Letters to the Editor
macha1
Published Letters: 10
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Age is a factor
[Read the article: How can I help my friend get over losing his girlfriend?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm amazed at all of these letters back and forth either slapping the 41 year old dude on the back for landing some young thang, or condemning him for the same. The point here is that while the 23 year old woman is still a newbie at adulthood, the 41 year old has been an adult for some time now. I think most of us knows that guy who consistently dates women 20 years younger than himself. I roll my eyes, pray for love but really find it a bit creepy.
As a woman, perhaps I put too much emphasis on the "talking" stuff of a relationship, but really, where was this relationship going? What on earth would they talk about? Did they share similar levels of experience and sophistication on a wide variety of topics? If so, one of them is either super mature or super stunted. I understand heartbreak for sure, but even when I was 30 I was over the extended mooniness over a failed relationship. After awhile, you learn to just move on.
That he's pining over this woman for so long makes me think that perhaps he had the emotional makeup of a 16 year old, and she left him because she was 'too old' for him. Or perhaps she realized he only wanted her for her body and wisely called it off, intuiting that truth and realizing that someday she'd be old and grey and they had nothing to talk about at the end of the day. Sure, perhaps it was a great love, but nine times out of ten (I'm being generous), such a May-December romance is exploitative, with power flowing from the older and richer party.
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Some of my best friends are rich
[Read the article: I resent my fiancé because he is rich]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And I mean that in the nicest way... they're lovely people, and for years I had no idea how rich some of them actually were. But there is always a wall there that we don't speak about, and you're dealing with The Wall, too.
I grew up lower middle class. Then, in one awful year, my mom was diagnosed with a degenerative disease and my father died of cancer and we slipped even further down the class ladder. I was a financial aid baby at a major university, and I suspect I was the only person there cooking cheese sandwiches using those rectangular bricks of bright orange American cheese my mom got from the local welfare office. Maybe not.
All my friends come from upper middle class (and up) backgrounds, except for one, which whom I'd drink beer around the kitchen table and share what it was like growing up -- and now be friends with -- the kids who went to camp, to dance lessons, to movies, on planes, even! We can 'pass' through this middle-class culture we inhabit, but we don't belong, not really. Some you who read this know exactly what I'm talking about.
I've dated rich men, most of whom felt guilty about the money they didn't earn. And who am I marrying next month? A lovely man who grew up in working-class Detroit, with a seventysomething father still works because he can't afford not to, and a sister who's worked twenty years baking cakes in a supermarket and hates it. We go to Detroit for Xmas, and it feels like home to me, in rotten and wonderful ways. I worry that with this rich man, you may never feel fully at home, that you will feel like an interloper your entire life. Even if your man is wonderful, he was raised differently from you. There is something to be said for partnering with someone who understands your past, I mean really understands it, and not just in a superficial way.
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I feel your pain
[Read the article: The workers I supervise are out of control]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I used to manage a couple of nutcake employees. Being middle management at a major university, there was very little I could do in terms of firing, etc., as my supervisor was an egomaniac; you could be late with everything, do no work, but if you kissed his ass, you were golden in his eyes.
Me-- I got left with the half-left work and the realization that I was essentially a minor impediment. So I left and I'm much happier. I work with sane people now who can respond to constructive criticism, can be trusted to work on their own, etc. The crime family I left behind still can't meet deadlines and fulfill the funder's mandate. Though I'm sure some judicious ass-kissing will be liberally applied and all will be well. Besides, no one reads those year-end reports.
Though I understand Cary's 'desperate times call for desperate measures' approach of trying to find their respective hungers and then feeding it, that approach has no end. These hungers will only escalate.
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Timing is everything
[Read the article: After years of being meek, I'm suddenly screaming at people!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gosh, I could've written that letter -- twenty years ago. OK, ten. I caused quite a stir at my friend's wedding rehearsal dinner by punching a fellow celebrant in the stomach. Not my finest hours, to be sure (even though I was considered a hero for shutting him up for two seconds).
Managing anger is hard stuff. I find that if I don't express myself WELL AT THE TIME, it haunts me. All this is bugging you because you're sensitive to the downside of yelling; many people aren't. So the trick is to express it quickly, at the time, without going overboard. It helps me when I give the offender the benefit of the doubt -- that nasty coworker? Scared, jealous, feels trapped. I also like to make myself laugh -- that awful driver? Maybe he's having a seizure!
Thing is, the offense probably isn't personal, it's just some bonehead. If it is personal, suss out the intention. If someone 's got it in for you, gear up for battle. Otherwise, it's just some of the detritus of daily life to shrug off.