I turned 38 last week, and through some introspection, realized I’m unfulfilled. I thought a girls’ night out might help. The last thing I wanted was attention from men. Of course, at the bar, I ended up getting hit on by a 50-something overweight man. Shortly after introducing himself, he told me I have a lovely figure and began guessing my height, weight, and measurements (including bra size!). Then he asked me my age! Outraged, I said my stats were none of his concern, and that if he’s in the habit of treating women like sexual objects he should take his chauvinistic attitude elsewhere. Then I slapped his face, and told him it was on behalf of all the women who’ve had to endure his offensive pickup lines. He walked sheepishly back to his laughing buddies. My friends gave me “you go, girl” high fives, but said I seemed a little on edge lately. If they’re right, do you know some good techniques to find inner peace?
--Venting
Common sense is getting rarer every day. My neighborhood grocery store just started tagging cheese with the sticker “CONTAINS: MILK.” A Welsh regulatory agency said Smoked Welsh Dragon Sausages should be renamed so it’s clear they’re made of pork -- not dragon. Surely your local pickup joint will soon post advisories on the door, like “Contains drunks” and “To avoid attention from men, hold girls’ night out in a convent, not a bar.”
I’ll hazard a guess as to what really went down last week. A man approached you at the bar. Although you consider men who judge women by their looks chauvinistic pigs, you noted that he was not a 30-something blond Adonis but a 50-something fat man. He noted that you noted this -- probably because you shot him the high school mean girl death ray for daring to even dream of hitting on you. Okay, fine. If he couldn’t get you, he’d at least get a rise out of you. You didn’t disappoint.
Naturally, you assumed he was a foot-soldier in the vast conspiracy to keep women down -- not just some obnoxious drunk. Asking apparently uptight girls in bars their age and bra size -- isn’t that what obnoxious drunks do? Come on, you know that, but acknowledging it isn’t half as satisfying as flapping your wings and squawking about being “objectified” (as if people in bars are on the prowl for inner beauty and spiritual depth). Finally, to show him how the civilized half lives, you cracked him one. Just a thought, but if a guy did that to you, would you be slinking sheepishly back to the girls -- or feverishly dialing 911 to have him incarcerated for life?
As for what you could’ve done in response, you’re a girl who was supposedly loath to engage. Didn’t ignoring him occur to you? Or, if you wanted to give back in kind, since it was a fat guy going troll on you, when he asked “What’s your bra size?” you could’ve looked down at his chest and said, “I dunno, what’s yours?” You only became a victim when you started acting like a victim. You’ll probably continue to feel like one until you figure out what’s missing from your life, and take steps to change -- instead of taking out the feeling something’s missing on the nearest aspiring toxic bachelor. As for how to find inner peace, Krishnamurti’s Freedom From The Known has some pretty good guidelines. As for where; there’s no paved path that I know of, but for best results, try standing by a babbling brook instead of a beer tap.
March 21, 2007I’ve been arguing a point with a male friend who’s in a relationship with a very nice woman. His girlfriend got on the birth control patch because they wanted a more reliable method than condoms. She’s just a student, and in their two years together, birth control has set her back $1,140 ($570 a year). She’s been asking him to split the cost of the patch ($35/month) and her yearly checkup to renew it ($150), and he's balking. He feels that since she's the one using it, as opposed to him using condoms, he shouldn't have to help. If you say he should pay, he promises he will. What's the verdict?
--The Mediator
Yes, he correctly notes, “she’s the one using” the birth control patch -- mainly because slapping a medicated sticker with female hormones on his hairy back won’t do much more than increase his bra size from 46AAA to 46B, and maybe make him lactate a little.
So, who was the eighth-grade teacher who forgot to send your friend to summer school to repeat sex ed? Somebody should break the news to him that babies are made by a man and a woman having sexual intercourse, not dropped off by a giant cartoon stork. Maybe once he gets hip to the whole sperm meets egg/egg inflates into baby thing, he’ll come to understand that his girlfriend isn’t wearing the patch as a fashion statement or because it’s a recreational drug and she’s looking to get an estrogen buzz.
What’s more, she isn’t just paying for the patch in dollars and with that day at Disneyland otherwise known as a visit to the gynecologist. Potential “adverse reactions” published by the pharmaceutical company include nausea, vomiting and weight gain; depression, corneal shape-shifting and cerebral hemorrhage; and then there’s yeast infection, loss of scalp hair and hirsutism. While most women use the patch without major side effects, there is a chance his girlfriend could end up bald, with a really big gut and a beard.
Mr. All Play, No Pay may not know there are health risks involved, but the fact that his girlfriend has to beg him to undo the padlock on his wallet is seriously disgusting. As for the princely sum she’s looking to have him chip in, let’s see…it’s $35 a month for the patch, plus the yearly $150 doctor exam ($12.50 per month), which comes to $47.50 a month. Divide that by the two people enjoying pregnancy-free sex, and you get a grand total of $23.75 a month per enjoyer -- a considerable savings over $1,228.08, the average monthly cost, according to a 2005 USDA report, for middle-class parents to raise a child to age 17. In other words, this guy could be getting off cheap, with highly effective child-support prevention for less than a dollar a day. Instead, he’s merely getting off -- while rubbing his girlfriend’s nose in what a tightwad he can be.
My verdict? If you’re sleeping with somebody who quibbles about going halfsies on birth control, you aren’t having sex, you’re getting screwed. And remember, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Action is character.” This guy’s actions suggest he’s the kind of boyfriend who’ll always be there for her -- until the chips are down or the check comes. And, who is she? Let’s hope, somebody who finally sees the wisdom in telling him to keep his $23.75 and put it toward a case of Kleenex and a magnum of Vaseline Intensive Care.
