@WaityKatie Mine too, and it can be explained thusly: "...by their late-twenties/early thirties they have a "wait what am I doing? Who am I? Am I anyone?" crisis. (And sometimes they're not!) (No, everyone is someone.) (Are they, though? Hard to tell sometimes.)"

@WaityKatie good CHRIST this lady is amazing.

@candybeans I mean just look at her up there, casually smoking like "Yeah, what of it?", all cool and sexy with her sunglasses and hair in a bun.

@WaityKatie yes, absolutely! this lady is the kind of lady that got me reading the hairpin in the first place.

i especially commend her for calling out LW1's weird assertion that her fiance would never be able to have a job or support a family. he got a degree in something stupid, he didn't have his brain fall out!

@blahstudent as the spouse of a recent humanities PhD who is constantly thinking up plan Bs in case a tenure-track career in his field never materializes...I also question this assertion. but maybe he's not willing to think about a contingency plan (&, if so, all the more reason to avoid a lifetime of financial entanglement).

@blahstudent: Oh, you didn't know that the fourth semester of any graduate program includes a lobotomy?

@blahstudent yeah, I know this comes up downthread, and i need to read those instead of starting a new conversation up here, but my own little indebted-grad-student hackles went up when the assertion was made that i'd never have a house or retire because of (fixed-interest, eventually-forgiven) student loan debt.

@candybeans YES. All of this. I can think of exactly zero instances where grad school makes you eternally unemployable, creditable, house ownerable, retirable, etc.

@Veronica Lemmons Yes, this was perfect and also all the reasons that I read the haripin, in one little phrase.

Also, yeesh. Will never be able to help support a family? Never, ever, at all in any way? And obviously that is the only reason to be with someone? I mean, it is A Reason, but A Lady is right on when she says that the fact that LW never mentions anything about the actual person she's dating is very very telling.

@nonvolleyball Right? At least he should be able to get the same kind of job that anyone with a BA could get. I think she really is just tired of this guy and is looking for reasons to break up.

@The Everpresent Wordsnatcher @Lucille2 Speaking as some one who has an absurdly expensive grad degree in something frivolous, I divorced some one who also had an absurdly expensive degree in a different, equally frivolous thing, for reasons similar to those LW1 describes. Grad school is awesome!...if it motivates you to be your best self and be better at what you've always wanted to do. But sometimes depending on the discipline/program and the individual's reasons for matriculating, it can encourage disconnection from the real world in a way that is very unhelpful for people who might be scared of the real world in the first place, causing delusion, impracticality, an unwillingness to think about the future...all of which indeed make one a bad choice for a life partner, even if one is not literally eternally unemployable. I'm just saying that there might be more here than "he's poor wah/grad school is evil."

@WaityKatie Yep. Best.

@AniaGosia I don't disagree with your second point... but there is a scary post-graduate-degree period where your degree "overqualifies" you for everything except a) fast food or b) more grad school. I took my education entirely off my resume and my actual life skills (not even remotely developed in grad school!) won out, but the intervening years were not great.

@candybeans What is this "eventually forgiven" student loan debt you speak of. My husband has 2 college degrees and I swear in 15 years of paying, our balance has not gone down. Where can I get these to magically disappear??? When does this "eventually" happen?

@saywhatnow? I don't know what sort of loans your husband has, and he may have graduated too long ago to qualify, but all my loans are federal, and I'm presently on income-based repayment (the only effing way we're able to eat right now). In 25 years, the remainder of the debt will be forgiven if I'm on either income-based or income-contingent repayment (but I'll owe taxes on the forgiven amount, we think--some questions on that point). If I work in non-profit or public-interest work, after 15 (or 10, i forget right now) years of making payments while working in those fields, the debt will be forgiven outright with no tax burden. ymmv, i'm not none of y'all's attorney, etc.

@TDF@twitter You are right about that. My mother had to do this - she essentially pretended that her phd was only a MA in order to get a job and always was pretty bitter about having to do that.

@saywhatnow? I am on a student loan program like @candybeans - mine is the forgiven in 10 years one, specifically found here: http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/PSF.jsp You have to meet certain requirements about the types of loans, and they have to be held with the Department of Ed. My grad loans weren't, so I had to consolidate them with USDE but after that it was pretty straightforward.

@alabee: I'm kind of all about G+ now, as the only things in my feed there are interesting news or tech stories, and exactly 0 pictures of someone's lunch or status updates about states of relationship.

@Too Much Internet oh, lucky you; the only person in any of my "circles" who actually uses Google+ ONLY posts pictures of food, and does so about four or five times a week. my only satisfaction is in knowing he's going to kill himself with what he's taking photos of, and then consuming.

@alabee Google+ is actually advertising itself in LGBT media here (Sydney) atm, saying you can use your different....circles? (Are they circles? Groups? Whatever) so no one finds your ~saucy~ pictures from the upcoming Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
I am unsure how I feel about this.

@CupcakeTattoos Really?

Have they changed/fixed their policy about using your 'real' name, or being blocked? Because that was very not trans friendly, among other things.

@Craftastrophies Yeah they're trying to go for the 'Don't show your drunk photos to everyone, how embarrassing!' vibe, I think, but something about it doesn't sit right with me. You can tell they've done some research, though, the 'circles' on the ad reference Sydney lesbian nights etc. If you're in Australia, it's in this month's LOTL.
Not sure about the trans stuff though, I'm actually not on it.

@CupcakeTattoos Man. I haven't read LOTL since I left my last job where we had it at the front counter. I need to get my hands on one.

I can't find anything on the internet about the name stuff since last August, so I'm going to guess that nothing got changed. That's actually one of the reasons I'm not on there - because the name policy is ridic on principle, but also because my last name starts with a 'Mc' and I actually heard of a couple people being banned because having a name with more than one capital in got picked up by their fake-name bots.

@alabee The worst part is, I really WANT it to work out because the circles thing is a good idea! I want to have my work friends in a different category from everybody else! I think I know that this is technically possible on Facebook, but it is so annoying to try to figure out how ANYTHING works there that I just have them all listed as Acquaintances (nobody else is an Acquaintance) and sometimes post to all except acquaintances.

But alas. It just doesn't seem to be happening.

@Fig. 1 (formerly myfanwy)
Definitely!!! Here I am, halfway through grad school, and literally this A Lady saves me from suddenly being jobless and broke forever!!! Unless I marry a sexist engineer, of course. There's always that.

@Fig. 1 (formerly myfanwy) Ok I even checked Wikipedia to see if I was forgetting something and I STILL DON'T GET IT.

@Jon Custer The spinner-turned-princess had to give up her first-born child to Rumplestiltskin for his favor (turning all the straw into gold for her). So this is the grad school that requires your first-born child as tuition. (Which...okay, it's expensive, but it doesn't *actually* rob you of the ability to ever have kids EVER.)

@Lexa Lane OK, I was making it way too complicated in my head (like she expected to lock the boyfriend in a tower to spin gold forever and ever, or something?).

@MoonBat Ha, somebody else reads Dear Prudie also =)

@paddlepickle Well, and apparently a lot of transvestites. Maybe that's the "+" part.

@paddlepickle Google+: full of transvestites?

@paddlepickle Nooooo my friends and I use g+ all the time! Literally every day. The fact that nobody else uses it makes it even better, like it's our own special playground. Mostly we talk about g+ itself and LMFAO (the musical act) and other things I don't need most of the people I'm facebook friends with to see. (I mean, the fact that fb is blocked at work is definitely a contributing factor here too.)

@ranran I really like G+ in theory, and the way it would keep my different circles of friends separate (my Seattle friends don't need to be asked where to get things in Utrecht, my friends who haven't caught up yet with RuPaul's Drag Race can be excluded while I talk about who's been kicked off, etc.), but not enough people use it to make it worthwhile. Very Catch-22.

@ranran Are you and your friends all transvestites? ;)

@ranran G+ IS AWESOME.

@paddlepickle Oh man, not sure, I gotta check!

@Tragically Ludicrous God I love RuPaul's Drag Race and have I ever picked up some new vocabulary! Which I use every day!

@Pound of Salt Condragulations!

