Yeah the image is cut off. You can see both if you View the Image. Hang on and I'll scale it down and upload it afresh.
If you buy your fiancée a really nice ring, you aren't guaranteeing a long term wifehood if she's economically rational. She could just take the ring a run.
Maybe the rings are that ugly because they are big enough for a GPS tracker and that's how he wants you to keep your wife? 24 hour monitoring.
4: Yeah, in addition to the grossness of the idea, it doesn't actually seem to make any sense.
Maybe it's supposed to represent a promise of more rings to come, or to be some kind of costly signal of your devotion.
An alternative but less self-centered title for this post could have been "if you like it then you should continually put rings on it."
If you want "wife insurance," it would seem to me what you want is a way for her to signal her devotion. Maybe wearing an unattractive ring is that sort of signal on her part.
Presumably, the insurance is for her.
That is, the ring is insurance against losing her status as wife.
Because the husband wouldn't let the investment represented by the ring just walk off?
Excuse me, how heteronormative. The other spouse.
That's why there are two rings. Hello bigamy.
Bigamy's just another word for a diversified investment portfolio.
12: No, this is wife insurance. You're thinking more like the bail bonds of marriage.
I love you.
You love me.
I've a secret family.
I'm not sure how this insurance is supposed to work, Eggplant.
It's odd that there have been no female commenters in this thread so far.
Have you tried promising them jewelry?
Well, I guess I'm writing in Nader.
The ring is the payout you get upon divorce. If your ex is nice. Pretty crappy return, really, unless gold goes up enough.
23: Jesus Christ my personal Lord and Savior from hell? That's not where I heard he was from.
24: Gold's currently at $1777.60 an ounce. How much does a ring weigh?
The ring's weight should be in direct proportion with the perceived risk of the marriage.
The ring's weight should be in direct proportion with the perceived risk of the marriage.
Oh my god. I was just talking about this very ad, and how crude it is, even by diamond jewelry ad standards. There's another one too, from the same store. I can't remember the exact wording, something like, "does your daughter in law have a bigger diamond than your wife?" Really weird and gross.
(I think I've told this story here before, but I can't find it in TFA.)
I told Mrs. K-sky that, because I'm a feminist, she would have to get me an engagement ring as well. After I presented her with a ring, she pointed out rings to me to see what I liked. I didn't like any of them. So she bought me a bag of hand percussion instruments, which I cherish.
Her sister's a gemologist, so a) there was no getting around ponying up for a rock, and b) I have a guy, if you need a rock.
Does anyone ever really need a rock?
If you buy your fiancée a really nice ring, you aren't guaranteeing a long term wifehood if she's economically rational. She could just take the ring a run.
Those are some entertaining "theft" calls. "My ex refuses to return the ring I paid for and I'd like to press charges for theft." Me: "Maybe you're an asshole, maybe she's a whore, but the only thing for certain here is that the police don't care. Piss off."
Does anyone ever really need a rock?
YES, MOTHERFUCKER.
opinion in the family about my brother's latest long-term gf has wavered over time, lately (ha I say lately, like in the last 18 months) taking a precipitous dive, and her seeming passive aggressive insistence (communicated via my sister) that her ring be bigger that evil first wife's ring has been the final straw. it turns out I was slightly wrong so it wouldn't have to be 5 carats but still like 4.5. FUCK NO. at least evil first wife had a 1/4 share in $100 million waiting down the road, this can make up for some annoying flaws; miss fried dough montana is e'en now being supported by my brother in every regard, which at the moment includes a sweet-ass apartment in downtown philly with a fireplace and money to go to massage therapy school. I expect a lot of free massages. but she hates us! me and my sister. rightly, I guess. she's always intimating there's something untoward about our sibling love. and suggesting she draws our brother out into sophie's choice hypotheticals about us all the time. like, "if you could only save one of them..etc."
OK, since I am probably my worst self on unfogged, I'll just go on ahead here. if she expects a huge ring like that she better start looking good. what's she bringing to this enterprise? it ain't a sunny disposition. those better be the best blowjobs in the fucking world but even stipulating that they are, she needs to lose weight and get back to looking hot. that's her thing. her asset, if you will. and why's she in philly with this massage school bullshit? if my brother wants to live in some crazy camper in west virginia while he builds his own cabin by hand, in the winter, and/or watches a honey boo boo marathon and gets brutally stoned, she should be right out there with him. what you see is what you get. when I hire someone to take photos of her cheating on him in the expensive apartment he's renting for her he's going to hate me, right? that doesn't seem fair. I'm giving her 6-8 weeks. my husband says "he'll just be mad at you, it's not worth it, it's his life." all this rational stuff. fucking rational fucking bullshit.
Jesus, if she's insisting on that size a ring there should be free massages that include oral. If they don't then and he's already forking out that kind of money then maybe you could suggest the following site.
http://www.seekingarrangement.com/
That said, it's nice to see you around, al.
Teo, hooking up with crazy bitches is a problem for every class. Are you sober on a Thursday night? I feel like maybe you haven't fully embraced the "single in Alaska" experience yet. Have you even caught a halibut or shot a moose yet? Get on it.
Dealing with demands for 4.5-carat diamond rings seems like more of a rich-person problem. And I am definitely not sober right now, but I have also not caught a halibut or shot a moose. Make of that what you will.
OK, yes, very obviously a rich person problem as stated, but just imagine someone is not treating your little brother right and she's asking for money left right an' center? I mean, she's got her own bank account, and money shows up in it, and that's because my brother transferred money in there! there are no other sources of money, whence money might just appear in there. no shame, OK, but if you play it like that you have to be hot (she was hot when they met, and they don't have any kids yet. no kids?!) and you have to be fake nice to everyone in the family. you don't have to be convincing all the time, but before you're married, I want a lot of fake nice. she was living at my mom's while my mom was recovering from a severe injury that put her on bed-rest for 4-5 months and very restricted mobility after that. my sister, who is hell of sick, drove my mom to all her appointments and did all the grocery shopping. miss montana never asked once if she could help my mom. at her house. while she was bed-ridden. she never cleaned my mom's room for her, she never got her a cup of tea! she needs to up her fucking game. if you want to be a lifetime beneficiary of the trust of al'slastname then try harder.
And I am definitely not sober right now,
That's a good start. Now it's time to acquire a fishing pole and a firearm.
al and gswift definitely need to co-host some sort of radio show.
Sounds like she's calculated exactly how hard she needs to work you all pretty much right.
I say photos from a private eye of bad GF schtupping some other dude (better yet, multiple other dudes; best yet, multiple dudes simultaneously) in her Philly apartment. Photos sent with no return address to brother. Let the chips fall where they may. Even if he marries her, you'll know he did it in full knowledge of her skankiness.
Also: Alameida!
what's she bringing to this enterprise? .... those better be the best blowjobs in the fucking world but even stipulating that they are, she needs to lose weight and get back to looking hot.
They say only Nixon could go to China...
she needs to up her fucking game.
Sounds like the game is working for her right now.
Isn't being hostile to the rest of the family a time-honored strategy of wedge-driving? But honestly, isn't it your brother's problem? If he wants to support some less-than-completely-smoking-hot-and-sweet-to-his-family-golddigger, he's a grown man and his judgment's not going to improve because you complain about her.
35
Those are some entertaining "theft" calls. "My ex refuses to return the ring I paid for and I'd like to press charges for theft." Me: "Maybe you're an asshole, maybe she's a whore, but the only thing for certain here is that the police don't care. Piss off."
I was under the impression that there are some cases (broken engagement) where a woman is legally obligated to return a ring. Although I suppose it is a civil rather than a criminal issue.
I endorse 51 -- I know a guy who used to be in that line of work in Philly, and can hook you up with someone if you really decide to go that route. And don't already have this sort of person in your network.
|| Who's idea was it for me to drive up to Butte for a court appearance this morning, instead of going last night and staying over? I need a clause in my standard engagement letter that says I don't ever have to get out of bed before 8:00 am local time for anything ever. Ever. |>
56.1: does he shoot on film? I mean it doesn't have to be a Hasselblad or anything but no crapp DSLR.
Private eyes in the 1880s could only catch people in the throes of tantric adultery.
To judge by Sherlock Holmes, all they really needed to prove moral failure was a letter containing the either "ardent hope for the future" or "nipped-out".
58: It would only happen in an exceptional case.
Possibly it could obtaining by deception if she never intended to go through with it?
In general I would not want to have laws that let people get wedding rings (and other gifts) back absent actual fraud, but I do not know so much about these things.
61
In general I would not want to have laws that let people get wedding rings (and other gifts) back absent actual fraud, but I do not know so much about these things.
I think legally an engagement ring is more like a down payment. So if the man breaks the engagement he doesn't get it back but if the woman breaks the engagement she is supposed to return the ring. Wedding rings would presumably be dealt with like other marital property in the case of a divorce.
re: 58/60
Humorlessly: camera film/plates in the 1880s were fast enough to shoot hand-held, with exposures of fractions of seconds.
So they could make beautiful hand cameras like this from 1900:
http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/entry_C302.html
63: I saw quite an interesting show of early photography at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam over Christmas. (Mind you at this distance I can mostly remember the funny magnifying glasses they gave you.) Also I had not realised that the Van Gogh museum was a Rietveld.
62: I think it depends how charming the man is.
63: can it truly be humorless if it cracks me up that I (semi-accidentally) trolled you that well?
There's probably enough room to mount an iPhone inside that bellows on the fancy camera. Then you have form and function.
It was a bit like 'here is my button, watch Sifu push it'.
re: 66
There's a fairly active community bodging all kinds of old lenses onto digital cameras. Some are dead easy to do. The results often beautiful, too.
I'm not sure what "bodging" is, but I'm adding it to my vocabulary starting today.
'Bodging'. Like 'MacGyvering'. Or 'cludging'.
does he shoot on film? I mean it doesn't have to be a Hasselblad or anything but no crappy DSLR.
Wait, so we're looking for a hipster private eye now?
Bodging: to construct something in a non-standard and slightly clumsy and haphazard way that nevertheless still works.
yeah, but if I send him the pictures anonymously he'll know it's either me, my sister, or at the outside, my mom. my sister wouldn't want to drop the cash on it, probably, and my mother would probably let it be, so I'd look pretty good. or me and my sister in on it together, just as miss thing predicts. then she'll turn it around as part of the long-term drive a wedge strategy. I would just have to hope that the atavistic rage and jealousy of seeing her frolic with a budding masseur before the exposed-brick wall of the apt. he's renting in philly would overwhelm him. rather than the immediate thought 'who the fuck paid for these to be taken and why is she trying to run my goddamn life over here?' because what am I, mastermind of successful human relationships I should be organizing his love life? I don't know shit.
but dammit, if gold is going to be dug for, some motherfucking bitches had best chime in 'it was I' said the owl 'with my little silver trowel, it was I' and shit and do it right. she lacks...effort. sticktuitiveness. I guess she's using it all up poisoning his mind against us. but, you know, plenty of people are trophy wives, it's fine; but they spend all their time doing pilates and getting expensive highlights and planning social events for their husbands. he's had long-term relationships in which we adored his gf so it's not as though we hate them all. anne, the previous, was brilliant, hilarious, witty, charming. montana suffers a grievous lack of mental whateverness, so she needs to step up with the physical attributes. I'm being harsh, but fair. she looks like a petty girl when she's working it.
yeah, I need a hipster private eye who will only use an old leica and just do what feels right in terms of light and exposure.
71: well we're sure as fuck not going to settle for some goddamned in flagrante instagrammatico wannabe bullshit. I mean, even a real Holga would be the wrong choice for this kind of documentation. But digital is just the wrong choice all around; half the fun of this kind of project is enlarging the photo a million times like in Blow-Up, but not if you end up swimming in giant pixels. This is adultery, not Galaga!
72: I speak as someone with the worst sister-in-law in the entire world, and I say with great expertise that some dudes really can only get hard for sub-mediocre ugly bitches with profound personality disorders. Actually, that description should not be bound by gender: some people just go mad for unappealing pieces of shit who force them to give up their whole family to take care of them by paying for everything and hating everything they hate. My family and I have gone around and around trying to figure out what could possibly be appealing about a sour-faced hatebag who won't let my brother speak to us (he calls us from the car, like we're his mistress), made him change his name and move so we couldn't find him for years, won't let my parents see their grandson, etc. We ask ourselves all the time when is the day when bro sees he's been in an abusive relationship for 17 years, but it seems to be going really well as far as he's concerned. Nothing but good times, sounds like. He loves her not in spite of her being a sucky mean person, but because of it. Took me years to figure that out. My parents are still hoping he "wakes up."
My Dad had an old Leica from about 1945 that disappeared along with a bunch of other stuff when he died. I would love to have that camera. He was fond of mentioning the fact that it was the very same model issued to U-boat captains. The way those older cameras were manufactured without lots of snap-together injection molded parts, just all screws and c-rings made them highly bodgable. I could see how that would be a very fun hobby.
In our case, though, there is no money. We're poor folk, so there's no family trust, just, you know, feelings to be hurt.
Yeah, I used to have a 1946 Leica. I still have one but the current one is 1950s, and not quite as small and fondle-able.
Currently available for hipster-PI duties. Guaranteed intuitive exposure, and Rodchenko compositional angles.
made him change his name and move so we couldn't find him for years
Good grief.
sour-faced hatebag
Excellent phrase.
Sympathies to al and AWB, my dad was in a nightmarish second marriage for some years. It sucked that my best option was scheming on how to cast flickers of daylight on shitty behavior.
re: 76
In the UK at least you could pick up a 1940s Leica with lens for £200-£250. Unless it was all Nazi'd up, in which case the collectors go daft for them.
It is too bad that hipster PI has already been done and also was sort of lame.
My first camera, beautifully built
Zorkis are also very well-made and super cheap.
My Dad had an old Leica from about 1945 that disappeared along with a bunch of other stuff when he died.
I first thought this was talking about a mistress.
Heh. Zorkis are fun cameras [I've had two]. Not quite [British understatement] as well made as the Leitz equivalent, but they'll take pictures of just as high quality, or high enough to be indistinguishable for pretty much all purposes.
