Advice Columns

Oh my god, the question from the pregnant lady who has a husband who said she should wear a diaper on a long car trip because he wouldn't stop for pee breaks?! What the living hell!

My own personal experiences with bathroom emergencies mean that letters like that make me very stabby. And punchy. And foul-mouthed. Then I'd tell my mother on him and that would be the end of him. Seriously, where are you going that is so important you can't stop for someone to pee. And she's pregnant with his child! WTF is wrong with some people?!

How socially stunted and up your own ass with your "values" do you have to be to ask someone if they plan to keep the baby? That's out of line. If it was an unplanned pregnancy and, say, the father of the future kid was asking, that would make sense. If it was a very close friend or relative who knew the teacher well enough to know if she'd never wanted kids before or had said she didn't want any until a few years down the line/after some big life changes, that might be all right. I guess if it's a doctor you're discussing all your options with, that wouldn't be out of line. But "my kid is in your class" or any other relationship where you only know each other for professional reasons? NO. If I were a teacher and a parent was harassing me about my pregnancy like that, I'd probably start talking to my principal about intervening, because seriously, MYOB. It's not doing something illegal. (I bet that kid has classmates with single parents, too.)

On top of all that, single parenthood isn't always unplanned, and the teacher's got a job that almost certainly comes with salary and benefits. Plus she has experience with kids and probably had to take a bunch of classes on child development! Maybe she just wanted a kid and was like, hey, I'm in a stable position right now and I'm not getting any younger. That's allowed.

Also, speaking of socially stunted, from the same column: if you're telling "women I meet on campus" (so, are you even on a date with them yet?) all about your specific plans for your marriage, then I suspect you're going to stay single for quite awhile, sexist or no. Also, if he's telling other engineering students this? I'm not surprised he's getting "sexist" as a response--every woman I know who did something math or hard-science related in college got a lot more crap and was justifiably way more sensitive about the notion that they were there for an MRS degree. And does anyone go into an engineering program without the idea that it'll lead to a good job after? Even if they may give their work up (maybe temporarily) for a kid years down the line, they almost certainly aren't planning to graduate to be a SAHM. If they're out of the job market, it's for grad school.

Having your whole life planned out when you're still in undergrad is also very silly.

I think the whole theme of that column was "forcing your values on others is wrong." Especially when those values are "speedy car trip is more important than your bladder."

Poubelle wrote:And does anyone go into an engineering program without the idea that it'll lead to a good job after? Even if they may give their work up (maybe temporarily) for a kid years down the line, they almost certainly aren't planning to graduate to be a SAHM. If they're out of the job market, it's for grad school.

That's where I was coming from with that question. I wasn't even thinking of a specific BA such as engineering, which I can't imagine taking with no plans afterwards. With any degree, who goes into it thinking "I want to spend 4 years of my life and a shit load of money, with no intention of ever using it."?

The vibe I got was that he only wanted a wife with a BA so he could have intellectual conversations with her, but it was nothing about her educational fullfillment. It was just so HE wouldn't have to deal with a "stupid" person.

Ha, in the comments, someone said they had a mom who would never let them stop to pee during road trips (leading to many accidents growing up), so she/he and their siblings as teenagers fed their mother a pan of laxative-laced brownies right before a trip as revenge. Hilarious.

Wow, Prudie's chat was filled with...special people wasn't it? As someone who doesn't like to stop in between gassing up, I would like to bitch slap the poor pregnant lady's husband and ask him WTF is wrong with him.

I have a friend whose future husband refused to stop on a 8 hour drive (the first time they went to meet his parents) and she got a bladder infection (or something else pee-holding related) from it. Now he stops more often than she asks.

Also, the pregnant-unmarried-teacher-is-a-slut LW? WHOA. Is this 1950?

Never Enough wrote:

Poubelle wrote:And does anyone go into an engineering program without the idea that it'll lead to a good job after? Even if they may give their work up (maybe temporarily) for a kid years down the line, they almost certainly aren't planning to graduate to be a SAHM. If they're out of the job market, it's for grad school.

That's where I was coming from with that question. I wasn't even thinking of a specific BA such as engineering, which I can't imagine taking with no plans afterwards. With any degree, who goes into it thinking "I want to spend 4 years of my life and a shit load of money, with no intention of ever using it."?

Self-aware arts majors? I kid. Sort of. I was thinking the more liberal arts end of things, where you found a fair number people with no specific plans or goal after college other than "I hope I can find an office job or something" or "I guess I'll look at grad school." (I've encountered the "at least I'll have something interesting to talk about in the unemployment line!" idea more than once.) Though even without career goals, pretty much all of them would've been put off by someone saying straight off "I want you to stay home and raise my babies." Though I think if the offer was "I'll support you while you stay home and work on your novel!", that would've gotten some positive responses. But then that would require actually thinking about his future wife as a whole, unique person.

(I did sort of know a girl in college who got married shortly before her graduation, got pregnant barely a year later, and quit with no plans to go back shortly before the kid was born. But she came from a very conservative religious family, and wasn't really using her music degree in the job she had anyhow.)

