“Four months ago I met a great man. We get on famously — we both agree that it is at a very deep, soul-mate level, but he has a long-time girlfriend he lives with, who is the mother of his two kids. We both know the attraction is there, and he has been unhappy for five years now, but I have made it clear to him that I will not do anything that friends would not do unless he finds himself single. I am growing attached to him, though, and he has started making plans for us to do things together — including meeting his kids next week. I’m reluctant, because I know that if I were his partner I would be horrified. But as friends, isn’t meeting the family normal?”

— Ask Molly Ringwald, The Guardian, April 24, 2015

Dear Friend,

You are definitely not standing on the precipice of entering into a bad ideas relationship with a man who is a bajillion percent gonna do some sex on you at the first opportunity! For sure you guys are just gonna stay super platonic boring friends forever and not do a bone literally any minute now. There is zero chance that all of this is gonna be a nightmare hellscape trash Dumpster shitfire on hot wheels in about six months. Have fun meeting the children who will in no way be negatively impacted by their dad’s dipshit shenanigans with you, a person with very strong boundaries.

“Son won’t have children: We are concerned our only son isn’t having children. Every time we bring it up with him, he seems to have a new excuse. Recently when we tried to discuss this with our daughter-in-law directly, she said her high-powered career would be severely impacted if she didn’t plan child-bearing carefully because she doesn’t get paid parental leave at her workplace. We tried to encourage her by saying that she doesn’t even need to work since our son is very successful and we have considerable means. This seems to have offended her greatly. How do we convince them that we only want them to be happy?”

— From Dear Prudence, Slate, 17 January 2018

Dear Son Won’t Have Children,

It is always heartbreaking to find out that your children are not living their lives to the exact specifications you provided in detail when they were conceived all those years ago. Unfortunately, the return policy on uncooperative children who fail to fulfill your every expectation as if they have grown up to have a mind and body of their own, wholly separate from yours, is extremely limited. Whereas the vast majority of children do everything their parents want them to do all the time and forever, you appear to have received an ineffective and combative model of fully grown, sentient human being who believes its personal reproductive decisions to be within its sole purview.

What’s worse, your disobedient offspring has paired with another errant n’er-do-well who rudely refuses to a bear the grandchild she owes you, for reasons that are most spurious indeed. What woman, when presented with the chance to abandon a career she loves, bear a child against her will, and become financially beholden to people who view her as a womb on high-powered high-heels, would not jump at the opportunity? What fool would not want to be valued solely for her ability to produce wee cooing-and-shitting babbies, as the Lord and In-Laws intended?

A true and good child at any age is never separate from its creators, which means a true and good child can never be happy unless its parents are happy. And since you are not happy without a grandchild, it goes without saying that your son cannot be happy without a child, and how could you possibly be at fault for simply wanting your son to be happy?

The sole recipe for happiness on earth between a couple of heterosexual folks is to produce a human child. Quid pro ergo, your son must have a child to be happy. Take every opportunity to tell this unruly pair how concerned you are for their happiness, which they do not currently have because you do not also have it. You will of course have to ask them constantly about their sex life and their reproductive cycles due to the sad fact that your son is not literally still connected to your body, but any small embarrassment this causes will be over more quickly than you think.

“I would appreciate your read on this. I recently received over 1,000 views on a LinkedIn post I made. Yet no one at the company I work at has given any feedback. No post comments, likes, etc. My company employs less than 100 people and I’m connected with many of them on LinkedIn and can see the post has been viewed by some. People outside of my company have offered likes and comments. This experience is making me question if I’m a valued and respected employee.”

— From Ask A Manager, 27 October 2017

Dear Unvalued, Disrespected Employee,

First off, congratulations on reaching 1,000 views on a LinkedIn post, an almost unfathomable achievement that your ungrateful employer and jealous coworkers don’t appreciate because they think you are worthless and bad.

Almost nobody can get 1,000 views on a LinkedIn post, so it’s super weird that they didn’t throw you a party and give you a promotion. You’re telling me you work with 99 other people and it was not a priority for one of them to tell you how incredible your recent LinkedIn post was? Because it got 1,000 views? A thing that everyone clearly knows and is completely ignoring? Ninety-damn-nine people work in your office and there you are, shining like the most beacony beacon that ever did beaconing, and nobody stopped by with a cake — not even cupcakes? For a LinkedIn post that got one-thousand views?????

Not even, like, some embossed monogrammed stationery or designer chocolate or anything?? What are you, chopped liver?? Maybe! But you are some chopped liver that got an incredible 1,000 views on a LinkedIn post, which is just about the most impressive feat ever achieved by a human person.Probably your boss is going around liking and commenting on everybody else’s LinkedIn posts! Praising your LinkedIn posts is the sole measure of whether your company values and respects you, so your gut instincts are 1,000 percent correct here. Hey, 1,000! That’s the same number of views your LinkedIn post got! Amazing.

By The Bad Advisor

“Today is my dad’s birthday. We all forgot . . . again.

I have asked him numerous times to just provide a reminder. I always give everyone a heads-up before my birthday — it’s a courtesy as everyone is so busy nowadays.

So I got a midday ‘joking’ email about how no one wished him a happy birthday. I feel guilty, but this could all be avoided if he just gave his forgetful family a little warning instead of playing this game every year. Thoughts?”

—From “I Forgot . . . Again” via Carolyn Hax, Washington Post, 6 February 2018

Dear I Forgot,

If only there were some mechanism by which we could visually measure the annual passage of time, broken up into smaller increments — say, 12 allotments of, I don’t know, 30 days or so? — that would enable us to mark important occasions such that we could plan for them before the very moment of their occurrence. What a wonder that would be! Instead, we will simply have to rely on each individual person to remember indefinitely and exhaustively which of life’s milestones are important to which people and how far ahead those people need to be apprised of the coming anniversary of the aforementioned milestones, literally the only way to have any knowledge whatsoever of the day that anything happens, ever. It’s a shame that your father is personally holding you and the rest of the world back from developing another system of measuring time, but obviously he just loves this great annual game!