Either Veronica Mars' dad or Elliott Gould from The Long Goodbye would be good choices for the PI.
I can nerd out about this endlessly [stern look at Sifu].
A friend of mine's brother has an addiction to borderline personality disorder. Can't resist it. The women he dates are exclusively splitters--us vs. them, perfect vs. evil, all the time. Drama every minute. He's a therapist and really does intellectually know better, but--and at least he's self-aware about it--he can't resist the siren song of lies and manipulations. As I have opined many times, I have never met someone who is incredibly needy and angry all the time who is single. They're the most sexually attractive people in the world.
82: SHUT UP. I liked that show. Ted Danson is fantastic.
90: I didn't actually watch it. I find Jason Schwartzman sort of generically loathsome but I'm willing to believe that's not a deal breaker.
...borderline personality disorder. I have never met someone who is incredibly needy and angry all the time who is single. They're the most sexually attractive people in the world.
(Blush)
needy and angry
This translates into an extremely attentive person, always intersted in the actions of those close to them.
For people uncomfortable with solitude or the possiblity of indifference (ie, those who are themselves needy) this has a definite appeal.
A dog is much cheaper and has 95% of the same functionality. (100% if you are into bestiality)
He walks us and gives us cheese! How can love be wrong?
I have never met someone who is incredibly needy and angry all the time who is single.
You have never met a divorced MRA? Congratulations.
A FAR more accurate version of 90 would be that Ted Danson was great in an otherwise fairly lame show.
I have a friend (well, really, friend of the GF) who is a straight up trophy wife. Husband is north of 70, she's young and hot, and just does exercise and shopping and elaborate pet grooming and writes a "screenplay" all day. Nothing else. But she's a nice person who stumbled on to a life that seems pretty damn good, so no hatred.
You have never met a divorced MRA? Congratulations
Absolutely not confined to men.
To no one's surprise, there are crazy men's rights groups and crazy mother's rights groups.
(It is interesting that they are refered to that way. The male groups are more frequently referred to as men's rights not father's rights. The female groups are more frequently referred to as mothers's rights groups not women's rights groups.)
For both, the system is rigged against them and the judges and guardian ad litems are corrupt.
I find Jason Schwartzman sort of generically loathsome
Me too.
A touchstone book for me (found in a remainder sale) was a slim self-published tome called "How to Get What You Want" which was the best source of practical advice I've ever found.* It claimed that the two best ways to actually sexually attract people are (1) being needy and (2) being physically flexible.
I think that's exactly right.
*irony of ironies, it's now with ex wife number 1 and lost to me.
My landlord's kid also lived in the subdivided house I used to live in, so I kind of knew their whole family somewhat well.
Landlord/dad was a pilot in his 60s, married to a trophy wife - smoking hot woman in her late 30s who dressed and had the body and style sense of a terribly hot 18 year old. And she was totally friendly and nice, and I liked her just fine.
Dad would openly say to son "You mother is the love of my life, but I can't stay faithful to her." According to son, everyone happily had holidays together and there wasn't any bad blood. (Son was sort of an out-to-lunch pothead doofus, so who knows whether or not that was true. Everyone I met was very nice, though.)
*irony of ironies, it's now with ex wife number 1 and lost to me.
She became inflexible?
and (2) being physically flexible.
Like yoga-bendy or "I don't care about physical beauty" flexible.
Yoga-bendy. If you're both bendy and needy, it pretty much rains sex.
It claimed that the two best ways to actually sexually attract people are (1) being needy and (2) being physically flexible.
This completely explains my pathetic dating history, being both self-sufficient and stiff as a board. God knows what Buck sees in me.
I can touch my toes if I warm up and I once cried for a hatchling chick I saw being flung down a chute while I was watching How It's Made. Somebody hold me.
I find the attractiveness of neediness somewhat disturbing, but I suppose I'm as susceptible to it as anyone. When a self-contained person meets another self-contained person, they acknowledge one another, and can perhaps become friends, but there isn't an impetus to do anything but respect one another. I certainly enjoy the feeling of being needed, and can see why my partners complain about my refusal to ask them for things/help. It's offensive.
That you are yoga-bendy is something that will only come out in some situations, though, innit?
How do you tell that someone's yoga-bendy when you first meet them? Just something about the way they move or hold themsleves?
105: I dunno, most of the dancers I've known have ticked both of those boxes (and been nuts to boot) but still not had much luck in that area.
110: "Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk."
109, 110: if you're trying to meet somebody in a bar, hold your beer with your foot.
I was just recently dating a needy, bendy (yoga + ballet) woman.
Anyhow 105 definitely isn't true.
Strange. People seem to find it less attractive and more humorous when I tuck my feet behind my head. Maybe I should work on being needier.
How do you tell that someone's yoga-bendy when you first meet them?
In my experience it's like being a fast-jet pilot: you don't, they tell you.
Oh please. This is mission creep. Neither openness (which is how I read 108-- demonstrate self-sufficiency by not saying anything personal, so no sparks) nor empathy (I watch baby sloth videos) are necessary or sufficient conditions for neediness.
Please to provide full Myers-Briggs of the typical attractive and also needy person.
100.2 seems like it's gender specific. Despite looking like a bag of lard, I can kick higher than my own head, and easily touch my toes. I don't think it's likely to have people beating my door down.
A guy I knew in high school once put both of his feet behind his head while hanging from the handholds in a bus. He got stuck and couldn't get unwound, so the rest of us got off at the next stop and left him. I'm not sure how the story ended (only knew him peripherally), but in retrospect, that's about as bendy and needy as you can get. Perhaps I should have found it arousing.
I think 100 is pretty gendered all around. If we're talking about pithy heteronormative advice for dudes the Tao of Steve probably does better (totes flawed, though).
122, coda: (On self-examination, I literally can't remember whether I was on the bus, or only heard the story.)
120: I find self-sufficiency often presents as complete openness; there are no sparks because there is nothing hidden, nothing special to be revealed only to you. The needy person pulls you aside and says there is something I am trusting you with that all others are denied because they can't help me.
I think you aren't supposed to be needy qua bendy, though.
I would claim that what's actually appealing is openness. Next, openness anticorrelates with good judgement, since talking to other people is usually so disappointing.
So sampling for people who are open produces a population in which poor judgement is overrepresented.
120, 127: the one thing we can be sure of is that there's a single, simple correct description of what it is like (or like for others) to be needy or self-sufficient.
I find self-sufficiency often presents as complete openness
RENÉ GIRARD WOULD DISAGREE!!!
There is an optimum level of neediness between complete self sufficiency and the sucking vortex of total dependence (AKA my first serious girlfriend). Similarly there is a peak of bendiness between complete inflexibility and slime mold like bonelessness. Plotting the two as a surface in 3D hotness-neediness-flexibility space we have a local peak that totally looks like a booby.
I think 100 is pretty gendered all around
I think your mom is gendered all around.
You don't have to put things over your head with your foot; it's just posture, grace of movement, etc. Combine it with asking people to do things for you and you're golden.
The good thing about this conversation is that we will end up having completely and satisfactorily described the totality of human attractiveness.
135 to 130.1 in reference to [ 134, 125.1 in reference to 134 ].
My two worst dating decisions definitely seem to have involved me being, for inexplicable reasons, attracted to bendiness or neediness or both. In retrospect it all seems completely stupid.
it's just posture, grace of movement, etc.
Says the supple leopard.
To be more precise, the claim in the book wasn't about neediness in the abstract, it was about specifically demanding that people do things for you.
Please bring me a cold beer and some tacos al lengua.
"Pull my head out of my ass! Now!"
"Take me to a yoga studio but not one of those sweaty ones"
specifically demanding that people do things for you
I think this gets pretty close to advice given in Why Men Marry Bitches. I have not read said book, but its contents were reported to me in great detail.
None of this has described my dating life at all -- I pursued men with powerful mothers and mellifluous voices, and attracted them with upright posture and quivering rage -- but I'm laughing hard enough to spit tea.
"Buy me some jewelry from a store that uses really sexist advertising."
I pursued men with powerful mothers and mellifluous voices, and attracted them with upright posture and quivering rage
Best dating summary ever.
I was two-thirds of the way through 75 before I could conclusively rule out the possibility of Fleur being the author.
I seem to remember having seen 'asking for small favors' as advice for indicating immediate interest, sort of like touching the person you're interested in, or playing with your hair. The idea, as I recall, was that it indicated a willingness to be under a minor obligation to the other person, rather than neediness generally.
There's the con in Faking It and Welcome to Temptation; get them to smile, get them to say yes, make them feel smarter than you, ask them for a favor, make the con.
from 75:
some people just go mad for unappealing pieces of shit who force them to give up their whole family to take care of them by paying for everything and hating everything they hate
One example of this in my ambit, I can't figure out, but I wonder if it's because of not being able to separate from the family or express boundaries or anger in some way that's probably quite reasonable but ruled out by some gotcha no-one sees.
have not read said book, but its contents were reported to me in great detail.
On an internet date, one hopes.
Jeez!
1) I have a film Leica and a 1950s spy camera along with a film SLR, long lenses, etc. Need a fedora though but that's an easy fix.
2) I'm single, might be needy and am fairly angry. Not very bendy, and a too old for AWB but perhaps there are others out other.
3) Was just notified that the LA Superior Court sees the wisdom of not having a very cranky old fart prone to "Off with their heads!" on a jury.
4) Now, to get the DE off their damned list. Writing "Deceased, not at this address" on the envelope did not work. Have just tried "DEAD!! What part of DEAD do you not understand? Look her up on the internet, you fucktards." in red magic marker.
On an internet date, one hopes.
Sadly no. Though more than a few of my internet dates got wrecked right around the time we started discussing a book or a film.
To be more precise, the claim in the book wasn't about neediness in the abstract, it was about specifically demanding that people do things for you.
That is very, very different from neediness.
I pursued men with powerful mothers and mellifluous voices
Just one powerful mother, one presumes.
157: So "I pursued men with a powerful mother"... you're suggesting that she has only ever pursued one set of brothers?
No, I'm reading "with" as a rather than cum.
I pursued men by means of a powerful mother and a mellifluous voice (or voices).
Clew does have a mellifluous voice!
She might have gathered a band of powerful mothers in the company of which she hunted down men who appealed to her.
"Surround me, powerful mothers! Now, mellifluous voices: sing us a song of war!"
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
Although I suppose that should be Redfoxtail's dating methods, rather than clew's.
163: yes, it does have rather a "Bacchae" sound to it.
163 has made my day, and on its tide I must bend my sail towards work. (Metaphor, self-banishing, work-enforcing.)
Do people actually do that thing where they spend two months' salary on an engagement ring? Because that strikes me as batshit insane.
I bet no one on Unfogged has given or received a ring that cost 2 months salary (of the giver). Speak up if you're just that batshit insane!
Tweety has assured me that my ring did not cost 2 months of the salary he was making at the time. I am actually quite curious how much it cost, because I have basically no idea. I keep meaning to get it and some rings from my mom appraised for our renters' insurance, so I guess I'll get an idea then.
I paid almost 2 weeks of after-tax salary.
I have now, fifteen years later, lost it, but Buck went way over two months salary -- mine was completely disproportionate to anything sane. If I'd been involved in the purchase I would have vetoed it. (He very shortly thereafter started unexpectedly making a lot more money, so paying it off wasn't a problem. But it was a very silly thing to have done.)
167: Big Diamond is now trying to up the ante and change the "tradition" to three months salary. While unfogged is obviously not the target audience for these marketing claims, I'm not sure that the broader public ever bought it either. I suspect it functions in practice more as an anchor for expectations, so that people who spend 1.5 months salary feel like they're being prudent.
It was really, really pretty, though.
168. I was just given/offered a ring. It was a family heirloom, so I guess it cost the giver nothing. On the other hand, the giver is currently basically unemployed, so the worth of the ring is definitely way more than 2 months' salary. (And yet, for all this enticement, I said no.)
Turned down a proposal, or just the accompanying jewelry? Funny, I don't hear many stories of people getting to the jewelry-offering stage of proposing without having all but explicitly agreed to getting married already.
I have never met someone who is incredibly needy and angry all the time who is single. They're the most sexually attractive people in the world.
This amuses me because my love life after moving to New York suddenly got much better and the other thing that happened when I moved to New York was, yeah.
In retrospect it all seems completely stupid.
and I've found my epitaph!
175. Turned down the proposal.
I'm intrigued by this needy/angry/bendy business. I'm fairly flexy, mostly angry, but not especially needy. I guess I could work on that last part?
So, what happened? Random guy on a bus proposed; internet date proposed the second time you met; longterm boyfriend proposed but you don't think you're quite ready to get married, maybe next year; longterm boyfriend proposed but you think maybe breaking up instead is a better option?
Obviously, ignore unwanted nosy questions, but it sounds like there's a story.
Obviously, ignore unwanted nosy questions
No do not. Answer questions!
It was a couple of weeks ago. Ex-boyfriend (we were together for nine years; he dumped me quite out of the blue two years ago; complications ensued; recently he has been petitioning reentry to my life; recentlier he proposed).
Anyway, I've decided to put the matter to a sort of a vote in this thread. At the conclusion of this thread, I will add up the characters in all of the comments. Odd=yes, even=no.
Does 174 mean what I think it means?
182. Yeah. Can I put you down in the "no" camp?
I would skywrite "don't even think about marrying him" if I could afford it.
Yeah, I guess when I write it all down like that, it looks pretty bad.
we were together for nine years; he dumped me quite out of the blue two years ago;
Oh, I remember this guy! (Or I'm confused.)
Counting the characters first to make sure they made the thread come out to an even number.
Oh hey it does. I guess I say yes? Or maybe no?
If there were a connected story that had been posted presidentially that it wouldn't be wrong for anyone to mentally connect to this guy, you'd mention that it was okay, right? (Not that I know, I make an effort not to check IP addresses for presidential posts unless I really really want to.)
(Not that I know, I make an effort not to check IP addresses for presidential posts unless I really really want to.)
This high level of probity and discretion is what keeps me coming back to Unfogged.