@Tragically Ludicrous I have a Google+ account, AM I SECRETLY A TRANNY!?

@Megan Patterson@facebook hey, I'm gonna assume you didn't know that "tranny" is a pretty offensive slur, BUT it is, and it would be awesome if you didn't use it anymore, period, especially not to describe someone who isn't strictly gender-conforming. the LW's issue is that the guy is a lying cheater, not what he's into in bed.

eta: as with most slurs, a certain amount of claiming/reclaiming of "tranny" happens in the trans/queer community, so my bad if you're actually a member of that community, sorry.

@realtalk I am not, and did not know that, so I apologize! I did not mean offense.

@Megan Patterson@facebook :) thanks! I love the hairpin. this is the calmest discussion I've ever had about this on the internet! <333

@realtalk Wow, you did that in a really cool way - thanks!

Last winter I was on a road trip with a friend, and we stopped off to see her family. They live in a small rural town up north in a part of the state that is predominantly right-leaning, but they've got the leftist tendencies of all us folks down here in "the big city." So we're sitting there at breakfast and her mom's talking about this truck my friend's brother is restoring, and all of a sudden she says, "Well, it'll run smoother when he gets the new tranny in there." And my friend and I choked and spat our breakfast through our noses and then started laughing awkwardly because we had no idea how to explain this to her, and then finally my friend just said, "Uh, mom? I think you want to be careful with that term." Her mom was horrified and then burst out laughing because she was so embarassed.

@realtalk @Megan Patterson@facebook You guys. You guuuuuuuuuys. *This* kind of community is what keeps me coming back to The Hairpin. @Megan, thanks for admitting your lack of knowledge around the term and apologizing and not getting your knickers in a twist, and @realtalk, thanks for letting her know that "tranny" is a slur without pulling out the big Hammer for Homophobes and pounding her into the floor with it.

Goddamn it, I love you all so much.

@wee_ramekin @Megan Patterson@facebook <3333

@realtalk I really like that your name was so appropriate to your role in this interaction!

Pretty much all I have to contribute.

@WaityKatie No, you don't understand. There is no job out there that will ever have him. Ever. They've actually started hanging shingles on businesses that say "Boyfriend of LW1 need not apply".

@parallel-lines Indeed. I don't even want to ever talk about money with LW1, because a) unrealistic and b) judgmental= c) yuck.

Has this person not been paying attention to Marketplace the last 6 years?

ALSO, LW1, you aren't actually obligated to take care of your parents, either. I mean, you might want to, and I would probably. But if you wanted to marry your BF, you wouldn't have to not do it because you aren't allowed to because of your parents' non-money.

This is not Like Water for Chocolate. (By which I mean to say... it's not an impossible situation engineered by ridiculous cultural norms you are in. You could make it work. You don't want to, so don't. But it's not your parents' fault, either, that you want out.)

@PistolPackinMama "This is not Like Water for Chocolate."

Snerk. What an insane book that was.

@WaityKatie Yeah, maybe she can make enough dough for both of them if she parlays her clairvoyance skills into a lucrative career.

@WaityKatie OH JESUS. if this letter felt pretty personal to me before as a newly-graduated and unemployed lawyer engaged to someone who thinks i'm dogshit with money, it now feels 110% personal... I don't think *anyone* could *possibly* never have aaaany employment prospects, but i also don't believe that i have an entirely worthless degree (even if it's not been a money-earner yet). if she thinks her fiance will never ever EVER make ANY money with a law degree, she's totally wrong. and clearly just needs to get out, post haste, because she's looking for reasons to do so, and that's a sign.

@candybeans I think by never make "any" money, she really means "never make the kind of money I envision lawyers making, i.e. big-firm-corpo-tool money." It reminded me of this ex-friend I had who was talking about transitioning from her big firm job to a government job, and complaining that "now I'm going to have to make ZERO DOLLARS!" Yeah, I had been working for the federal government my whole career, making even less than the "zero dollars" her BS finance-related agency was planning to pay her. God, anything that reminds me of that person still makes my blood boil.

@WaityKatie You might be right, that it just isn't what she thinks he should make. and the former friend: jeez. a) what a juicebox move to insult the money fed employees make right in front of you, ugh, and, b) i *daydream* about working for the federal gov't! Fed attorneys make good money!

@candybeans Well, this "friend" had serious narcissistic tendencies (as in, I think she meets all of the DSM-IV criteria for narcissism) and I'm sure it hurt her a lot to lower herself to a career path that someone lowly like me was on. (this didn't stop her from later lowering herself to do the guy I was semi-dating at the time (a later time), but I'm sure that was tooootally different). Great person, all around. I wish I believed in karma or something like that, but I think she's doing just awesome now.

@candybeans Yes! As a law student, I am so addicted/scared of these posts. And I very much second waitykatie's point about the weird perception of something less than biglaw money as "no money." I hope you find a job soon.

@automaticdoor I read that letter and said to myself, "well, I hope I'm never in a serious relationship with a man I love so little as to leave him over money instead of working together to figure it out."

@automaticdoor Some of what you said is right on, but if you're gonna call a lady heartless, I have to question this: "news flash: your parents are adults and you're not required to take care of them either."

Um.

My parents are super broke, and super old (they were in their 40s when I was born), and I don't think there's a day that goes by when I don't wonder how the fuck I am going to support them when the time comes. Newsflash, they're adults and I don't have to? Um, how about this newsflash: they're both pushing 70 with mounting health issues, they sure as hell can't work forever, and there is NO ONE ELSE besides me who is going to take care of them.

Christ in a Cracker Barrel, door girl. Put that in your heartless pipe and smoke it.

@automaticdoor And furthermore, LW1, your dude is not responsible for helping you maintain your lifestyle while taking care of YOUR parents. They are not his parents. He should not be responsible for them at this stage in the game.

@S. Elizabeth Word to that! I mean, thumbs up for being so on top of things as to be thinking about the "what if" scenarios for your family. That's great. But maybe that should be something you keep in mind when financially planning your life together, not something you break a heart over!

@automaticdoor LW1 sounds like she's tired of her guy and needs a reason to break up with him. Never going to find a job? That's a little histrionic. Unless he's 80 and the degree he just got was in rotary-phone repair, he can probably find a job eventually. If you want out, just say so and get out.

@special_boots YES.

@special_boots Amen.
I don't know the person that could actually say no to helping their parents like that. I mean, I understand not wanting to (and it's legitimately not your responsibility), but my "they raised me! they helped me when I fucked up! YOU LOVE THEM!" guilt centre would be SCREAMING at me.
Couldn't do it.

@special_boots I'm in the same situation as you (parents pushing/above 70, health problems, no money, etc.), but luckily at least as of this writing we still have social security and medicare in this country, so it's not like anyone has to bear the entire cost of supporting her parents. (Erase all this once Santorum gets elected, obviously.) I can foresee a time when I might try to send them some money for this and that, but it's not like I have to shoulder the cost of their medical care and nursing homes, you know? The LW's being a bit nutso about the whole thing.

@dtowngirl I just snorted at "rotary-phone repair."

@WaityKatie Reading the words "Once Santorum gets elected" just made my stomach lurch and my uterus flee my body.

@WaityKatie Have you seen the kinds of nursing homes that Social Security and Medicare can pay for? A lot of them are really crappy ones that do a terrible job of caring for someone. They also don't really help with the in between services, like having someone stay with a parent if they've had surgery, or get them a place to live if they can't work anymore but aren't sick enough for a nursing home, or help them with food. LW1 may be kind of an ass about her fiance, but I don't think she's being nutso about her parents, just realistic.

@automaticdoor @special_boots Thank you. It is not heartless to choose supporting your parents over subsidizing a spouse.

A lot of details were not included in the letter (what degree does he have? how much debt?) but this seems like a genuine dilemma. I know I only have so much money and so much time and my family comes first, imperfect though they are.

@thebestjasmine Please don't tell me this. I have more debt than probably the "deadbeat" fiance does, so I will have to probably divorce myself in order to pay for these things.