March 14, 2007Recently, my cash has been mysteriously disappearing -- first, from my pants pocket after my girlfriend did laundry. When I asked, she said she’d found a few bucks in the washer, but I realized most of it was still missing. Okay, maybe that time the underpants gnomes took it. Another time, some cash from my wallet was gone. She denied knowing anything. Then, my change jar got mostly emptied. She finally admitted she cashed it in for stuff she needed. Then there are all those times I’ve had to pay her portion of the bills. I’m a college student, and she earns more than I do, even though she goes for low-wage jobs then gets fired. I’ve been waiting and hoping she’d start managing her money better, or look for a better job. Do you think it would help if we didn’t live together? I’m thinking that way she’d learn to save some of her OWN money.
--Dollar Bill
So…if a guy at a concert picks your pocket, do you chase him and try to tackle him, or sit down and ponder whether he just needs an apartment of his own?
It’s bad enough that you have to worry about strangers in Romania phishing your bank account over the Internet. Now you also have to worry that your own girlfriend is phishing your dresser? Of course, you should probably consider yourself lucky if all her larceny is the petty kind. While women typically wait until they marry to take a man’s name, your name may already be appearing on credit cards you’ll only find out about when the repo man is driving away in your car.
You could be checking your credit report for fraud right now -- if only you weren’t so busy making excuses for your girlfriend: She has a bad job! She doesn’t make enough money! There may be demons in the washing machine! Right. There’s a reason it’s the fruit of your labor disappearing, not your Fruit of the Looms. (Ever try to buy earrings with a fistful of tighty-whities?) Cough it up already: Your girlfriend is a thief. She isn’t “finding” money, she isn’t borrowing money, she’s stealing it, plain and simple. On the bright side, she isn’t endangering your life by holding you up at gunpoint, since your gullibility is the only weapon she needs.
Sometimes reality bites, and when it does, the answer isn’t reaching down to pet it and give it a biscuit. Sure, you really, really want to believe there’s a loving relationship in there somewhere -- perhaps because you’ve already put so much time into believing that. Or, perhaps you think admitting your girlfriend doesn’t love you means admitting you’re unlovable or undeserving of love. The truth is, you might be quite lovable, but you’ll never find out as long you’re with a woman whose idea of a 50/50 relationship involves lifting $50 from your wallet, then cashing in another $50 from your change jar.
Getting your girlfriend to move out will change one thing -- her address. While management companies do give away a lot of amenities to lure new renters, ethics and ambition aren’t among them. You can have a woman who shares your values, provided that you keep looking until you actually find one. If it makes you feel better, consider the money this woman filched a course fee of sorts: a lesson to avoid ignoring the disconnect between what you have and what you really want -- which, presumably, isn’t a girlfriend who can’t keep her hands off your hard…earned cash.
March 3, 2007My friend, "Claire," 21, has been dating an older guy, 29, since July. Last week she told me he was in jail. She wouldn't say why, but seemed determined to stand by him. Then, it came out on the news that he was engaged in some stomach-churning attempts to pick up 13-year-olds for sex in Internet chat rooms. I can't, in good conscience, get behind her loyalty to a disgusting man whom, by the way, she still wants to marry and have babies with. I'm also afraid to express this to Claire because if she gets mad and refuses to have me as a support system, she's more likely to stay with the creep.
--Between A Rock And Somebody Else's Hard Time
That happy family fantasy of hers has a few snags; for example, dinner. Let's see...there they all are at the table, Mommy, the pervert, and their two beautiful children, and then Mommy leaves the room to get more mashed potatoes...turning Daddy into a parole violator. And then, even if Daddy is, for some wildly insane reason, allowed around his own children, it'll be a bit hard for him to drive them to school if he isn't allowed within 1,000 feet of the place: "You girls look both ways as you're running across the highway!"
Perhaps not surprisingly, my first inclination was to have you ask "Claire" who stole her brain and replaced it with Fluffernutter. My second and wiser inclination was to call Dr. Stanton Peele. Peele, an addiction treatment specialist, is the guy I think best understands the psychology behind self-destructive behavior and what it takes to pry yourself or somebody else off a compulsion. He told me your hunch was right -- the least productive thing you could do is slap your friend upside the head with her pedophile boyfriend. He explained that people don't change because you tell them they should, but because they realize "what they're doing violates what they are most about, and what they want most for themselves."
Chances are, Claire wasn't looking to end up with Chester The Molester. When she started dating this guy, she probably saw him as her ticket to white picket fence-ville. In time, a few pesky facts got in the way. But, never mind them! Like a lot of people, she simply pretended away the disconnect between what she has and what she wants -- which, in turn, left her standing by her man as if he's coming back from the war instead of the kiddie diddler wing in some prison.
To get Claire to face the contradictions, Peele recommends a non-judgmental, non-confrontational technique called "Motivational Interviewing." (See Peele's book, 7 Tools to Beat Addiction.) Start by becoming a double agent of sorts: Convince her you're behind her no matter what so she'll be free with facts and feelings, which you'll tuck away for later use. In Peele's words, "You need to be there as a support system and look for a teachable moment." Instead of telling Claire she's got her head on backwards, get her to answer questions that will make it obvious to her; for example, "So, you say family's important to you. What do you think your family life will be like with this guy?" If you sense resistance, back off. "The key," Peele writes, "...is to push the ball back to the other person (generally by asking questions)." Eventually, this should lead Claire to a question or two of her own, such as, "Did I seriously consider having a family with a guy who'd celebrate becoming a father by handing out cigars announcing, 'It's A Girlfriend!'?"