I don't think I've ever posted presidentially. I talked about this only a little bit here, plus some complaining on Kotsko's now-mostly-defunct blog.
(I haven't checked any IP addresses either), I'm just remembering some horrible out-of-the-blue break up, where the guy had been massively withholding communications that anything was other than hunky-dory. Might have been someone else or someone presidential.
I spent in the range of two months salary on my wife's engagement ring. At the time diamonds were relatively expensive compared to today, my salary was quite low. The ring is quite modest. It looks like someone with the same civil service classification as I had back then could now buy the same size ring for less than a month's salary, and I could buy that size ring for roughly one day's compensation.
Then I'm connecting the wrong story. Oh, good, the one I was thinking of was a real piece of work.
194. That sounds like me! Maybe I talked about this more than I remember.
I just want whatever will bring you happiness, jms.
jms, are you including thread numbers and "Posted by" lines? Just so I can game it out better.
I would skywrite "don't even think about marrying him" if I could afford it.
As long as it costs less than 2 months' salary, I think you're obligated to do this.
I suggest a set of explicit relationship targets in lieu of marriage.
My first impulse, without RTFA, is DTMFA, but now I'm reconsidering based on the whole 9 years relationship thing. That's kind of a long time. Was the later part of that relationship okay? If it sucked, then obviously fuck it. But if it was good and the break up was just one moment of stupidity balanced against 9 years of being pretty decent, maybe a second chance is not so absurd. Hard to say without more details though.
Have you guys been seeing each other exclusively for the past couple months, since he began petitioning for re-entry? Ie was there any meaningful relationship at the time of proposal?
207. Not really seeing each other exclusively, no, although we weren't really seeing anyone else. On the other hand, we also weren't really seeing each other, period. Basically, each of us were living in separate hermit-like states, plus occasional making out.
FWIW, I spent more than I'd really budgeted, but far less than 2 months' salary. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was 2 weeks' salary.
Have I told this story? We'd been looking together, mostly at estate stuff, and found one that seemed right, but it was missing stones. Without AB's knowledge, I had them order the stones (a pair of sapphires to flank the diamond that was still in place). In the meantime, I went on a business trip*, during which trip AB visited another jeweler and found the ring she really wanted. When we spoke on the phone that night, I pretty much bit my tongue off. The first jeweler was very forgiving about what happened, and I eventually told AB about it, which made her feel awful, but she was still happier with the ring she'd found.
Until she lost it on the beach at Lake Erie.
* 4 days and 3 nights touring Central PA with a cow-orker, measuring mall spaces to become Verizon Wireless stores. In mid-December (during the F-ing FL recount), so all the malls were playing Xmas music. Awful as it was, we were on a generous expense account, so we ate at the best available restaurants** and stayed in historic hotels in the centers of old county seats, like York.
** no snickering
living in separate hermit-like states, plus occasional making out.
Hey jms, if the word count works out right, maybe you'd be available?
living in separate hermit-like states, plus occasional making out.
Yeah, this sounds pretty sweet unless there are kids. btw, I am 6'1" and will laugh at your jokes.
I suggest a set of explicit relationship targets in lieu of marriage.
1. Stop being a jerk.
2. Seriously, stop.
3. Okay, this time I mean it.
213: His reply,"Why do you insist on trying to change me?"
I would be surprised if in any state you have to legally give an engagement ring back. It's not a down payment, so far as I know.
||The county courthouse in Butte is stunning. It cost more to build, the judge told me, than the state capitol: the Copper Kings wanted it clear who was who and what was what. They had the centennial this summer, including a ball in the lobby. |>
JMS, you don't make a life with this fellow seem that appealing. But there's no hurry, right? He can keep petitioning for another year . . ."
185: I will totally chip in to make this happen.
I would be surprised if in any state you have to legally give an engagement ring back.
gswift, it would be rude of me to tell the guy to wait more than five weeks before proposing next time, right?
215.2: It is amusing that if you do an image search on "Butte courthouse" you get a whole lot of pictures of a big rock, and if you do "Silver Bow courthouse" you get lots of sparkly shoes.
If I lived in Butte, I would open a restaurant called "The Poisonville Cafe", with dishes like "Red Harvest breakfast platter" and "What's The Rumpus? burgers"
216: The best thing would be all of the bystanders who'd think, "Is that meant for me?". It would be wonderfully self-fulfilling: if you think it's intended for you, it probably should be.
217 -- You learn something every day, whether you want to or not.
I'm kidding about 213, by the way. He is really and truly not a jerk, by most accounts. Natilo's diagnosis in 205 of "one moment of stupidity balanced against 9 years of being pretty decent" pretty much has it, except that "one moment" should be "about a year and a half," and "stupidity" is maybe something else, and I'm trying to figure out what that was. He says it was a period of mental illness, and there seems to be some support for that -- he was clearly deeply depressed, and there was something very wrong -- but I'm also worried that it wasn't just illness (which I can live with) but a characterological issue. So, that's what I'm trying to sort out.
At any rate, I said no, for now, anyway. This was made easier by the fact that the ring was totally monstrous. It turns out that his great-great grandmother or whatever had horrendous taste.
Natilo, you know how it ended up being Butte-Silver Bow (rather than just Silver Bow County)? The class struggle story about how the city was dis-incorporated is worth a few minutes' research.
No for now definitely seems like the right answer.
Personally, I'm of the view that there's no reason to get married absent an intention to shortly thereafter have kids, and not much of a reason even then. But that's just me.
(And in between researching the history of Butte, folks can read Molly Laich's latest movie review.)
Another vote for Basically, each of us were living in separate hermit-like states, plus occasional making out..
each of us were living in separate hermit-like states, plus occasional making out.
The ideal relationship!
Or maybe not. But maybe?
Dude. If you aren't currently obligated, don't live with illness either. I mean, if you are together and can live with illness, do that because it is awesome and you'd hope to get that returned for you.
But if you aren't currently with someone who has spells of mental illness that make him dump you (or even be not-himself, when himself is the person you loved) then don't take that on. Of course mental illness means he hasn't any cruel intention. But living with that even if it isn't meant cruelly is horrible and hard, and you should avoid horrible and hard things if you have the choice. Right now your choice is wide open (by his doing). Give thanks for a dodged bullet and keep moving.
there's no reason to get married absent an intention to shortly thereafter have kids, and not much of a reason even then.
Tax breaks?
227: I was going to mention you by name, neb, but I didn't want TBSALB.
Spending two months' salary sounds kind of insane to me. You could spend that money on an awesome vacation! Or a whole new wardrobe. Or a collection of less expensive, but distinctive, rings which could be worn for more variety. Or... a pony?
I don't think the point is that it's not supposed to be insane. That's the whole marketing pitch: prove to her that she makes you insane. (With love.)
232: I think the logic of it is Kierkegaardian -- the fact that it is so crazy is proof of true love.
233, 234: Pwned by urple! But I was more pretentious!
Learning that the ex known as Sylvia Plath bought into the two-months-salary thing helped to end that relationship. Not as much as realizing that she was antisemitic, or having her try to get pregnant when we were breaking up, but it was a factor.
236: I can't believe you let that one get away!
The fact that he proposed to you when you're not living together or really even in a relationship is a bad, bad sign.
Furthermore, I endorse 229.
The last time we discussed this, Dsquared had a riff about how the DeBeers who thought up the two month's salary thing must now be a legend. "They went for it! I can't believe they went for it"
having her try to get pregnant when we were breaking up
Ah, that old move.
Furthermore, I endorse 229.
You gonna tell M/tch, or should we?
Has that ridiculously transparent right-hand ring campaign died yet?
The last time we discussed this, Dsquared had a riff about how the DeBeers who thought up the two month's salary thing must now be a legend. "They went for it! I can't believe they went for it"
I'd have assumed that it was an outgrowth of the things one would otherwise have spent the money on at the outset of married life together—downpayment on a house or whatever.
LB & hg, maybe you're thinking of I-can't-think-of-her-pseud from CA with the crazily unsupportive family? Who got out of a shitty long-term relationship and found a good guy not too long after? Neb, you know who I mean.
241: That depends if you think I'm party A or party B.
or having her try to get pregnant when we were breaking up
People say that sending a text or email is too distant, but waiting until you are mid coitus seems way too far in the other direction.
I will contribute however many characters are needed for a "no" answer.
If you google "two months salary", one of the autocomplete suggestions is "two months salary rule gross or net?".
KR, didn't Fleur flip out that the ring you bought was too small?
but I'm also worried that it wasn't just illness (which I can live with) but a characterological issue.
I'm interested in this distinction but not sure quite what to say about it. I drank a 16 oz Dr. Pepper (not yet banned!) with lunch and am sort of twitchy.
249: shiv made that joke when he was ring shopping. "gross, or net, and what I made when we met, or what I make now?"
KR, didn't Fleur flip out that the ring you bought was too small?
Not exactly. She loved the engagement ring (even though it was cute). It's the wedding ring that was a bone of contention.
Funny story about the engagement ring: I was looking at a substantially larger stone (lower quality, and therefore still within my means) at a Parisian jeweler, and the owner informed me in a scolding tone that a ring that size should only be worn by a much older woman, and I should please turn my attention to something more appropriate.
Can you subtract 401k contributions? What about charitable donations?
Some accountant should come up with an investment product that shields your income from engagement ring calculations.
If you are receiving financial support from an ex-wife, do you count that as part of the salary for the ring you get for the next one? Probably the support will stop as soon as you remarry, so it shouldn't count unless you have a long engagement.
I am too lazy to find and link the article I have no doubt found and linked the last time we talked about this. (It is awesome though. On the overvaluation of the diamond with respect to agate. Diamonds: Neither rare nor interesting to look at!)
254.last: We got the same advice from a woman at an antique store in Blawnox.
You were staring at her butt, not a ring.
I would be surprised if in any state you have to legally give an engagement ring back
I was just involved in such a case. The ring is a conditional gift. It needs to be returned if you dont marry.
Once you marry, you get to keep it.
(Shearer was correct as far as Va. This is consistent Circuit Court opinion. Supremes of Va havent addressed it.)
I vote no on the jms question. Only bc I care.
Large engagement rings/diamonds are stupid. I secretly want their value to drop significantly. (I guess it isnt a secret anymore.)
261: The less money you pay on an engagement ring, the more you'll have to pay to a divorce attorney!
I was just explaining why Will was against expensive engagement rings, but than I realized I had come up with a slogan for a diamond store. Is it better than the one in the OP?
gswift, it would be rude of me to tell the guy to wait more than five weeks before proposing next time, right?
Seeing as you're now living in a place rife with gang warfare maybe people just need to seize the moment not knowing if today will be their last.
People are always pissed about the engagement ring bc invariably they are still paying it off. So the wife gets to keep the expensive ring and the Husband gets the debt.
Prenups, people! Prenups.
||
I just had my hair cut by some old Korean lady with a comical accent. The haircut was crazy meticulous and the conversation was kind of nuts the entire time. "On news there was president of a computer company talking about putting computer chip in brain! Make us robots! You would be robocop! HAHAHAHAHA. ROBOCOP! You know movie? Robocop? HAHAHAHAHA."
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Man, does that sound like a marker of bad judgment. A marriage that didn't last long enough to pay off the ring?
||
So, many of you people have real jobs in real companies that turn a profit and stuff. Is it normal for someone at your workplace to schedule a meeting with (1) no agenda and (2) no fixed ending time, and, then, for that person to turn around and (3) cry when they don't get what they want?
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267: Like, actually cry? With tears and everything?
I think the office door had slammed behind her before the actual waterworks came on.
267: Not at either of the two places I've worked full-time, no.
And I thought Kurt Vonnegut was just being mordant when he wrote:
"But just imagine how hard you would be [for the IRS] to watch if you had a whole office building jammed to the rafters with industrial bureaucrats--men who lose things and use the wrong forms and create new forms and demand everything in quintuplicate, and who understand perhaps a third of what is said to them; who habitually give misleading answers in order to gain time in which to think, who make decisions only when forced to, and who then cover their tracks; who make perfectly honest mistakes in addition and subtraction, who call meetings whenever they feel lonely, who write memos whenever they feel unloved; men who never throw anything away unless they think it could get them fired."
267, 269: Sadly, that would not at all be out of the ordinary for a number of places I've worked.
So, many of you people have real jobs in real companies that turn a profit and stuff. Is it normal for someone at your workplace to schedule a meeting with (1) no agenda and (2) no fixed ending time, and, then, for that person to turn around and (3) cry when they don't get what they want?
If they had no agenda, how do you know they didn't get what they wanted?
On second thought, don't define normal. I've comforting delusions to maintain and never worked in a for-profit business in any but the lowest capacities.
When you say meeting, are we talking a conference room full of people, or just the two of you in your office?
267: Not unheard of. If you want to introduce something everyone will hate, it's logical not to hand out an agenda in advance. It's also quite likely not to get one's way following such a move. If one is going to cry, the logical time to do it is after not getting one's way.
It's very weird to schedule a meeting with no agenda. It's not weird at all to schedule a meeting without circulating an agenda to the other participants in the meeting. It's also not terribly weird to schedule a meeting with no fixed ending time. Crying in the meeting would be weird but back in her office is perfectly normal.
Is this really the most damning IP address reveal, were I to look it up? It seems like I've been tested through far more delicious gossipy dirt.
278: Get out. The comment is coming from your house.
There seems to be something that she wanted, because she was heartbroken when we couldn't figure out exactly what it was, and whether such a thing was affordable, practical, ethical, or logically possible.
Okay, it really can't have been that unclear. I mean, unclear in detail, but it must have been possible to figure out roughly what was going on.
280: There is no totally novel sex act that meets those criteria.
I guess you never notice basic corporate functionality until it's gone. We have zero open-ended meetings, hardly any unscheduled, and reminders in all meeting rooms of how to have an effective meeting, which are both sensible and by and large followed.
This was a meeting of six people (then five, then four) in a windowless conference room that had old fashioned, buzzing florescent lighting. When the meeting was over, the person who called the meeting stormed across the hall to her own office, apparently to sob.
