Sunday, May 04, 2008
THE BEAN EATERS
I wrote a piece about bracing for a recession here, in case anyone is interested. It was at least partially inspired by something I wrote here on Ye Olde Rabbit Blogge, so that's a nice reminder that Ye Olde Rabbit Blogge is a vital and important part of my life as a "writer." ("Why" would I put "writer" in "quotes"? What the "fuck"?)
I've been thinking a lot lately about how friendships change, mature, grow saggy and disappear in your mid to late 30s. Anyone want to hold court or gripe loudly on this subject? If so, I'm all ears. I don't know how I developed such a taste for unfettered whining, but I have quite an appetite for gripes of all stripes. Unfettered whining is a banana split for the motherfucking soul.
8:35 PM
Monday, April 28, 2008
APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY GLOWERS
Dear Rabbit,
I'm an older mom-to-be (38) expecting her first baby in late June and I'm dealing with a problem that might as old as the hills but I'm hoping you'll listen and help me out anyways.
It's the baby shower and all the hopes, dreams, and bizarre traditions that go along with it. Things have gotten out of hand and I don't know what to do about it. I'm a fixer/helper by habit but this seems pretty unfixable.
I've always been sort of uncomfortable with the concept of a baby shower anyways. But now that I'm in the throes of the last trimester I understand better where they come from. People love the idea of new life and the ones carting it around inside them are too exhausted and stressed to prepare adequately on their own.
So when my friend "Megan" offered to co-host a baby-shower for me and asked me to hook her up with any one else who wanted to do the same, I was thrilled. She doesn't really know any of my other friends so she wasn't able to contact them directly. A few months passed and none of my three oldest, closest friends stepped up so I sent Megan the email addresses of a bunch of people who had expressed some interest in participating and included these three girls. That's probably when the unpleasant feelings started coming up for me. Something along the lines of "I'm asking people to host a shower for us? Yuck."
Within a few days, five more people had volunteered to put something together for us. And in the process, I caught wind of something that immediately made me a lot more uncomfortable. "Sarah," who couldn't participate for various reasons, let me know that Megan had told the rest of the folks that part of shower hostessing was chipping in on a big gift for the parents.
Well, Megan's financial circumstances and background are very different from most of these other five girls. She's a sales rep from the suburbs and they're a filmmaker, students, an admin assistant, and a full-time mom whose husband is in the faltering real estate business.
When I found out about the "big gift" I got nervous and, while I didn't disclose to Megan the tax returns of my other friends, I said to her, "You know I consider the shower the biggest gift of all. Anything else from the hostesses would just be bonus." A bunch of us were also in the midst of planning a shower for another friend and I sent Megan the master plan for this shower and said, "This is the kind of thing I'd like." It was very simple. Just a bunch of potluck dishes. I even asked that the invitation mention that hand-me-downs and gently used items were preferred.
I thought she got the picture but come to find out a few days before the shower, through Megan herself, that she found the rest of my friends' ideas and budgetary constraints "naive" and not only was she having the thing catered but the big gift had been purchased, apparently before finding out what if anything the rest of the ladies could contribute. At least one of these girls had sent her an email stating clearly that she was very upset with how things were going.
Megan claims that she shared this information thanks to the influence of two margaritas. I sort of regret buying said margaritas or asking her how things were going.
But I sort of regret the whole thing. When I saw the turn things were taking, I took certain steps to make my preferences clear but I also told myself "These ladies are all adults and they can take care of themselves. They also know me and how thrifty I am. Surely they'll put their feet down before anything gets out of their comfort zones." But now it sounds like that didn't happen the way I thought it would.
I mean, none of my friends have the wherewithal to ignore their budgets. So then I thought, "Megan could have adjusted her ideas based on the limitations of her co-hostesses." but it sounds like she hasn't and is going to end up eating alot of the cost. And that in the meantime she might've guilt-tripped and shamed the other hostesses because of their preferences and limitations.
I'm afraid that I'm facing one friend who is resentful for having spent too much and others who are resentful for having been pressured into spending too much. I feel this desperate need to fix this situation and apologize to every party. But I also feel like I need to explain to everyone besides Megan "This is not my fault!! This wasn't my idea" And even to Megan, I want to say "I told you I didn't want a big gift. I told you I wanted a low key, pot luck style food situation."
I sometimes tell myself I could have managed this situation better if I hadn't let them do it on their own. But that's really a lie. The planning got into full swing right around the time I hit 28 weeks and my energy just bottomed out. Plus I had massive amounts of work to do too. If it had been up to me I probably would've just let the whole thing slide.
I just feel terrible. I'm going to resist the temptation to ask other people how they felt about what happened because, at 32 weeks, I can't deal with the guilt right now or the stress of trying to make things right. I keep thinking "Well clearly I'll just have to fete these ladies right when it is their turn." But I wonder if you've got any ideas about how to deal with the current situation in a thoughtful and mature manner that doesn't involve guilt, defensiveness, finger pointing, or "I told you so"s.