Bad Advice On Employing A Sexual Harasser To Teach Your Child

“My son, Steven, and daughter-in-law, Julia, are expecting their first child and our first grandchild next month. I had what I thought was a good relationship with Julia, but I find myself devastated. Julia has decided only Steven and her mother will be allowed in the delivery room when she gives birth. I was stunned and hurt by the unfairness of the decision and tried to plead with her and my son, but Julia says she ‘wouldn’t feel comfortable’ with me there. I reminded her that I was a nurse for 40 years, so there is nothing I haven’t seen. I’ve tried to reason with Steven, but he seems to be afraid of angering Julia and will not help. I called Julia’s parents and asked them to please reason with their daughter, but they brusquely and rather rudely got off the phone. I’ve felt nothing but heartache since learning I would be banned from the delivery room. Steven told me I could wait outside and I would be let in after Julia and the baby are cleaned up and ‘presentable.’ Meanwhile, Julia’s mother will be able to witness our grandchild coming into the world. It is so unfair.

I’ve always been close to my son, but I no longer feel valued. I cannot bring myself to speak to Julia. I’m being treated like a second-class grandmother even though I’ve never been anything but supportive and helpful. How can I get them to see how unfair and cruel their decision is?”

— From “Second Class Grandma” via “Dear Prudence,” Slate, 5 February 2018

Dear Second Class Grandma,

Who can call herself “Grandma” who has not personally witnessed, with her own grandmotherly eyes, the progressive dilation of the cervix that is to produce the wee babe she will know as grandchild? What charlatan would take the name “Grandma” if she failed to be within 36 inches of the crowning blood-soaked noggin of her spawn’s spawn? Since the dawn of time, all grandmothers have been within spraying distance of errantly projectile afterbirth, and you and only you are being excluded in this way. It is appalling that your son thinks so little of you that he does not long for his mother to be as close as possible to his wife’s naked, heaving body as she produces this child for you. After all, you are a nurse!

Pregnancy looks beautiful on many women, but obviously it has turned Julia into a self-absorbed cow who believes she should have full control over who surrounds her during one of the most intense and potentially vulnerable moments of her life. Would that she weren’t so selfishly preoccupied with her own meaningless bullshit surrounding bringing a human life into the world and instead could see the incredible opportunity she has to show her respect for you, in the form of her whole entire vagina. Alas, this egotistical woman can’t see past the end of her own baby-nourishing bellybutton to the person at the center of this new family: You.

The only recourse now is to take this over Steven and Julia’s self-obsessed heads to the doctor or administrator in charge of hospital policy and confirm that there’s no rule against having two children in the delivery room.

“I’d like your opinion on a relationship question — but not the typical kind that you get. It’s about the relationship between Americans and British royalty.

Why is it that so many Americans, especially women, are obsessed with those British royals? We fought a war to throw off the oppression of privileged people like them. A couple of decades later, they sent their army to attack us and burn much of our capital. I have no problem with our being friendly to the British people, but monarchy reeks of slavery and imperialism. What do you think? Personally, I blame Walt Disney!”

—From “Paul in Sonora” via “Dear Annie,” Creators.com, 18 February 2018

Dear Paul,

Women are dim-witted fools who will cotton on to anything shiny because they are too dumb to know the difference between fantasy and reality. (Men, of course, would never indulge such an interest because they are very smart and their use of Axe body spray creates a kind of herd immunity to the manipulations of late capitalism.) Sadly in the case of British royalty, American women’s wholesale dipshittery in the face of anything wearing a hoop skirt and a crown also results in a widespread lack of patriotism, making American women an especially degenerate class of traitors to this great country, where slavery and colonization never had a home, and where everyone has always had exactly the same rights and exactly the same access to those rights forever.

“A sign in my gym’s locker room reads: ‘Please use a lock. Not responsible for lost or stolen items.’ Frustrated at searching for free lockers (because people stow their things, but don’t use a lock — thus making lockers look free when they aren’t), I move the contents of unlocked lockers to the ledge above. I am trying to square the owners’ apparent indifference to what happens to their things (by failing to use a lock) with the idea that a locker is occupied. I am frustrated by the time-consuming search for unused lockers. And these people fail to follow instructions: ‘Please use a lock.’”

—From CONNIE via Social Q’s, New York Times, 1 February 2018

Dear Connie,

It is of course tiresome enough, when searching for a place to stow one’s own bag full of priceless gems and cures for various deadly illnesses, to open gym locker after gym locker only to find the cubbies occupied by the worthless tackle of the masses. But to then be forced to do the exhausting work of removing strangers’ piddly crap and placing it elsewhere — why, that really cuts into a cardio warm-up! It really says something about the thoughtlessness of people these days that your gym-mates think nothing of delegating to you the responsibility of removing their crummy bullshit from lockers and leaving it just around wherever when in fact you have a lot of House Hunters to catch up on from the elliptical!

Items that are not placed under lock and key must be strewn about. That’s not just a basic function of physics — famously illustrated by the concept of Schroedinger’s Moldy Shower Shoe — it’s also a moral issue. Once you’ve laid eyes upon a set of house keys, a half-used stick of Right Guard, and a crumpled but blessedly unused maxi pad, you have an obligation to move them to a new place in order to teach a valuable lesson to people who erroneously believe that “their” “possessions” “belong” to them just because they bought them, were given them, or otherwise came to have them in their custody. Why, anyone might come by and simply help themselves — you’ll make sure of it!

But of course none of this answers your question — you want to know how you can stop wasting time opening all of the unlocked gym cubbies full of people’s phones and credit cards and other garbage, emptying all the unlocked gym cubbies full of this detritus and relocating all of this trash no one will ever miss from all of the unlocked gym cubbies. The solution couldn’t be simpler: Incorporate all of this unavoidable lifting and shifting into your weight training routine, thereby cutting down on the time you spend out on the floor. You could even ask one of your gym’s personal trainers to help you out! In the spirit of intellectual consistency, be sure you follow whatever instructions they give you after you have described in detail your practice of rifling through the belongings of your fellow patrons.

