes, absolutely. Didn't mean to imply otherwise.
Actually, hey, I take what I said back, completely. After 3 hours spent as a fly-on-the-wall at a reasonably upscale bar, I'm no longer remotely surprised by AWB's dating history, and think that the only hope for the future comes in eliminating my gender entirely, and reproducing the species through IVF cloning &c.
210: Don't be! It's a simple consequence of having lived here for a while, not any particular skill or perceptiveness on my part.
Don't sell yourself short. Some weirdos can't even recognize faces.
There are basic human attributes - integrity is an example ... / I remain, though, full of integrity
For awhile, I had a fantasy of making my Second Book "Against Integrity," (in the R Dworkinian sense) because I thought that would be a nice provocative yet legit and unexploited area. I still think that, though no longer have any plans to mine that particular seam myself.
But anyway: integrity is not only deeply overrated as an explanatory psychological principle for human action, it's also (in these days of 80 year lifespans) overrated as a regulative principle for a life well lived. We change. We're not who we once were. I was once president of the U of C Libertarian Society. I'm over it. We all should be.
(Not that anyone's giving me shit about that last bit. You know what I mean!)
Not that anyone's giving me shit about that last bit.
Lots of people have gone to U of C. It's not *that* bad.
63: I was unduly brief, Moby. The only difference in what I'm saying is that people would not be penalized for failing to go out and buy insurance. We'd all be taxed and given a voucher for a mid-level plan. If you didn't pick one, you'd be assigned to one. You'd get universal insurance, but instead of saying you, Moby, have to pay insurance company X money. It would be you, Moby, and everyone else have to pay taxes. In echange we'll give you a voucher for health insurance. There would be no reason not to use it. I think that it's a lot more workable administratively (if not politically) than fining people for failure to buy insurance.
At the risk of revealing (reaffirming) what a big, melodramatic baby I am, I just have to say that I feel totally twisted up inside and I can't stand feeling like this and it just really, really sucks.
I know mental health professionals (those dealing with severe mental illness) who hate psychotherapy. They prefer psych rehab--teaching skills to succeed at tasks, like showing somebody how to search for a job and the path to accomplishing their goals--more like coaching.
I try not to get in fights with these people.
Hey now! I know some great men: sweet and smart and funny. I know lots of men like that, actually.
T-Paw dropped from the race. I think this helps Romney by making him the only candidate for the sane-ish.
1. I have not had many relationships of the kind that require a breakup. Most of my best and most intimate sexual relationships have not really had a formal beginning or end, and we had other partners at the time--sometimes, at the same time! But I have had a few of what are traditionally referred to as "boyfriends."
2. I have done a lot of the breaking up with boyfriends, especially in the early years. Yes, I did it to their faces, and dealt with a lot of tears and pleading and unpleasantness that I can understand one would rather avoid if possible. I even think it's important to tell someone you're seeing casually a few times that you don't intend to see them again--as in, when they ask you out, you don't lie and make excuses or say "maybe next week sometime?" and then stop answering your phone; you say thanks, you had a nice time, but you're not going to be continuing it.
3. IME, some straight men don't feel like they have a lot of scripts for non-movie-like scenarios. If the woman is not screaming about intimacy and the future and commitment or whatever, he assumes he has the duty to treat her like shit to make sure she doesn't start thinking about intimacy and the future and commitment. It's impossible, apparently, to say, "Hey, I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page here; you're great and I really like you but I'm not into a relationship right now." It's much easier to just suddenly start rolling your eyes at her and then make sure you're never in the same place again. Or, even better, beg her for intimacy and commitment and love and then suddenly stop answering your phone, as if you died.
4. On a humorous note, my first boyfriend came the closest of anyone to actually breaking up with me in person. We'd been having a great time for about four months, and then one rainy night he rings my doorbell really late and shows up weeping uncontrollably with arms full of books and some clothes I left at his dorm. "I broke up with you!" he yells. Um when? I ask. "Today!" I had to invite him in to comfort him.