Thanks,
Needs the Stuff but Not the Stress
Dear NTSBNTS,
Sweet Jesus, do I know what you’re going through. First I had a last-minute shower thrown by a friend who took pity on me (“Oh my god, no one has planned you a shower yet? What the hell?” “Oh, showers are dumb.” “No! You have to have a shower! It’s an absolute crime to have to buy all that crap yourself!”) I offered to have it at my house because she had a studio-sized house and a toddler and I didn’t want to stress her out over a total act of charity, but then she sent out an invitation from “Friends of H” instead of listing her name. Immediately, my other friends sent out similarly even more pitying messages (“Are you ‘Friends of Rabbit’? You shouldn’t have to throw your own baby shower!”).
Then another friend insisted that she MUST throw my shower, at her place. She loved baby showers, she had always wanted to throw one, and it only made sense. I said she should talk to my other friend, but that I felt pretty sure that the other friend probably would love to be let off the hook for the whole thing, since she had a very demanding job and a very demanding toddler and was only stepping in to save me from an uncertain baby-showerless future. So the shower-loving friend took over, sent out an invitation, then left the country for a week . For the next two weeks leading up to the shower, confused invitees emailed me with questions, so that basically did feel like I was the one hosting my own shower, a task that not only felt like a total fucking scam (“Here’s the list of shit I want”) but that I had about as much proclivity for, in my 9-month-pregnant state, as an elephant has for hosting a tea party. Day by day, I felt guilty and embarrassed and stupid and pathetic and friendless and yet, I knew that anything I said to anyone would make me look like nothing less than an enormous (literally and figuratively), whiny, ungrateful, disgusting loser. The day of the shower came, and I wanted to call and say I was sick, but instead I waddled in, had a fruity virgin cocktail, surveyed the fresh flowers and the homemade empanadas my friend had stayed up all night making, and I felt incredibly grateful and happy and guilty, of course, but mostly just thankful that I had such great friends.
Here’s the thing you have to remember: You’re pregnant. Even if you could ascertain what was going on (which you can’t), you’re still going to feel much more responsibility for the whole thing than you should. Yes, it’s always terrible when a rich friend asks poor friends to pony up for anything, and it sucks when it’s done in your name, for your benefit, when all you want is a pile of hand me downs. But this is the way showers are: Someone other than you is planning the whole thing (ideally). Whatever they plan, you have to go along with it. I’m sure Abby or Ann Landers would tell you to intervene and gently inform the host blah blah blah, but fuck it. You’re too big and pregnant to successfully maneuver through that minefield. It doesn’t matter if your friend asks too much. It doesn’t matter if your other friends gripe to her and to each other. All of that has nothing whatsoever to do with you. If some friends want to say, “I’m buying X my own gift,” they can do that. If others want to say, “You’re a soulless yuppie hostess whose asking too much from us,” that’s their right. You need not concern yourself with any of that. You’re a human manufacturing plant right now, and diverting energy away from your basic function will only cause a world of pain and grief for everyone involved.
I realize now that mistakes were made along the way to my baby shower, and look, I never want anyone else to plan another party for me, unless of course it’s a surprise party and I don’t have to think about it at all until there’s a crowd of smiling faces and a margarita the size of my head staring me in the face. But mostly when I look back at my shower I think, “Wow, so many of my friends really, really wanted to do the right thing for me.” Both hostesses were totally well-meaning and heroic in their efforts, and I’m sure I stepped on their feet numerous times along the way, in my clumsy, stomping, confused-animal state.
When events like this are planned, friends end up criticizing the way other friends handle things – they’re not friends with each other, and they all think they know what’s best for YOU. It’s not just the cost alone – believe me. Your friend will balk because someone took the reigns in a way that they wouldn’t have, because they know it would make you feel bad if you knew.
But right now, you need to pretend you know nothing. Ask the hostess to keep you in the dark. Just tell her you can’t handle it, and apologize for whatever trouble comes up. If other friends hint that your hosting friend is being obnoxious, smile and say, “She means well” and assure them that they should do whatever they feel like doing, you’ll be happy with hand me downs or used clothes or just seeing everyone right before the baby comes.
That’s if they mention it. If they don’t, don’t bring it up. Trust me, it doesn’t do any good to get wrapped up in it. Again, you’re pregnant. You’re prepared to take action and wage holy jihad over the slightest offense. Someone could say to you, “I just saw a lost kitten down the street” and you’d spend the rest of your week looking for it (trust me, I know this from experience).
This isn’t your battle to fight. Leave it alone. Don’t touch it. Don’t think about it. Know that you’ll show up, the food will be wonderful, everyone will be freshly showered and smiling, and you’ll open a bunch of crap that scares the hell out of you but really does come in handy down the road. Be gracious to everyone. Believe me, the less you gripe now, the easier it’s going to be to enjoy the whole thing later.