“My son is in high school and has been being tutored by a college math associate professor for the past six months. My son has made fantastic progress and has overcome years of failing math grades.

The problem is that this professor was just fired for sexual harassment at his college. It was a big enough deal to make the local paper and everyone has backed away from him. He has been ejected from his other leadership positions in town and is now seen as a pariah. (The level of harassment was Louis C.K.-level, not Weinstein.)

I want to continue the tutoring as long as possible. I am concerned about the message my son gets in this, but at the same time, this tutoring is the only thing that has ever worked for my son in math. He has taken a child who may have not graduated high school and put him on track for college. What should I do?”

— Via Dear Prudence, Slate, 19 December 2017

Dear What Should I Do?

At any moment your son could be asked to perform elaborate feats of trigonometry, but what are the chances he’s going to interact with another human on planet earth and need to draw on the values and lessons imparted to him by his family in order to decide how (or whether!) to proceed in any given social situation? Pretty low, probably!

As long as the otherwise brilliant man your son hangs out with on a regular basis has only whipped his dick out and masturbated in front of women who expressly did not consent to participation in such an act, as opposed to forcibly sexually assaulting them, you’re fine. Adolescents are notoriously immune to sociocultural influences and your kid, like all teenage boys, is not of a developmentally significant age at which it would be a bad idea to teach him that being moderately competent at something means he can do whatever he wants to whoever he wants to do it to, whenever he wants to do it. You can always decline to give your family’s money to some other sexual harasser, some other time, when it is more convenient for you.

Who can say that just because your family continues to expressly support a sexual harasser for doing math good, your son will get the impression that an individual man’s intellectual or artistic contributions are more important than the safety, wellbeing, and potential of any number of women? He might just learn some good long division tricks from the man who makes women look at his dick when they don’t want to! It’s definitely worth the gamble.

Your son has his whole life to learn that sexually harassing women has consequences. Maybe your soon will learn this lesson at that good, good college he’ll get into thanks to that man who shows his dick to women when they don’t want to see it! Maybe he’ll learn it when he gets a job, or maybe when he becomes somebody’s boss, or maybe when he becomes powerful enough to hire people, or maybe when he becomes powerful enough to fire people, or maybe when he retires, or maybe when he’s literally on his deathbed?

Regardless, there is just so much time left in life for your son to learn about consent and respect and human decency, and so little time for him to memorize the quadratic equation. There are not many math professors as good as this one and so few women in the field, anyway, so it’s not like you’re going to find one easily — I wonder why? It’s probably biology or something.

“I got married three weeks ago. It was my second and my husband’s first marriage. The venue was about 110 miles away from the area where we and most of our friends and family live, so many guests stayed in the hotel affiliated with the venue. We went all out! Several guests have said it was the best wedding they’d ever attended. Five hours of open bar, outstanding food, and gorgeous setting! We went through all our cards and gifts and noticed there was one missing — a woman I’ve considered a very close friend for twenty years. She came to the wedding alone and, believe you me, took full advantage of the open bar. I was perplexed and surprised because it seemed out of character for her not to give a gift. I texted her and (white lie) told her that hubby and I were concerned that we may have been missing some cards then casually asked, ‘Did you put a card in the box?’ To which she simply replied, ‘No.’ I understand she doesn’t have a lot of money to spend, I get that, but NOTHING? Not a card with a lovely sentiment or even a modest gift?

Do you have any words of wisdom? I realize I need to ‘let it go,’ but I’ve been ruminating!”

—From VEXED IN UPSTATE NEW YORK via Ask A Practical Wedding, A Practical Wedding, 18 January 2018

Dear Vexed,

Of course you’ve been ruminating! People who get married deserve to be materially rewarded for falling in love and telling a bunch of people about it all at once, and you are no exception. Everyone who attended your destination wedding owes you a gift that meets or exceeds their precisely consumed share of the open bar, and this so-called “very close friend” is absolutely obligated to reimburse you for the 1/389th of the wedding you performed for her. (And you definitely had one of the best weddings, for sure! Definitely only people who have the best weddings are told that their weddings are the best! This is absolutely 100% not a thing that people just blurt out because what the fuck else do you to say to someone who stenciled their kindergarten school picture in artisanal vegan crayon on 389 light blue mason jars.)

Welcome to our latest Bad Advice column! Stay tuned every Tuesday for more terrible guidance based on actual letters.

By The Bad Advisor

“One of the perks provided by my workplace is a paid day off on your birthday (or the day after if it falls on a weekend or holiday) provided by the firm and not taken from your own vacation days, and a gift card which works at several restaurants in our city. Once a month, a cake is also provided at lunch for everyone as an acknowledgement of everyone who has a birthday that month.

There is an employee on my team who was born in a leap year on February 29. Since she only has a birthday every four years, she does not get a day off or a gift card and is not one of the people the cake acknowledges. She has complained about this and is trying to push back so she is included.

The firm doesn’t single out or publicly name anyone that has a birthday. People take the day off and that is it, nothing is said. The gift card is quietly enclosed with their pay stub. The cake is put in the lunchroom without fanfare for anyone that wants some. There is no email or card that goes around and no celebrating at work. If there was I could see her point, but since everything is done quietly/privately, she is not losing out on anything. My manager feels her complaints are petty and she needs to be more professional. I agree with him.

She has only worked here for two years and was hired straight out of university. I want to tell her that she should be focusing on work issues and not something as small as a birthday. If she had a complaint about a work issue it would be different. How do I frame my discussion with her without making her feel bad or like she is trouble? Her work is good and I am sure the complaint is just borne of inexperience and I don’t want to penalize her for it.”

