Month: July 2011

No.

It's not appropriate to assign your feelings of hurt to your boyfriend's actions. The two are related, but not causal.

Let me give another example: I could say "the bank is hurting me by not letting me withdraw more than my balance from the ATM". And, it could be true that I might wind up hurt if I can't get the money (shouldn't have spent all that time in Atlantic City talking smack about the Mob). Still, ultimately, it's up to ME to resolve my own hurts, potential or realized.

That said, it's imperative that you do share your feelings. But do try to find a way to do it that doesn't make YOUR hurt your BOYFRIEND'S fault, or that forces an ultimatum or compromise with his other relationships.

If you're the studious type, it may pay dividends to read up on Nonviolent Communication, in order to best ascribe your feelings to yourself in a way that will best encourage your boyfriend to listen to, understand, and even empathize with your point of view.

Another good "shorthand" for tying your feelings back to yourself is to write out how you feel using E-Prime, which is a form of English that eliminates all forms of the verb "to be". For example, the E-Prime version of your question might read something like:

• How do I tell my boyfriend I feel uncomfortable, lonely, and/or jealous of his friendship with certain girls?

Simply put, don't try to exert control over others -instead, listen to yourself, and express yourself fully as a means to achieving good self-awareness and self-control. If your boyfriend doesn't understand or won't listen, then re-evaluate the longterm potential of the relationship.

Is it ok to tell my boyfriend his friendship with certain girls hurts me?

Another option is to "shoot the moon":

Tell your girlfriend EVERYTHING YOU OWN IS FROM AN EX GIRLFRIEND. If she gives you any trouble, just lift an eyebrow, and ask plaintively "come to think of it, what have you done for me lately?"

I totally agree that giving up the boxers, in the pragmatic scheme of things, is a great way to defuse an isolated issue. But it's also the slightest sliver of a sign that your girlfriend may have over-arching insecurities that will, in the longer run, cause much larger problems in your relationship…

As Marie Stein said, it's old underwear versus sex. I'd simply argue that at some point in many relationships, the old boxers win that fight – and if you ever foresee that being the case down the road, then you're best off ditching your girlfriend now before you run completely out of comfortably tasteful skivvies.

What should I do if my girlfriend wants me to stop wearing some boxers that my ex-girlfriend gave me?

There are few real cases where that "because" fits the sentence snugly. In the details, the querent switches off to "involved", which is totally fair, just, and common. So, let's go with "How does it feel when your girlfriend is involved with your job loss?" for now, and see what happens…

Okay, for me, I could honestly say this has sorta happened to me three times:

• I dropped out of college due to massive, sudden, unexpected heartbreak;
• I lost a chance at a promotion from IT into Internet Marketing, after a brief fling with the company webmaster (those late night website launches, argh!); and
• I lost my job due to a general executive team sweep, and then so did my coworker/subordinate, who was supposed to take my role in the interim, but was then falsely rumored to be my "girlfriend" – had to go for "security reasons". That one was the worst!

These situations may not map directly to your own. Heck, every situation is going to be very different, and seem very personal to you. The thing is, though, to the company, "none of it is personal".

This is in part why so many companies have rules or guidelines against in-house fraternization among staff (sometimes explicit, sometimes just overextended sexual harassment policies)… Basically, it just adds a layer outside the control hierarchy, a layer which can only affect the company in bad ways.

Sometimes that means a bad breakup plus a girlfriend/boyfriend with leverage means you get the boot… Sometimes it means you can't hire the best person for the job because you share matching rings and a last name. But it's just business. Bad business, maybe, but just business.

So, back to feelings. Basically, it sucks to lose your job for any reason. But it really sucks when you perceive the reasons to be something other than your work performance. But it's important to note – it may just be your perception. Those late night marathon sexcapades at the office may make you re-energized and excited to come into work the next morning, but someone has to pay the janitorial bills, and who's to say that your actual work results are improving?