Everyone already knows that YOU wouldn’t have squeezed money out of anyone for anything. But even so, don’t forget that the misguided yuppie friend, however uncool, really wants to do the right thing, too. She can’t imagine not writing a check for whatever amount a hostess requested. That’s her personal code, and there’s something to be said for the friends who just hand over money, even if they can’t afford it, in order to be a good, helpful citizen. Haven’t we all choked up a big chunk of money for a birthday dinner and then lived on credit cards for the rest of the month, simply so we didn’t have to rock the boat and make other people uncomfortable, particularly on someone’s birthday? Even though we all think that we alone can determine the right way and the wrong way to handle these things, everyone has a different opinion based on their background, and there really aren’t clear guidelines on how to act, no matter what Ann and Abby say about it.
So goddamn it, go to that shower and eat that damn good food and enjoy yourself! Gush over it, open the big present and gasp and make everyone feel great about the fact that they’ve been eating beans all month for you. It’s not your fault, and fuck it, enjoy your day in the goddamn sun. As a 37-year-old mother of a 18-month old, I can tell you, a catered party in my honor sounds pretty damn good right about now!
Not that you’re an ingrate. I wouldn’t relive that baby shower weirdness again if you paid me. But look, it is an absolute crime to have to buy all of that crap yourself. (And anything you don’t get as a present, you should borrow from someone if you can. The first host of my shower insisted that I borrow a whole room full of stuff, and it was the nicest and most life-saving move I can possibly imagine.)
But you know what will really make you feel ok about your situation? Another queasy baby shower story! Come on, I know there are tons of them out there! Send ‘em my way – rabbt (at) this url.
Good luck with your new human!
Rabbit
10:27 AM
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
GUILT TO SPILL
Dear Rabbit,
I am a reasonably successful guy in the age group between boomer and X-er. My job is reasonably well-paid, but nothing obscene. It's also insecure, and I could lose it at any time, though its not actively under threat. This matters, since I am married, and have 3 young kids, who will be an impressive financial burden once they start to get closer to college age. Plus there's the whole "planning for retirement" thing, which I am trying to be very proactive about. All in all, the situation is, if not under control, then at least within some semblance of it, assuming I remain steadily employed for the next 20 years, and don't develop a cocaine habit.
The problem in this happy little American dream story is, like the typical American schmuck that I am, I can't get along with my mother-in-law. She is of the genus, Irresponsibilis Depressis, a repeat offender at binge spending, borrowing against her house, losing the house as a result, and moving into a smaller place. Lather, rinse, repeat. To the point that now she is actually living in a (fairly nice) subsidised housing project, but one where admittedly not many of the other residents are Ivy graduates and former Fulbright scholars as she is.
Additionally, she regards me as quite the villain in her current housing situation. In fact, I do theoretically have the wherewhithal to bail her out of these messes. But of course that money is supposed to be my kids' tuition money, my retirement money. Generally, it has been a pain in the ass to go and earn it over the past twenty years while she has been sitting on her kiester eating bon-bons and spending money on quack medicine, spur-of-the-moment consumer electronics purchases, and home remodeling.
In spite of my evident disdain for her lack of foresight in getting into her bind, I did once buy an apartment that adjoined hers, as well as replacing her car recently, and sending her several thousand dollars over the years in emergency funds. Nevertheless, I am the bad guy, because I really just won't give her free access to my checking account. I even went so far as to put the proceeds from selling that apartment into a special fund, and I'm collecting the income from that fund for her eventual nursing care, its up to $20,000 bucks now.
Here's the question: What is my moral obligation here, and am I meeting it? Is the fact that she's not happy, and thinks that having more money would make her happy really my problem? Yes, its true she's basically broke. But even when she has had money she hasn't been any happier. She spends it, which provides a momentary distraction, but she soon returns to misery, but with less money.
Eventually she (just 70 now) is going to get sick or break a hip, or just drift into senility. Someone is going to be on the hook to pay for it. That someone is me. There are other kids, but they are all academics who don't have enough for their own lives much less hers. Her ex-husband whom she ditched 25 years ago, doesn't seem particularly eager to pony up big either.
Reading over the above, I'm sure you'll ask why I don't mention her daughter, my dear wife, in this whole discussion. Unfortunately, she has sort of washed her hands of responsibility for her mom's happiness, except at those times when the emotional blackmail becomes very explicit and intense, at which point she passes the buck to me, to pass the bucks to her mom. She and her sisters have more or less given up on the notion of really helping their mom. She refuses any sort of counselling or medication, except for quack counselling at expensive meditation retreats, and quack medication such as blue-green algae based cures. (not joking.)
Wondering How Guilty I Should Feel
Dear WHGISF,
Obviously you shouldn't feel guilty. If you'd done nothing in the past, if she were rotting away in a terrible nursing home and no one was visiting, if she weren't someone who spends every cent that's given to her immediately, then that would be another story. But what are you supposed to do for her? Buy her a place?