5. I don't think you would meet and think any of the guys who acted this way in relationships with me were bad people, or if you guessed which ones pulled this shit you'd be completely wrong. It's easy to imagine that men who have no access to their emotional lives and act out in horrible ways walk around seething and leering and probably wearing a T-shirt that says "I'm a total dick!" but they don't. Some of the nicest, most straightforward and thoughtful men I've been with have been the ones you'd think from a casual impression would be the assholes. It's the ones who seem mature, together, calm, self-knowing, and so forth who tend to disappear without a trace after years together, or who beg for intimacy and closeness and commitment while secretly cheating on someone else with you.
6. I am not a stupid person who goes around running into spikes for fun, or who seeks out the only assholes on the planet to keep the population pure for the rest of you. I am just not someone who is ever going to beg someone to be my boyfriend, and I think that makes some men feel really lost and confused about how to talk to me. Are they afraid I will cry when they end it, or are they afraid that I won't? Maybe they're afraid I will feel contempt for them.
6 is to suggest that yes, this behavior probably emerges in a causal relationship to my personality and behavior, even though I don't feel that I "deserve" it in any sense, having not been, I don't think, unkind in any way to the particular men who have acted this way.
But anyway: integrity is not only deeply overrated as an explanatory psychological principle for human action, it's also (in these days of 80 year lifespans) overrated as a regulative principle for a life well lived. We change. We're not who we once were. I was once president of the U of C Libertarian Society. I'm over it. We all should be.
My conception of integrity doesn't preclude this kind of change.
the only hope for the future comes in eliminating my gender entirely, and reproducing the species through IVF cloning &c.
Houellebecq FTW!
I'm relieved to read 255, since I'd been sitting here for a couple of minutes going, "Is it just me, or is trapnel's 245 totally confusing? Do I need to look up R. Dworkin's sense of "integrity" in order to figure this out?"
I think there is a simplistic understanding of "integrity" that is more related to accusing politicians of flip-flopping, and young people are encouraged to see themselves as future politicians. I never wavered in my beliefs, etc. And they use it to keep themselves from learning and growing. Whether the thing holding you back is a commitment to a religion or a political ideology, it's really scary to accept the possibility that learning could convince you that you're wrong.
A friend told a story about how when she showed the documentary Paris is Burning at her college, there was one young woman who seemed really moved by it and wrote eloquently about how it made her feel, but then the next week, my friend got a letter from this student saying she'd "turned [my friend] in" to the English department as well as to her own church (!) to report that she showed pornography in school.
I laughed because I actually do teach a lot of genuinely pornographic content--who says adults can't be asked to analyze adult material?--but I think that what's going on here is that students often do feel changed by learning and then they're terrified that it means they're weak because they gave up libertarianism or fundamentalism. They feel it as a loss of integrity even though, from an outsider's perspective, it's a huge leap in integrity to exchange a cruel selfish ideology for a more compassionate worldview.
254: I wouldn't describe it as "unkind", particularly, and certainly not consciously hurtful, but I can say that if someone I was going out with described her attitude towards me the way you do in 31 (particularly the "I don't ask men to love me" part) and 253.6, I would be either very hurt or very angry or both.
Now, I'd be more adult about it than the guys you've gone out with have been (or at least I like to flatter myself by thinking so), but if you communicate those attitudes towards the men in your life it's at least somewhat less surprising to me that they respond the way they do.
They feel it as a loss of integrity even though, from an outsider's perspective, it's a huge leap in integrity to exchange a cruel selfish ideology for a more compassionate worldview.
++
260: Really? You'd be angry at a stranger who never expressed any interest in a relationship for continuing to not express interest in a relationship?
262: where is Josh talking about a stranger? Where are you talking about a stranger? I'm missing something.
who never expressed any interest in a relationship for continuing to not express interest in a relationship
But in all of these situations, you have nevertheless been in some kind of relationship, right? Otherwise there would be no "it" to end.
260: A) I wouldn't describe someone I was going out with as a stranger.
