Lulu: Everyone has drama. Deal.
Ashley: Or don't deal. Go and deal with drama or don't go and don't deal with drama. The choice is yours and I cannot imagine caring.
Lulu: Jew Christmas is the best.
So we've basically not had anything extensive to say about any one column, but here's a collection of our discussions for columns between Nov 30th and Dec 8th.
(Nov 30) Lulu and Ashley hate on sugar
Ashley: Madelyn linked me to a new column, Dear Sugar.
It seems like Cary Tennis although maybe worse??
Lulu: Wow. Is this person's thing that they use endearments a lot? It's really gay (and I am reading a letter from a gay guy).
Ashley: The advice columnist is a woman and yes, the endearments get worse: sweet pea, honey buns, there's more. Darling. And that's only in the top 2 posts.
Lulu: It's really creeeepy. Also she uses Cary Tennis tiny sentences. Also HONEY BUNS. UGH. There is something about condescending use of endearments that I hate SO MUCH. Treat people with some fucking respect. I mean: yes; on our column we call people "kid" and "jerk" and "moron," so, hypocrite, I guess.
Ashley: Well, we're respectful. We only do it when they are kids and jerks and morons!
(Dec 1st) We find nothing
Ashley: Yo.
Lulu: Ayoyo.
Ashley: Indeed.
Lulu: It's Hannukah already?
Ashley: Figures.
Lulu: Nothing much in the columns.
Ashley: Feh.
(Dec 2nd) OMG a teenager
Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,Lulu: SIXTEEN TIMES. That is a long time to keep count.
There's a guy named Carson that I know at school. He is 16 and next week I will turn 14. He told me he liked me last spring and I liked him too, but it just wasn't the right time because he had a girlfriend. But since the beginning of October, every time I go over to his house, we end up kissing. I've been over his house about 16 times now but he still has a girlfriend, though it's a different girlfriend now. What can I do to make him realize that I really like him and that he should be going out with me?
Frustrated
Ashley: Yes it is. Amazing.
Lulu: This seems pretty straightforward.
Ashley: There's really two ways about it, right? She could either 1) stop contact until and unless Carson wants to be her boyfriend or 2) accept that she'll always be the "other woman" and get experience with the physical side of things without getting emotionally involved. Either way she has to accept that he doesn't want to date her.
Lulu: Right, if she likes making out with him for itself, not wanting a relationship, then there's no problem, but if she's thinking of it like tryouts and if she does well enough she'll get to be the girlfriend, she's going to be disappointed because HE clearly prefers things the way they are, make-outs without status. It's not like he was just totally in love with the other girlfriend, because he broke up with her and got a DIFFERENT GIRLFRIEND and it's still not the LW.
Ashley: Also, she's 13. When I was 16, I wouldn't date a 13 year old.
Lulu: Right, yeah. He would be taking a social step down to date her and she would be taking a social step up, so even aside from the complications that always exist about people liking each other different amounts and valuing the relationship title different amounts, it makes complete sense that she wants it and he doesn't.
Ashley: Precisely.
Lulu: I like that in the high school setting we get to accept and admit that some people are just better status than others. It's like giving people advice for Victorian times: well of COURSE he's not going to marry you, honey; you only have 100 pounds per annum.
Ashley: High school might as well be the Victorian times. A lot of drama, not a lot of sex. In other news, Prudence tells a woman to let her husband see a dominatrix! After she told that teenage boy to get therapy over his benign latex fetish!
(Dec 3rd) Grudge gift-giving
Ashley: Carolyn's column has a gift exchange question that is right up the holding-a-grudge alley (ed note: it turns out we hold grudges).
My cousins and I do a Christmas gift exchange where all the names are thrown into a hat (there are 10 of us, ages 18 to 35). I have a major gripe with the system, though it's petty. My uncle married "Jill" a couple of years ago. "Jill" has a thirtysomething daughter whom I absolutely can't stand and don't see as my cousin. Jill is very insistent we include her daughter in all family things and now her awful daughter is in our cousin gift exchange.