— Via “Ask A Manager,” 29 January 2018

Typically we could blame this kind of petty complaint on the average millennial’s overblown sense of entitlement, but since your employee is only five or six years old by your reckoning, there must be something else going on. You say this employee’s work is good, but is it really good, or is it just good for the average kindergartener? Have you taken the proper steps to protect yourself from potential violations of child labor laws? I realize that’s not what you’re asking about, but you’ve really left yourself out in the open here and I want to make sure all your bases are covered. If your employee is driving a company car while too young for a license, or attending work-related events where alcohol is served, it’s likely you could be liable for any related accidents.

But to the matter at hand: Your employee is fixated, as any child would be, on her own warped sense of fairness. Because she ages at a different rate than other humans, she simply can’t assume that she’ll be treated the same way as other humans — even in the workplace. Some of your employees happen to have an annual birthday, and they need a day off every year to grapple with their speedily approaching mortality and a small gift to soothe the encroaching nightmare of death. This Leap Day worker wants the same benefits these others get, when she has approximately one-quarter the need for them! Patiently explain to her that she’s hurting her career by insisting that the laws of space and time are not uniquely bent in her favor, as if she is somehow being denied the days off and meal perks that other employees are afforded simply because she has been denied the days off and meal perks that other employees are afforded. Of course, by the time she’s old enough to understand this, you’ll have gone to your extremely businesslike grave. But don’t worry — the world will remember you as an eminently reasonable and un-petty manager who died denying a wee child a Bloomin’ Onion, as any experienced career person would do.

Bad Advice On Grammar-Policing Gender-Neutral Pronouns

“I have three grandchildren who address me as ‘Mr.,’ and not as ‘Grandpa.’ Although it is true that I was not in their lives growing up, I was not a bad or cruel influence. A few years ago, I sent a Christmas gift (a large check) to one of these grandchildren, and I quickly received a nice thank you card, but it was addressed ‘Dear Mr. Smith.’

I was so angry that I never sent another gift and haven’t heard from them since. I am 87 years old. How do I become ‘Grandpa’ before it is too late?”

— From “Want to Be Grandpa” via “Ask Amy,” Washington Post, 21 January 2018

Dear Want to Be Grandpa,

If people who’ve never been told to call you “grandpa” don’t automatically call you “grandpa” after receiving a large cash gift, perhaps it is not really worth having them in your life. But then again, what exactly is family for, if not silently stewing in aggrieved rage at people who failed to read your mind one time? You may already be “grandpa” at heart, if not in name.

“My brother and his wife recently had their second child through induced labor. On the delivery day, my mother asked what she could do to help. My brother asked her to go to his home, which is an hour away, sweep and vacuum the house, change the sheets and do the laundry because they didn’t have time.

I feel it was extremely inappropriate. Picking up diapers and making sure the bassinet has clean sheets are acceptable requests; cleaning the house is not. My mother wasn’t bothered by it, but I am appalled. Am I wrong?”

— From “STUCK IN THE MIDDLE” via “Dear Abby,” 23 November 2017

Dear Stuck in the Middle,

My dear, you are not at all wrong! The correct course of action in this situation would have been to engage in a loud and protracted performance of offense on your mother’s behalf, diverting the attention from your self-absorbed brother and sister-in-law, who were so seemingly obsessed with bringing life into this world that they couldn’t be bothered to assign your mother a task from the widely known “list of acceptable chores for grandmothers.” You should not have stood by for even one moment while your mother expressed her extreme unbotheredness at helping her children in this way — no indeed, only a fit to rival the cry of a newborn would have put right what your sister-in-law put wrong. Your family should have been rent asunder by this unthinkable offense; instead, they are ploughing through as if people are just allowed to decide what they want to do or be mad about or give two shits about, instead of engaging in a showy production about laundry.

Looking For A Comments Section? We Don’t Have One.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/bad-advice-on-grammar-policing-gender-neutral-pronouns-8c5fc6a98345/ Tue, 23 Jan 2018 20:48:40 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=1392 Read more]]> Which do you prioritize? Living, breathing people — members of a systemically and institutionally marginalized minority — or a theoretical concept?

“Help! I don’t want my guy seeing, admiring, or being turned on by other naked women! Do I have to accept that my fiancé will attend a bachelor party?

— Via “Ask E. Jean,” Elle, 17 January 2018

My dear, you certainly do not! Just be sure that before you install your beau on his rocket to the moon, where you can be happily assured he will live out the rest of his life with nary a naked woman in his orbit, you don’t forget to make an appointment with a reputable local evil scientist beforehand. They’ll be able to divest your dearest love of his cranial capacity for imaginative thought, lest he recall the DVD cover of Showgirls after you launch him into the vacuum of space, where he will be all yours forever.

“What pronouns would Miss Manners advise using when referring to people who do not identify as either male or female?

I work with many young people in a community where a good number identify themselves as ‘gender fluid.’ Using ‘it’ to refer to their friends in this category is seen as offensive, as it equates a person with an object, so my patients refer to such friends as ‘they,’ even while talking about one person. As in, ‘Then Jordan told me they were going to visit their grandmother in Wisconsin.’’

I want to be respectful of how people choose to refer to themselves, but the grammarian in me cannot tolerate using ‘they’ or ‘them’ to refer to a single person. Thus, I find myself sticking to the person’s name only, as in ‘How long will Jordan be in Wisconsin?’ [Do you] have any suggestions for a better gender-fluid pronoun?”

— Via “Miss Manners,” Washington Post, 18 January 2018

Gentle Reader,

This modern world is full of quandaries and conundra, isn’t it? On the one hand, you have human people with human feelings, and on the other hand, you have an entirely insentient entity, the English language, which is wholly incapable of being hurt or offended in any way. Obviously you don’t want to upset either camp, but which do you prioritize? Living, breathing people — members of a systemically and institutionally marginalized minority — who have specifically identified the pronouns that people like you are to use for them so as to avoid causing the exact kind of offense that you profess to be concerned about committing? Or a theoretical concept that not only has no way of knowing whether you’ve used it incorrectly but in fact changes so rapidly that the notion of “correct” is functionally moot anyway, not to mention that being preoccupied with particular grammatical usages signals not a deep concern for linguistic propriety but is instead a probably classist and very likely racist and almost certainly ableist approach to human communication? You’re in a mighty fucking pickle, here!