I'm not really sure that the kind of woman who blows her nest egg and blames her son-in-law for it can be trusted with such gifts. If she were grateful and kind to you for the stuff you have done, if she had, over the years, tried to plan and save and be careful to take care of herself, that would be one thing. If she simply wanted more company and companionship, well, that's something that should be taken into account. But she doesn't want those things. She wants to sit around and bitch about what a bad guy you are, because she has nowhere else to put her self-loathing.
Let's look at her kids: If they were remotely inclined to help, they could figure it out. They could discuss it, pool a little funds, and make something happen. Academics aren't well paid, but they are paid, and most people who plan and are careful can save money. If your wife came to you and said, "Look, I think we have to do something." then you'd have to consider it. But what is she doing? "It's your call"? So you can take the blame? I don't quite understand her role, but it sounds like she needs to take responsibility for her part in this. She shouldn't allow her mother to target you, if really, this stems from her crappy relationship with her mother and her mother's shitty relationship with money.
Maybe she feels that, since you're extremely responsible with money (which it sounds like you are) then you're the one who makes the call on this. I don't know, though. This is her emotional equation, not yours. How can you be expected to make a good decision about someone who's merely a big pain in the ass in your life, who has no lasting emotional ties to you (thanks in large part to her bad attitude)? Your wife needs to define what she is and isn't willing to do -- for her own sake and for yours. Even if it's just a conversation between you two, you need to figure out where she stands in relation to her mother. She's going to freak out if her mom dies and she doesn't know if she's done the right thing or not, and she might blame you in retrospect. She needs to sort through her feelings and be clear about what she wants and what her boundaries are.
But that's her work, not yours. Look, you've got $20k set aside just for your mother-in-law. Other than considering long term care insurance (maybe she's too old to afford such a policy) I don't see what you can do. I would maybe add to that fund a little more, so that you know you can bail her out of TRUE misery if needed. But what more can she ask for than that? Obviously she should've saved for her old age and not blown her nest egg, and obviously her kids are the ones who should be having tough conversations about what to do in case of emergency. Your wife needs to discuss it with them before something bad happens again and no one is prepared to handle it.
You mentioned having to pay for college eventually. I assume you're putting as much as you can into some 529 funds for your kids -- this is one way to put the money out of reach, really, and maybe that'll also serve to assuage your guilt somewhat. If you've also been working for 20 years and haven't saved all that much for retirement yet, you'd better be maxing out your 401k and IRA contributions. Once those two things are taken care of (And personally, I'm a fan of throwing a lot into a college fund when a kid is small and then not worrying about it -- who wants to lament the cost of college for 18 years? Better to really scale back your spending now and relax moving forward) and you're making progress on paying off your house by the time you retire, then you can think about your mother in law if you want to. But retirement and college money are sort of essentials -- you can't really short change them without screwing your kids OR yourself and your wife.
Now, if you have all kinds of money left over after that, and that makes you feel guilty, I suppose you could consider how you might improve her life. You could sit down with her and talk about what she really needs to feel better. Or you could just visit more often and see if that calms her down. Maybe she's just lonely and she copes by griping about money. But you know, some people get a hint that you're doing ok, and they're just twisted up inside over it. They want all that MONEY you have socked away! And you're so CHEAP! Not surprisingly, they're people who spent all of THEIR money already, and even if they made the money you did, they'd spend it all and want more regardless.
Really, screw her. She sounds awful. Let your wife define the boundaries there. Sure, if you feel like you're the one person capable of sanity on that front (and honestly, it sounds like the other kids are either avoidant or they dislike their mother and want to maintain strong boundaries and keep her out of their lives), you could do what you can to clarify what might actually help her.
But if you've already done that and she's still angry, fuck it. Don't let the fact that one person hates you make you unhappy. You're just a reasonably good, responsible person who expects to be treated with respect, and this woman is an anomaly in your life. This is really your wife's problem to solve. If she really really thinks you two should help more, after looking deep within herself, then obviously you'll consider that. But don't let this woman compromise your future and the future of your kids just because she's angry and has nothing better to do than blame someone else for all of her mistery.
Best of luck.
Rabbit
12:25 PM
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
WHAT DO WE WANT? COOKIE! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!
From an article in The New York Times about a book called "The Happiest Toddler on the Block":
[A] toddler throwing a tantrum over a cookie might wail, “I want it. I want it. I want cookie now.”
Often, a parent will adopt a soothing tone saying, “No, honey, you have to wait until after dinner for a cookie.”
Such a response will, almost certainly, make matters worse. “It’s loving, logical and reasonable,” notes Dr. Karp. “And it’s infuriating to a toddler. Now they have to say it over harder and louder to get you to understand.”
Dr. Karp adopts a soothing, childlike voice to demonstrate how to respond to the toddler’s cookie demands.
“You want. You want. You want cookie. You say, ‘Cookie, now. Cookie now.’"
