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Advice Goddess
| Advice Goddess: New wife takes her coffee black, and from husband’s cup | ||||
| By Amy Alkon, For Get Out | ||||
| August 6, 2008 | ||||
A: Why not take home the silverware and condiments, and maybe a chair or two? After all, they do say “Let me show you to your seats.” And why order food at all? After the guy at the next booth gets up without finishing his breaded veal chop, just reach over and grab it. Does the corner diner really need to bring in a legal team to have you sign off on the terms of your breakfast? Life is filled with unwritten rules, “social norms,” that everybody just knows and follows, which is why, even without signs all over the diner, when nature calls, you don’t see some guy striding up to the pastry case and doing his business down the side. Is a little beverage grifting really such a big deal? You could argue that a $2 cup of coffee sets the restaurant back about 10 cents — that is, if they give you the dry stuff and you brew it over a fire and drink it on a park bench from a cup you pulled out of the garbage. The restaurant owner’s got a right to charge $65 a cup if he wants, and if you’ve got a problem with that, collect cockroaches, hire a busboy and yell “eggseasytoastbacon!” at home. Don’t let the grown-up girl parts fool you; your wife, like all of us, is basically a large, easily wounded child. This means being right isn’t enough: You have to communicate without putting her on the defensive. An emotional appeal is wisest, per 18th century economist Adam Smith, who wrote that sympathy motivates people to put others’ interests before their own. So, tell her you feel bad, like you look like a total cheap-wad, and worry aloud that the waitress, who’s tipped on the total of the bill, will feel ripped off. Another appeal might be in order to break your wife of her hit-and-run method of conflict resolution: You’re dumb. You’re mean. Conversation over. Pass the cream. Since you’re only now discovering how your wife takes her coffee — without paying for it — you might explore whether her ethics in general hinge on whether jail time would be involved. While mystery is essential to romance, that’s not supposed to mean agonizing over whether your wife will end up in bed with the neighbor or just stand at the salad bar eating out of all the containers until she spots the SWAT team. Q: I’ve been dating this guy for five months and dying to break up with him for two, but I just don’t have the guts to hurt him. A friend e-mailed me a story about slydial.com, a service that allows you to break up with somebody without the awkward conversation by leaving a message that goes to voice mail. — Chicken A: Sorry, but with slydial.com, there’s still the icky business of telling him it’s over. A truly advanced service would dial his cell, and an electronic voice would come on: “Press one to be unceremoniously dumped. Press two to be dumped in Spanish. Press three to hear these options again.” So, two months ago, you knew it was over, but instead of ending it, you let him get two months more attached. Maybe you wanted to avoid hurting him, but, clearly, what you wanted even more was to avoid feeling “awkward.” If you’ve dated for any length of time, it’s cruel to dismiss someone with a phone message. You owe it to this guy to end it face to face. Then, you can at least leave him with a hug as a parting gift — instead of “Well ... hugs!” and, as an afterthought, the number of the suicide hot line. Contact writer: Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave. No. 280 Santa Monica, CA 90405 or AdviceAmy@aol.com Contact Amy Alkon by email. |
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