Bad Advice On Family-Destroying Cat Worship
theestablishment.co

It is kind of you to seek to respect people who have provided and in many instances written instructions about how they’d like to be addressed by wondering if there’s literally anything else you can do besides the thing they’ve asked you to do, but we can’t make everyone happy all the time, can we? Stick to talking solely to, and about, yourself. That way you can minimize the fallout after a load of offended gerunds come beating down your door. You know how gerunds get.

“I haven’t been in a relationship since 1995. Is it true when they say, ‘Use it or lose it,’ and does it hold true for women also?”

—From “WANTS TO KNOW IN INDIANA” via “Dear Abby,” 20 January 2018

Dear Wants to Know,

There’s only one way to find out!

“My sister-in-law says she is very allergic to cats. She lives six hours away from my mom. My sister and I have cats and bring them with us when we visit our mom. My sister-in-law asked us if we could put the cats behind a gate or upstairswhen she and my brother visit. We believe that our cats are our family members. We refuse to put our cats away just because someone wants us to. Because of this, our sister-in-law stopped visiting.

Now she has a baby and this is the first grandchild in the family. She again asked if we would put the cats away while she visits so my mom can visit with her granddaughter. Again, we have refused to do this because our cats are just as important family members as her baby. We told her that she should drop off the baby with my mom, sister and me and that she can relax at the hotel while we visit.

She has refused to do this, and now just doesn’t visit. She tells my brother to visit whenever he wants, but that she and her baby will stay home. My mom cannot drive to their house, and now my mom has not seen her granddaughter at all. She is very upset. How do we fix this for our mom’s sake, without giving up our principles?

We need help soon because my sister-in-law is pregnant with her second child and we haven’t even met the first one! “

—From “Animal-loving Aunt” via “Ask Amy,” Washington Post, 31 December 2017:

Dear Animal-Loving Aunt,

At the core of your quandary is not only your duty to maintain your cats’ quality of life by constantly displacing them in order to prove their worth against an infant who has neither the emotional nor cognitive ability to give the barest fuck, it’s also to make sure that your cats are treated like family members, which means putting them in little boxes and taking them everywhere you go, just as you would with any sibling or cousin who shits in a tub and considers a mysterious roving red dot their greatest enemy.

Consider the sacrifice your “allergic” sister-in-law (does she make laughable claims about occasionally getting “stuck in traffic” or being “swamped at work”?) is asking you to make. Nothing has the potential to traumatize cats like being left alone, away from unfamiliar other cats, for a few hours in their own homes where they always live while, miles away, an old woman looks at a baby. If your little fluffer-butts found out they had missed out on even one opportunity to spend a few hours inside a car or airplane, they would likely never forgive you. They could turn aloof and self-absorbed — sleeping for 18, 20, even 22 hours of the day. Your relationship with them might never recover.

In suggesting that your sister-in-law travel six hours with a baby in tow and purchase a hotel room and provide a baby delivery-and-drop service to your mother’s house, you have already proposed a reasonable solution that doesn’t require you to go through the onerous process of closing a door to a room with a cat inside. If it’s really so important that your mother meet her grandchildren, surely she can wait until the grandbabies are just about old enough to drive to her house and introduce themselves. Your cats will likely have shuffled off this mortal coil by then, and you can all enjoy each other’s company until a new kitten arrives and takes its rightful place: wherever you want it to be, no matter how much literal or emotional pain it causes anyone else.

Bad Advice On Berating Your Fat Friends’ Parenting Skills
theestablishment.co

“It annoys me when friends say, ‘Let’s get together! Throw out some dates that work for you’ — particularly after they have recently canceled plans. My husband travels for work, and we have two busy, young children. Finding free dates is a bigger task than most people assume. Is there a polite way to say, ‘If you want to get together so bad, you do the scheduling’?”

—From C.Z. via “Social Q’s,” New York Times, 12 October 2017

Dear C.Z.,

People who deserve the pleasure of your company should know better than to ask you to simply know which days you are free to get together, as if you’re some kind of psychic timelord with access to uniquely personal information such as your own calendar and capacity for socializing. But having a husband who travels for work is a heavy enough burden to bear, and this in addition to having two busy young children puts you in a uniquely extreme social crunch that most people are not going to be able to comprehend, which is probably why they don’t understand just how annoying it is to be asked when one is available instead of spending hours and perhaps days simply guessing dates at random until a mutually suitable time can be found, as real friends do. If you’re looking for a polite way to tell someone that you wish for them to repeatedly guess which days your husband will be out of town and which days your kids have piano lessons and what time their school starts and stops and which evenings you tend to spend at the gym and which religious services you attend and on what day instead of wasting time asking you directly when you are free, say: “Spend an indefinite and possibly infinite number of exchanges naming random things to do and random times to do them until I agree,please.”

“I threw a birthday party for myself. It was a big birthday for me, and I paid for everyone’s dinner (including wine). This was an expensive affair, and I went all out. Two couples (the wealthier ones, LOL) came without a gift (only a card). Was it presumptuous of me to find this rude?”

— “Miss Manners,” Washington Post, 13 January 2018

Gentle Reader,

Not at all! It is rude indeed to attend a child’s birthday party empty-handed.

By The Bad Advisor

“My wife and I are on a friendly basis with a couple who have two children under the age of 10.

Both of these adults are seriously overweight. The mother has stated, in fact, that she knows she is a ‘big girl,’ which (of course) is her business.

The problem is that the bad eating habits of the parents are beginning to affect the children. Both of the youngsters are now also overweight, though not yet obese.

We are very close to the grandparents, who are trying to convince the overweight mom to be more careful when feeding the children, but their efforts have been in vain. The overweight mom tells them simply to mind their own business.

I’m inclined to tell the obese parents that they must help the children to keep their weight down. Such a remark will cause a major kerfuffle, but I don’t care. What do you think?”