12:07 PM
THE CONSTANT CHAUNCEY GARDNER
Dear Rabbit,
Thanks for the HuffPost link to the satire on Obama. Baldwin's bloviation couldn't get around the fact that this was a genuinely funny takedown of Obama's magnificent nothingness and coy dancing around race.
The Obama phenom reminds me of nothing as much as the movie and book "Being There." An emptiness that empty people yearn to believe is somethingness.
RW
Dear RW,
Yes, calling Obama "YoMama"? That was fucking genius! I laughed and laughed and rolled on the floor laughing, and then I picked myself up and dusted myself off and proceeded to live in my happy little racist honky bubble for the rest of my pathetic life. Hurray!
Why does silly Obama repeat that stupid word CHANGE all the time? What's so important or special about CHANGE? OK, fine, we're stuck in two wars with no end in sight while creeping closer to a third, we've run decades of international diplomacy into the ground in a few short years, we're sliding into a major recession, we're fucking the environment and our legislators are thoroughly corrupted by corporate interests.
But still. CHANGE! What an empty word! And HOPE. Why would we cling to HOPE, when clearly our country is HOPELESS? What's that guy Obama's fucking problem anyway?
Rabbit
10:35 AM
Monday, January 28, 2008
RACE TO THE BOTTOM
Aww. It's so comforting to know that America is just as racist as it's always seemed. No, it's not all in your head after all! Just take a gander at this wonderful bit of comedy, pointed out to us by Alec Baldwin, who blogs for Huffpost and also... let's see, he has a career doing something else, I can't remember what.
You knew it was only a matter of time. But don't listen to me, go read Baldwin's news clipping. Do it. Trust me, it's eye-opening stuff. You really don't want to miss it. You'll feel like it's 1968 all over again. Whether that gives you a thrill or makes you sick to your stomach really depends on your constitution.
Welcome back, racism. I hope you're ready to get your ass handed to you, because we're not going to put up with your horseshit this time around.
3:39 PM
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
AUTOMATIC BREADMAKER
Dear Rabbit,
Two summers ago, I met a wonderful woman, in a thousand ways my perfect match, and in a thousand other ways better; ethical, compassionate, witty & gorgeous too, a good family girl. Before the end of the year, my plan was to ask her to marry me, but in recent days there's been a little hiccup. It seems shortly after we moved in together, around the time we first started talking casually about marriage, around the time her financial situation hit an all-time low -- probably out of desperation -- she became aware of an nagging unexpressed expectation that I would pay for what were previously considered joint expenses, then when the marriage became truly imminent we would merge all our assets, just like her parents had done, and then her sizable debt -- she has a sizable debt -- would suddenly become our debt. But instead of mentioning any of this, or her need for a loan from me, allowing me the opportunity to be generous in a way that I've never shied away from -- gladly paying for all our dinners & lunches out, all our new furniture, our nights out/vacation expenses/sometimes the fuel in her car -- she just let our other joint bills (gas/electric/phone/groceries) passive-aggressively pile-up in the coffee jar, resenting the fact that I wasn't being an even bigger, generous, manly-man.
I should back up and report that my girlfriend is no manipulative, advantage-taking brat (like I said, unless her recent financial woes have changed her for the worse). She’s never previously been anything of the sort - which makes this situation all the more confounding! We share the same profession. We share the same socio-economic background. We make the same money when we're both working. She knows I have no secret stash that would settle all this. In fact, we talk about the limitations of our profession and how in short order we're going to be out on the streets if we don't back ourselves up with several impossible real estate purchases or career shifts (we've considered going to graduate school so that we might someday end up with a real benefits package). I've been very out in the open with my limited finances, and yet my generosity is unprecedented; that, according to her. In fact, every month I put away the difference between my last apartment's expenses and my current one’s. So far I've saved a few thousand dollars, and each month I report to my girlfriend what I plan to do with that money; with no uncertain amount of cockeyed optimism I tell her I plan to put it toward a down payment on a house for us. Me! The big man! Mr. Big Shot! Who am I if not a mensch? And yet now I find myself having to roll out that good guy resume, having been denied the opportunity to be that guy -- and more -- before she started building up a preposterous unspoken position for why I should start paying down her debt, and judging me in the interim. Suddenly I feel unappreciated and insulted. Rabbit, did she set me up? Was I setting myself up? Did we pull a number on ourselves?