@WaityKatie Absolutely, and thank god both of my parents have Social Security and Medicare. Thank. God. But, realistically, it just isn't enough. For my mom, especially. (My parents got divorced when I was quite young, which is part of why their financial sitch is so lousy -- it was a big money loser for both of them.) She has thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt and a mortgage that will never EVER be paid (though her house is in no way extravagant, and she even divided it and shares it with a renter) and no retirement savings to speak of. And Medicare doesn't cover things like the ten grand in dental work she just found out she needs -- but this is ten grand in dental work so that she can CONTINUE TO HAVE TEETH, you know?

The government support system for the elderly does still exist, thank god, thank god, but it's not enough to cover all a person's relatively basic needs, by far. That's why our country has such a huge chunk of elderly folks living in pretty dismal poverty. There is no way I am letting that happen to my parents. They need me and deserve my help more than any boyfriend or fiance, no matter how wonderful.

(This is not intended to be a broad statement of support for LW1. I don't know her. I don't know her circumstances. But it is absolutely support for anyone who thinks that yes, actually, they are REQUIRED to support their parents. Legally, no. Morally, it probably depends on circumstances, but for many of us yes, absolutely, without question.)

@special_boots Hey, hey hey hey! I fully plan to support my parents in the cardboard box commune I will build out of their foreclosure paperwork and my student loan paperwork and our bill piles and antidepressant pill bottles! My parents have been shit with money too. I'm 25, they're hitting their early and mid 50s but will probably have to work the rest of their lives because of a few lost jobs and subsequent credit card run-ups leading to foreclosure and bankruptcy. Fuck, actually, they don't even have the money to file for bankruptcy right now because they don't have the cash for court costs. It is bad. They are both severely depressed. I am in law school and have huge loans and have bipolar disorder. We lean heavily on each other as a family and are super tight. However, they have never asked me to do anything for them. And I have never asked them to do anything for me. We do this out of love and respect for each other because we are a family. I just felt like the LW was making it sound like it was this horrible onerous task that fell on her by default. Maybe the LW just needs therapy or something. It sounds like she is projecting like whoa.

@Hellcat We need a whole list of fake dead-end majors: Rotary Phone Repair. Buggy Whip Making. Underwater Basket Weaving. Maybe that list will make me feel better about having a real dead-end major.

@Xanthophyllippa Heh. I always love a good nonsensical list -- and maybe I'd feel better about my long-ago choices too (for neither of which do I now have a degree). I still remember the hopeful-then-dashed faces of my parents when I told them I was switching my major from visual arts to... English lit.

@Xanthophyllippa Audio Mixing, Subfield: 8-Track. Typewriter Repair. Jello Mold Manufacturing. Culinary Studies (focus in Cream of Mushroom Soup Recipes).

...I'm sitting in class. I can come up with more.

@automaticdoor VCR Manufacture and Repair, Phone Booth Construction, Blockbuster Management, and (sadly, from where I sit), Copy Editing That Is Beyond Anything (i.e., BETTER) That Word's Spell-Check Can Handle.

@Xanthophyllippa Bonnet Construction. Milk Delivery. Poodle Skirt Pattern Design. LaserDisc Player Repair.

@Hellcat Haha, Blockbuster Management! I thought about making a Borders joke, and then I was like, too soon. Poor copy editors.

@automaticdoor LASER DISCS! I totally forgot about those!

@Hellcat I had to check Google for proper capitalization/spelling to make sure. I remember them from late elementary school, wherein they were at the video store for about two years or so.

@automaticdoor Bustle Design and Construction, Suburban Architecture of the 1980s, Asbestos Manufacturing.

@automaticdoor Ooof, Borders. That one still stings. After working in a B&N for a few years post-college, I made a vow to shop only at Borders for the rest of my life, as B&N still gives me a doomy feeling when I walk in--like I am embarking on 9 hours of torture helping very dumb, rude people. And now, it's back to B&N (but never, ever the one I actually worked at).

As for the editing... oooooh, man. Far too many people (including my bosses--you know, the ones who pay me to know what I am talking about) rely solely on that damnable Word feature. Oh, the things I've seen...

Car-Stereo Installer? Cell-Phone-That-Isn't-an-iPhone Manufacturer? Women's "Power Suit"-Maker!

@Hellcat Car Phone Repair.

@automaticdoor People will always need Jello Moulds!

@Hellcat Don't ever work for a Target. They're shitty employers (seriously, the Walmart paid more!) and it made me hate the local store for years. (But then I moved and now I can go there again!) Also, haha, I don't think that other cell phones are dead, she says, clutching her Nexus S tighter in her grip. *Android fangirl*

Power suits! I was trying to make a shoulder pads joke and couldn't figure out how.

@S. Elizabeth *snort* Asbestos Manufacturing.

Pocket Watch Design, Friendster Studies, History of Something.

@S. Elizabeth Mimeograph Technician.

@automaticdoor [Checks Pantech Reveal for daily kiss-face text from BF (which, by the way, on this phone looks like this: :X). The first time I saw it, I wondered if he was sending me a "you keep your mouth shut!" message.] The iPhone is nice and all, but just not something I need or even care about. My friends, however, are on a mission to change my phone! Why do they care?

That's sad about Target! That's my favorite one of that type of store! And, while watching The Celebrity Apprentice (yeah, I was), I noticed that Victoria Gotti was doing her part to keep the shoulderpads alive and well.

@automaticdoor Careful. My degree actually IS in "History of Something."

@Hellcat: I bet you've seen a lot, but I bet you haven't seen someone type "prostatic limp" when they really meant "prosthetic limb."

Also: East German Aesthetics. Waiting Room Design. Penmanship.

@Xanthophyllippa No, I really did mean History of Something. (My degree's in American Studies, which could also be classed as "Learning!") Just be glad it's not Theoretical Physical Education.

Awwww, Penmanship!

@Xanthophyllippa Ahahhahahhaaaa! I certainly have not! Details?

I have seen "$25 bucks" more times than I can even count; "Is this even a word?" scrawled on my work by my non-editorially skilled superiors (for the record, yes, the "it" in question was indeed a word that could have been looked up by said scrawler prior to scolding me!); and exclamation points smack in the middle of sentences (they don't understand here that there are font-related ways to emphasize important words). Oh, and our Big Boss punctuates like a 13-year-old ("Can you believe........... these prices???...!!!!11!!") I am not allowed to edit her work though and, just today, I saw an "aught" where there should have been an "ought."

@automaticdoor AH! I have never seen "Community" - it's too much like real life. That and "The Office."

I like the idea of Theoretical Physical Education, though. I think for their math credit, those students take Counting on Fingers and Toes.

@Hellcat: it was in a paper about RFID devices (for non-engineers, radio frequency identification, or the little metal things that are on your new passport that store your info). Apparently RFID is everywhere, and one of the ways in which they are used is "controlling prostatic limps."

@automaticdoor Algae Husbandry. Automobile Chrome Detailing Manufacturing. Logic, concentration: Modern Republican Party.

@S. Elizabeth I think Modern Republican Party needs to be its own major, with required courses in Processes and Policies in Reproductive Health, Basic Feminism: Barefoot and Pregnant, and Introduction to Higher Education for the Non-Snob.

(Side note: we've got a bunch of biofuels people here who more or less do Algae Husbandry. Ah, the joys of a land-grant university...)

@S. Elizabeth The Subjunctive and its Uses. Citations and You. Divining. Virgin Studies.

@Xanthophyllippa History of Celibacy. Nailpolish Studies. Critical Privileged Thought (thesis: Superiority of Genuine Freshwater Pearl Studs and the Hegemony of Faux Status). Caucasian Studies (when taught at Brigham Young University).

@S. Elizabeth Knitting with Cashmere. Navelgazing. World Cultures and their Appropriation.

@Xanthophyllippa Trade schools! Harpsichord manufacturer. Shipbuilder: concentration, 13th century turtle ships. Culinary degree: concentration, aspics. Dowsing rod carver.
A BS in coal-shoveling. A masters in witchfinding.

@Whitney@twitter It's pretty young.

@Whitney@twitter Maybe not, but it's young enough to make a lot of us wonder where the fire is.

@Whitney@twitter It is actually the national average for women. That said, when I look at my (mid-twenties) facebook feed filled with wedding photos and engagement announcements, I find it hard not to visualize my boss's (late thirties) facebook feed, which is filled with news of her friends' divorce settlements and child support payments. Ugh. Getting married at any age is scary!