B) I don't read 31 or 253.6 as simply continuing to not express interest in a relationship, I read both of them as saying (or at least heavily implying) "you are not important to me". Not that I expect to be important to everyone, but it still stings to be reminded of it.
[M]ake sure you're never in the same place again.
Perhaps I'm flashing back to a recent unpleasantness, but sometimes keeping a few area codes between oneself and an ill-tempered cleaver is just more appealing than attempting another honest, mutually-supportive conversation of equals.
266: I just don't tend to fall in love with everyone I've dated, and certainly not in the first two or three times I meet them. Is that weird? I'm very kind to people I don't know well, but that seems different to me from assuming we're like the most important people in each other's lives. I wouldn't get there with someone for years, at least.
I will admit that I don't have whatever reaction people have to sex where they change their personality completely and get super-serious. I stay pretty much the same--friendly, funny, pleasant--and I have been told that it's disconcerting. But it's equally disconcerting to me that the person I enjoyed hanging out with so much an hour before has suddenly morphed into a moody, grumpy, silent starer who wants to pet my head. I've gotten through that unequal phase with a few people I've really cared about, but only if it was something we could have a conversation about.
I just don't tend to fall in love with everyone I've dated, and certainly not in the first two or three times I meet them. Is that weird?
The first two or three times? Of course not. But we weren't talking about people we've been out with two or three times, we were talking about people we're in a relationship with. And the sense I got from your previous comments was that it wasn't just "oh, I'm not in love with you" but "I'm not in love with you and I'm very self-sufficient so I'm probably never going to be.". It's that second clause that's the kicker.
I'm very kind to people I don't know well, but that seems different to me from assuming we're like the most important people in each other's lives. I wouldn't get there with someone for years, at least.
See above. Everybody (well, everybody sane) recognizes that if you've only been dating someone for a short while, you're not the most important person in their life. But it still sucks to have your nose rubbed in that fact!
Everybody (well, everybody sane) recognizes that if you've only been dating someone for a short while, you're not the most important person in their life.
Nobody recognizes this when it happens to them, but it's easy enough to spot in others.
But it still sucks to have your nose rubbed in that fact!
You seem to be talking to an ex of yours here rather than to me. I apologize on her behalf? I'm not talking about nose-rubbing. And the guy I'm thinking of who was pestering me for two months about how he wanted me to trust him and love him the way he trusted and loved me disappeared suddenly and later admitted that he had a long-term relationship the whole time on the side and he was kind of getting off on trying to incite my jealousy. I wasn't jealous (I didn't know there was anything going on and, at only two months, I honestly didn't care), and he felt insulted. The guy who was begging me to trust him while lying to God knows how many women about his relationship status was angry at ME for foiling his plan to get off on betraying me, so he abandoned me in the cruelest way possible, and I cried myself to sleep for six months. Awesome.
It's kind of hard to read Josh and AWB talk past each other like this.
AWB, the part I'm not quite understanding is why you were hurt by the guy's leaving you, if you didn't love or trust or care about him, or find him important, and weren't jealous at all.
At a guess: because he lied? We've said before on this blog -- or, well, some have said -- that lying is the worst thing.
You seem to be talking to an ex of yours here rather than to me. I apologize on her behalf?
Honestly, no. I was explaining why I *would* be upset and angry *if* someone I was going out with described our relationship in the terms you use. Thankfully I can say that no one I've ever gone out with has rubbed my nose in the fact that I wasn't the most important person in her life.
I'm talking about making the unwritten rules that govern social interaction explicit. That's just a recipe for unhappiness and hurt feelings; there are plenty of things we each do every day that, if we acknowledged them openly, would be incredibly hurtful. But we pretend that we're not going to do them and we pretend that we don't notice them when other people do them, and life goes on. Does that make more sense?
(On preview: 274, imagine how I feel!)
Now I don't understand either Josh or AWB. Oh well.
Blume's 265 remains live for me: isn't there a middle ground, or stage, in relationships which are not relationships -- not actual coupledom -- in which friendship is rather key? That entails honesty, discussion, an agreement not to deliberately hurt one another and to take one another's feelings into account, and things like that.