She has a vague awareness of the irrationality of her expectations. And in keeping with that has pursued as many as three different tacks when restating her feelings on the matter. She cites the modeling of her parents; her dad was the single bread-winner while her mother stayed at home. My girlfriend even recounts a traumatizing event when her father dragged her by the ear as a child to show her all the things in the house he’d paid for; how dare she complain about not being allowed to go with her friends on a ski trip! I see this awareness as promising, but I'm hoping for more before I propose marriage. I have a buddy who's been sitting on an engagement ring for nearly three years, waiting for his girlfriend to somehow qualify in his eyes. I don't want to be that guy. Sure, money worries me (people’s relationship to money is deeply personal, vague, and remains largely unexplored - it looks as though I’ve avoided the inevitable for too long). The truth is, I might even get reactionary when confronted with being thought of as anything other than my highest ideal, and, in this case, at the proposition of footing another person’s debt. But more than that, the level of bad communication here and accompanying unconscious, subterranean, activity, terrifies me. This morning we made plans for couples' counseling -- she complained that she hadn't the necessary tools to go after this. In the end, it's a fairly common problem I'm sure a lot of 40+ year old couples coming together for the first time run into, right Rabbit? It's hardly infidelity or homicide or bulima or shoplifting - as far as troubles go, it doesn't rank, right? But still... I don't want to go into this thing without a fairly unencumbered horizon. Or without an awareness of my role in things.
You wanna know what I REALLY think, Rabbit? I think even the best people, the most enlightened ones even, are still rife with so many parental issues they can barely walk straight. I see it in people I work with. They're so proud, it kills them that they sometimes require a handout (or less: the benefit of a colleague's experience); making themselves open to attacks of inferiority; they'll do anything they can -- including setting-up an otherwise gracious individual -- than to face their small measure of dependence. Hence my girlfriend’s arbitrary decision to keep paying her half of the rent. To do otherwise would have been too ego-deflating for her, and in her mind, would open her up to poisonous attacks that never, in reality, come (certainly not from me). And you wanna know something else, Rabbit? I think even the most enlightened other kinds of people can’t stand the possibility that they might be considered creeps, they bend over backwards to make their partners happy, even to the detriment of the relationship.
That’s what I really think. But more importantly, what do YOU think? (I’m only pretending to know everything).
Your loyal servant,
Not A Creep
Dear Not A Creep,
You don't sound like a creep, you sound like a loyal servant -- a role that might serve you even worse than being a creep would.
In every single relationship on the planet, the two parties involved eventually have to confront their very different views of money and ways of handling financial challenges. It's rare that this process is incited by anything but strife. Money just isn't something that you sit down and discuss all that often when you're dating or even living together. Until there's a snag, you suspend disbelief, assuming that you're compatible and you're both generous and there never will be a problem. Those couples who argue about money? They don't get along about anything, they just use money as an excuse to throw some plates at the wall.
Eventually, though, if you're in a serious relationship, the money issue comes up. First of all, the landscape has changed drastically since our parents were young. Very few individuals can single-handedly support a spouse and pay for the expenses of an entire household without a second income. Housing costs are too high for that. Add to that the fact that we live in a country that's utterly twisted when it comes to money, where ordinary people with ordinary incomes are tempted every few seconds to spend more than they can afford. Despite the crumbling housing market and the perils of easy credit, I still get at least two offers of massive home equity loans every day. These days, we're led to believe that we're incredibly frugal if we're putting a little into our 401ks and have a tiny, tiny bit of money saved for emergencies, instead of being in serious debt. If you have a two or three thousand saved, that doesn't mean that you're a penny pincher. It means that you should probably try a little harder to save more.
You're right that money is always unconscious, subterranean, uncharted, difficult to understand, and often terrifying. Even if you and your honey are fantastic with money, I think you have to work hard, in any relationship, not to allow money to come between you. You have to work hard to even come close to understanding someone else's approach to money.
For example, you cite your girlfriend's experience with her dad, showing her all the shit he paid for, as reflecting her awareness of her preconceptions about money. Even if she's aware, though, what I see is a bad precedent: She hated having his generosity lorded over her, yet her actions make it clear that she's anxious for you to assume the same role. Even though you've steadfastly refused to resent the responsibility you've had to take for all of your extracurricular expenses as a couple, even though you've demonstrated your generosity over and over, she's still ready to push you to take responsibility for everything. Sure, she's paying half of the rent (stubbornly? Why is that stubborn?), but she's saving all the bills in a jar. She wants you to take it all off her hands, like a good husband does.
Now, these expectations don't make her a bad person, of course. But some unconscious part of her emotional make-up is compelled, somehow, to push you into the role of beleaguered head of household. If you give in to her guilt-inducing, "Be my hero!" breakdowns, you'll end up on the wrong track. The issue is not whether or not you'll help with her debt. If you're determined to marry her, listen, you're going to help chip away at that debt whether you like it or not. That's just the way it works. You won't be able to make any kinds of goals for yourselves until you both make a serious, long-term plan for tackling the debt. But that doesn't mean that you're not helping her to conquer her debt. If she can't acknowledge that you're helping, that her debt is setting your plans back a few beats, that she was irresponsible with money and now you have to work together and deny yourselves the things you want to clean up the mess, then she wants a magical dream husband, not an ordinary man. If she can't say, "OK, you're right, I screwed up, I really, really need your help, and I'll be very thankful when I get it," then she's cornering you into taking responsibility for her indefinitely. Some people do this without wanting to. I worry, though, about what happens in five years. Does she want to have kids or adopt? In some part of her mind, are you going to keep working while she takes time off to have kids or to be a housewife? It doesn't sound like you'll be able to afford that anytime soon, but is she living in a fantasy world about how marriage will save her from the working world? A startling number of women have this fantasy, even when all the facts point to its impossibility. If you don't gently assert your boundaries now, you'll become the kind of person who'll drag his kid, by the ear, and show them all the shit his hard work has paid for. And as a natural born loyal servant, you're custom-made to become an angry, whiny martyr.