@pterodactgirl National average for first marriage?

@Whitney@twitter You're only allowed to be happy for newlyweds when they are old enough to have figured out exactly what they want and exactly what kind of people they are. Everybody figures that out, sometime in their 30s, duh, of course. If they're young and get hitched because they're in love and romantic (God forbid) then you must click the arrow button on your iCal to exactly 6 years later and make an event called "My Friends Are Divorced," and if you turn out to be right you can live happily ever after in eternal smugness. If you turn out to be wrong just COMMAND X,V and move it 3 months up, repeat.

@Whitney@twitter Well, based on stats and things we can reasonably assume that at least half of them are going to end up divorced. And isn't the rate higher for people who get married young? I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with getting married at 25, and I've had some friends get married at that age who are clearly perfect for each other and will almost definitely last forever. . .but I don't think it's unreasonable or judgy to suggest that a lot of people in their 20s who are in their first really serious relationship and are talking about marriage are not going to end up married, or won't be married forever if they go through with it.

@jenny_ haha, right? at what age do people stop changing/know EXACTLY WHO THEY ARE well enough to get married? i agree there should be a certain degree of maturity first, but it's not like you turn 35 and your personality and goals are set in stone.

@Whitney@twitter Yeah, since when is living with a partner at 25 'playing house?' Seems pretty condescending to me.

@Whitney@twitter Well, it's only two or three years after a person typically graduates from college, and maybe decades ago that was enough time to get a decent job, a place to live and figure out what a person is going to do with the rest of their life, but now? I'd say 25 is young.

@jenny_ PREACH!

@Emma K@twitter If my living alone at age 30 and above can be referred to be EVERY COUPLED PERSON I KNOW as "being Mary Tyler Moore," I think I should be allowed to refer to people getting married at 25 as playing house.

@paddlepickle Actually 29% of people who get married btw 20-24 get divorced, compared to 24% of 25+. Admittedly, the data is from 2002.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_028.pdf

@andrea disaster
I'm 26 going on 27 and kind of freaking out about how little I have my shit together, but I don't think the fact that my situation might be more the norm these days is reason to condescend to the other folks who might be in a different place.

@WaityKatie If your coupled friends call you Mary Tyler Moore, you need new friends (including coupled! People in couples are not all bad!). Also, are they all in their 50s? I mean, it's cool if they are, but who under 50 makes references to Mary Tyler Moore?

@SarahP People who get married in their 20's and then attempt to live the 1950's suburban housewife lifestyle for a few years, while longingly gazing at the idealized opposite they see as my life, before eventually (inevitably) getting divorced and being single for three seconds before entering another LTR? (I seem to know a lot of these people.) I do have coupled friends who have not said this, I may have been sliiiightly exaggerating before.

@Whitney@twitter It is pretty damn young, but I guess it depends on your situation. Perhaps the "playing house aspect" comes from people heading out of college and going "look at me in the real world with my real job and real house... this must be a real relationship let's get married" when actually they really are only just starting out at making their own way in the world.

If you've been living alone and supporting yourself since you were 18, sure, get married at 25 and I hope it's to someone nice and stable. But a lot of 25 year olds are far from stable, is my point.

@Whitney@twitter I agree. Some of your 25 y.o. pals will get divorced, some won't. Some will have made a good decision to get married at 25, others will have not. The real problem is that the letter writer feels left out/ignored by her friends. That sucks. She should get some new friends or make some specific times to hang out with her lady friends minus their husbands/boyfriends.

@SarahP @WaityKatie Ummm... I may or may not watch episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Hulu at 3 a.m. when I can't sleep (It was a groundbreaking comedy, you guys!). But I'm more of a Rhoda than a Mary, so.

@WaityKatie Ah ha ha ha! I know several of those people. I still don't think they've watched Mary Tyler Moore, though. Maybe that's the first sign things are falling apart?

(I'm 26 and married, by the way, so while I get that we're talking about a specific subset of people, please remember some of us do have our shit together and don't make single people feel like pariahs.)

@andrea disaster I watched the reruns on TV when I was a kid! I always liked Rhoda's clothes better.

@Whitney@twitter Oh totally, and I didn't mean for that to come off condensing if it did. Just in reference to your statement of 25 being young, I think that for most people living in a post-college recession-recovering existence, it is. However, like it was said above, if someone has been on their own since they were 18 or so, their situation might be very different from someone entering that at 22. Or maybe not. It all just depends.

I also think where you live makes a big difference. My former classmates who live in suburbs/rural areas are much more likely to be settled down than those in an urban area.

@Emma K@twitter It is more than a little disheartening to hear that. As a 22 year old, I'm not planning on marrying my beau anytime soon, but i'd like to hear that i'm not being a jerk for enjoying staying in the house and watching netflix. Just because my peers still enjoy going to clubs and getting plastered, doesn't mean I have to. But I think what A Lady was trying to say was that people aren't always self-aware of themselves at that age, and making Big Life Decisions at that age is inevitably going to fail. But, I also believe that no one truly knows exactly what they want at any age, and failure can happen with anything you do.

@andrea disaster Haha, I grew up in a rural place and got married at 22 (and we're very happy many years later, tyvm). We moved to a city some years later and everyone - EVERYONE, every. last. person - looks at us with sad "I'm sorry you're religious" eyes when we mention the age at which we got married. When it comes up that we're not religious, they get evermore confused...

@charizard "I'm sorry you're religious" eyes is the best thing ever.

@WaityKatie @andrea disaster I am joining in to say I was a little taken aback by how anti-25-year-old this Lady is! At almost 25 I'm wondering constantly what I'm all about and what I want, but the condescension just doesn't help. I feel like there's an expectation for me to have an answer to "what I'm doing with/in my life," but at the same time, people also get really condescending and tell me that what I think I know right now probably isn't even true.

Yeah, the variety of levels of experience personally & professionally right after college means that there's a big range in terms of what 25 means. But just being 25 does not automatically mean you will fail at any serious thing you undertake. On top of it, it means you're likely to be at the beginning of at least a few things that are going to be important to you down the line, including maybe a relationship.

What I don't understand is when is this magical age that will be sufficient for people believing me when I tell them where I'm headed or what I think I want.

@chickaboom I don't think the Lady was trying to bash 25 year olds in general, but rather the trend that many mid-20's people follow in friend-groups, where suddenly everyone gets married at the same time. It's like, one year everyone's single (24) and the next year they have all suddenly met their Ones and are engaged (for exactly one year) and then they allll get married. And, 5-7 years later, the lockstep continues when they are all marching to get divorced. There's a reason "the starter marriage" is a thing. It happens a lot.

@WaityKatie Yeah, no, I'm pretty aware of that. I wasn't saying I didn't at all understand where she is coming from (or any jaded-marriage people), but that I felt like this took it a little too far! And then I have some personal feelings about it, so please excuse the rant! I think it's worth talking about this very small window-of-opportunity, though, especially when it comes to marriage. Because we have a collective if somewhat variable idea of the "proper" age to get married or have kids, but it winds up being really stressful for people, and especially women, I think. That's more what I was trying to get at.

@andrea disaster Yes to this. So much of this is so regional. I'm from a very rural place and live in a very large city now. At 25 all my friends from home were getting married and my friends from the city were screaming "aaahhhhh, too young!" Meanwhile my friends from home remained curious through out the rest of my 20s as to why none of my friends from the city were married.

I think a lot of it is cultural expectation, too. (And forgive me if no one else has seen this, this is just how it strikes me.) City-type friends seem to believe that marriage is a thing that happens after you're already stable and established in life. My more rural friends seem to believe that stability and growth can be aided by marriage. There's not a right or a wrong way to look at it but it seems to be pretty different conceptions about what the beginning of a marriage is.

(For the record, all of my friends married in their mid-twenties are still happily so.)

@WaityKatie And also the lady did not say ALL 25 year old spouses were doing this! Just some.

@Whitney@twitter I'm chiming in from the shadows here, to say that it was unpleasant to read this lady's bitterness and cynicism on the topic of marriage. Okay, people get divorced, but can we all agree that it is in bad taste to seem like you're cheering for that outcome?