My first post exaggerated a little, but not so much for comic effect, but more to express how unsettling I found this whole thing.
The IP address is not especially damning. I just wanted to make fun of you guys for looking at IP addresses.
I just want to kill a billion dollar puppy on top of a space elevator while simultaneously not killing the puppy? Is that so wrong? Boohoohoohoo.
I find angry women attractive, but I thought this was just one of my own personal character flaws, rather than a general trait. (Though "angry at me" isn't attractive -- a general abstract anger at society is attractive.)
Heh. Sally was talking about her new favorite band (Paramore? I haven't ever actually heard any of their stuff.) and described them as good because "They're really angry. Not, like, angry because they broke up with someone or for some kind of reason, just angry generally."
Neb, you know who I mean.
I do! I even remember her pseud.
Well perhaps you could remind a person of it.
286: So you're saying I've got options if M/tch throws me over?
She was a belletrist, or rather, a singular example of what a belletrist writes.
||
Fuckety fuck fuck. One of my best friends was just diagnosed with ALS.
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Oh god, that sucks. Sorry, Chopper.
285: a puppy puppy? Or a temporary job at a selective liberal arts college puppy?
That sucks, Chopper.
I'm also totally on board with Megan's 229 ("Dude. If you aren't currently obligated, don't live with illness either."), which is one reason I'm rather conflicted about my desire to go on dates and such.
Sorry, Chopper, that's absolutely awful.
Very sorry to hear about your friend.
I have never met someone who is incredibly needy and angry all the time who is single.
Man, I date a whole lot of needy and angry. I've come to assume my attraction to that is pathological and a sign of deep, unresolved problems. I don't know whether to be comforted or frightened by the suggestion that this combo appeals widely.
(Also, I'm as needy and angry as they come I should think and have been plenty single plenty often. Do I need to be needier? Angrier?)
267: uh, no, no, and no. Agendas are sometimes vague, or just implicit in the title, maybe. (2) is technically impossible given the use of calendaring software, which is handy. As for (3) - is this someone in an existing position of authority, or someone who seems to be trying to assert some authority that doesn't obviously exist?
"temporary job at a selective liberal arts college" was not exactly the meaning of "puppy" as originally used by Unserious. Whoever that was.
I don't know what "meeting" means. I mean, a lot of times if I'm working on a project with two or three other people I'll ask them if we can meet and discuss progress and what to do next, and it's kind of open-ended. But it's not like official-meeting-with-an-agenda-and-minutes or anything. I guess I don't know where the boundary between "meeting" and "conversation involving more than two people" is.
And while I'm serial-commenting: is it normal for someone in your workplace to frequently wear a prominently displayed belt buckle that reads "Superstar!"? Because I am having so much trouble keeping a straight face whenever this guy shows up.
I bet no one on Unfogged has given or received a ring that cost 2 months salary (of the giver). Speak up if you're just that batshit insane!
I dated a guy this summer who gave me a ring that cost more than two months' salary. Of course, he was unemployed and the ring came from a gumball machine. (What? He was needy and angry--hott!)
299.last: more flexible, maybe. Bendier.
295.last could have been written by me.
Sorry, Chopper. That's really rough.
304: My belt buckle has a bottle cap from this brand set in the center. I usually wear my shirt over it, though.
300, 303: use of calendaring software has no bearing on whether a meeting is *really* open-ended.
I spent the spring and summer organizing and hosting meetings with a rotating cast of about 80 people from just under 20 organizations within my government department. We usually also had remote participation in 5 timezones (from Hawaii to Germany).
It SUCKED. Constant harassing calls and emails for readahead materials, agendas, and other crap.
Ooh, and it all culminated last week in a big nothingburger!
If I'm meeting with external people, or high muckety-muck grand poobah types at work there'll probably be an explicit in advance agenda. But meetings with close colleagues or my staff (all 2 of them), it'd be much more 'let's chat after lunch about $foo' with little more agenda than that. Isn't that how most people work? (Leaving aside people using specific formal methodologies)
He says it was a period of mental illness, and there seems to be some support for that -- he was clearly deeply depressed, and there was something very wrong -- but I'm also worried that it wasn't just illness (which I can live with) but a characterological issue. So, that's what I'm trying to sort out.
Oh, this is a tough one. It's great to be prepared to deal with it (the mentally ill need love too!) but also worth saying that it does not make you even a little bit of a bad person if you aren't ready to sign on to it for the rest of your life (mentally ill people are fucking exhausting--to ourselves and our loved ones alike). Worth spending lots of time learning exactly what the story/diagnosis/prognosis and so on will be before you make any long term decisions.
292 Sorry, that really sucks. But the consensus is that you shouldn't marry them (Too soon?)
JMS Isn't there an in between friendship type relationship, one that reverses the previous dynamic to lots of hanging out and keeping the make out fun to a minimum? Then you can both reassess after a year.
Ugh, very sorry, Chopper.
||
I just discovered that a big set of numbers I use all the time at work follows Benford's Law. Originally I was curious if any of the submissions making it up might have been spurious, but it's pretty freaky how closely it matches -- in aggregate, no digit is more than 1.1% off from the predicted probabilities, and most are much closer.
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311: To the whiteboard!
I don't think you should marry this guy if you aren't enthusiastic about marrying this guy, jms. Of course, I'm now, hmmm, seventeen years into a really happy monogamous relationship and barely convinced that we should have a wedding because our families would like it so.
On the other hand, I'm horrified at the idea that anyone borrows for an engagement ring. I assumed the 20th century point was to test whether the guy was capable of living on less than his full current salary, since some of it was about to go for supporting a family.
292: I am so sorry, Chopper. That sucks.
306: I'm quite bendy, actually. But terribly responsible (ok, uptight) and a complete slob. I assume it's one of those two things that does me in. Bendy and needy can offset crazy. I need something to offset uptight slob.
A maid, six dozen plastic bins, and a sharpie?
Have just looked up ALS and am horrified as well as sympathetic, Chopper.
a big nothingburger!
So you've discovered my weightloss secret.
This thread is INTENSE.
Sorry, Chopper.
is it normal for someone in your workplace to frequently wear a prominently displayed belt buckle that reads "Superstar!"
It's not normal in my workplace, but it will be because I'm totally doing that.
OK, this one doesn't read "Superstar", but I'd rather get it than an engagement ring.
I need something to offset uptight slob.
Hot?
322: If you're going to flirt properly, that shouldn't be a question.
is it normal for someone in your workplace
to frequently wear a prominently displayed
belt buckle that reads "Superstar!"
Start playing the relevant verses of "Gay Bar" whenever he walks by. If he doesn't approve, he's not really a superstar.
On second thought, that would get old really, really fast.
322: I guess it's time to run a vacuum...
I don't know how long I'm going to hang out tonight, but I have to say I think 229 is one of the shittiest things I've seen around here for some time. Seriously? We should all shun people "with illness"? Even taking this as limited to mental illness, what the fuck?
People with illnesses (of all sorts! Including mental ones!) are capable of all kinds of relationships, including rewarding and fulfilling relationships that are not just punishing burdens to the other people in them. Do some people with mental illnesses act like jerks in their relationships? Certainly. But I think we all know that many people with no illnesses of any kind are equally likely to act like huge jerks in their relationships.
People who act like jerks deserve to not be dated. Full stop.
Yeah, it is a very different thing to say that someone's illness doesn't mean that you are obligated to suffer their jerkishness than it is to say "avoid illness! you don't need that!"
I think my negative focus on miss montana's money-dependent ways has obscured the issue. it's more like awb's: this chick is mean and horrible to him, right in front of us, so we can only imagine how mean and horrible she is in private. generally the money tends to be a proxy for feeling emotionally hurt about stuff. my sister and I adore our brother and can't think of delicate enough ways to say "she's being mean to you" that don't sound like "you're an idiot for going out with her" or "I don't think anyone's good enough for my baby brother so you can ignore all my particular opinions." my brother was, indeed, still paying off the ring for horrible first wife when she dumped him after one year, so that shit happens.
moneywise there is a limited pie to be divided between my children and my brother's future children, but I want him to have kids NOW so my children can have cousins when they are little. I don't like the idea of montana having kids, and then taking the kids away from us and making extravagant financial demands all the time, which I can...imagine.
I would never have married Blume if she ever exhibited any signs of illness, mental weakness, or genetic inferiority. Who would stand for that? My time is precious.
My (maternal) grandfather always said my grandmother had married up. It is clear with the benefit of hindsight that the scale on which he was measuring is "being an asshole".
331, 335: To be fair to Megan, I don't think she was saying "don't be involved with someone who has spells of mental illness," but rather, "don't be involved with people whose spells of mental illness lead them to break up with you." That is to say, that there's a parenthetical "(untreated)" implied in the advice.
I don't entirely agree with that advice either, but it's a much more reasonable thing to say, I think.
My time is precious.
"Thief, Thief, Thief! Tweety's time! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever"
churrau hanim.
Thief, Thief, Thief! Tweety's time!
Just so.
Tweety kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair he sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Tweety kissed me.
People with illnesses (of all sorts! Including mental ones!) are capable of all kinds of relationships, including rewarding and fulfilling relationships that are not just punishing burdens to the other people in them.
For certain values of "punishing burdens," values that many people consider reasonable, people with no illnesses at all probably can't pull it off.
I read Megan as saying that if someone's behavior is completely unacceptable to you, you aren't actually obligated to pretend that it's fine just because it comes along with a diagnosis of a mental illness.
I am more sympathetic to this advice because I've seen a number of friends being treated horribly by love interests who get away with it because they're mentally ill. More second chances, more tolerance of abuse/manipulation, etc. This isn't saying that one can't or shouldn't make accommodations in some cases, but that it's okay to have your own standards of how you need to be treated, even if the other person genuinely can't respect them, and even if it means breaking up.
That's a pretty, uh, charitable take on "don't live with illness".
I read Megan as saying you should set sick people on fire and throw them off the roof.
I don't think I understand 343, but I'm going to bed so maybe you can explain it to me tomorrow.
I saw a teaser for a show called "Yukon Men." They were going out to shoot black bear because otherwise the bears "might eat [their] kids." It is much more amusing to imagine Teo on this show.
345: When she's specifically directing it to someone who has an ex-boyfriend who treated her badly and is saying "oh, but I was ill" while trying to get back together? It isn't really particularly charitable to read someone who says don't get re-involved someone with an illness who treats you cruelly and dumps you, even if you know it's not their fault as meaning that you shouldn't get re-involved with someone with an illness who treats you cruelly and dumps you, even if you know that it's not their fault.
I love how every time I comment in a thread these days people start talking about bears and stuff.
Anyway, it's extremely unlikely that black bears are going to eat anyone's kids, and people who say things like that probably just want to shoot some bears.
Have you had any of that birch syrup yet?
352: Yes, but I am looking forward to the episode of Yukon Men where the drama involves a linguistics thread and someone being WRONG on the internet. Also, moose.
Yes, but I am looking forward to the episode of Yukon Men where the drama involves a linguistics thread and someone being WRONG on the internet.
I would dominate that episode, but I don't actually live in the Yukon.
229 331
I agree with Megan, no one should feel obligated to seriously date or marry someone who is likely to make them unhappy. It is in fact foolish to do this. It doesn't really matter if they are going to make you unhappy because they are mentally ill or because they are a jerk a distinction that I don't think is always clearcut in any case.
Of course you don't want to overreact to minor mental problems, nobody is perfect. But you don't want to underreact either. Mental problems can be serious and basically untreatable and it is unwise to pretend otherwise.
Maybe I could try to get a visiting position here.
neb is apparently not Davy Crockett.
I share Cala's reading. I am aware of all internet traditions, but one actually isn't required to read other people with a maximum lack of charity. Megan is just an imaginary person on the internet, but we all have a general sense of where
she's coming from.
What about "whip the Creeks," neb? Gonna do that too?!
What do you think I am, some weak-ass Cú Chulainn knockoff?
we all have a general sense of where she's coming from
My sense of Sacramento is pretty weak, really.
Having actually dated somebody who was straight up mentally ill, rather than just "all my exes are crazy" crazy, I'm going to second Megan's advice. It's grindingly exhausting and not at all fun once the cork pops. And it can be an incredibly difficult (and sometimes dangerous) situation to extricate yourself from when it becomes intolerable.
Having dated several people with straight-up mental illness, I'd happily say that there are some behaviors some people are better at dealing with than others. Being with someone who repeatedly tried to murder me every time he realized that I had conversations with someone other than him? No, it turns out being in a relationship while refusing treatment was probably not good for either of us. Dating someone who was depressed but encouraged by some good mood-elevating sex and humane conversation was something I was much better at.
I'm not taking a position on JMS's dude, though. I don't think I can envision the whole thing from here. Sometimes you look at your life and say, yup, that's my life.
I definitely read Megan as saying something blunt and controversial.
But as I understood it, the key point was "if you're not already in a relationship with them." It's a difference between known unknowns and unknown unknowns. You should expect that in the long run difficulties will crop up in living with anyone, and they might be really difficult in ways that are unforeseeable. Once you've made a commitment, it's a good and noble thing to follow through on that commitment through the difficulties. But just because you know things could get difficult down the line doesn't mean that you should going into things knowing about specific very difficult things. Because you could still get other difficulties cropping up down the line!
Ugh, but I don't want to be good and noble. Although this year has been very good in lots of ways, it's been really difficult living with C because he's "not depressed but miserable about his grandfather dying and doing a (new) job he hates" which makes him horrible. I'd rather he said, oh I'm depressed, and did something about it, because at least then I could be sympathetic. As it is, he just acts like a twat. He should be changing jobs soon. How long do I have to wait to see if he cheers up or just carries on being impossible?
Also, I don't have an engagement ring, so basically I'm under no obligation, is that right?
372: That's rough, asilon, for you both. I'm curious why you feel (if I read you correctly) strongly about the difference between "I'm depressed" and "I'm miserable because of the current shit in my life." Also curious, when you say you wish he'd do something about it what in particular you wish he'd do. If he's changing jobs soon, it sounds like he's at least done one thing to address what he sees as a primary source of his current misery. As for how long you wait, I am a fan (in theory, anyway) of cooling off periods, time away from each other, especially if he is being so constantly horrible and miserable that you're feeling on edge all the time.