I'm not saying she consciously wants you to be that person, or that you wouldn't consciously fight that tooth and nail. But without a concrete plan, without a close look at the problem, you and she both want magic to happen. You want to magically be the hero, and she wants to magically be saved. Neither of you want to have to discuss money, you want it all to be romantic and pretty without any need for talk.
So, first and foremost, you have to give up on being the valiant hero, and your girlfriend needs to face the fact that marriage is not going to solve her money problems forever and ever, amen. You don't have to accept these things simply because you don't have enough money. This part is important, so listen up: Having more money doesn't make this picture any different. Somehow, when money is involved, no one gets to be the hero, whether they're incredibly generous or unnaturally cheap or ridiculously resentful, whether they're incredibly rich or totally poor. Money rips off the red cape, sooner or later. It won't let you save the day. Rich guys who can pay for everything end up feeling crappy about it at some point. Poor guys who can't do shit end up feeling crappy. Someone like you, who's careful, can't save the day, but you'll try and try and you'll hate yourself for failing, and eventually you'll hate her, too.
That doesn't mean you don't have a decent relationship, or that you shouldn't marry her. It doesn't mean that you should angrily tell her she's trying to make you into her father, she's nuts, she's got issues, whatever. Don't get dirty where money is concerned. Be gentle, but be clear about what you're committed to and what you need from her in order to help. You have to assert very clear boundaries, and stick to them. If you're busting your ass to fix this problem, she can't go out and spend money on random stuff. You have to agree on a budget. And I don't really see why you should pay for all of your meals and vacations. Because you have a penis, you have to pay for the extras, when you make the same amount? I'm sorry, but times have changed. She wants to be treated as an equal, doesn't she? The price of a liberated man is, oh, about half of that expensive dinner bill!
Again, don't go and lay down the law or anything, because that's laying the groundwork for the kind of dynamic she had with her father. Just go to counseling, like you planned, and sort through this stuff. Try not to get too ugly about it. People don't have a lot of control over their freakiness with money -- it's by nature irrational terrain. Be patient. But assert your needs, and try to come up with a plan, together, for getting back on equal footing with money, agreeing on what your goals are in the short and long term, and setting up a savings and debt-pay-off schedule.
Also, a bit of gratuitous advice? Get married in someone's backyard, or rent a huge house at the beach for a week and ask close friends and family to chip in instead of giving you a wedding present, or hire an In-and-Out Burger Wagon to cater an event at a park. Don't add $20k to your shared debts for one day of semi-stressful fun. Everyone in your family will admire your restraint, trust me, and they'll have just as good a time at a low-frills party as they would at an overpriced hotel that serves shitty food anyway (and caterers are usually even worse at making 100 great meals at once than hotels are. Unless you pay out the ass for a caterer, which you shouldn't, the food will probably disappoint you). Personally, I'd rather have a great burger than a cold piece of overcooked wedding chicken any day of the week.
I can tell that you're already committed to this woman, and you really think she's a catch, so I'm definitely not advising you to rethink that commitment. I do think you need to press her to be honest, and you need to pay close attention to her ability to listen and understand you and make room for your emotions when you're being honest. If she gets angry every time you express yourself, and she stubbornly holds onto this picture where you're the hero who fixes everything? Well, she doesn't want a marriage to a mortal. She wants to move into the Barbie Dream House with Ken. So be very kind and sweet to her throughout this tough time, but be firm and assert yourself with calm confidence. It's crucial to your happiness that you stand up for yourself and shed this notion that you can or should be a hero, because you'll end up a very unhappy, angry (albeit very loyal) servant.
Very best of luck to you and your honey. My guess is that you two will be just fine, and that this will be a really rich (though difficult) time that will help you to grow even closer.
Rabbit
12:30 PM
Friday, January 11, 2008
HARD TIMES
Are spreadin' just like the flu!
Watch out, home boy, don't let it catch you!
P-p-p-prices go up, don't let your pocket go down,
When you got short money, you're stuck on the ground,
So turn around, get ready, keep your eye on the clock,
And be on point for the future shock!
When I was in the 9th grade, this shy kid on my bus named Devo let me borrow his tape of Run-DMC, and this was my favorite rap on the tape. When the other kids on the bus heard us whispering the lyrics together, they'd say, "That shit is old!" like we were assholes to be stuck on a rap that came out 2 years earlier, but we didn't care.