Also, congrats to y'all for turning 30.

@WaityKatie Also, you're not "playing house" if you're actually, you know, keeping a house. semantics.

@H.E. Ladypants Seriously, I'm totally the old maid in my family (31 and single), but I'm from a small prairie town. My parents for married when they were 21 and 22 (still married after 35 years), my older sister at 20 (11 years) and my younger sister at 21 (5 years). This is not strange where I am from, and no one was like "OMG, you're too young to know anything! See you at the divorce!"

I'm 25, my dude is 24, and we're getting married next year. But we've been living together, "playing house," for the past four years. And by "playing house" I do mean that we've been grocery shopping, working and supporting one another in our work, paying bills, taking care of our dog, handling difficult family situations together, cooking for and with one another, sharing a car and a bank account, and etc.

I realize that I'm kind of defensive about this, but it's pretty shitty to read that this A Lady thinks my single friends are all smugly waiting for the divorce. My single friends are rad, and I can't imagine any of them feeling this way, but thanks for the niggling doubts about whether they're really happy for and confident in my partner and I.

@unfortumissy:
When I was in my mid-twenties, I had many high school, college, and grad school friends getting married for the first time. I don't know if it's much consolation, but as someone who's usually single with no prospects when these big announcements occur, my first thought is to be happy, then think about myself (a la, "They're getting married, yay! I want to get married! Gah, why on earth am I not there yet?!"). Most people won't be quietly rooting for you to fail, especially if they're good family or friends. And those that are? Screw 'em!

The only time I ever heard anyone make the "just wait until they're all divorced" was from my mom when I was preparing for my 10-year high school reunion last year. I'm still single, and I was expressing nervousness about still being unmarried at my age (I'm from the South, they marry young down there!). My mom said this, and I remember being incredibly unsettled by it. Trust me, most single people don't have 'divorce pools' regarding their married friends--congrats on your upcoming marriage!

@TheAnticouth Aghhh thanks for this! I know my loved ones wouldn't really feel that way, and my comment was a knee-jerk reaction to (what I perceived as) A Lady's suggestion that my relationship was make-believe and that I'm bound for divorce. Probably I'm just sensitive, since planning a wedding is nightmarish and I'm up in arms about people doubting my choices.

I live in the South (though, not small-town South), and have been sort of delighted about it, as no one's commented on our being young...not even our families on the East and West coasts (though, I think that's a function of how long we've been together and how independent we've been from our families).

Aw, this entire thread just makes me kind of sad. I know it's society and statistics that X amount of marriages probably end in divorce but at the same time I guess I'm just the person who is always hoping that people will get through the good times and the bad together and be the couples that work out, so to see so many people be the other side of that coin (the "oh just wait for the divorce" types) just kind of bums me out, man.

Also, not for nothing, it's probably pinging me a little hard -- I'm just shy of 28, engaged to be married, and the idea that there are so many people in the world that would just assume we're probably gonna fail real hard at the whole marriage thing kind of sucks.

Though, also a point, in my particular circle of friends and acquaintances I am quite literally the second-to-last one to get engaged and married. Practically everyone gave me a "friggin' finally!" when it happened, and now everyone is harping on the actual-last-one to hurry up and join the club (which I'm sure she seriously hates, as I'm seriously hating the 'finally' comments). Ah, the joys of living in the South...

@Scandyhoovian I don't know, I kind of feel like "wait til the divorce" is kind of what the "finally!" crowd deserves? Like, why do married people get to be bullying and dehumanizing and the rest of us are supposed to just humbly hang our heads and say, "yes, you're right. I suck. Nobody wants me. I have failed at life. Tell me again about how great you are and how much I suck, please." I don't think very many people are rooting for marriages to fail, but...don't dish it out if you can't take it? Just because you're in the majority doesn't give you the right to abuse those who aren't.

@Whitney@twitter I'm pretty sure that she was saying she thinks the "finally" attitude is really sucky. Can we agree that it's shitty to bully single people about single AND to "wait til the divorce?"

@unfortumissy @Whitney@Twitter yeah my general feeling is "why you gotta hate!?" pretty much all around. Whether it's the singles being bullied or the marrieds, I still find it pretty disappointing when I see it. But then again, I'm one of those near-eternal optimists, so...

@Scandyhoovian I agree that both are shitty. I just think that being shitty from the singles' side is sometimes a natural reaction to the bucketloads of shit piled on our heads by every aspect of mainstream society, from the media down to "friends" and acquaintances, about how we are nothing because we aren't in relationships. I don't see anything near that being heaped on married people's heads. It's pretty much all worshipful adoration, actually. But yes, we should all be nice to each other, I can support this.

@hairdresser on fire Go!

@hairdresser on fire Stay in grad school! Working sucks.

@hairdresser on fire If you are unhappy, go, unless you have less than a year. (I feel like that is enough of a sacrifice of unhappy/money unless there are further circumstances?)

@hairdresser on fire Drop out! If you stay in grad school another million years you'll hate your field so much you won't be able to get a job anyways out of rage.

@automaticdoor The situation as it stands: 2-year MA program in small subset of international studies. This is year one. I am fully and wonderfully funded and waiting to find out about next year. Had to move across the country away from boyfriend, family, friends, although I think I'll stay here regardless. I came out here to visit before I accepted admission, and everyone seemed very friendly and welcoming. Then I got here, my advisor locks his door, no professors answer emails, and my cohort is absolutely awful people that I avoid--not to mention I am one of five. Long-distance relationship, which is going astoundingly well but making me sad. Worst of all, whatever I may have loved about what I was doing has been almost irreversibly gone, although I am learning.

Basically here are the things keeping me: possibility of more money (although no guarantee, those assholes). Academic cultural norms=quitting a measly two-year program is complete cowardice and failure. People get dissertations! People universally hate their programs, and you aren't even getting your PhD! Disappointing my wonderful, supportive parents. Disappointing myself. MA being potentially useful to me getting a big girl job.

So ummm.

I've finally made friends in the city and live in a wonderful house, but yeah. All this.

@hairdresser on fire Why do you want to go? Why do you want to stay? Overall, I would say it's probably worth staying, especially if you're more than halfway through. Then the question becomes: "What can I do to make the rest of my time here bearable and even worthwhile?"

For me, this mostly involves a periodic re-examination of the pressures I'm putting on myself and how I choose to spend my time. A trick I use to recalibrate myself is to tell myself, "Okay, I'm definitely going to quit. But first, I'm going to take a week where I don't work very hard, I go to yoga every day, and I stop worrying about how my dissertation is progressing (easy, since I'm never going to finish it anyway!)" Giving myself the freedom to theoretically quit, and thus the freedom to ease up on myself and stop worrying about my progress often invigorates me enough that I can keep going. I feel like lots of graduate students torture themselves with the idea that if they're not giving 110% or #1 in their class they may as well quit, when in fact, you can occasionally give a little less, retreat back from the edge of burnout, and then continue on your merry way.

Of course, there are a million different kinds of graduate programs and this advice may not even be remotely relevant, but there you go.

EDIT: I wrote this while you were responding and it seems about 50% relevant, but anyway...I think you should feel free to go, but my guess is that you'll be a lot happier in your second year. That feeling of hating your subject comes and goes, but I really think learning deeply about something makes you care about it more in the end. Good luck!!

@hairdresser on fire Also oops LW1 killed me because I have more undergrad debt than is humanly possible, because I am stupid. But at least I have an $80,000 anthropology degree and no job prospects?

@Kristen Thanks! :) I'm hoping the funding outcome makes the whole situation a lot easier, and maybe forces me to a decision. And yeah, I'm trying to take it slow; it's just exceptionally frustrating and I'm not sure that the culture of the whole thing is right for me, at least not at this point in my life...hmmm hmm.

@hairdresser on fire I went to an MA program where I met a wonderful friend. She dropped out after the first year (of 2.) Here is a conversation we have often: Me 'something something My Useless Masters Degree' She 'at least you HAVE the degree!'

this is to say: I think she looks back and sees the suffering and the work and nothing to show for it.

