Letters to the Editor
Bollinl
Published Letters: 19 Editor's Choice: 5
-
Introversion v Extroversion?
[Read the article: My friend has gone bad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find myself wondering if the two women have different personality styles.
I am an introvert, and prefer solitude or small social gatherings where I know the people I'm with quite well. Large social events exhaust me.
I have friends who are extroverts, and for them friendship seems to be easy-come/easy-go--meeting new people isn't hard, surrounding themselves with others is fun, and friendship with me may not be quite as important to them as a result. Because of my introversion, I'm slow to make new friends and value individual ones very highly. But I've had to come to recognize that my more extroverted friends simply don't share that same sense--they may have dozens of friends, and often move on to new friends quite easily. That doesn't mean they don't care about me, or even care very much--it means that they derive a different energy from people than I do, and so don't prefer a few close friends as I do. They sometimes have lots of "best friends," and so don't have the same sense of what that set of words might mean to someone who prefers to care deeply about fewer people. Recognizing that difference helps me not get my feelings hurt, and thus lose the friendship that an extrovert does have to offer.
Mary sounds like an extrovert, who wants lots of people around her (and implicitly pays for the privilege!), while the LW--looking for more 1-on-1 time with Mary--sounds more like an introvert. They may be able to maintain a friendship if the LW can just let that extroversion clarify for her what Mary does and doesn't want. They may have been closer (and their friendship more what the LW-introvert wanted) in the past, but Mary seems to have come into her own as an extrovert and doesn't really want that close intimacy that introverts are more likely to crave. To the extent the LW likes being in groups with Mary, she's fine. And even extroverts sometimes like having an introvert to confide in from time to time, so if the LW can let the emotion of abandonment go and just recognize Mary as a different type of person than she herself is (or than she understood Mary to be a decade ago), they may still have occasional flashes of intimacy. Or not. But the LW needs to understand herself and her own needs too. It's likely her emotional needs are more readily satisfied by that significant other and a few close friends. Mary's aren't. So be it.
I'm with CT on this one: "fix" the friendship by recognizing what it is and isn't. And come to terms with that. You may never have what you thought you wanted with Mary--but you'll find other (probably more introverted!) friends to share that dynamic with!
-
Being eligible doesn't mean you know you are
[Read the article: The Wal-Mart recession]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fact that people may have income levels that permit them to receive public assistance doesn't mean they know how to go about getting it, or are set up to do so. You've got to know which hoops to jump through and how. Many of the people the system is designed to help don't know how to find the hoops, much less how to jump through them.
And sometimes the system is set up with absurd hoops: when I was a starving grad student in NJ, my husband and I had an income range that qualified us for food stamps. So we applied. But to get foodstamps, I would have had to sign a form affirming that I would take any job that paid more than I was currently earning. Well, I needed short-term help, but I would have lost my fellowship had I taken additional employment--so we walked away. Could have lied, I suppose, but a system that sets lying as a requirement is a big problem.
And a friend who did take WIC during similar circumstances faced fairly invasive questioning of her family choices.
But it's definitely a very bad financial indicator for people to feel they need to stock up on formula when the check comes in. Truly tragic.
-
What she might really have meant is . . .
[Read the article: Palin doesn't understand First Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that if in power she would curtail those rights, since obviously leaving them alone wasn't in her best interests!