Devo needed a friend on the bus because he was sort of nerdy and really big - maybe 250 pounds and 6 feet tall. I needed a friend because I was one of maybe three white kids on the bus, plus I was a cheerleader, which meant that two days a week during basketball season, I wore a cheerleading uniform to school. Getting on that bus in my fucking tiny skirt, some of the girls would glare at me like maybe they should kick my ass, so I tried very hard to demonstrate that I was just some chumpy white girl with no ego, no pride, and nothing to prove. Some of the apartments we visited were seriously shitty-looking and pretty crime-ridden, so even when kids yelled that I had skinny fucking chicken legs and anyway there weren't enough black girls on the cheerleading squad (2 out of 10 were black, but the black-white split at the school was probably more like 40%-60%), I reminded myself that they had every reason to want to kick my ass, lily white bitch who didn't live in the apartment complexes and but for some reason caught the bus there. (My dad lived in the school district, but I lived most of the time with my mom, so I caught the closest bus to school about a mile from my mom's house.)
Today I can't get those Hard Times lyrics out of my head. Why does talk of recession put me in such a goddamn fine mood? I've been cleaning the house more often, and planting stuff in the yard, and looking for ways to cook cheap meats. I've always wondered about London Broil: What the fuck do you do with it? A few days ago I found a marinade on Epicurious, soaked that slab of beef in it overnight, and my god, it was tasty delicious! $3.99 a pound! Put that in your blog and smoke it, crackers!
Hard Times will put you on a natural trip! Earlier this week I was buying 80-cent bags of beans at the grocery store when a woman came up and pointed out a 15-bean soup mix. "This looks pretty tasty," she said, enthusiastically. "15 beans!" (When you go to the grocery store at 10 a.m. on a Monday, people really like to chat with you. It's sort of like the Friday-night pick-up hours at the Marina Safeway in San Francisco, only with coupon-clipping retirees.)
"Yeah, that does look pretty good," I said, sociably picking up the same bag. I was feeling anxious about money and procrastinating my column. It felt good to talk to a stranger about beans for some reason. I was not only buying beans, you see, I was discussing various bean-related options with other bean buyers.
Then the woman noticed the $2.69 price tag. "Too expensive!" she said. I stared at the bag in my hand guiltily. It did look good, and $2.69 didn't seem like that much. Then again, all of the other bags of beans were 75 or 80 cents, which meant that $2.69 was downright criminal. "You're right!" I said, putting back my own bag. "You have to buy beans at the Mexican grocery store. They're cheaper," she told me.
For the rest of my shopping trip, I tried to think like the woman who refused to pay too much for beans. Four dollars for half a gallon of milk? Isn't that obscene? $2.99 a pound for pears? Maybe my kid should try to develop a taste for apples this winter. Pork butt is so cheap... Maybe if I cook it for long enough, covered in honey, I could puree it and then form it into a loaf of some kind...
Now, some might say that I've become a mediocre, budget-minded, wife-and-mother type of fuckwad, and maybe I have, but let me tell you something, crackers: There is joy in this pathetic, groveling domestic role, particularly when your spouse shares in the demeaning slow-cooking and butt-wiping routine.
And you know what else? Being a sad little recipe and coupon clipper feels sort of invigorating and honorable when our once-great nation is falling on its face and we're about to slide into a recession. Hard Times, got a pocket, all in change! It puts a kick in my step, somehow, throwing all my goddamn pennies into the change machine and coming away with $32. I like knowing that I can't afford to move and I can't afford to quit my job and I can't afford to think about the boundless possibilities that the universe has to offer, I can only afford to wash my own stupid floors and eat leftovers and lose weight so the clothes I already own don't look like shit on me.
Honestly, I sort of thrill to a recession. But you know what makes me break out in hives? When people start talking about a "return to glamour." I distinctly remember this talk, in the late '90s, and how it made me want to kill with my bare hands. Or how about when people start loudly musing over when they'll start with the Botox, or wondering if they shouldn't sell their crappy house, since it's worth over half a million now, and buy something for $800,000 instead, as if it makes even a tiny bit of sense to take on an additional $300k in loans. Or maybe... maybe they should just sell their house and retire to fucking Costa Rica! I actually know people who did this, cashed in something like $400k, quit their jobs, and moved, and now they're learning to farm and meditate (Personally, I would lose my mind in 5 minutes, living in the jungle with nothing but self-loathing and a steady stream of existential crises to keep me busy.) How can you feel sane and healthy when you're preoccupied with all of the possibilities presented by your massive stores of accumulated wealth? How can you be happy when the world is your stupid oyster? Plentitude doesn't become us, crackers.
Ah, but scrimping and saving is a wonderful, humanizing force in the world. And doesn't it follow that we should all loathe the military-industrial complex at this particular moment in history? Doesn't it make simple sense that we should have a bone to pick with the establishment, that we should be thirsting for revolution? It's about time we stopped reorganizing our walk-in closets and started fucking shit up!
I'm sure that, wherever he is, Devo feels the same way.
12:53 PM