@hairdresser on fire @hairdresser on fire I was about to ask basically Kristen's questions, and then I refreshed and saw your response. I say get out! If you're not getting any support from your advisor or professors and not making connections with your peers, you are absolutely not getting what you need from this program. People do not universally hate everything about their programs! People are universally stressed about grad school, true, but in my professional master's program, even when I was super-stressed and crying twice a week and wondering if I was really cut out for the work, I was certain I was in the right place in the long-term. And even my classmates who weren't as sure about that as me had really supportive and knowledgable professors to go to, and people formed some pretty strong friendships. The in-classroom learning stuff is not the most important part of many grad programs, and I'm just guessing about the field of international studies, but I have a feeling that's true there too - the things you're learning in class are things you could learn in other ways. Right now it sounds literally the only value you're going to get from this program is a credential on your resume, and without a meaningful professional network to help you take advantage of that credential, it's not going to be nearly as valuable to you as it should be.

That said, if you're worried about your professional prospects, try and find out if there's an alumni network, or some kind of professional society where you can find people in your prospective field to talk to about job prospects, and the value of a degree vs. a network vs. some other path. I think it's a particularly good idea to find out as much as you can about non-grad-school paths to your intended career. That way you can make a more informed decision about the ultimate value of that credential. For example, a master's degree is not a typical path to my job, usually people start to work in some related role and then gradually move into doing more and more of what I do until they can start marketing themselves for my role as a definite career shift . And so my degree was not as valuable as a couple of years of industry experience when I was job-hunting (plus the economy made employers really shy about taking a risk on someone without years of experience), but I was passionate that this was what I wanted, and I really didn't want to spend years doing something not quite the same with only a possibility of transition. And I have the resources of a strong alumni network to draw on both personally and professionally for the rest of my career, with the support of faculty who are committed to making my program stronger and improving its reputation, which will in turn make my degree more impressive in the future. And now I DO have a job and after another year or two, I'll have the credential AND the experience.

The academic cultural norm should so not be a part of your calculations! Fuck the haters! I swear most of that attitude is a deliberate calculation to keep up the bullshit flow of poorly-paid grad student labor on the part of academics who benefit from it. If you quit you won't see any of them again anyway, and as soon as you've been out working for a few years you don't have to tell anyone that you left a grad program if you don't want to.

Disappointing your parents is another thing, but your parents are not living your life, and I'd hope that if you make it clear that you left because the program was not doing enough for you, and not because you couldn't hack it (you CAN hack it! you could finish this bitch if you wanted to, it's just not worth your time and effort to do so. these clowns are NOT UP TO YOUR STANDARDS!), they'd understand.

Seriously, I'm just so offended by faculty who don't give a shit about their grad students. I know I was lucky in getting a group where they were *all* committed to our success and really worked hard for us, but, nobody? giving you anything? fuck 'em. they don't deserve you.

@hairdresser on fire Grad school is soul-sucking and awful in so many cases (including mine), but keeping your focus on what you want to do after you're done will help you either stick with it, or alternatively decide you don't really want to do that when you're done and leave. There's no shame in leaving a graduate program, really. Your crappy cohort may gossip about it, but the rest of the real world won't know and won't care.
I'm sticking with mine (and mine is one of those awful PhD programs and I've thought about quitting at least a thousand times) solely because it will allow me to do my dream job when I graduate. If that's true for you, too, it might be worth putting blinders on and plowing through assuming you get funded.

Also, possibly a dumb question, but can you transfer? Because that would seem to be a fantastic option if it is available to you.

@hairdresser on fire I would say that if your education is fully or mostly being paid for by someone else and you have one year left, try to stick it out. It will be great to have that degree and no (or little) additional debt. I was in a similar situation and while I would not want to have to go back and re-live those two years, I'm glad I got my masters. However, a large part of that is because I had a full-tuition fellowship. I know I would feel really differently if I were in debt because of it.

@hairdresser on fire
IF (a) you get funding and (b) having a master's will actually help you get a job, stick with it.

I feel like my master's is actually making it harder for me to get a job because I'm overqualified and no one wants to pay me what I'm "worth" (I am totally OK with not making what I'm "worth" if it means having a job, but I am applying for academic research assistant positions and apparently they can't get around paying you based on your education / experience, and people who are running on grants don't want to pay more than they have to, understandably). I am also cynical because I've been out of work for 6 months and I have a freakin' master's from a highly-ranked state university, so I am not entirely objective.

I dropped out of medical school 2 years ago, and even though I regret it every time I look at my bank account, I am convinced I would have been miserable as a doctor. I actually liked going to class and would have stayed except that I thought residency would kill me because I hated clinicals. So maybe, if you think you're going to like your career path after you graduate, stay? I do find that you need to be able to make a good argument for why you dropped out. I am applying to PhD programs now (yeah, I know, I'm trying not to think about the wisdom of this decision as long as I get a stipend) and I feel like the burden is on me to prove that I'm not going to drop out of this like I did med school.

Not that any of that helps make a decision, but that's been my experience of dropping out.

@hairdresser on fire Ugh! What a super hard decision. I dropped out of a two-year graduate program, worked in marketing for a year, then got a PhD in a related, but different field from my first grad program. Now, I'm working in a yet another profession completely. Life, it's crazy.

The main reason I left the first program - aside from the Hate! - was that I didn't think it would lead anywhere I wanted to go. So, definitely think about what you could do with the degree you are getting - maybe look at what alumni of your program are doing, for example - and think about whether those jobs would make you happy.

Also, definitely consider the funding side of things. If you get funding, it's probably worth sticking it out. The degree could help you get a job down the road. It could also save you from having to explain to future employers (and everyone else you meet) why you quit. Which, isn't that bad? But can get tiresome.

If you don't get funding, that makes the decision to me somewhat easier - to go into debt for the degree, you'll really have to want the job at the other end. That's definitely why I quit my first program - I didn't want it badly enough to go into debt. But I finished my PhD because I managed to stay funded all the way through.

Now, I'm a freelance writer. So, right.

@hairdresser on fire Hey, I been there - especially with the academic cultural norms thing - so if you want to chat some, email me (this name @gmail). But here's the thing about leaving a program that isn't a good fit: NO ONE in academia will judge you because you decided it wasn't a good fit. We all understand that sometimes things just aren't what you expect, and we also realize it takes a lot of guts and courage to say, "No, this isn't what I want," and then walk away. If you can finish the year so you have a coherent year 1 of coursework you can transfer to another program, then great; if you're so fed up now that you don't think you can, that's fine, too. Nearly all of us have a similar story; I had a mutual parting of the ways with my first Ph.D. program wherein I said, "Yeah, I don't want to stay here" and they said, "Yeah, we don't want you anyway," so I left with an MA that got me into the oldest, best program in my field and I got my Ph.D. there instead. So.

Anyone in academia who does judge you for deciding you're not in the right place will get what's coming to them. (No, really.)

@plonk I don't know how to do this either, but one of my friends makes new girlfriends at the gym pretty easily. (Classes at the gym, I think...classes that start at 5:45am or some demented thing.) So there's that...which will never happen to me.

@plonk I vote Pinups, apparently. And then you have to ask prospective friends out like you are dating.

@plonk Dance classes. Usually it's gender-segregated (girls on the left, boys on the right!) so you get to hang out with girls while dancing with the guys, and usually there's a core group of people who go every week, so you get to know each other over the course of the class. I met many for-real friends this way, and also some boyfriends!

@plonk What do you like to do? Can you make that hobby social somehow? I know Meetup works for some people but I've always found it to be a mess.

I started going to a lot of events/etc. related to my interests and volunteered at a few of them. And then people got used to seeing me around and we all started talking more. And then talking led to hanging out outside of these events.

Think of it in the same way as you'd network professionally. Except this is for fun, so it's better and much less pressure.

@plonk Dude, like everyone's been saying, the secret is: You kind of have to be a joiner, at least for a while. And sometimes you have to be ready to be kind of corny.

After my first miserable, lonely year in Seattle, I joined a kickball team, and through luck or magic or something, it turned out to be a team full of lonely transplants, and from there we formed the basis of this giant, ridiculous group of friends. We were just getting weepy at a party this weekend talking about how much we luvvvv each other: they're the kind of friends who, no matter what event you're throwing, they just show up. No matter what your lame idea for your birthday party is, you know you will have at least 10-12 people there, because we travel in a big, loud, drunk (slightly codependent but hey) pack.