I've enjoyed the exchange in the past, but I'm not sure I'm mature enough to buy Evil, Adult Daughter a gift. Am I being too bratty if I opt out?
Lulu: Hah, okay. It's like a Secret Santa? Would you participate in a Secret Santa in which there was a chance you would have to buy a present for someone for whom you held a grudge? First of all, it’s a one in ten shot. Also, I kind of think I would be HOPING to get the person I didn't like, but not liking someone doesn't necessarily mean they are hard to buy for.
Ashley: Right, I think it would be hilarious to buy for a person you hated.
Lulu: So many possibilities. First of all, you could just get something impersonal. Nobody cares. But you could learn her tastes to find out what she wants most, and get her something SUBTLY wrong.
Ashley: I’d get her a gift card. She would like it, and everyone who knows me would know that I hate her. GCs are terrible gifts! Although, it is a little weird to include a random person in your swap.
Lulu: She's not random, is she? She's sort of a Johnny-come-lately cousin by marriage; but it sort of seems weird to NOT include her if you're including all the cousins. It seems like one of those optional things where mature people would automatically offer and decline. The LW does seem like a jerk.
Ashley: A bit. Actually quitting the gift swap over it would be a jerk move.
(Dec 4th) We are slackers.
(Dec 5th) Still slacking.
(Dec 6th) Encourage slacking in others.
Lulu: Me, to sleepy coworker: You should take a nap in the game room.
Him: Where do you think I just came back from?
Ashley: Gooooood.
Lulu: WORK ETHIC!
Ashley: yeees.
(nooo.)
(Dec 7th) Where babies come from
Ashley: Last letter in Annie's Mailbox today: wtf is "fertility issues" doing in that list??
Lulu: Whaaaat? Why would you have fertility issues? If you... if you got an abortion?? It's totally going to scare some people into thinking sex gives you fertility problems. OTHER WAY AROUND, people. Not having sex is a big fertility problem!
(Dec 8th) We start to feel guilty about not updating
Ashley: Prudence has a chat, but nothing spectacular.
Lulu: we have been sort of having conversations? I just haven't posted any of them. We could do a grab bag?
Ashley: Yees, catching up would be goood... There's a gaming one from carolyn, where the husband has discovered an xbox.
Lulu: Yep; I feel like when it's that compulsive, it's not specifically about gaming. Our bailiwick is more 'what is this thing world of warcraft.' Also, in Dr. Wallace:
"I tried to convince an Irish teenager that smoking was bad for him, but he only laughed and said I was 'daft.'"
Ashley: Awesome. Also, HA to the response: "JULIETTE: The United States and Canada are leaders when it comes to public health and safety"
Lulu: Yeah, that was cute.
Re: Public health and safety - We lead from the rear! Like the cowardly general.
ReplyDeleteDear advice column,
ReplyDeleteI am a girl in my early teens with no self-esteem and a total dearth of older girls or women who can serve as positive role models or with whom I feel comfortable talking. I am currently being emotionally manipulated into getting physical with an older guy who, though I am incapable of accepting it as fact, will never perceive me as viable girlfriend material. I want to ask you for help, but prepare yourself, as the help I want is the exact opposite of the help I need, and there is little to no chance of me listening to what you will in fact offer.
Signed,
Apparently Nearly Every Teen Girl Writing to Advice Columns, Ever
Seriously, her question is "what can I do to make him realize that I really like him?" She thinks the problem is that he doesn't know she likes him. Because if he did, then they'd be together? HE KNOWS, SWEET HONEY CAKES, AND HE'S USING THAT KNOWLEDGE TO STATUTORILY RAPE YOU.
Anyway, your advice is right, but the tone of that letter does not give me hope that she is mature enough to explore the physicality and accept that it's not emotional. (Like where do you have to be to think that a cheater of that magnitude is a catch? Although I guess some people never make that connection.) Sounds more like some scars about to get made!