Oh, I wasn't hurt that he left me; Jesus Christ, I hope by 28 I'm not a blubbering wreck about some guy. I was devastated about the way he left. One day, I'm leaving his house to go take my qualifying exams, and he's telling me how happy he is for me and all that, and then he refuses to speak to me again. That hurt.
He never even lied to me because he just stopped speaking to me. I tried taking him seriously when he said he was just busy, and then after a month I asked what the fuck, and he was like "oh, I didn't know how to tell you that I didn't want to see you anymore!" What am I, a stray dog? I really really hate not being treated like a person.
"Now he's gone I don't know why, until this day sometimes I cry, he didn't even say goodbye, he didn't take the time to lie"
My point is, whatever resentment or anxiety you feel about a relationship, or whatever psychodrama you have going on personally, you could at least do someone the courtesy of being as kind as you would to a complete stranger. It should not be an excuse to be cruel.
My point is, whatever resentment or anxiety you feel about a relationship, or whatever psychodrama you have going on personally, you could at least do someone the courtesy of being as kind as you would to a complete stranger. It should not be an excuse to be cruel.
We may have been talking past each other earlier, but on this at least you and I are completely on the same page.
I agree that that guy was a total dick. Not a nice person. Extremely rude. Not acceptable.
Jesus Christ, I hope by 28 I'm not a blubbering wreck about some guy.
This looks insensitive, and I apologize for it. I should have added "some guy I didn't actually even really like very much."
284: Yeah, well just wait till you're 38.... But yes, having been completely in love and having made a very rare decision to let my guard down and open up all my vulnerabilities might be a big part of the blubbering wreck thing. I'm kind of hating myself right now.
Any woman who expects to significantly change a man is likely deluded.
I'm pretty sure this is wrong because I know men (and for that matter women) who have been significantly harmed as a result of bad relationships with the opposite sex, and a) that's a fairly major change, and b) it doesn't seem rational that it's the only sort of change that can happen.
285: Don't. It's not a happy ending, but you've done nothing wrong.
285: I guess this is what I meant to be getting at by that comment, is that, in retrospect, it seems really obvious that I was never upset about the loss of some asshole who stressed me out; I was always upset by the loss of time and energy spent on someone who, it turns out, really doesn't like me at all. That was especially scarring for me in this case because while I was dating this guy I felt for the first time in my life that I was finally dating someone who was just crazy about me. He was a wreck 10 seconds after meeting me, and was turned on by all the stuff that freaked other guys out. I kept thinking, "This is what it is to be loved!" I enjoyed it. But it turned out it had nothing at all to do with me.
I'm with 287, of course. It sucks to feel like you've been taken in, but at least--so I tell myself--I erred on the side of being open to possibility.
286
... it doesn't seem rational that it's the only sort of change that can happen.
It's easier to destroy than to build.
And if you insist on being precise, any woman who is willing to overlook major flaws in a guy because she thinks she can fix them is probably deluded.
Yeah, well just wait till you're 38....
Plus, you've got the constant aches and the extra dental work.
And by 38 it gets almost impossible to eat fried food without worrying about cholesterol and you have to eat whole grains or something to prevent being all stopped up inside.
It's easier to destroy than to build.
Well, amen to that.
And if you insist on being precise, any woman who is willing to overlook major flaws in a guy because she thinks she can fix them is probably deluded.
This, too, is a solid truth.
Plus, you've got the constant aches and the extra dental work
Yeah, I probably do need to make an appointment with the dentist...
It's easier to destroy than to build.
Well, amen to that.
And if you insist on being precise, any woman who is willing to overlook major flaws in a guy because she thinks she can fix them is probably deluded.
This, too, is a solid truth.
Plus, you've got the constant aches and the extra dental work
Yeah, I probably do need to make an appointment with the dentist...