— From “Want to Intervene” via “Ask Amy,” Washington Post, 7 January 2018

Dear Want to Intervene,

Fat people are always an unsightly bother to those who have the upstanding moral judgment and good sense to be thin, but a fat person who is not sufficiently ashamed of their size is a problem of another order. Your problem — and all fat people are everyone else’s problem — is twofold: First, this fat lady has failed to apologize profusely and constantly to you personally and the world at large for the size of her body, which you have no choice but to look at, contemplate, and analyze during every waking moment.

Second, this fat lady has already resisted her loved ones’ generous offers of assistance in developing shame around her body. So you’re fighting an uphill battle to begin with — luckily, you’re not fat, which means you can succeed at anything because you do not occupy more than an arbitrarily and culturally designated acceptable quantity of mass on earth, and are therefore a capable and good person.

Probably what’s happened is that this fat lady hasn’t been demeaned and degraded by the right people yet, and you’re just the person to bring a little big-boned beration into her life. She may not realize that if she is left to raise her children as she sees fit, they may turn out to be a size which displeases you, a fate that can only be avoided by your swift interference. It is essential that these children maintain a weight that is acceptable to a person who they may or may not know exists, lest they fail to maintain a weight that is acceptable to a person who they may or may not know exists.

You’re right not to mind causing a kerfuffle — shame and judgment is a 100% sure path to forcing fat people into thinness, and thin people never have any problems, experience heartache, fall ill, or die. If you don’t tell this family how fat they are, who will? The world at large? An annually cyclical litany of New Year-related diet panics touted as essential tools of self-care? A beauty mandate driven by culturally obligatory fat hatred, reinforced in almost every iteration of any public portrayal of a human body? Kerfuff away! If these people insist on being fat, you can at least insist on your god-given right to spend your eternal thin life mad about it.

Bad Advice On The Etiquette Of Boning Your Daughter’s Best Friend

“A few years ago, my husband planted a fig tree and cared for it like a baby through the cold Philadelphia winters. Finally, there is bounty! Every day, he brings in ripe figs and places them on the windowsill. But the crop is much bigger than our needs. When the figs begin to rot and I ask him if he’s going to throw them away, he looks heartsick. May I throw them out and pretend we ate them?”

—From “ANONYMOUS” via “Social Q’s,” New York Times, 19 October 2017

Dear Anonymous,

Throw the figs out and pretend you ate them! It’s literally the only thing to do with extra food, a strange and confusing phenomenon for which humanity has not yet developed a good solution. What a shame that there is nothing to do with fresh fruit besides just leaving it out on a windowsill to rot. If only the techniques and technologies that exist in fantastical works of science fiction — refrigeration, preservation, literally just sharing your extra shit with other people who could use it — were not relegated to pages of incomprehensible fancy.

“My wife and I are in our 60s. We have been married for some time and are very open-minded. She keeps insisting that she does not remember her first sexual experience. I would be curious to understand why in the world, unless someone was inebriated, the person would not recall this huge milestone.”

— From “BEWILDERED IN THE WEST” via “Dear Abby,” 3 January 2018

Dear Bewildered,

It’s difficult to say precisely, as it’s statistically unlikely that a writer of internet advice columns remembers your wife’s first sexual experience any better than she does. Best of luck getting to the bottom of this quandary, hope you someday manage to find the one of 7.44 billion people on earth who can help you answer it.

“Recently my friend Amy made a new friend, Mary. I’ve met her a few times, and while we were polite to each other, she isn’t someone I’d care to interact with more than necessary. I don’t seek her out, nor do I invite her to social events. Mary has slowly become part of my circle of friends. She has made a few comments intimating she’s upset that she hasn’t been invited to some of our get-togethers, but she is in a very different financial bracket than the rest of us. The restaurants and events we choose to go to are pricey. I recently hosted a dinner party for my friends and their plus ones, and Amy brought Mary. I didn’t want her at my house. We’re not friends, and I don’t enjoy her presence. I’m hosting another dinner party for the holidays, and I know Amy will bring Mary. I do not invite people I don’t want to be around to my parties. How do I politely tell Amy to stop bringing Mary?”

—From “She’s Not Invited; She Comes Anyway” via “Dear Prudence,” Slate, 14 December 2017

Dear She’s Not Invited,

You’re really in a diamond-encrusted pickle, here! Amy’s feelings matter since she has the same amount of money as you do or more, so you must be gentle with her, but at the same time, it’s essential that Mary fuck all the way off because she can’t afford pricey restaurants and is therefore a worthless piece of human scum who shall under no circumstances darken your bespoke, artisan, hand-crafted, limited-edition caviar doorway. You shouldn’t be subjected to the presence of someone who literally cannot afford your company just because Amy doesn’t mind slumming it with the poors. It’s certainly Amy’s prerogative, however bizarre, to seek to enjoy something about a person besides the quantity of their accrued wealth, but to foist this particular quirk upon others is thoughtless in the extreme.

In any case, this is Christmas! It’s terrible to be reminded of counter-service restaurants and grinding poverty any time of year — it’s why UberLUX exists, thank goodness — but during the holiday season, one especially deserves a break from bleak reminders that some people shop the clearance racks or literally have nowhere to sleep at night. Whatever Mary’s weird deal is withdeciding not to be as wealthy as you are, she has no place dampening the convivial atmosphere of your holiday shindig with her penury. Gently suggest that Amy avail herself of Mary’s company some other time — perhaps they can go shopping together to purchase a pair of mittens to cover Mary’s filthy urchin paws! Be sure to make this as easy as possible on Amy by suggesting she bring an alternate companion who will be more suited to the crowd you wish to cultivate; you might ask her if she knows anyone by the prestigious and wealthy family name of Scrooge.

“I joined the Navy after I learned I was becoming a father. I didn’t want to be a husband or father, but I did both. In 2010, my wife died. My feelings about being a husband and father never changed.

Our two children are now grown and want me to move near — or in with — them. They say, ‘Won’t it be great to be with your grandkids?’ No, it won’t!