I assume "depressed" can then be attacked with drugs and therapy, whereas "circumstantially miserable" is part of the whole twat-diagnosis where not pursuing any improvement is part of the whole contrarian twatness.
That would have been my read, to, HG. I'm resistant to it. It seems at least possible that sometimes changing the circumstances is a more direct, efficient, effective way to pursue improvement than drugs/therapy. The drugs do have all sorts of side effects, risks, etc., after all. It's easy (for me, anyway) to defensively read a distinction btw "depressed" and "circumstantially miserable" as suggesting the circumstances don't warrant the kind of misery the person feels or as a judgment that the person is incapable of handling his/her circumstances. Sometimes the latter is true, of course. But sometimes "you're depressed have some drugs" is too facile. (Mostly, I've grown leery because my own doc had missed something kind of important medically because she wouldn't consider any possibility other than depression for my insomnia.)
Maybe it is a charitable reading, but Carla's take was similar to mine. This is the point: "if you are together and can live with illness, do that because it is awesome and you'd hope to get that returned for you."
If jms has an awesome relationship with the guy -- not problem-free but full of mutual respect, affection, and enjoyment, and a reasonable expectation of mutual support -- and he has a mental illness, go ahead, albeit with your eyes open.
To be clear, I am not expressing any opinions on what is or isn't the right approach/diagnosis/analysis for Asilon and C. My only opinion there is that it sounds rough, and I'm sorry to hear it, and I hope it gets better.
372
... He should be changing jobs soon. How long do I have to wait to see if he cheers up or just carries on being impossible?
If his current job is indeed the problem I would expect definite signs of improvement (or at least change) within a month or so.
377
If jms has an awesome relationship with the guy ...
It didn't sound very awesome to me.
I'm sorry to hear that things are still hard for Asilon. I, too, have had some being-the-bigger-person fatigue lately and it's (in my case) both frustrating and makes me feel sort of guilty. I don't think any sort of additional medicine would help Lee and part of it is that she's been a jerk at times and part of it is that she's done the best she could at times but it still wasn't great. She's actually doing well now and yet I still have various stompy "But why can't it be all about ME for a change?" thoughts.
"Why can't it be about me for a change" would be a good name for a liquor of some sort.
"Why can't it be about change for a me?" would be a good slogan for panhandling.
"Change Ys into Bs for me?" would be a good slogan for a graffiti artist.
"Why meant beat meatwang canned she?" wouldn't be a good slogan for anything.
Canned meatwang is a great phrase.
1. Not dating people who treat you badly is a great goal.
2. Avoiding people with mental illness is not a good way to accomplish this goal.
3. Avoiding "illness" (independently of whether the person with the illness is treating you badly) is shitty. Avoiding people who treat you badly (independently of their health) is laudable.
"Time to make the meatwangs"
I personally am quite grateful people are willing to be in relationships with the mentally ill, (particularly chronically depressed, possibly gay presidents.)
Still, I would never say to any one individual, "you are obligated to deal with my bullshit, because my bullshit comes from being mentally ill."
For every mentally ill person, there ought to be someone who loves and cares for them. There may even be cases where one person becomes obligated to care for a mentally ill person because no one else will. But for the most part, if you aren't up for it, you don't have to do it.
Can't beat it.
Not without a can opener.
7... 6... 5... 22...
That's (Einstein on the) Mentalwang!
But for the most part, if you aren't up for it, you don't have to do it.
Yes, this. You don't do anyone any favors taking on something you can't handle b/c you think you'll be a bad person if you don't.
When my partner has had job-related unhappiness (which has a couple times been pretty bad), switching jobs has turned things around quite quickly (hard to say exactly how fast because there's often been an anxiously unemployed period first). Of course there's no guarantee your partner's the same way.
I also take issue with the idea that there is an objective standard for "great relationship." Sometimes you just love someone. I'm not saying anyone should use that as an excuse for ill-treatment or abuse, but if a particular part of your relationship doesn't look like that of a "healthy couple" on TV, sometimes it can take a while to realize that it doesn't actually bother you--it just bothers the people around you. It's very easy to say DTMFA from the outside, and when a relationship is somehow non-normative, most people (including friends and therapists) will.
For every mentally ill person, there ought to be someone who loves and cares for them.
I can haz Jodie?
There's kind of an objective standard for a good relationship: does it enhance your life and overall add quality, or does it sap your energy and make you feel worse?
Similar to the needy, attractive people: could you live okay without the other person? (ie, are you with them out of fear of being alone - a miserable baseline that they're saving you from - or are you okay being alone and find that the other person adds quality to a decent baseline?)
Di, I don't really have good reasons for it, I think I've been pissed off for so long I'm past making sense anyway. Although Heebie explains it well. Even if you're miserable for a reason you could still go and get counselling and make plans. The new job thing has been a very recent development, so doesn't quite feel certain to me atm.
A friend of mine's husband was seriously depressed end of last year, beginning of this - off work for months. She said at one point about how she was happy to support him through it because, apart from loving him, he had been a fantastic support to her over the years and had stored up lots of brownie points. And I thought that C hadn't done that at all, and that all I ever really expected of him was to be good company, and now he's not that. So I am probably being horribly shallow and unsupportive. But he just keeps acting like a twat, to me and to the children, and whenever I try to be nice he pisses me off again!
What's his reaction when you say something along the lines of "Your twattiness/unhappiness is a problem, and I don't know how to fix it. What are we going to do?"
And because I've never had a job that consumed my entire life, I probably find it hard to properly empathise with him now - he did his previous job for 9 years and truly loved it. Took this current one last October knowing full well it would be more stress, less fun, but thinking that it would be a good next step. (Somewhat ambitious man.) And it is more boring and more crappy than imagined. New one should be perfect for him, and if all goes well, could happen by the end of the year. So am hanging on.
403 - probably something along the lines of "well I don't know either!" and then disappearing to bed. (No matter the time of day.)
Everyone gets to decide how much other people's baggage they're willing to and capable of carrying. It's really that simple. You either make those decisions consciously or you break when the load gets too heavy. (Analogy ban can go fuck itself)
I've done the intensive care nurse thing several times, sometimes as a duty, sometimes for love. There's not a fucking chance in hell of me signing up again given knowledge in advance. If that means missing out on someone I might love, so be it.
So, let's be clear, everyone deserves compassion and love. Judging people based on their actions, not your assessment of their illness, is the right thing to do. But, from experience, if you are contemplating marrying someone with a real mental illness you need to get ready for an extremely difficult life and set of circumstances. Including that things will be very erratic. Also, "I'm the kind sane one and you're the interesting crazy one" is a tough foundation for any relationship. Which isn't to say that all people don't have flaws (they do) or that mental illness is untreatable (it isn't) just that it's going to put huge burdens on a marriage and often in ways you don't expect even when you know generally it will be a burden.
Judging people based on their actions, not your assessment of their illness, is the right thing to do.
No, their capabilities can be important too. I'm all for the glow of love and devotion, not so much for the falling down the stairs in the dark.
Once you are using someone's past actions to judge how they are likely to behave in the future, you are judging their character. Also, you have to use someone's past actions to judge how they are likely to behave in the future if you are going to be in a relationship with them.
What if neither party can always be the kind sane one? Which rules still work? (I'm maundering to myself, or being pessimistic, or seeking test cases, whichever.)
"I'm the kind sane one and you're the interesting crazy one"
I'm pretty sure that in most couples, both partners secretly believe this. In those cases, though, we aren't talking clinically crazy.
Megan's 229 sort of reads as though she'd missed that jms and her ex were together for 9 years, and as far as I remember from her past comments about things, were quite happy. It sounds like jms is responding to the ex's new overtures in the way most people would: she's gun-shy and cautious, but after 9 years, you can't help but listen to what they have to say. Since you probably love them.
Everyone's going to have a different measure for what counts as a dealbreaker; for Megan, it's apparently illness (or any other form of weakness, I suspect). For others, it might be financial -- some people won't get into a serious relationship with someone who doesn't bring in a rather good income.
411: IMX that's right. It's my standard for estimating the "health" of relationships and activities.
It's a long hard journey, and if one isn't using 'nearly always makes a good faith effort' as a criterion in choosing companions, it's going to seem longer and be harder. Is popping out a big ring on the state of the relationship as jms has described it really a good faith effort? Obviously, only jms can judge. I might well have been tempted to respond with 'what, are you nuts?' as insensitive as that would surely have been.
I like Carp's formulation. I understand the appeal of the compelling-but-difficult-relationship, but, as I get older, I feel more and more that life can be very hard and I'm glad that my relationship, at least, is easy.
...life can be very hard and I'm glad that my relationship, at least, is easy.
Exactly so. I've never understood the notion that a good relationship needs hard work to maintain it. If there's lots of sweat involved something is wrong.
Maybe I am sensitive about this issue because I am a difficult person to love, and I tend to be attracted to other difficult people. I really try not to date anyone because I know what a burden I am. It's been four years since I even tried to date anyone on any level. I seem to be relatively easy and unburdensome as a friend, so I maintain what intimacies I can that way. I used to fantasize about having one of those easy relationships where you just like each other and have a nice time, but when I find people like that, we end up just being friends with absolutely no desire for more. I am fine with the idea of being single for the rest of my life, but, as someone who watches far more burdensome and demanding folks get showered with care, it is occasionally confusing.
418: I'd say it's not that a good relationship *needs* hard work to maintain it, but that, down the road, it may. I myself go into longer term relationships that are easy -- as in, 'we're at ease with each other, this is so not-hard, we're easy together, enjoy one another's company to an unusual degree' -- but I haven't yet found that to last more than half a dozen years before something or other comes up. Someone loses a job, a parent dies, someone becomes ill. It's a lucky state of affairs if the easiness lasts the rest of your lives.
Carp gets it right: making a good faith effort is key.
Still trying to square the circle, eh?
I don't really know how to articulate the difference between easy-as-friends and easy-with-a-spark.
Emerson! Help us! Also, how are you, sir?
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Would a brothy soup with tortelli and spinach freeze well?
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I have never really understood the "these things take work" line either. What sort of work? In what way do you think you're difficult?
I am well and lurk occasionally. I am self-publishing my complete works, readers or no.
Roasted red pepper and chickpea soup? It's blended and looks like tomato soup. Would that freeze well?
430: Yes. (The other one would be bad because pasta tends to turn to mush. )
I have never really understood the "these things take work" line either. What sort of work?
Being willing to have an adult conversation where you work to not be defensive, are on the same team as the other person, don't see the pie as finite and their gains as your losses, or where you always bolt and distance yourself when the other person wants to have such a conversation. (A good friend recently ended such a relationship. They were great at dating each other, but when they moved in and had to navigate actual issues, he turned into a petty little shithead.)
Blume and AWB: no sour-faced hatebags, they. Sweet-faced bags of right.
Ok, thanks you guys. Soup swap tomorrow. 6 quarts of roasted red pepper and chickpea soup coming right up.
I'm extremely puzzled by the idea that a long term relationship doesn't take work. What universe are you living in in which people are easy and breezy forever? Being attentive to someone else over the long term is difficult and takes work.
Maybe it's like the "if you don't know who the sucker is" line in poker. "If you don't know what needs work in the relationship, you're the one who needs work."
If there's lots of sweat involved something is wrong.
To each their own, of course. But I've found sweaty moments can add a lot to a relationship.
In all seriousness, life's complicated. Relationships are complicated. Sometimes relationships are hard because the relationship challenges you and you are growing. Sometimes they are hard because you are trying to challenge a pain in the ass to grow. Sometimes a challenging relationship is a pain in the ass because everything else in your life is challenging at the same time and you need something other than challenge from the relationship at that particular point.
I'm extremely puzzled by the idea that a long term relationship doesn't take work.
Take two conflict-avoidant people who are capable of having mature conversations when they really need to.
Not the only way to have an easy relationship, but certainly one recipe.
429: I am self-publishing my complete works, readers or no.
Well, let us know when they come out. I miss you around the parts in which you used to be seen and read. I'd actually have liked to hear what you might want to say about the recent internet hullabaloo over the Conor Friedersdorf piece in the Atlantic (I assume you know what I mean - see LGM). On the other hand, a case can be made that not much more needs to be said.
Take two conflict-avoidant people who are capable of having mature conversations when they really need to.
I'm not sure where on the pat/smug/unrealistic spectrum this falls, but it's somewhere on there.
Oh get over yourself. My parents have an easy relationship. I have a belief that many couples on Unfogged have easy relationships.
Maybe, but I strongly doubt that those easy relationships just happen, which is what you seem to be saying.
In what way do you think you're difficult?
My case is kind of weird because I was emotionally neglected for the first 12 or so years. I was having a really hard time living in reality, had horrible nightmares and hallucinations, and found social interaction incredibly painful, and when I asked for help or love, I was told real Christians don't feel unloved--maybe I wasn't really saved and should consider eternity rather than the petty circumstances of this life, etc. Around puberty some of my mental illness, whatever it was, got smoothed out, and my parents eventually grew to love me in their weird and deeply insufficient way. So I come across as pretty social and charming, but I don't really have that bone-level recognition some people seem to have of what it's like to be loved. I'm relatively intimate with friends, but it's very very hard to trust people in the way they want to be trusted, and betrayals of my squinting, sidelong attempts to trust people with my feelings are just shatteringly, irrecoverably horrible. I guess sometimes I feel a longing that someday someone--maybe even a really good analyst--could help me push some of those buttons without then dropping me off a cliff, but that seems unlikely. And dyadic relationships of the emotionally-intimate kind can't really happen until I stop being so terrified of those buttons getting pushed.
And the idea that being "capable of having mature conversations when they really need to" is a sufficient relationship salve is just transparent smug bullshit.
437 - I laughed, because I guess that's true at the moment.
