Letters to the Editor
PJBabiba
Published Letters: 29 Editor's Choice: 4
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Tough call...
[Read the article: My best friend is marrying a guy who's nothing but trouble]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Usually I'm one for tough love, but the LW has been best friends with this woman for more than a decade, right?
In that case, if there's a solid emotional bond there and plenty of history between the two, I think she should just swallow her opinions about the groom (no matter how right she is) and go and be supportive at the wedding.
This woman is the LW's best friend. The LW sounds like she's a good person, a really loyal friend too who genuinely wants the best for her friend. She won't be the kind to abandon a relationship. It will hurt her too much.
I mean, I think this whole thing will erode their friendship. LW -- if you're reading this. You can be supportive, but you should probably be shopping for another best friend. There are obviously insurmountable differences between you two that are only going to keep appearing. How are you going to feel when your friend starts calling you in the middle of the night, requesting your help to fetch her man who's puking at a bar? It's like watching someone kick themselves in the ass over and over. It's completely and utterly so insane and stupid you just want to shake them and tell them to stop it already!
And the reason why I say you should start shopping for a new best friend is not so that you can abandon her when she needs your help. It's so that you can shift your expectations to someone else and let the pressure on this one particular friendship dissipate for the time being. When you do that, you'll find it much easier to accept her, warts and all.
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Quarter-life crisis?
[Read the article: I'm 28. How do I grow up?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was reading a book a while ago about the "quarter-life crisis" for women in their 20's, and I think the LW might be going through one.
One of the women interviewed in the book had a similar life. Fabulous poet, musician friends. She herself had a very quirky career as a jet-setting photographer working for a magazine in the big city. Like the LW, she dated unavailable men, almost as if she was collecting experiences. She dated a Russian artist who painted her. She dated the bohemian rap-artist who was the complete opposite of her. She dated a married man. I mean, this woman seemed to want to live in one lifetime the experiences of five lifetimes -- at least in terms of men. But then she wasn't happy, and the book remarked that it almost seemed like she had a checklist of experiences she wanted to tally up before she was "confined" to marriage.
So the LW has figured out that she does not want that anymore, but she doesn't know where to go from there -- ding ding ding! quarter-life crisis.
I don't know if the LW sincerely wants to continue her hipster lifestyle. The way I read it, she gave away a lot by saying that her life has been "meticulously cultivated." Does that sound like something a person who is happy with the way things are would say? I think she knows that she's dissatisfied with it. Everything is as she thought she wants it, but somehow the spark is not there. But because of her hipster lifestyle, she thinks that the only alternative out there is khakis, suburbs, two kids and an SUV. It's like when people live in Manhattan for so long that they think everything is divided between "the city" and Hicksville.
That couldn't be farther from the truth, and the LW has to learn that. There are so many different people out there, each with their own kind of intelligence and creativity. There are people who she will think are dumb as rocks but who will surprise her.
So I agree with the poster before who said that the man she's talking about might just be "too perfect" for her. Like Samantha on Sex in the City said in one episode, he was "Good on paper, bad in bed." Maybe the LW needs to branch out a little, go on a dating spree of vastly different men and find out what she truly likes. Maybe she needs to come down a notch, at least in her mind, and see what the fuss is over televised sports and videogames, and question herself why art films are necessarily so much better than blockbusters at the local multiplex.
Time to come out of your meticulously cultivated shell, LW.