Letters to the Editor
Leowolf
Published Letters: 22 Editor's Choice: 6
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You're too young for this!
[Read the article: How can we get back the thrill in our relationship?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The "how do we get back the thrill in our relationship" question makes sense in the context of, say, a twenty-year marriage. Life is too short and being young is too fun for you to be in a relationship that makes you ask "is this all there is?" after 15 months and at the age of twenty. You have the rest of your life to be asking that question. (Ha, ha.) Move on and experience the thrill of falling in love a few more times before you decide to settle down, get married, and have kids and won't be able to do it again (if you're lucky and the marriage lasts).
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Re: Slapping?
[Read the article: Her sexy T-shirt says "Kitty Not Happy" -- is that OK at work?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another commenter wrote: "The LW seems to be saying that if he was this woman's husband. he would perceive it as a severe provocation that she was going out in the community wearing a T-shirt proclaiming that she is not getting enough sex. Is that really so far off base?"
A) If by severe provocation you mean slappable offense, as the LW seems to, then yes, it is way off base. Any man who thinks that it is within his rights to slap his wife when she displeases him is way off base. Period.
B) Even so, if this is such a severe provocation of her husband, then shouldn't he be the one writing in, saying "my wife is wearing this horrible t-shirt, what do I do?" What business is it of the LW's that this woman's husband was perhaps provoked by her attire? None.
Maybe this choir-singing, upstanding-parent-having woman just has a sick cat at home. :)
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What you need
[Read the article: How do I get rid of mice? Plus: Testimonials needed!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is a KITTY. Perhaps even an unhappy one.
Seriously, I've been told that mice don't want to be where kitties are, so if they smell kitties they'll leave. When I lived in a row of houses and the neighbor had mice, I didn't and it might have been because of my kitties.
I don't know how true this is, but...
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Everything isn't so black and white
[Read the article: Chatty Cathy, Taciturn Ted?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In my opinion, the problem with so many of these Broadsheet threads is that they devolve so quickly into men saying "all women do x" and women saying "all men do y". It's so ridiculous! You can skewer me all you want, but men and women aren't so different from one another, and in my experience people who talk like that have very little experience with members of the opposite sex. All of the men I know who have real friendships with women know that all women don't think alike and they also know that they have more in common with many women than with many men-- in terms of interests, types of conversations they enjoy, you name it. And vice versa.
Just the other day I was upset about something but didn't want to talk about it with my (newish) boyfriend because it wasn't that big a deal and I knew once I had thought about it for a few minutes I'd get over it, so I just wanted to change the subject and forget about it. But he pressed until I told him, and then he said something along the lines of "I think the difference between us is that I would rather talk out these kinds of things and you'd rather deal with them on your own." I was floored, not because I assumed that men don't talk, but because I had been in a relationship for years with someone who never talked about anything so I was used to being the commnunicative one. But the point is, some men don't talk about their feelings and some do...just like some women do and some don't. We're all just human beings. Geez.
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Maybe the idea that this life is all there is is unsettling because it's not so great?
[Read the article: Is atheism dead?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know if I'd describe myself as an atheist or an agnostic, but either way, the idea that there is no heaven or afterlife is freeing to me. Each of us is tiny and insignificant when measured against the grand scheme of things. Therefore, the only thing that matters is what I do each day. Every small thing that I do matters because that's all our lives are: collections of small things in a vast universe that we don't even understand. Did I help a mom get her baby carriage up the subway stairs? Give up my seat for an old person? Make someone laugh? Give comfort to a friend who's having a crisis? On a larger scale, does the work I do touch anyone else, improve someone else's life in some way, and will it leave any legacy after I'm gone? I'm an academic, so for me that means books that someone a generation from now might read or students who might remember me as having been meaningful to them in some way, however small. And, do I enjoy my life?
If the LW is struggling, I'm wondering if he's looking around and finding that he doesn't feel his work has any meaning or his relationships don't involve real connections to other people. I don't think faith gives life meaning; if anything, I think it takes meaning out of life. If the time we have here is just a stopover on our way to someplace else, then what we do here isn't meaningful in and of itself, but only as a means for getting someplace else.
It doesn't seem like you can be really present in this world if you're always anticipating the next.