And by 38 it gets almost impossible to eat fried food without worrying about cholesterol
This, I haven't found to be true. Not that my doctor wouldn't likely encourage me to start thinking that way...
And if you insist on being precise, any womanperson who is willing to overlook major flaws in a guyanother person because shethey thinks shethey can fix them is probably deluded.
There, now you sound 100% less sexist. Not that I imagine you care.
I started worrying about cholesterol when I was 30, when the Pater had his first heart attack. Now I can barely eat anything more interesting than a graham cracker without suffering visions of myself with Dick Cheney's nightmare cyborg heart apparatus.
Cholestorol is mostly bullshit made up by the heart doctor racket.
I can't really follow what's at stake in the Josh/AWB argument. However, sometimes the best way to break up really is to just cut of contact;* long conversations about your feelings are enormously overrated, especially when the point of the conversation is "I really don't think you're someone I want to have long conversations about my feelings with anymore."
*Disclaimer: I am an asshole.
(Also, I feel like I'm overusing this asterix/footnote thing, but I just like it too much).
298: Long conversations about my feelings are, if anything, underrated.
However, sometimes the best way to break up really is to just cut of contact;* long conversations about your feelings are enormously overrated, especially when the point of the conversation is "I really don't think you're someone I want to have long conversations about my feelings with anymore."
I would say that you at least owe it to the other person to tell them that you don't want to go out with them anymore; I think what AWB is describing is the kind of guy who won't even give her that courtesy. And I'd also say that you have a duty to the other person to not be an asshole when you tell them that you don't want to go out with them anymore. That includes both at minimum a brief conversation (i.e., something more than "I don't want to go out anymore kthxbai.") and not giving them a laundry list of reasons or self-indulgent justifications.
Once you've had that conversation, though, I'm totally with you on the cutting off contact.
Anyway, I needed a root canal at thirty-nine and it would have been a simple filling if I hadn't skipped ten years of dental appointments.
Okay, fine, Moby, I'll make a dental appointment. Geez.
Dick Cheney's nightmare cyborg heart apparatus
You mean W?
303: I did, mostly, so I don't have gingivitis yet.
Sometimes I'm too tired, but alright, okay, fine. Mumble.
I don't see why Moby can't eat a crunchy whole-grains granola bar in the morning; it's not like it's difficult to increase whole grains. So there. And for cholesterol, are lentils really that difficult? I ask you.
Difficult, difficult. You know what's difficult: reducing carbs when you're mostly-vegetarian.
305: To quote my dentist, floss harder.
I suspect that my dentist enjoys my silent compliance.
306: The doctor didn't seem to give a shit what I ate, only that I ate less (or drank less). I'm supposed to lose ten or fifteen pounds and that is supposed to improve my lipid profile.
I'm supposed to lose ten or fifteen pounds and that is supposed to improve my lipid profile.
Yeah, this is the latest thinking. Doesn't matter what you're eating; lose weight and your bloodwork will get better. Certainly seems to be true for me (I eat a pretty high-fat diet).
(The nutritionist who brought this up in a class I was taking seemed almost disappointed. I suppose it's a little weird to see the orthodoxy in your field overturned in a relatively short period of time.)
Speaking of teeth, Katherine Heigl is sporting a shark's mouthful. She must eat a lot of souls.
299: Would you like to talk about that? Why do you feel that way?
Josh, doesn't your bloodwork getting better have a lot to do with raising your metabolism, by exercising? That is, one can lose weight by starving oneself, but I wouldn't have thought that would improve matters particularly; it's both cardio and weight-bearing exercise (which have the side benefit of weight loss) that makes a difference.
I would love to be able to talk to a nutritionist. My diet went to hell over the last year or two, and, but -- I know what's wrong there.
312: I'm not falling for that one again.
The something something study also indicates that, if you do not have other risk factors, or if HDL is kicking some ass, you get a whole lot more leeway on total cholesterol or LDL than your average doctore seems to be aware.
Framingham study, I think it is. Not that I go to great lengths to justify my cholesterol levels...
314: Fair enough. I'd just wind up pathologizing you and forcing you into therapy.
