LW, you say he tells you you're beautiful, that he's from a prominent local family, and though he is apparently a black sheep underachiever, he does have what the small town people call "steady work". But you yourself don't seem to see your own beauty too clearly (good lord the standard for female beauty is so BORING, and seems to be getting worse!), and you are from a YAnkee family.

What I am seeing in this is that you've always been somewhat of an outsider in this town (and that might understate the case), and that when you refer to marrying for love you mean someone who loves YOU. Small town people can be so horribly insular, and it sounds like you may have the idea that you are lucky to have this man, despite the fact that you are not really from there. Not being "from around here" is a MAJOR failing in the eyes of a lot of small town people.

That isn't the case in a city. Sure you might be an outsider when it comes to particular groups of people, like the ones who spend time at this tavern, or that coffeehouse, or who always seem to be playing frisbee gold at the park every Sunday the weather permits it. But in a city, if one crowd isn't a fit, you can go find another one. There are people who will find you beautiful and interesting and maybe you'll even have days where you forget what it's like to feel like the freaky one. City life isn't anything like as hard as small-town folks make it out to be (esp a city of 70,000. That's still a small town by a lot of reckonings! ;-) )

And please remember something else: if you think you are lucky to have him, but he doesn't seem to feel equally lucky to have you, you really aren't all that lucky.

Wonderwoman wrote:

At what point did you first begin to judge other's ethics? Who else has let you down? Who have you watched take the easy way out? When did you lack the luxury of shirking responsibility? Why is this so important to you?

Everybody judges other people's ethics. It's how we figure out who to trust, and with what. And if you know ANYTHING about climbing, you have to know that it is NOT an every-man-for-himself kind of activity. It's about MUTUAL responsibility. Each person's actions can affect the safety of EVERYONE else. So if someone gets hurt, it is everybody's problem. There is no "well you know the risk". There is not weasely, whiny "I didn't mean to, so I don't have to own up to it". You shoulder your part of the burden and you figure out how to do everything possible to play safer next time, or you take your toys home and take up knitting.

And if some whining, childish dickhead bills you for helping you out and starts claiming that people don't get to "judge" him (while simutaneously judging everyone else for being so judgmental), you keep his dumb ass of the team until he can quit acting like a narcissistic baby.

My only advice for the LW is that she not go on any more climbing trips with this bozo, least she get stuck at the other end of a rope he's responsible for. Her boyfriend will hopefully do the same.

but you see, anger HAPPENS. It's just a fact, like weather. No one, not Spinoza or the Buddhists, advocate repressing or destroying the feeling, only avoiding getting caught up in it, and allowing it the affect one's judgment and actions. The qualilty of the emotional experience she is experiencing is no one's business but her own. She only asked what she should do abotu the situation, and she doesn't owe him her company or attention, so if she feels he is unreliable as a friend and climbing companion, she doesn't have to connect with him any more. I don't advocate the she beat him up, or slash his tires, or besmirch his reputation, or even be overtly or covertly rude to him. She can decide not be be friends with him anymore and that's OK.

I don't mean to come off too jumpy about the issue, but there are way too many people who like to use perfectly nice ethical theories to try to buy themselves space for all kinds of bullying and exploitation. It does pay to be wary of people who will try to use your principles against you.

Economic Man Makes Rational Decisions

Well, of course they present it that way. They're economists, not social workers or ethicists. Every department in the academy has it's own special filter, and a good number of them balk at haing to look through anyone else's. But, when you see outlooks from so many different professional perspectives converging on one point, that seems like awfully good grounds for believing that maybe they all got the right answer.

Economic Man is a pretty good guy, when you get to know him!

So get some virtual cops, some virtual lawyers, and some virtual jurors, investigate the virtual crime, and if the accused is convicted, put him in virtual prison! I'm sure some players would love to play any of those characters. And it could be fun! Put all those hours watching CSI to some entertaining use.

Good grief, they're PIXELS. People are actually putting serious thought into this?