Annnnnyhoodle, I'm so glad I found them, and all it took was, well, being a giant cornball and joining something silly like a kickball team. So, yeah. If you love to read, join a book club; if you love to run, join a running group; if you love to drink and run around outside, join a kickball team. :)

OR you could just move to Seattle and we'll absorb you into our group right quick. :)

@plonk Are you into a specific kind of music and in a decently sized city? Get into the scene. 'Friend' clubs on facebook and show up and start dancing. Make friends with other girls, you can start by chit chatting at the bars and the more events you go to the more random chatter relationships you can develop. Go to house parties around these scenes.

True story works for me. If music isn't quite your thing, then book readings. Museum shows/galleries.

Basically I'm just saying... find something that you're passionate about that has a social aspect to it, and lurk in that social aspect until you feel comfortable interacting with the other enthusiasts of the same scene.

@Lily Rowan It's TRUE, it's just like dating - you have to put yourself out there and pretend to be a totally different person, the kind of person who just says "Hey, we should get some coffee!" to a mostly-stranger, like, "hey, it's no big deal, I'm so great and relaxed I just assume people would want to make some time in their schedule to drink coffee and chat, because I am just that amazing and fun!" (That is: if you really ARE a person who can ask out strangers easily, who isn't convinced that everyone in the world already HAS too many friends and doesn't want any more, especially you, then you already probably have plenty of friends.) Somehow, this is worse than when asking out potential sex partners/LOVAHS, perhaps it doesn't involve judgement-clouding horniness in any way.

@plonk Yea, people above are right...being a joiner is definitely one way to get at it. I was never a joiner, but then I joined a roller derby league and made the best friends ever. Teams or groups are perfect for finding friends.

@Lily Rowan That's where I freeze up! I feel like I meet cool people often enough, but I'm too scared to ask them out for friendship.

@SarahP Well you have already asked people out/been asked out "for friendship"! And I hear Jacques Cabaret is great, so maybe our next burlesque field trip will be to there.

@plonk Bars, coffee shops, shop owners, bartenders, bandmates (hey, punks started out not knowing how to play their instruments either), arts groups, book clubs at the local shop, craft circles... I could go on? Just involve yourself in something (anything, but preferably something you're actually interested in; dovetailing interests, etc), be outgoing and a little brave and the friends will come to you.

@beeline96 I'm working on it! It's scary every time.

@plonk Classes in something you're interested in. Or a part time job, waitressing being the easiest of social settings. Shift drinks!

@plonk Second the dance classes idea! I started swing dancing and have made a ton of new friends that way. Dancing is one of those activities that really breeds a sense of community. Bonus: my legs/ass are getting super toned! dancing > going to the gym.

@plonk if you enjoy any kind of sport at all, I vote for ZogSports, NYC Social, etc. - I signed up for an "ultra-casual" dodgeball league when I was feeling especially lonely, and though we all sucked royally at dodgeball, it was so much fun. It's a great way to meet people, because much of the focus is on the post-game drinking, rather than the athletic prowess (or lack thereof).

@plonk I have a kind of similar story but my weird activity was dodgeball. It also turned me into a person that kind of likes to play sports for fun. This was not a thing I did before trying dodgeball. Anyway my social circle and life totally expanded after this. It’s how I met my sister from another mister and how I my met my manpanion. The club I played with is a Sport and Social club so the whole premise is to play some sports and make some friends. Again I totally wasn’t a sporty person so don’t feel like that is a requirement to try out something like this. I started as an awkward non-athletic person and now I am an ass-kicking sporty person! I am mostly only good at dodgeball, but it’s kind of given me the confidence to go and play flag football, and soccer, and beach volleyball and kickball. I honestly think if I wouldn’t have started it I would still be hanging out only with the friends I had in high school. I still love those friends dearly, but lives drift apart so we don’t have the time to see each other as much so a wider social circle is awesome!

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I endorse joining a team/group and encourage post-activity drinks/food with them after. I find that’s where most of the bonding/friend making happens and it’s easier to be like “hey everyone lets all get drinks” than to ask someone out for a friend-date. Also, it has been suggested to pick something you are passionate about, but that doesn’t exactly have to be what it is. I didn’t really have something in my life that I was super interested in, but it mostly just has to be something you are notionally open to trying out and having fun with. Maybe it turns into something that’s great and you become passionate or maybe it’s just something do to on Tuesdays, but be open to trying things that are not exactly in your comfort zone.

@plonk
BECOME A REGULAR. Literally anywhere. Pick the nearest bar to you and start going for a drink every Tuesday (or whatever night works for you). Same for your local coffee shop. When you start seeing the same people over and over, say "hey! I think I saw you here last week, you must love this place as much as I do".

If you're not the kind of person for whom small talk comes easily, keep a mental list of questions that you can whip out at any time. (Do you live in the area? How long have you lived in [your city]? Oh my gosh, I love [whatever city they came from]! Alternately: Oh you've been here a long time- you have to tell me what your favorite restaurant is! etc etc)

That said, I think the absolute best way to meet people is as everyone else has said- join a sports group. Start going to the same class every week at your gym (step 1: join a gym). Dodgeball/kickball/softball/whatever sport tickles your fancy. There is something about endorphins that makes it easier to talk to people. And everyone is in a good mood when they're playing a game or dancing or finishing a workout. Plus it's the perfect setting to suggest the team or class or group grab a drink or dinner.

@plonk Dungeons and Dragons...

...actually I am totally serious. Tabletop RPGs are great because they are a commitment to get together and be creative and silly with a group of people every week for a reasonable period of time. By the nature of the thing you have to talk to each other and with that sort of creative interaction, people tend to open up pretty quickly. Furthermore, people are always forming groups and looking for other people to play with. I've met some awesome nerds this way.

(This may not work if you're not a nerd. But it's worth trying!)

@H.E. Ladypants I second the D&D vote. But if that seems too intense, there's also table top gaming. Walk into any game store on a Saturday night and you'll find a bunch of cheerful, kind, friendly dorks who will GLADLY explain the rules to you. And if it's a collectable card game, don't worry, they will lend you their secondary deck.

Game nerds are seriously the least judgmental and most welcoming people I've ever met. And if you're shy, you don't even have to talk about anything except to ask whether summoning a dragon counts as a magical or physical attack mode.

@plonk and @everyone else: Seconding the question - how do you ask someone out for a potential friend date? "Hey, do you want to go for a drink sometime? BTW, I'm not hitting on you." seems kind of awkwardsauce.

Plus, being a joiner - more suggestions please - particularly in NYC. I'm so not sporty (in a serious way, I have bad knees and can't run at all plus have no interest in team sports which seem to bond a lot of people) I've taken some language classes but people seem to be there to learn instead of socialize - bah! Plus, I'm so busy at work it's hard to find time to join a ton of things, so I'd like to get a lot of bang for my buck so to speak.

@Kris10 Improv classes. I have met the coolest, smartest, funniest people through improv classes. Plus they help make you less shy in life. Plus it's easy to ask for a hangout. You have to see two shows, so you ask your classmates if they're going to a show this week.
This works for any kind of class you want to take. If it's an art class, go to a museum. It doesn't have to be awkward, just and "I'm/we're doing this. Want to come?" I know it's hard if you're a shy person, but even if they can't make it, it's not the end of the world.
Also, weed is the great unifier. ;)

@quickdrawkiddo YES! LW #2 come join our club. I made us these really awesome matching jackets.

@quickdrawkiddo Can't complain at single and 34. LW2, you don't have to give up the couple friends. Get used to being a third wheel. After the initial schmoopsie phase, your friends will calm down on the PDAs. But find some single friends too. It's all good.

@Slapfight Totally! You figure out pretty quickly which couples are going to be all barfy and PDA all the time and which ones are actually MORE fun to hang out with together than separately. Definitely no need to sever ties with either group (but I avoid the PDA group when I'm eating). But I really don't know what I'd do without other single folks like my roommate, who's 15 years older than me and still rocking the single life. Everybody's got their own path and stuff, but you need at least one or two people who REALLY know where you're coming from.