Maybe in general it's just the terminology that confuses me. I don't think of the sort of stuff listed above as work, it's just what you do for/with someone you love. I don't think of doing that sort of thing for the children as work either.
it's just what you do for/with someone you love. I don't think of doing that sort of thing for the children as work either.
Yeah, that just sounds like a terminological difference. We're talking about the same stuff. I'm just pissed at Heebie because she seems to think that having a "mature conversation" is enough to make a relationship seem "easy" which is pretty pernicious advice, generally, IMO. For example, I'm sure that AWB is pretty capable of having a mature conversation and may even be pretty conflict-avoidant.
443: I can only speak about my own relationship, which really will sound smug and pat. But it helped a lot that I was working with a therapist when I started dating Jammies, who helped me determine what I considered ground rules for negotiating conflict. Jammies didn't find those rules too onerous, and things were pretty smooth after the first year in.
(I'm sure life will toss us obstacles that are hard and rough to deal with. I'm not saying that things will always be smooth. But in the absence of external-driven problems, things are generally easy.)
I know my parents had to navigate some issues around my mom doing too much housework in their first year or two of marriage. Aside from that, their narrative has always been that they talk things out pretty easily. From what I've seen, that seems to be the case.
There's work, and there's work. There's I'm working hard to feed the hungry/ made beautiful art/ cure cancer because I've decided that's what's meaningful to me, and there's I'm going to drag myself to a shit job where I get abused by my boss because I can't imagine anything better. Relationships definitely entail the first kind of work, but shouldn't require the second.
I'm also puzzled by the notion that being capable of having mature conversations when they really need to is something other than being capable of doing the work of a good relationship. Maybe it looks easy from the outside. Maybe it looks even feels easy because they are used to it (the way 7 miles is apparently a lot easier for my 5-month pregnant sister-in-law than it is for me... ). But it is real work.
And the idea that being "capable of having mature conversations when they really need to" is a sufficient relationship salve is just transparent smug bullshit.
I don't know what to tell you. (Besides fuck you?) There are actual things that are destructive in conversations, and actual things that are constructive in conversations. See 433 for a list of things that don't work. It's just skills which can be learned, but when one or both people lack those skills, it's going to completely wreck any ability to resolve conflict.
My experience is that couples with "easy" relationships have relatively few demands of each other. Great if you're a fairly self-contained, successful person who would probably be totally cool being single, but for everybody else, a lot easier said than done.
Also, and this may very well be colored by the three saddest break-ups I've seen recently, it sure seems like there are a lot of people whose relationships look super mature and solid and fun and loving, and what you're really seeing is both partners working really hard to give that impression because they are, at least subconsciously, aware of the core of instability and unhealthiness that is at the center of the relationship.
I'm also puzzled by the notion that being capable of having mature conversations when they really need to is something other than being capable of doing the work of a good relationship.
I think you're arguing with Halford and not me? This is consistent with what I think.
For the most part, C and I have had an easy relationship over the years. That's been through a sad and trying bit at the beginning (from outside, not between us) and 4 kids, and normal family ups and downs around us. But we've always just got on. When the children were babies we realised we had to stop having competitions about who was more tired. Our arguments were more likely to end with one of us starting to giggle when the other one said something ludicrous. We have never in 17 years argued over money. I don't like it all being an effort.
Sure, an ability to converse well is important, and there are ways of having better or worse conversations. It's the idea that this can take the place of dealing with all of the other difficulty and burden that comes up with dealing with another person is a problem, and is kind of annoying (at least to me). There's a lot more to love, care, etc. than just being able to talk things through.
I guess I'm the sucker, then.
448: things were pretty smooth after the first year in
A young woman of my acquaintance, who had just started a breathlessly passionate and long-overdue love affair with a fellow I know, asked me "Natilo, is it always hard the first year?" And I replied: "Yes, it is always hard the first year. After that, eh, you take what you can get."
449 gets it exactly right. I was perfectly happy beavering away to cure cancer and now my lab partner has turned into a fucking nutcase who's impossible to work with.
I'm not saying that relationships which take more work aren't worth having. Some kids are more work than others. Some personalities are more work than others. The payoff can still be great.
I'm just saying that yes, some personalities create easy relationships. Maybe they're passionless and stale! Maybe you wouldn't want those relationships! But they exist.
I'm really bad at mature conversations because of an inability to not make puns.
I don't know what to tell you. (Besides fuck you?) There are actual things that are destructive in conversations, and actual things that are constructive in conversations. See 433 for a list of things that don't work. It's just skills which can be learned, but when one or both people lack those skills, it's going to completely wreck any ability to resolve conflict.
I think from time to time about Emerson's analogy that relationships are like playing the lottery, and I find it helpful.
You're probably correct that it's more like a game of skill -- it's possible to make decisions which improve the odds, but I still think there's a lot of inherent unpredictability. Some people will get lucky, they will make good decisions and the future won't have nasty surprises, but that doesn't mean that making good decisions eliminates the chance of heartache -- there are too many examples of people who have relationships turn out badly for it to just be the result of bad decisions.
I see a couple of different reasons for that:
1) Small sample size. Yes it's possible to date lots of different people (or so rumor has it, at least), but there's still a limit to the number of serious long-term relationships that one person can have, and a small sample size means there's always the possibility of outlier events.
2) People and life circumstances both change. I often think about how what constitutes good "life skills" now is really different than what was required when I was ten years younger. Life just keeps adding new challenges and requiring new skills and people can be good at one life stage and struggle with the next -- and, of course, people can change their mind about what they want in life.
[The same thing seems to be true of work as far as I can tell -- some people take jobs that look good and have them turn out well, other people take jobs that look interesting and get sucked into something horrible. I think the small sample size is a factor in that case as well.]
some personalities and circumstances create what for a time may look like easy relationships
With those changes, I'm on board. But life is long. And it doesn't mean that it should be like slaving away unhappily for an evil boss. But even the cancer researcher has days, and maybe even years, when they don't want to go to work.
458: Ha! I wanted to add that I really feel for you. For all my "oh yes, the work of relationships is deeply meaningful," I can get really resentful and indignant when a dynamic that had been easy suddenly gets hard.
Some people will get lucky, they will make good decisions and the future won't have nasty surprises, but that doesn't mean that making good decisions eliminates the chance of heartache -
I agree with this, too. There's a skill set that stacks the deck for having a better relationship, and there's a hell of a lot of luck. I'm just saying easy relationships do exist.
Well, I don't want difficulty and burden. I like your list in 433, but I'm not sure what else Halford is thinking about..
Mostly I just want someone to bring me cups of tea, have sex with me, listen when I witter on about the children, and be sympathetic when I'm moaning or ranting. I think I am quite self-contained - it's a sign of my nearness to the end of my tether that I'm talking about this stuff - but I don't think that's a bad thing.
This is all fascinating to me. For many years, before M got super-depressed, I think either he or I, if asked, would unhesitatingly have said that our relationship was both very easy and very happy. We didn't fight much, we enjoyed the other's company, and we were pretty much always able to figure things out together. In retrospect though, this characterization seems nuts. From the perspective I have now, it seems as though we were both pathologically conflict avoidant and incapable or unwilling to voice complaint. And yet, it's undeniable that at the time, we were both happy! It's confusing.
462: Oh, sure. Financial security, stable extended families, non-soul-draining jobs, relatively few health problems. I guess comity, but you're still a jerk.
I don't see any way that money doesn't come into this. In the absence of financial concerns, it's much more likely that communication skills (and conflict avoidance) will make for easy breezy.
It's really the "mature conversation" thing that got me. Just have a mature conversation, don't worry about conflict too much, and your troubles are over! Um, no.
Oh and I apologize prospectively for the "um."
Eh, I spent last weekend with a friend whose ex was completely incapable of mature conversation, and that alone sunk the relationship. No financial problems, both content at work, healthy, decent extended families, etc. It's necessary but not sufficient.
But whatever. I'm just saying that easy relationships - with circumstantial luck - do just happen. Which was the original point of contention.
465: I think the list in 433 is inadequate because it treats people in relationships as rational actors, who need to negotiate clearly and respectfully for what they want. It's true that people do need to do that, but other things are equally important--and much harder. Because people in relationships are *not* always rational actors: they bring all kinds of fantasies and projections to every interaction, and the central "work" of a relationship is learning to set those fantasies and projections aside and to love one's partner for the person he or she really is--and be seen and loved in turn.
Oh, and Parsimon's totally right about money. When my partner and I had enough money to buy a dishwasher, we cut our disagreements in half, and hiring a cleaner has pretty much taken care of all the rest. Embarrassingly enough.
the list in 433 is inadequate because it treats people in relationships as rational actors, who need to negotiate clearly and respectfully for what they want. It's true that people do need to do that, but other things are equally important--and much harder. Because people in relationships are *not* always rational actors: they bring all kinds of fantasies and projections to every interaction, and the central "work" of a relationship is learning to set those fantasies and projections aside and to love one's partner for the person he or she really is--and be seen and loved in turn.
I 100% agree with this. Also, the finances thing.
and the central "work" of a relationship is learning to set those fantasies and projections aside and to love one's partner for the person he or she really is--and be seen and loved in turn.
I get slightly annoyed at this kind of formulation because it suggests that single people can't grow in a way that will make their next relationship much easier.
I don't think you necessarily implied that, but I've heard that said explicitly elsewhere. It's the reason I tend towards calling it a skill set that can be learned in or out of a relationship.
OT
Heebie,
I was suggesting a post about this site , which seems to combine several unfogged themes.
BTW, has anyone used gmx.com for email? It seems to be sending the subject heading without the text.
475: Oh, absolutely. All relationships, not just romantic ones, are shaped by fantasy and projection (which is why every one should be seeing a psychoanalyst at all times), and so single people do as much of this work as anyone else.
even the cancer researcher has days, and maybe even years, when they don't want to go to work
Cancer research is cutthroat and horrible. Those are not happy people.
I have never met someone who is incredibly needy and angry all the time who is single. They're the most sexually attractive people in the world.
People who are just angry all the time and not needy are hermits.
The conflict avoidance part of heebie's list way back whenever really puzzled me. Take two conflict-avoidant people and odds are they'll both be low-grade unhappy for quite a while until they finally maturely initiate a mature conversation.
478: HIV, too, I've learned. Man, the world of high-stakes, soft-money, applied research seems really difficult to this humanist/soft social scientist. You know what else is difficult (but worth it)? Relationships, that's what. Though not always, I suppose. Narrative arc, bitchez. That's what I'm all about.
Maybe I am sensitive about this issue because I am a difficult person to love, and I tend to be attracted to other difficult people. I really try not to date anyone because I know what a burden I am. It's been four years since I even tried to date anyone on any level.
Getting back a bit to the "dating mentally ill" people, I should say that what I had in mind when I wholeheartedly endorsed Megan's 229 was, well, me. I don't think it's just a matter of "do they treat you badly?" or "are they an asshole?": I don't think I'm an asshole when I'm in relationships; I actually think I'm a rather easy person to love; but I still think that I'm a good example of the sort of mental issues that ought to present a very sensible dealbreaker for most people. It's pretty straightforward, in my mind--I've been pretty severely depressed for at least a half-decade, and loving someone who's deeply sad all the time, and you see slowly drifting further away from successful integration into society/economy, must be incredibly painful, even if they're being kind and considerate. (That's what broke apart my last serious relationship, 3 years ago.) I think Abraham Lincoln basically gets it right in 394, but I'd emphasize more the "But for the most part, if you aren't up for it, you don't have to do it" aspect. Obviously this isn't jms's situation, but I think it's entirely sensible to have it be a first-cut, do-not-even-start-getting-involved-with-this-person criterion.
I agree with HG, easy relationships can just happen. We're often confused about what people mean when they talk about relationships taking lots of work.
Cancer is also horrible. And sometimes cutthroat. Worse than most relationships, even.
I tend to become really bored with conflict avoidant people. (Or irritated, if it's totally obvious that they're avoiding.)
That's because I grew up in a family in which it was believed that if you ignore it, it doesn't exist.
I know this woman who often says little bitchy things to people, and if anyone ever calls her on one, bleats that she doesn't like conflict. Well don't be a cow then!
Asilon's funny when she's feisty.
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Thanks all for the birthday greetings at the other place. Please wish teo a happy birthday too.
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heebie,, I'm mostly teasing, but "relationships aren't a lot of work after years of therapy give you strategies" is basically what most people mean by "relationships are a lot of work." For a lot of people going to therapy would constitute seriously working on the relationship.
Take two conflict-avoidant people who are capable of having mature conversations when they really need to.
I can't speak to how heebie meant "conflict-avoidant," but I read it less as sweeping things under the rug than as something approximating easygoing, not the type to turn little things into a big deal.
Obviously I basically agree, but some people (not me) seem to have those skills without ever needing therapy.
Yeah, conflict-avoidant probably wasn't the best word. Easy-going with short memories for things that pissed them off.
For me, a lot of the work is not turning small disagreements into big ones. That's not work like "oh, I hate doing it" but work like "it actually takes a fair amount of mental effort not to escalate a fight I think I can win."
I thought I had a short memory for things that piss me off until I got into this ongoing row with my brother. Now I have elephant memory on this one topic and it's really counterproductive.
All relationships, not just romantic ones, are shaped by fantasy and projection (which is why every one should be seeing a psychoanalyst at all times)
If one is Woody Allen, perhaps. Some others grow up.
453: I think I'm agreeing with both of you at heart. But sharing Halford's resistance to you describing this thing that we are basically all agreeing on as "easy."
From the perspective I have now, it seems as though we were both pathologically conflict avoidant and incapable or unwilling to voice complaint. And yet, it's undeniable that at the time, we were both happy! It's confusing.
Oh, this. After my post-divorce healing period I was all ready to face the world and voice feelings and not be so afraid of conflict that I avoided dealing with shit. And I met someone who'd gone through a similar gut-wrenching and healing process and was ready to face the world and all out mutual baggage head on. It was terribly exciting until we realized that we had both been conflict-avoidant in our past lives because we both suck very much at coping with conflict -- for reasons similar to what AWB describes in 444 above (we both had a tendency to shatter easily). Um, no wisdom here. Just, you know, yeah.
