My dear Jack, well, if she earns higher than you what can you do? It’s what it is. I mean, you can’t tell her employer to reduce her pay because she earns higher than you! “Increase my salary because my girlfriend earns higher than I” is obviously not tenable in the corporate sector. Someone is bound to ask, why don’t you date someone earning lower than you if it’s a real concern?
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My dear Jil, as I read your mail, memories of a novel I read in secondary school came flooding in. I seriously doubt you’d have known a writer named James Hadley Chase – one of several pseudonyms. He wrote under five names. His birth name was actually Rene Lodge Brabazon Raymond. He was a crime writer, quite brilliant. Wrote 90 novels as Hadley Chase. Possibly read all ninety in secondary school! He had fantastic openings in his books. They’re the stuff of legend.
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My dear Jil, don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a programme called Grand Design. I think it’s on BBC Prime. Cable. It’s an architecture programme – beautiful, lovely houses on a grand scale. Creative architecture, mostly modern. These are not your run of the mill stuff. These are incredible houses – the type you’ll want to live in. Tasteful. Non garish. Well, I liken your unfolding relationship to grand design, or shall we call it grand deceit.
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My dear Jack, the simple truth is, both of you are generating different realities from the same set of facts. And that’s because each of you is processing the facts through his or her desire. She wants a much earlier wedding, you want a latter wedding. That simple fact is at the root of the issues in this relationship. It’s what is affecting the relationship, it’s what is determining and driving the interpretation of facts.
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My dear Jil, you probably haven’t heard about Darius Complex. It stems from ancient history – a king in ancient times who arrogated to himself God-like powers. The name of this king was Darius. For thirty days everyone was supposed to pray to King Darius as if he was God. You weren’t allowed to pray to any other deity. Everyone had to supplicate Darius, king of Persia for all their needs in those thirty days. He was in effect acting God. Of course if you lived in Ancient Persia at that time and you worshipped God, the advent of this “Man-God” must have been alarming. That’s where “Darius Complex” came from – it’s about a human taking absolute authority over another person’s life.
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My dear Jil, I just don’t get it. I hear it often but I didn’t know you subscribe to the notion too. You mean a guy asks you out on a date and you invite your girlfriend along? I don’t understand that. Now, I do understand a mini girls’ outing to which a guy is invited; but that’s clear to all the parties. In this instance however, the guy had no idea you were bringing along your friend. He came to pick you and found two women ready!
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My dear Jil, the problem is you keep dating the wrong guys, it’s not that you have a string of bad luck with guys. You keep dating guys that are neither right for you nor care about you, guys who just want to exploit you. Funny thing is you know from onset these guys aren’t right for you but you plunge on all the same, just because you feel you must have a man.
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My dear Jil, you’ve got to get rid of all those munched conversations on your phone. Love does not keep record of wrongs. In your case, you’re not only keeping record of wrongs, but evidence to be used in future prosecution of your boyfriend. And so when he says something in the future, you’ll go into that file drawer, pull out what he had said, annotated with date and time. Continue reading
Jack, come on you should be smarter than this. You should be! Just when you wanted to terminate the relationship she suddenly showed up at your house, late at night. Do you think she came for Ludo? Or you think she came to watch TV? Come on! You knew what she was up to and you attempted to take advantage but she outplayed you. Continue reading
My dear Jack, seems to me you’re speed-dating women. No, I’m not talking about the other variety – those events in which you’re given two minutes to consider dating someone. Or is that the date? You can see the conceptual paradox. You can’t achieve a reasonable objective in that context. At best those programmes are about eliminating whom not to date, and such a person must be an obvious misfit. The whole thing seems like guess work on a multiple choice exam paper. You go for such events with the attitude of “Who knows!” rather than “I’m sure to meet someone.” It’s really not that efficient when it comes to qualitative decisioning. The structure favours certain stereotypes – guys and babes who can make their case in two minutes flat. There’s just something rushed about it, something superficial. That’s why I said it’s at best an elimination exercise. You’re at the mercy of the quality of the pool of prospects. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about.
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