I worked and supported my family. When I was in port, I went to baseball, softball and basketball games, had tea with my daughter and did everything I believe I should have done. I have served my time. I don’t want to ‘be close.’Honestly, I’d prefer they left me alone. I don’t love them, and I didn’t love their mother. I did my duty to the best of my abilities both in uniform and in family.

When we aren’t together, I’m happy. I read, I study and do what I like. I’ve earned that, haven’t I? How do I get them out of my life so that at age 52 I have my own life? I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I never wanted a family in the first place.”

—From “NEVER WANTED A FAMILY” via “Dear Abby,” 10 December 2017

Dear Never Wanted A Family,

Tell your children and grandchildren to fuck off! You’re 52 years old and it’s time you finally sat down to read a book, like a real-life person who doesn’t have any family members. These self-obsessed people might think you’re joking at first, but be sure to really drive it home when they invite you to share your golden years with them like a bunch of fucking assholes: You don’t enjoy their company, which you never wanted, you think your grandchildren are a drag, you can hardly abide the thought of their very existence, and everything these miserable rubes ever thought they knew about their relationship with you is a complete lie. If that doesn’t stick, tell them that you never loved them and that you don’t currently love them and that the only reason you ever did jack shit for them was out of a sense of duty and obligation which in retrospect fills you with incandescent rage. Who cares if it hurts the feelings of a couple of miserable fucks who had the gall to be born? Die alone! You’ve earned it.

Bad Advice On Judging Your Friend’s Gross Slutty Instagram Photos
theestablishment.co

“My daughter, who is 26, brought her best friend home for a visit last weekend. Unless I am mistaken, there were some sparks between the friend and me. What is the protocol for checking her interest? I don’t want to ask my daughter for permission until I know the friend is interested. May I contact her directly? (My wife and I are divorced.)”

— From “ANONYMOUS” via “Social Q’s,” New York Times, 26 October 2017

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for your concern regarding adherence to established procedures before fucking your daughter’s best friend. It’s imperative that every step is completed in full in order to ensure compliance with today’s emerging standards concerning fucking your daughter’s best friend. Many advancements have been made in the field of fucking your daughter’s best friend, and it is essential that you educate yourself on the policy updates contained within section B, appendix 6-A of the Fucking Your Daughter’s Best Friend Common Manual of Frequently Asked Questions, or alternately, contained within the supplemental materials to the Handbook For Permanently Damaging Your Relationship With Your Daughter And Anyone Who Ever Vaguely Had Even A Modicum Of Respect For You, Dude. You may find additional resources in the New! Guide To Finding Literally Anyone Else Besides Your Daughter’s Best Friend To Fuck.

THIS WEEK’S WONDERFUL NEWSLETTER BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Pleasure with a purpose.

DID YOU GET YOUR TICKETS YET?!

WE’RE THROWING A STORYTELLING PARTY!

TOMORROW. 7 PM. SAN FRANCISCO.

COME MEET US AT HOLIDAZE!

Do you have anxiety dreams?

Boy oh boy I do.

Some are pseudo recurring — my brain likes to trot out the classics like loose teeth, being naked in public, and standing on stage waiting to perform lines I’ve never learned — but it also has some special visions all its own.

In addition to pulling long worms from my mouth where their tails are down down down my throat and I just keep pulling, pulling, pulling, I also have anxiety dreams about tattoos.

I think — in a quick and dirty psychoanalysis of myself — that this is a very direct commentary on my fear of permanency.

I can barely wear the same sweater two days in a row so the idea of living in one house for 45 years or a lotus blossom on my back is just about inconceivable.

It fills me with dread.

But recently I’ve been thinking a lot about how to lance these psychological blisters — how do I conquer all this anxiety without quaffing valium or becoming a yoga teacher because let’s be honest my “spiritual life” is basically
a howling void.

I started thinking compulsively about the phrase, “this too shall pass.”

Every joy is fleeting so let it fill your goddamn heart. Every sorrow is fleeting so don’t let it consume your goddamn heart.

It’s the most beautiful framing I’ve ever found for my brand of nihilism which is, essentially, nothing matters so EVERYTHING MATTERS.

Finally I had thought about it so much I told my best friend Andrew who knows all too well about my tattoo phobia and he said…

“That’s so weird. That’s actually a parable in the Mars book I’m reading right now.”

So I looked it up. And basically? A king (sometimes King Soloman) asks his advisors for a ring that will make him happy when he is sad, and sad when he is happy.

And they bring him a simple gold ring engraved with, “This too shall pass.”

And I think I might give myself that same strange gift this year.

But engraved on my own body.

With love + rage,
Katie Tandy
Co-founder | Creative Director

When We Body-Shame Sexual Abusers

By Suzannah Weiss

Instead of discounting what sexual abusers have done or making excuses for them — President Trump’s open support of Roy Moore stands out as an egregious anomaly right now — people are finally holding some of these men, as well as the deeply embedded patriarchy that supports them, accountable.

What’s not as heartening or progressive is the way they’re gleaning that accountability, however.

As long as we keep acting like sexual abuse is wrong because the abuser is physically unattractive or sexually deviant, abusers deemed attractive and “normal” will get away with it.

Bad Advice On Judging Your Friend’s Gross, Slutty Instagram Photos

By The Bad Advisor

Do warn her that if she continues this little online charade, she may diminish your camaraderie — and with it, her access to the invaluable aesthetic judgments that you, duly credentialed as a man, so graciously offer her.

If this young lady recoils at your suggestion that she modify her comportment, take heart! Allow her to take her appalling judgment and offensive visage elsewhere, leaving you to all that you deserve as a man of your disposition.

Science Made Sexy

Our sense of pleasure is as unique as we are — as unique as snowflakes! — from foreplay and fingering to how we experience orgasms.

For instance!

What do a volcano, wave, and mountain have in common?

They’re orgasm patterns!

Explore the newest insights in female sexuality with Lioness.

The Lioness Vibrator uses unique data and technology never. before. seen. outside of research labs to support self-experimentation, leading to better sex.