Hey, totally coincidentally I just found out that (if I didn't know better) one of the few couples I know whom I might have said had an easy relationship (and who have been together since they were 17 and 15) are getting divorced. I'm sorry for their tragedy but am really really glad that they did it just in time for me to bring this up as an example.
Although the example would have been more effective if I'd closed tabs.
No one browsing more than one site at once ever made an effective argument.
b, g, I don't speak your computerized lingo.
I tend to become really bored with conflict avoidant people. (Or irritated, if it's totally obvious that they're avoiding.)
This explains so much.
not to escalate a fight I think I can win
The only -- way -- to win -- is not -- to play.
Good to know the 80s left me *some* useful wisdom.
But clew, when that one great scorer comes to mark against your name, he writes not that you won or lost, but how you played the game. And you have to play the game to have played it somehow.
So the only way to play well is to lose?
I like this phillosophy.
I have heard like the roar of a rain-filled ford the roar of the Milky Way
And the words of the roar were the greatest lore: "To win, you must not play."
But that's reiner Unsinn. Winning is only possible within a game of some sort. Unless you're talking about some kind of weaksauce metaphorical "winning".
--"Ye ha' heard, ye ha' read, ye ha' got, good lack! and the tale begins afresh--
"Have ye sinned one sin for the pride o' the eye or the sinful lust of the flesh?"
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So this guy who did the workplace shooting here a couple of days ago lived about a mile and a half from me. And, you know, hadn't been in contact with his folx, paranoid delusions, etc. etc. But what I don't get, still, is this knee-jerk reaction on the part of various commentators, like hizzoner the mayor, to say "we can't ever understand this" or "it's completely incomprehensible, a senseless tragedy" or whatever. And it's like, you know what? You take (1) A paranoid guy, (2) A demanding, perfectionist boss, (3) Guy getting fired after a dozen years on the job and (4) liberal gun laws, and what the fuck do you think is going to happen? This is one of the most comprehensible mass shootings I've ever heard of. Jeez.
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Newspeak requires that tragedy be incomprehensible, as far as I can tell.
One of the best responses I've ever heard to a mass shooting was from the ?ravers? who were not killed at an afterparty a few years ago in Seattle; they said, approximately, He was weird and incredibly alone and he probably couldn't feel it when we tried to be friends.
Ugh, I remember that one. Some friends-of-friends were there.
I don't know that they were ravers, exactly. Do they even have those anymore?
I mean I figure I'd know 'em (or at least know of 'em) if there were some.
You have them confused with Bigfoot.
A friend of mine just posted a FB picture from a rave in Stockholm, so maybe I doth protetht too muchth.
491, 493: Thanks for the clarification -- I was going off in all directions (in my mind) about my family's truly sweeping-things-under-the-rug ways, and how awful they could be.
who were not killed at an afterparty a few years ago in Seattle
One of my cow-orkers, that I didn't know that well, knew a bunch of people at that party and one of his closest friends was killed.
It was sad for many reasons but, among them was that at the point at which he was hired it was clear that he'd previously had some problems with drugs and was in the process of getting his life back together and after that shooting he just fell apart.
It was completely understandable, but still sad and frustrating to watch in a cow-orker.
I like that even when relating something serious and sober NickS continues to use "cow-orker".
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Bwa! Ta-Nehisi Coates is teaching at MIT this year! See here.
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If a recipe just says "2 cans of garbanzo beans" should you assume that they mean drained or undrained?
What's the recipe? I'd be surprised if, when you look at the total recipe act in the total cooking situation, both interpretations made equal sense.
Since it's a soup, undrained seems to make sense. But since they also didn't say for the roasted bell peppers (or the tomatoes but I gues they think you peeled fresh ones?) that you probably are supposed to drain everything?
I don't think any quantity of chickpeas makes sense in tres leches french toast.
Or drain everything into a jar, and use it if you need more liquid, I suppose.
I gues they think you peeled fresh ones?
No, in that case they wouldn't specify the amount by volume (and 28oz is a standard can-o-tomatoes size). Mysterious.
Free your mind and the rest will follow, neb.
Nor would they have to specify "unsalted".
Anyway, garbanzo juice and tomato juice sound fine in a soup, but roasted red pepper juice seems really oily and gross.
Maybe I should have two separate save jars, ranked according to grossness.
I don't think you can go wrong either way. If you pour it all in, you can always cook off any excess liquid. If you drain into a coontainer, as you say you can add in more as needed. Looks yummy, which is the important part.
Not even into a save jar? Bold move, Mobes. I like it.
Usually if they want you to add the liquid from a canned food, they'll specify. Also, canned bean liquid is super salty.
Also, I can keep the skin on the sweet potato? Just blend it all up?
Sweet potato skin is pretty rough for soup. But sweet potatoes are super easy to peel -- the skin slips right off after you cook it.
Always drain the chick peas. Always. I mean, what is that yuck stuff they come in? Goo, looks like. No goo in the soup.
I think you're using bad garbanzo peans, Pars. This stuff just looks like garbrotho.
I mean, what is that yuck stuff they come in? Goo, looks like.
Why do garbanzo beans come in a can?
They were put there by a man in a factory downtown?
I've never used the liquid from canned beans or the skin from a sweet potato.
Way to deny garbanzo beans agency, Nat.
I'm on record as being generally against goo.
Is there some kind of canned garbanzo bean(s) that doesn't come in what's basically goo? It's not a watery-like substance. It's been a while since I've made garbanzo beans from scratch, and I don't recall whether they make the goo themselves (it's fine if they do), but the canned ones: goo. Bleaah.
Also, I vote you can keep the skin on the sweet potatoes, heebie, provided you've scrubbed them beforehand. Probably too late to mention that now.
I saw something like "How It's Made" for food products, featuring baked beans, at the dentist's office. The thick liquid was not the sauce but was added in on top. I forget what it was exactly.
Speaking of goo, whatever happened to that super homoerotic shaving gel commercial with the butch gym bunny fellow saying "Goo?!" in such a campy way? Can't seem to find it on the webinter.
Whoever heard of smoked paprika, anyway?
Whoever heard of smoked paprika, anyway?
Hungarians?
Baked beans are a different story: that's a syrup. Molasses or brown sugar, I think. At least, that's how it is to actually make baked beans from scratch.
Maybe they put a syrup in other canned beans, because people think it's so awesome.
Hungarians smoke paprika. Hillbillies smoke crawdads. The latter lead to were amusing confused hippies on an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies.
Why don't you try that third sentence again.
I think Parsimon's been smoking garbanzo beans.
That's a pretty gnarly dentist's office if they make baked beans there.
Smoked paprika is great for BBQ rub.
I just don't believe it exists.
"The later led to annoying stereotyped confrontations with absurdly portrayed hippies on an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies."
Also, canned bean liquid is super salty.
And sometimes weirdly foamy when you run water in it. Definitely drain, and rinse the garbanzo beans while you're at it.
The foamy thing I agree with. I didn't think to rinse them, though.
They'll still be fine. What is sazon? Is it a Goya brand bouillon cube?
Rinsing the bouillon cube won't help.
Drain and rinse, drain and rinse! That is always the rule. I mean, unless you like goo, but I've stated my view there.
I need reassurance that heebie will not add sweet potato skin to her soup.
I skinned the stupid potatoes! God, there should be some sort of soup-facist meme.
Yeah, I had to look up sazon on the internet. I think now it's Goya for "seasoning", a la tarzhay.
I've always wondered about the overlap between that episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" and the "Star Trek" episode "The Way to Eden", with its wacky hippies.
I ate the potato skins. And drank most of the tomato juice. I don't know why I enjoy eating the by-products of ingredients so much.
I just had several moments when I was horrified that I didn't know about this foreign seasoning, tarzhay.
583: amuse HP and HP by pretending to be a garbage disposal.
Legumes ooze a lot of oligosaccharides, which should be gooey IIRC, and also give some people digestive trouble, so you might as well rinse them. The yuppie beans produce a thick and delicious liquor that I think of as `makes own gravy', presumably the same thing.
"Makes own gravy" draws my mind to a brand of dog food.
Am I going to hate myself for choosing a recipe that calls for a stick blender? We've got a regular blender. Keep in mind that I've tripled the recipe and this is all going on in a massive pot.
It'll be more annoying, but you can just blend it in batches. Not self-hate worthy.
589: Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all, but blending that soup in a blender will be a chore.
Yeah, you're going to hate yourself. For the future, get an immersion blender: they really are great, and not at all expensive. (Seriously, best kitchen appliance I've provided myself in the last 10 years, after the food processor.)
This soup better be awesome, or else I'll lie and say it is.
Do you have a hedge trimmer? You can just stick that in the pot.
I mean, I don't know if it'll work or whatever.
I don't think a hedge trimmer makes sense in tres leches french toast.
Have we ever definitively established why the British put their toast on those cooling racks before they eat it?
I don't hate myself! Thank god I'm so resilient.
Dang, tripling the recipe made 6 quarts exactly. I thought I'd have enough leftover for dinner tomorrow.
Probably would have been more if you'd used the peels of the potatoes and the liquid from the chickpeas.
You think I should add it in? I could just take two inches off all six containers and replace it with foam goo and skin scraps. Easy-peasy.
That'll definitely get it soggy. Better to use a hedge trimmer.
And thus we conclude the Heebie Makes Soup portion of the thread. Good job, everyone!
It made me hungry for something with chickpeas. We have hummus, but it seems late to eat.
Plus who can eat with so many worries about Wisconsin.
I think everyone here can feel pretty good about this soup. Good job team.
We could have an Unfogged soup swap if we were willing to pay for postage and risk food poisoning.
We couldn't have done it without heebie-geebie.
She's elusive! Boogie oogie oogie.
615: heebie-heebie begs to differ.
I'm done worrying about Wisconsin.
I beg for fun. It's no biggie.
366: No, a Xerxes wannabe, obviously.
I'll make the hell out of some soup. I'll make soup circles silly around you. It'll be crazy.
Cú Chulainn is my dog's nickname. He's obsessed with attacking water, to the point that if I hold him back I can feel him shaking.
I narrowly avoided having him kick me in the junk three times in a row while stretching on the couch. Between that and the soup thing, I feel like I've accomplished quite a bit today.
564: Yes, they did cook it in something sweet, and that liquid went in the can, but then it was covered with something else, the same stuff one sees upon opening the can.
We're supposed to feel a sense of accomplishment on a Saturday? I don't know if I can go for that.
I feel a very mild sense of accomplishment for realizing the solution to a stupid computing difficulty, and just almost emailed the student I'm working with to explain it, but held back because (a) do I want this student to know I'm lame enough to be thinking about this at midnight on a Saturday night? and (b) do I want to establish the precedent that it's okay to exchange emails with me about work on a weekend? I think I don't.
I did a bunch of stuff today. I feel very accomplished.
Oh, wait, it involved getting older. Happy birthday! Also to Bostoniangirl.
I am hundreds of comments behind but I have a friend who once posted on his blog that if you could find someone who was 1) kind, and 2) fascinating--under duress he consented to add 3) hot--being in a relationship was easy. I think I got him to admit at some point that this was not necessarily true, but the idea tormented me for years that I couldn't do this simple thing. (And then I did. Not that it has all been simple after that.)
629: No.
630: Thanks.
631: I actually did a lot of non-birthday-related (but also not particularly interesting) stuff today.
Someone can be kind, fascinating, and hot, and yet not particularly into you. Being in a relationship with that person isn't necessarily going to be easy—ask my exes.
They have a pill for that now, you know.
Yeah, congrats to both of you on another successful voyage around the sun!
I finally see the golden gate park bison today. They look a lot like the bison I saw on long island. Did some more GGP exploration, made out. I guess that's plenty for a Saturday.
ALWAYS DRAIN BEANS AND RINSE OFF THE CAN FUNK PEOPLE! THAT SHIT IS NASTY AS FUCK! I WOULDN'T PUT THAT IN A DOG'S BOWL!
I finally see the golden gate park bison today. They look a lot like the bison I saw on long island.
Yeah, bison mostly just look like bison.
I feel a sense of accomplishment today! I was feeling wretched and damned this morning, and planned to spend the day weeping, but instead I went to a nice orchestra concert, met up with a stranger I met in an airport six months ago who wanted to follow up on a bit of advice I gave her, then went to dinner on the invitation of someone I like a great deal and haven't spent any time with, before going to a party at the home of someone else I like a lot, with a plan with my neighbor that he and I would decide on a reasonable occasion to say we'd had enough to drink and are still charming, but would be taking our leave. And to think I was going to cancel it all!
(Agreed with 637, too. Seriously, rinse those chickpeas, FFS. Can schmutz is not any kind of ingredient.)
I had intimate conversations with various people about our mutual needs, too. In my town, everyone is your new dyadic romantic partner, except for the fucking part.
The latter lead to were amusing confused hippies on an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies.
I tried to read this as a garden path sentence.
In my town, everyone is your new dyadic romantic partner, except for the fucking part.
Be the change, yo.
Sorry, that was an inappropriately chatty question about your personal life in AK. I forget myself.
Not inappropriately chatty, I was just confused by the phrasing. And it's going about how you would expect given my track record, which is to say not really at all.
There is friendship, after all. I think I have given up on sex, but good friends are nice.
In my case I have not found that friendship is actually any easier to secure than sex. YMV, obviously.
No, it's usually just as hard. I have been working on being more clear with people about my expectations here, what I need from them and what my limitations are. I don't think I'm ever going to be bestest friends with anyone here, but I do feel like it's necessary to develop a meaningful network of intimacies here that aren't secret from one another. I've never lived in a rural place before, so I'm finding the constraints are different. Nothing can be hidden, so you have to inform people that you know what you're saying is not a secret.
Huh, interesting. I guess I just don't feel like developing a network of intimacies like that is as important for me. I'm also here indefinitely at this point, which changes the dynamics of developing social networks compared to fixed-term conditions.
That makes a lot of sense. It's interesting to think about the difference between short-term and long-term relationships that way.
Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it until recently, but it makes a big difference.
I saw a moose today.