313: Not so far as I understand it. It's basically a matter of abdominal fat; have less of it (however you achieve that, short of liposuction) and your bloodwork will get better.
315: Framingham, despite the long-term study, is not what I would call a city of the robustly healthy and active, even for Massachusetts.
I think exercise is supposed to help raise HDL, which is supposed to then help lower LDL some. Olive oil, fish high in Omega-3s, and moderate alcohol also raise HDL. High fiber diets -- lots of those lentils and other beans! -- also help lower cholesterol. I did see a nutritionist way back when, who then learned I'd just been diagnosed with thyroid disease and told me, "Oh! Well quit worrying. If it's bad after the thyroid gets fixed, come back and we'll talk again." And once the thyroid was fixed, it was fine. Well, until recently, and I can't blame thyroid anymore. But I can blame cigarettes and have (had... ) been pretty good on my most recent quit. HDL is still awesome, though, so I'm not worrying.
OT: This is kind of a nice website.
Also OT: I'm moving far away tomorrow. Thanks, NYC Mineshaft, for all those times we had!
318: Look, as long as the study supports my continued belief that my cholesterol is just fine thankyouverymuch, I'm not much concerned with any of your fancypants critiques.
321 cont. Um, er, unless you were trying to share your feelings about Framingham. In which case, I understand, that's very interesting, why do you think you feel that way.
320: Call us when you find America!
321: I'm just saying that Framingham, MA, ain't no Boulder, CO, when it comes to aerobic exercise, if you know what I mean and I something something something.
if HDL is kicking some ass, you get a whole lot more leeway on total cholesterol or LDL than your average doctore seems to be aware.
Yeah, as it happens, my HDL (good) cholesterol is through the roof, and my doctor writes happy notes on my write-ups, sometimes with a smiley-face. (Which is a little weird, but okay.)
317: It's basically a matter of abdominal fat
Right. I forgot about that.
I can see that Flippanter and I are the only ones presently here who have been to Framingham, MA. But I scarcely think the city reflects on the study ... does it? Should I be worried?
325: How could they not? The study has been ongoing for decades. Like the horror of human sacrifice and alien abominations lurking behind the scenes of an H.P. Lovecraft story....
Apparently I'm going to have to look up the Framingham study. I mean, my LDL cholesterol isn't particularly troublesome in the first place, and obviously exercise will address some issues anyway, but I really have been relying on what I'd taken to be the wisdom that if your HDL cholesterol is awesome, you're okay.
If that latter business is based on a single study, that's another story.
Flip, it's in poor taste to make fun of people, by the way.
Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed.
I've played a shitload of air hockey in Framingham. Thus qualified, I will confirm that it's perfectly okay to make fun of the place.
.. I mean, and the people in it too, obviously.
Well, I'd think that if Framingham is less healthy than average, then the rest of us surely have even *less* heart attack risk than the study predicts!
If that latter business is based on a single study, that's another story.
Are you going to wait for the next study to follow 5,000 people over a lifetime or just wing it?
I used to be wicked good at air hockey. It's really an underrated game.
And I'd also say that you have a duty to the other person to not be an asshole when you tell them that you don't want to go out with them anymore. That includes both at minimum a brief conversation (i.e., something more than "I don't want to go out anymore kthxbai.") and not giving them a laundry list of reasons or self-indulgent justifications.
This is where "It's not you, it's me" is appropriate.
It's not you, it's me: I don't like you.
318: How is that supposed to affect analysis of risk factors? If you have a smaller number of healthy people, that will show up in the descriptive statistics, but not in itself distort correlations between characteristics and outcomes as long as you have enough sample size.
My HDL kicked ass a couple of years ago, but I was about 10 pounds lighter (HDL 90, LDL 60). My doctor shared it with another doctor, because she was so surprised by the numbers.
I bet he says that to all the girls in Boston.
I don't want to endorse trapnel's 243 in its entirety, but with two clones I could solve all of Di and AWB's problems. Just saying.