And that’s something we could stuff our stockings with or thank Hashem for.

Lioness can help you discover things you never knew about your own body — what you like, dislike, and would like …
(a lot!) but don’t know it yet.

You can get yours by 12/25 if you order before the end of this week!

Check it out here.

Why We Need To Talk About Queer And Trans People And Birth Control

By Neesha Powell

Trans, gender nonbinary,and queer folks experience barriers to culturally-competent reproductive healthcare because most doctors don’t understand our bodies or our sex lives. Legislative attacks on birth control make it even harder for us to get the good care we deserve.

One of Trump’s most recent attacks on reproductive healthcare happened on Oct. 6, when the Department of Health and Human Services issued new rulesthat allow employers to opt out of covering birth control on their health insurance plans based on moral or religious reasons.

Strict Alcohol Policies At Holiday Parties Won’t Protect Women

By Erin Gee, Erica Ifill, and Bailey Reed

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, human resources departments — not wanting to join the deluge of companies firing people for allegations of sexual violence — are reconsidering their policies around drinking.

As such, the 2017 holiday party circuit might seemdifferent this year — a little more formal, slightly stuffier, and probably a lot drier (in both conversations and libations).

Limiting alcohol consumption to protect against sexual abuse might seem reasonable and well-intentioned. In reality, it contributes to the rape culture that puts so many people at risk of assault in the first place.

Bitter Holiday Horoscopes To Warm Your Icy Heart

By Alison Stevenson

GEMINI

Going home for the holidays is especially hard for you because your brother is so much more well-adjusted than you are. Unlike you, he is able to commit to one woman and they are very happily in love.

You see that this love is real. You see that it’s possible.

Yet, you still choose to send me paragraphs and paragraphs of texts about men’s “biological need” to sleep with as many women as possible, because that’s what the cavemen did, while at the same time insisting that monogamy is “archaic.”

Welcome to our latest Bad Advice column! Stay tuned every Tuesday for more terrible guidance based on actual letters.

By The Bad Advisor

“My oldest friend and I are 17. We’ve known each other since preschool. Over the last year, I’ve watched her Instagram become pretty much dedicated to pictures of herself in push-up bras with blonder and blonder hair. It’s gross! As a guy, I’d like to tell her that her Instas make her look stupid. But my sister told me it’s none of my business. What do you think?”

—From “ANONYMOUS” via “Social Q’s,” New York Times, 7 December 2017

Dear Anonymous,

Ah, young master! Your sister has made an admirable attempt at using her little lady-brain to form one of those opinions with which the fairer sex is so fond of entertaining themselves, but alas: Simply because a young lady thinks something does not make it true.

To wit: This young woman of your long acquaintance thinks she is the sole and only boss of the way she looks and presents herself to the world, but she is clearly wrong, as her appearance displeases you, an adjacent guy. After all, what does this blossoming gal use her Instant Gram for, if not to entice and appeal to adjacent guys such as yourself?

There can be no reason for her to utilize the Instantaneous Telegrammatical device but for the purpose of soliciting the approval of area boners, of which you have one! Or do not, as the case may be — a problem that must hastily be remedied by this thoughtless little tart, who has so foolishly failed to fashion herself to your exquisitely refined tastes.

Do warn her that if she continues this little online charade, she may diminish your camaraderie — and with it, her access to the invaluable aesthetic judgments that you, duly credentialed as a man, so graciously offer her. If this young lady recoils at your suggestion that she modify her comportment, take heart! Allow her to take her appalling judgment and offensive visage elsewhere, leaving you to all that you deserve as a man of your disposition.

“It seems like only yesterday that several people came by and offered to cut our grass, but no one ever actually cut it. Now the snow is here, and we are unable to shovel our walkway and make a path to the mailbox.

We are getting up in age and cannot do these things on our own. Hiring a professional costs more than we can manage on our Social Security. What a great thing it would be for neighbors to teach their children to come across the road with their big riding mower or snowplow and make a couple of sweeps across our yard. We would so appreciate the assistance.”

—From “No Name, No Location” via “Annie’s Mailbox,” Creators.com, 10 December 2017

Dear No Name, No Location,

We hope that the self-absorbed nincompoops in No Location will recognize here their neighbors, The No Names, and step up to the plate when it comes to this appalling failure to anticipate and remedy the lawn care needs of people who’ve sent an urgent email to a stranger on the internet who has no way whatsoever of knowing whether the message will ever reach its intended audience or indeed who that audience even is or where that audience might even be. As a result, maybe these thoughtless area children will finally learn how to communicate like adults — through passive-aggressive third-party digs at people who are insufficiently psychic.

Bad Advice On The Woes Of Loving A Flagrantly Racist Cop

“I have been dating this guy for a year and a half and he’s not into making love. He’s happy if we only do it once a month and, when he does give in, he will only do the same old position. I, on the other hand, enjoy sex.

My ex (we have been apart eight years) is now in a sexless marriage. We started hooking up six months ago — just for sex — and it is awesome. Part of me feels guilty because I’m against cheating, but I need sex. What should I do?”

—From “CHEATING IN THE NORTH” via “Dear Abby,” 15 November 2017

Dear Cheating in the North,

A better question is — what shouldn’t you do? That’s easy: You shouldn’t do anything that would violate your own morals. Unless it’s cheating, because you need sex, something you can only obtain under the terms of your current arrangement with your ex. Obviously you’d really love to have sex with someone else, but unfortunately, your ex is the only person alive available for sex, and so you just have to keep having sex with him. Honestly, it would be such a relief to find someone else to have sex with — cheating really is awful! — but it’s not like you can just go out there and seek a mutually satisfying, mutually consensual, mutually monogamous relationship with someone who also wants to have sex with you instead of boning your ex and stringing this other guy along on a sled of disdain? Nope, this is your only option: Bone the ex (who, again, it’s worth repeating: is only valuable to you for sex, solely sex, just straight up sex, that is all) and keep dating this guy you resent because you don’t like the nature of his sex drive. That’s it. This is all of life!

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