First time? It's the rutting season, or at least it is for the moose. Make drunken dares with acquaintances about going up to pet one.
I've seen them before. No way am I petting one.
I was watching two with my daughters at the end of Aug. up one of our local canyons. A couple people were getting way too close. I was excited at the prospect of seeing a moose chase some moron but it didn't happen. I have similarly been disappointed multiple times up in Yellowstone watching bison thinking "fuck yeah we're about to watch this jackass get gored" and then nothing happens.
Et, et, et. Dang bear buffet round here. Alla buncha carcasses.
Read "Eh, eh, eh. Dang bear buffay" or "Ett, ett, ett, dang bear buffette"?
"Ett, eh, ett", but otherwise yes, what you said.
I went out to a poetry reading by one of Lee's former coworkers and had a lot of intellectually and emotionally meaningful conversations with people I already knew but hadn't seen in a while, which was definitely worth having to talk myself into going out rather than going to bed early. I am very proud of myself for enjoying talking to actual adults who aren't here. Plus our friend's poetry was my favorite of the night, which is a nice thing to be able to say. And then some guy noodled on a ukulele hooked up to a bunch of effect pedals and I was still able to be in bed well before 11.
Always leave when the ukelele comes out. Good thinking.
On the animal-sighting front, yesterday I saw a deer on the street by my house. It was two hours after dawn and I have never seen one this far from the park or country. I figure he must be a roving deer looking for a safe place.
He looked ill and I didn't want to start a relationship under those circumstances.
I saw a fox on Friday. Dumb but pretty.
200 comments too late but, for the record, AB & I have an easy relationship with no therapy in either of our backgrounds. Our first year was comically easy and happy, except for 2-4 stressful nights, very early, related to BOGF. We have had about 3 tense conversations relating to parenting (she thinks, rightly, that I'm too hard on the kids), but that's about it over 12.5 years. Our ~3 years of being poor did not appreciably change the dynamic; there was generally more stress, but we never took it out on each other.
There was a period maybe 6 months ago when I briefly convinced myself that she didn't like me anymore*, but I think that was largely all in my own head.
* not using Jr. High lingo, I mean that disliked me
I met someone out walking two miniature pigs. The very friendly one was named Oscar. I didn't have the presence of mind to ask if the other was named Mayer. That alone cancels out my accomplishments from yesterday.
And by the way, bobcats still rule, and grizzlies still drool.
How do you feel about coyotes, Carp?
Griz beat them in the season opener. They're in the Missouri Valley conference, and so the Cats only see them if they make the playoffs. They still haven't played a conference game, but going 1-3 to start the season doesn't make playoffs look all that likely.
I heard some coyotes night before last. Love the sound.
No, wait, Illinois State is in the MVC, and beat South Dakota yesterday.
I had a dream the other night that I killed two coyotes (possibly wolves, it wasn't entirely clear) with my bare hands.
I had a dream the other night that I killed two coyotes (possibly wolves, it wasn't entirely clear) with my beare hands.
Hotter.
I dreamed last night that I had a headache and decided taking 25 Imitrex was the answer (a friend at work takes Imitrex for migraines and says it makes her dopey, which observably it does) and then I got really stupid, and wondered if I should take 25 more.
668.2 Er - so, why did you think she didn't like you if all was so hunkydory?
Our ~3 years of being poor did not appreciably change the dynamic; there was generally more stress, but we never took it out on each other.
This is impressive on its own, and also strikes me as the sort of thing that, if you could turn it into a HuffPo article, would stand a one in eight chance of turning into a book deal and a round of talk shows.
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This is an interesting way of conceptualizing grad school.
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Yup, that's about right.
If we spread enough misinformation, we can bring that edge closer and make it easier for people to get their dimples.
Some front-pager should blog this. I feel certain that people can get really outraged over it.
683: Yeah, that came up on my FB yesterday from my famous poet friend. My condemnatory comment got like 6 likes!
684: it's almost astonishingly stupid. I wonder if the guy has a book coming out or something.
I mean, people can be very stupid for no reason at all. But that seems like special-occasion stupidity to me.
They had racism, but not in ways we can understand.
669: The joke would have been on you if the other pig's name was "Felix"!
680: I have never read a shred of evidence that shows that either the American or western publics in general or the decision makers who decided on the camps thought that the Japanese here or in Japan were biologically inferior book.
FTFY.
Sorry, that should be to the link in 683. It's really rude when directed at the link in 680.
it's almost astonishingly stupid
No kidding. I paused and checked whether I was reading satire when I got to this line:
How many Japanese- Americans were disloyal is not known, but I have never read a piece of evidence from a reliable witness which said that all of them were loyal.
Okay, I just looked this guy up. I had presumed that he was an expert in something else, but had a (racist!) axe to grind about this issue. But he's an historian of California and, worse, teaches a course on the US during World War II.
Well, how many historians of California are incompetent is not known, but I have never read a piece of evidence from a reliable witness which said that all of them are competent.
MA 1961, PhD 1969, both from the UofC. Has anything good ever come from that university? Any chance this guy's become senile?
Even the dumbest commenter on that piece isn't as dumb as that piece. I've never read the author's work, but some of it seems to be well-regarded. I'm guessing he's got a specific denialist political axe to grind on this rather than being an all-around total fucking idiot about all history he touches.
694: that's nothing. Smearcase sees an otter every time he looks in the mirror.
And if the animal rights people ever get into his bathroom, there will be trouble.
I'm about 15 pounds from "otter" but I'll take it. Beats the hell out of "pocket cub."
Has anything good ever come from that university?
Is the blog where you want to be asking that?
This is impressive on its own, and also strikes me as the sort of thing that, if you could turn it into a HuffPo article, would stand a one in eight chance of turning into a book deal and a round of talk shows.
I vote for kicking it off with a 'Modern Love' column.
I'm frankly surprised that given all the economic stress on the middle class there hasn't been more mainstream pop culture or art related to downward mobility. ('Two Broke Girls' doesn't count). Too scary I guess.
701: I considered that, but surely one of the grads here will be able to look past the horror of their experiences to reveal some hidden virtue in the university. Failing that, there are some non-UofC people here who might be able to evaluate it more dispassionately.
Well, there's this, this, this, etc.
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I was going to post this at the other place, but it's too upsetting. You're welcome.
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Shit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2dx_ginqYU
I have a vague memory of being very very young and waking my parents up at night, panicky and in tears, demanding to know, basically, "where will I go when I'm dead and gone?!" To which my father reassuringly said, "well, it probably won't happen for a long time."
I think this was a number of years before he insisted I watch the entirety of Aliens, inducing literally hundreds of nightmares over the following half-decade, but in my mind the stories are sort of linked.
710: Given the processualists' interest in burial practices it kind of works to 706 too.
Inspired by heebie, I have made a cauliflower-and-kale soup, creamed to a nice flecky green. Also, avocados and saffron. Should freeze well. Veg. Yum.
This Frightened Rabbit video is actually a good response to the link in 706--complete with little kids jumping around!
"When my blood stops,
Someone else's will not.
When my head rolls off,
Someone else's will turn.
And while I'm alive, I'll make tiny changes to earth."
From too much love of living, from hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving whatever gods may be
That no man lives for ever
That dead men rise up never
That even the weariest river winds safe at last to sea.
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I just saw the Northern Lights through my window!
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Smearcase sees an otter every time he looks in the mirror.
Smearcase always thinks of otters before himself.
Smearcase's opinions are fixed and unotterable.
715: I saw them years ago in Nebraska. Must have been some strange solar shit happening.
NMM to Eric Hobsbawm. I mean, you probably weren't anyway.
Nobody's stopping, Blume. Something is wrong with these people.
723: On first read, I missed that comma. It hardly seemed like anyone else's responsibility.
Oh, I mean, I spend three or four hours a day stopping Blume from masturbating to dead, elderly marxists. It's exhausting. Which means I have no time to be policing the rest of you.
The morning radio has little plugs for an Austin dealership called Apple Leasing, which I compulsively hear as App Policing. Apropos of nothing.
Are you sure it's not Apo Leasing? I hear he's available. Laydeez.
Oh, you mean Apolicing? It's practically anarchy.
722: he has rejoined the great dialectic in the sky.
he insisted I watch the entirety of Aliens
Why?
730: The rigorous Marxist commentary on the opposition of capital and labor.
In East Boston there's a billboard advertising a police app for reporting crimes. Well, that's what they say it does.
A properly Marxist version would have seen the marines and the aliens make common cause as fellow members of the interstellar proletariat, shoot Burke, seize control of the means of production (that squishy tube thingy attached to the Queen) and set up a workers, soldiers and ichor-dripping killing machines' soviet.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch: The MN Orchestra has locked out the musicians, cancelled concerts through Nov. 25th, and is demanding concessions including a 30-50% pay cut. It is so infuriating when non-profits act in furtherance of the worst trends in capitalism.
I won't go into the rant about how Aliens, like all other monster movies, is inherently social-democratic rather than Communist in outlook.
Christ, I don't know which species is worse: You don't see them fucking each other for a percentage.
re: 734
In my experience, dealing with non-profits or quasi-non-profits via work, they are often utter bastards. I'm pretty sure I've seen more borderline fraudulent or deceptive behaviour from the non-profit sector than I ever do from your actual 'we exist to make money' units.
Christ, I don't know which species is worse: You don't see them fucking each other for a percentage.
"Look, just because it's a hideous slime-dripping armour-plated alien killing machine doesn't mean it's a bad person." --Technician/2nd Arnold J. Rimmer.
738: Yes. Their self-recognized moral superiority gives them license to be assholes.
Er - so, why did you think she didn't like you if all was so hunkydory?
Well, it was in the aftermath of one of the JRoth-yelling-at-the-kids episodes, and I'm sure she felt some lingering unhappiness about that, and I just built it up in my mind to "she doesn't like me anymore". After a week or two, I couldn't convince myself that it was the case, so I let it go.
I should note that, when I was a preteen, I had a long stretch of self-loathing* that involved a lot of "nobody likes me (except my family, but that's only natural, so it doesn't count)" moping, so I think it was just a throwback to that.
*not exactly the right word, but I've never been able to capture it
679: This is impressive on its own, and also strikes me as the sort of thing that, if you could turn it into a HuffPo article, would stand a one in eight chance of turning into a book deal and a round of talk shows.
Yeah, I don't even know what to say about it. Part of it, I think, is that we've been hand-to-mouth since I started my own practice, back in '05. And we were never super-flush before then. So to some extent, it was all a continuum of being not-flush. Also, we've always kept separate finances, so it probably helped a lot to not be looking over each others' shoulders wrt spending: we each tightened our belts and met our obligations and found something extra for little happy-making treats without ever knowing/questioning/judging how the other person pulled it off.
Also, it surely helped enormously that we do the restaurant reviews; presumably few food stamp families get to eat out at a different restaurant every week, which takes a lot of the misery out of poverty.
IOW: I don't think the general public would be very interested in our coping strategies. Separate accounts is in many ways a good idea, but it presumes a lot of good faith/trust that probably accompany a healthy relationship anyway (alternately, of course, it represents the absence of trust; either way, I don't think it works in a marginal relationship).
The link in 683 is a completely unique achievement on the Internet: an online newspaper article dumber than the comments in a newspaper comment section. As one of the commenters said about the author: "The profession should return his PhD for someone who will use it."
Hello everyone. The thing about being needy and posture blew my mind a little.
Re moose, I'm living in my parent's house with my sister til thursday when I finally move back to my apartment, and a moose cow w calf is hanging around in the woods outside the garden. Suddenly being maybe 10 meters from this giant thing staring fixedly at you ,with a that very non-human inscrutable gaze is a bit unnverving, even more so the second time really when it wasn't as exciting.
Wait, is David the Unfogged commenter different that David Weman? I thought Weman, Dave W and DTUC were all the same person. I've already been corrected on Weman/Dave W but don't tell me I've been wrong on all three.
David Weman = David the Unfogged Commenter ≠ Dave W
It turns out that my confusion was based on a misunderstanding of where moose live. I'd thought it was North Am only.
I thought DW and DW were the same person, and the Unfogged Commenter wasn't.
Yeah, they have moose in Europe too, although they allegedly call them "elk."
Same animal, though, hence the beverage "melk".
OT: Wow, I am having a little freak-out. My college roommate, with whom I lived for three years, just messaged me on FB. I haven't spoken to her since our junior year, due to some motherfucking huge drama in which she was deeply wrong and evil. I loved that crazy bitch for years before she went bad. Now she seems to have recently gotten married to some hyperchristian and is making amends of some kind. I do what now?
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A lesson in how changing a single word changes the meaning of a proverb entirely:
"There's many a slip twixt the dress and the lip."
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Something about how a band I used to like was on TV and she thought of me. I just wrote her back. Hyperchristian or no, she was a crazy-good roommate until she lost her shit. I just have surprisingly intense feelings about it, I guess.
I seem not to be able to locate the text of "Among the Blacks" online.
Same animal, though, hence the beverage "melk".
Specialty of an Austrian monarchy.
"Everything ok, D-TUCk?"
Yeah, basically. My aforementioned sister just landed a job, as a librarian, so that's awesome.
Tough labor market and she's a ton of student debt.
I guess I wrote about being on welfare here. That only went on for a couple of months, and I've had steady freelance work for two years now, but I'm defintely more anxious as a person since I went through that.
Dude I (non-sexually) kissed a rock star. That's how you settle a case, bitches!!
If I may briefly violate the sanctity of off-blog, this isn't the first time David has had elk issues.
Dude I just did a lip to lip (albeit in a totes nonsexy way) with someone way more sexy than a moose. Fuck you losers! Money!!!
Yeah, I may have told this story before, but ten years ago or so my dad caught a moose elk alces alces moose bull eating their flowers or plums or something, so he found a stick and threw it at it, forgetting it was a fucking moose. The moose charged, and despite being close to the door, he (my dad) only barely escaped.
Tying together various elements of this thread, my nickname for my college roommate is Moosey. We're still friends and I've never kissed her, though.
Heebie shows affection by throwing sticks.
She was tied up, so I didn't have to throw them very far, see?