Even if you're doing everything in your role with the company right, you're still massively screwing up in their eyes by not seeking romance elsewhere – I mean, I get it, with all the hours they expect us to work, who has free time to meet new people outside work… But still, being able to effectively keep things "all business" is hard enough with budgetary infighting and even who-gets-which-desks-after-the-move type office politics. Adding hormones and genetalia to the party doesn't always make it more fun for the guests[*].

So, I guess my point is, whatever the reason, but especially when love and sex are involved, you simply need to let go. When you're fired, the "why?" is infinitesimally less important than the "what next?" – and in this economy, trust me, you only have time to dwell on one. Best to host a real, physical funeral for your lost job, and mourn properly. A day, a week at most, and then right back on the horse. Otherwise, you'll wind up penniless and jobless after a two and a half year job hunt, like me… Answering questions on Quora while listening to the rain drip in through the hole in the roof that you can't afford to fix.

[* But please, tell me where those parties are, and I'll do my best to help. ]

How does it feel to lose your job because of your girlfriend?

I agree with Jane Huang, though perhaps my narcissipower is greater than hers, because I can definitely see less "altruistic uses" of the site.

As someone who is currently "lazily seeding" his blog with old Quora answers, I totally understand where this question is coming from… In a lot of ways, the directed nature of Quora helps with writer's block, and by staying within a few key topics, one could even create some thematic consistency to help with blog audience acquisition/retention, SEO and that sort of thing (I totally fail at that bit, btw – weaving together answers about sex, food, comic books, and the Internet… Okay, maybe those are a lot more related than I give them credit for, but still).

I've even seen some of the Quora regulars' own blogs occasionally acknowledge that a given post was inspired by a question/answer on Quora, or even a debate in the comments.

So, overall I'm just saying that Quora makes for a great place to work on one's writing style and tone, to tighten up language used, or let it fly loosey-goosey, to experiment with extremely technical answers, or bitingly sarcastic ones. If done right, all these little experiments wind up also being good answers to varying degrees – serving both the Quora community's needs, as well as one's own.

Still, I'd say that the odds of Quora becoming a blogging platform by default is a lot like the odds of a Wiki site, or even a community forum doing the same…
To me, it's more of a square-rectangle issue… Quora definitely has a format and process that can inspire (or kickstart) blogging within the site or externally. Trying to come in as a blogger, and declare Quora your chosen platform? Well, it's less than ideal in a lot of the same ways that Facebook or Twitter aren't ideal blogging platforms either (though for many people, it is their only blog-like outlet).

Is Quora the future of blogging?

Yup. But neither illegal, nor terribly frowned upon by men, who are mostly happy if the tactic results in a greater-than-normal influx of female patrons.

Sexism, in practice, is a highly subjective issue… Sexism where men are the object-victims generally needs to really "raise the bar" before the average man will care – after all, protesting ladies' night is more likely to eliminate such an event, rather than secure any sort of "guys' night" equivalent – the net result being fewer women at the bar/club.

You could also argue a sexist angle in which women are suffering from the benefit of ladies' night, since it basically urges conformity to a dynamic wherein women "pay admittance with their bodies", which commodifies them on some level. I'm not sure many men would be sympathetic to that argument, however.

As to the point about drink specials – I refuse to accept any argument that reducing or increasing the price of an alcoholic beverage in any way removes an individual's responsibility to monitor and pace their own drinking, or that such variable pricing has a direct relationship or responsibility to non-consensual drunken sex play. If that were true, CostCo would be the booze-rape capital of the world.

Interestingly, in at least some places where such objections have been lodged, I have seen/heard of clubs that have replaced their ladies' night with "miniskirt night", or "heels night", and happily admit men for free who are willing to wear the appropriate attire. To me, this is a win on a number of levels, since any man who wishes free entrance will, at least in some small way, have a greater understanding of the objectification of women in modern western society.

Are ladies' nights sexist?