May 17
IPJ commented on
SL Letter of the Day: Living Discomfortably.
@14/32: It's hardly unheard of for platonic friends to help each other out, including "Look, you can stay with me/us while you get on your feet and find a place after your break up. No rent for the first month, nominal after, so you can get out on your own sooner. No biggie."
As for gender/orientation swaps, the advice is the same in all cases. People might be a little more dismissive of a straight guy "dependent" on his straight female friend because that's not the way society expects that power dynamic to go, but it's a straightforward case of economic power imbalance and a nonconfrontational personality hoping that thinking the message hard will work.
May 17
IPJ commented on
SL Letter of the Day: Insane Demands.
Yup, he's definitely not some asshole cheater, because you and he have a situation that is definitely not within the boring ol' asshole cheating canon like normal cheaters do. It's totally different. And you both have immense respect for his marvelous wife, which is why you've both decided an affair you know will viciously hurt her if/when she finds out is a good way to show that. And he adores his children, which is why he knows that this affair with your crazy self which could blow up his marriage will be a great thing to put them through.
May 15
IPJ commented on
Savage Love.
@47: I realized after I posted, and there is no edit button. If it makes you happy, pretend it is a play on "And when my mom said I had to be creative and discreet about looking at porn, my life was over!"
May 15
IPJ commented on
SL Letter of the Day: Insane Demands.
@1: Oh come on. The question of what she looks like can be answered with any photo. And it needn't even be real, if LW has never met the woman, and if the wife is fit that doesn't mean they are or are not having sex. The other two can be easily faked as well with a fast google image search. There is no way to verify that someone is in a sexless marriage if you are not allowed to check with the wife that things are sexless and open. The wife getting pregnant is usually a strong clue that "sexless" was a mite inaccurate, but there is no handy test for the other way around.
May 15
IPJ commented on
Savage Love.
@18: "give him a dumb phone and make him the laughing stock of the whole school...."
Oh come on. No 7th grader needs a smart phone. If that's "making him the laughingstock" then he needs some more character building experiences. Like "I am the only 7th grader in the school whose mom won't let him look at porn on the internet, oh whoa is me."
May 11
IPJ commented on
SL Letter of the Day: I'm Out.
@82: "A woman just disagreed with me--she's a cunt."
I totally get how you're an ironic hipster and totally were not going for that traditional usage at all. It was just establishing your Aussie hipster cred.
May 10
IPJ commented on
SL Letter of the Day: I'm Out.
As for the "lady classmate" who "made it clear she was horrified": Sounds like she told him she didn't care for the word. If everyone who is treated to his hilarious invocations of "cunt" stays silent because, hey, no need to cause a fuss, then he gets to claim, "Why golly gee willikers, no one has ever been offended until you!" She removed that excuse from his repertoire, performing a public service.
Sometimes you need to call people on their bs, even if it's ironic hipster bs.
May 10
IPJ commented on
SL Letter of the Day: I'm Out.
63: Somehow I'm sure he would have thought to mention that he was in Australia (or England) and so the context was different. Since he precisely lays out how it is the most over-the-top thing he could come up with to say, I think it's safe to deduce he's not.
So if YOU come to the US (assuming you're in Australia) now you know not to march into a party or work function and start calling everyone around you a fucking cunt. Context.
May 10
IPJ commented on
SL Letter of the Day: I'm Out.
26 is onto something: This letter is the trial run for the next time he pulls an ironic hipster and some lady person fails to laugh at the awesome joke: He will mansplain it to her, including how her feelings about the word occasionally screamed at her out car windows are incorrect. He knows, as a guy.
May 8
IPJ commented on
SL Letter of the Day: Bonus Advice for Too Soon To Quit.
Gah! She should "get him to get some professional help for his own problems"? Via Jedi mind tricks, maybe? Secret incantations? Someone out there solved the problem of how to get someone else to do something they are showing no inclination to do? Share, please.
And I agree with 4: the length of the relationship matters. 10 years of good followed by a rough patch buys you a lot more stick-with-it than 5 months, all crap.
As for gender/orientation swaps, the advice is the same in all cases. People might be a little more dismissive of a straight guy "dependent" on his straight female friend because that's not the way society expects that power dynamic to go, but it's a straightforward case of economic power imbalance and a nonconfrontational personality hoping that thinking the message hard will work.