CREEPIEST CARY TENNIS LETTER EVER. He calls his apartment, "a grotto of pleasure in which my conquests are welcome guests!" I just! Ack!

And creepy advice to match! Cary honest to god tells this single childless 50 year old man to hang around school playgrounds and little league games and children's soccer matches where he has no business being and try to chat up the parents of toddlers in hopes that they know single, childless, fertile women with high sex drives to set him up with. I can't think of any better way for the LW to have someone call the cops on him for being a creepy creepy CREEP.

VodouDoll wrote:CREEPIEST CARY TENNIS LETTER EVER.

And creepy advice to match! Cary honest to god tells this single childless 50 year old man to hang around school playgrounds and little league games and children's soccer matches where he has no business being and try to chat up the parents of toddlers. I can't think of any better way for the LW to have someone call the cops on him for being a creepy creepy CREEP.

And I am primed for the minimally two-decade project of fatherhood: financially stable, exceptionally healthy and also socially integrated.

Look how wrong this dude is. Guy already sounds like a MAJOR creeper, let alone if he starts hanging out at soccer fields.

Fertile women (all of whom could be my daughters) respond to my overtures as if I am some pederast proffering candy with evil ulterior intent.

This, I believe.

Come on, guys. He just wants to propagate his father's line. What's so creepy about that?

My experience has been that anyone who feels the need to identify themselves upfront as an INTJ has at least a 95% chance of being a creepy douchebag. (That's how I always turn out on those tests; I hope I'm not a creepy douchebag without knowing it.)

I genuinely believe that at a point within the next five years I will find a woman of childbearing years sufficiently blind to my seniority that she will allow us to bond and build a life together, abundant sex and a child or two included.

Good luck with that, juicebox.

ActonBell wrote:

I genuinely believe that at a point within the next five years I will find a woman of childbearing years sufficiently blind to my seniority that she will allow us to bond and build a life together, abundant sex and a child or two included.

Good luck with that, juicebox.

Yeah, that was the part where I snorted so hard I ended up having a coughing fit. Dude sounds like a textbook sociopath.

This is me while reading that letter.

You have an image problem.

That's the thing: he probably doesn't, because if he projects half of the creepiness that letter conveys, people are seeing him for exactly what he is.

First he marries three women as lust receptacles and now he wants to marry a brood mare and the advice is hanging out in a park with children? How about the advice starting with trying to meet a woman as an actual person and go from there?
And that writing style/speaking style is a pet peeve of mine. Writing like you're dictating an 1950s textbook doesn't make one intellectual. Smart people will figure out if you're smart or not no matter how you speak. What smart folks will learn from talking to someone like that is the person they're conversing with is a total dickbake.

THAT LETTER.

Fertile women (all of whom could be my daughters) respond to my overtures as if I am some pederast proffering candy with evil ulterior intent.

GOSH. I can't IMAGINE why.

That letter is much more entertaining if you read it in Christopher Walken's "The Continental" voice.

Raised by wolves wrote:Writing like you're dictating an 1950s textbook doesn't make one intellectual.

Yeah, using thrice pretty much proves he's a dick.

That entire letter is one big WTF. An intellectual guy who wants nothing but sex is only just figuring out in his 50s that he can serially date women? He says the thought of having kids never occured to him before, so what, other than his personality, was stopping him from sexing every woman in sight when he wasn't married? And the advice is for this dude to hang out along a events that kids attend and throw himself at married couples? WTF?

tothemax wrote:

Raised by wolves wrote:Writing like you're dictating an 1950s textbook doesn't make one intellectual.

Yeah, using thrice pretty much proves he's a dick.

Oooh, and the LW weighs in in the comments. Well, not quite weighs in so much as perfunctorily thanks Cary for his advice about kids and then talks about his conquests for many, many paragraphs, in an even creepier way than he did in the original letter. I can't tell if it's a joke! I want it to be. Who writes like that?

"My friends, when men and women enter the sexual arena, and an arena it certainly is, be it a public byway or a private bed in which a Venusian (woman) and a Martian (man) encounter each other intimately, a beautiful contest ensues. And in this contest, carnal knowledge of the woman is the sole prize, the man’s to win or lose. "

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

I want to think it's a joke, but there are a lot of people in the world who like to hear themselves talk. Especially when they talk thusly.

This guy gives men in their 50's a bad name. Hopefully it's just a troll.

And in this contest, carnal knowledge of the woman is the sole prize, the man’s to win or lose.

And this prize is thrice-divorced? 'Tis a puzzlement as to why. A puzzlement!

To Cary's credit, he does drop this bit of wisdom:

In her decision to bear and raise a child with you, a woman is likely to be mercilessly pragmatic in her assessment of your suitability as a mate.

And I'm thinking that very nearly every sane, fertile, single woman in this guy's 50-mile radius has assessed this randy old goat's M.O. and decided that if anyone's going to father their children, it's not going to be someone who is going to skive off saving for college because his social security payments don't go that far. Or whose "exceptional health" goes south once the child hits middle school.

lisa wrote:

And this prize is thrice-divorced? 'Tis a puzzlement as to why. A puzzlement!

Is he Matt Foley? Does he live in a van down by the river?