@quickdrawkiddo Ha, meanwhile I was reading her advice and thinking noooo,I need more specifics! I'm 33 and in the same single, surrounded by couples situation. And hey, I have made a lot of good friends via the interwebs - but nearly all of them are in different states from mine, and none are in my city. I'm really good at going places alone, but I'd still like more friendly, non-third wheel options.

@Kate Kane It might sound overly simplistic, but what seems to work for me is saying yes to basically every social engagement I get invited to. I've gone to parties where I knew literally no one but the host, and it's nerve-wracking the first couple of times, but that's also how I met some of my closest friends. Plus it's one of those things that if you can work up the nerve to do it once, you feel like such a rock star that you want to do it again. Or maybe that's just me! Obviously not everyone you meet is going to be someone you immediately start hanging out with all the time, but it's still a good way to increase the quantity of awesome people in your life, and some of them are bound to be hangout buddy material.

@quickdrawkiddo I hear you. Say yes to everything. I met one of my closest friends waiting in line for a show. You just got to be willing to talk to people.

@Megoon Yeah, if your friends only want to hang out As Couples all the time, I vote they are lame. I'm the friend who has (generally) been single through all of my friend's couplings and uncouplings, and it's fine, because we do Girls' Night Out or whatever along with coed time.

@Lily Rowan i never have done such structured hangouts? it's usually just "invite a bunch of people to my apartment/a bar" and it's a mix of single people and couples. sometimes i go out with my boyfriend, sometimes we have conflicting plans. it's baffling me to only hang out with other couples...i want to hang out with my FRENDZ, whoever they are.

@Megoon Just have to be clear that it is an "individuals only" Thing. I was the single girl surrounded by a lot of long-term relationshippers for a long time, and they don't always get that when you want a hangout you mean the singular "you".

@Megoon This is such good advice. I'm married but really, really dislike the couples-based friendship dynamic. (I'm not knocking them in general as some folks love them, but the couples thing has never really worked for my husband and me.) The one-on-one thing is really a magic way around the couples thing.

@Megoon Yes! The one thing I really wanted to add to A Lady's advice to the single chick was More Girls Nights Out! Sounds corny, but there is noooo reason your friends in relationships should be unable to ditch their significant others for a night out on a semi-regular basis.

@gravie Oh my god, my best friend from high school did this all the time. I would come into town for like two days and say "let's go for lunch!" and she would show up with her bf (now husband). And he's great and all, but every single time. Sometimes you just want some old-friends talk!

@phlox That's so annoying. Also, mean to the BF. Does he really want to listen to us squee about omg did-you-hear-that-thing-about-person-he's-never-heard-of?

@phlox One of my friends now does the "oh is it cool if Mr. Friend joins us?" occasionally. Always after we've made the plans. Usually about 30 minutes before said plans start. My inner voice says NO, I DON'T WANT TO BE THE THIRD WHEEL! ARGH! but I say "no problem" anyway. I mean, I genuinely like the guy, and I know he came in from out of town/they don't see each other often blah blah blah, but I still don't like it.

@Megoon Generally my rule of thumb is: if there are going to be other dudes there (be they male friends, boyfriends, etc.), I'll invite my dude along. If there are not going to be other dudes there, I don't, and vice versa for me hanging out with his friends. This seems to work out pretty well for everyone involved.

@gravie I don't know if people are still reading this thread, but I need help on this front. One of my main friend circles is made up of a bunch of girls and one gay guy. We'll all been friends for a long time, get along fabulously, live in the same city, have shared histories together, and everything's great. BUT, for the last while the guy in the group has been seeing someone and now any time we all hang out, he'll bring his Mr along. It wouldn't really be a problem - we all love our friend and want him to be happy - except it is: his boyfriend is extremely childish (to the point where it seems like one of us has been made babysit a much-younger brother for the evening), unwittingly insulting and generally a drag to be around. Nobody has said anything to our friend, because we don't want to sound mean - I don't think the boyfriend has many friends of his own, so we've become his adopted friend group. I also think there's an undercurrent of worrying about coming across as homophobic, which is ridiculous, but some of us wonder whether the boyfriend might read it as that. I'm torn between doing what I've been doing for the last few months - sucking it up and not saying anything - or sitting down with my friend and asking him if it would be possible to spend some time with him on his own again.

@Megoon That IS tough. Maybe ask to hang out "just the two of you"- not your whole group. Then if he brings his Mr. you can make an "Oh, third wheel" joke? Maybe he'd take the hint then? I don't know if there's a way to say "All of us want to hang out with you without your dude" without him being hurt (and if you find a way, PLEASE tell me).
Or maybe the next time the boyfriend says something childish/rude/whatever call him out on it. If your friend sees his boyfriend being a shit (and realizes that it's actually shity friend behaviour) he might be more into the idea of hanging out sans-boyfriend.
You could be sneaky and try to schedule things when you know the Mr. is working/busy, but your friend would probably resent it when he figured it out.

Gah. Friendships are hard.

@madge oh hey, I like this advice. I was trying to figure out whether he really was an unemployable dead weight, but what matters is that that's what she sees him as. You're smart.

@madge Thank you! There's been so much vitriol spilled over this letter, it's nice to have a different perspective. This letter writer is exactly like my sister. She was always the responsible one in my family. She took care of me when I was young, took care of my parents, took care of her first husband, took care of her kids, took care of her second husband...
Now she's so angry all the time. She gets her sense of self by being "the responsible one" but she also resents being the responsible one. I try to tell her that she doesn't have to do it anymore, that she can do whatever she wants now and just enjoy her life, and she agrees...but then it's right back to paying for my mom's cataracts surgery, getting my dad a job, etc.
I feel a lot of sympathy for this letter writer. This is fucked up and complicated emotional territory.

@lottelydia Whyyyyy is everyone getting married? Don't they know the kind of pressure it puts on those of us who just want to have some fun and sex with someone they like but not make a big deal out of it? Such spoilsports. I don't understand! If you're 25, you can expect to live at least twice as long again--how can you decide who you want to be with for twice as long as your entire life so far? My brain can't even compute how long that length of time would feel, let alone how I would respond to all the things that could happen and all the people I could meet during.

@lottelydia I'm curious as to how many people who get married young (early 20's or younger) come from families with divorced parents.

My anecdotal thought process: I come from the divorced parents camp and KNOW that I will not get married in my 20s (I'm 24). I'm one of few people I know whose parents are not still together (my boyfriend's parents are divorced and he has similar views on marriage...but I don't know if he necessarily counts). Every one of my friends who have gotten married or engaged or are talking about how much they'd like to do both come from still-married families.

@glitterary "Don't they know the kind of pressure it puts on those of us who just want to have some fun and sex with someone they like but not make a big deal out of it?"
I volley between Team Big Deal and Team Fun & Sex. Right now I'm Team F&S and other team players get it, but Team BD is kind of horrified. I think it's because many of them played for Team F&S for a few years while I was, er, completely out of the game.

@beeline96 Oh man, team Fun & Sex is brilliant. I feel like I didn't do any of that when everyone was doing it as a teenager, and now I need to catch up? And the chap I'm seeing now is delicious and fun but I can't think of timescales or it being potentially long-term because I would run screaming for the hills at the thought of committing to *anybody* at this stage in my life. I'd love to join team Big Deal at some point, but not now. Not for a long long time. Like, a decade.

@gravie Oh definitely. I think there is this expectation that if you have divorced parents, your attitude to marriage is different - people have told me that's why I'm not massively into the idea. But there is little recognition that actually if your parents are still happily married, that means your perspective is just as skewed, just in a different direction.

@gravie My parents went through a horrifically messy divorce in the year before I got married. I know what led to their failure and I'm determined not to let myself play their games (the Cold Shoulder or perhaps the Wall Punch), even if that's all I know based on my upbringing.

@lottelydia And if your parents are unhappily married...well, you still have your piles of student loan debt to shelter in (sob).

@gravie My parents are still together in spite of alcoholism, violence and lots of enabling manipulative stuff from both sides. As a direct result of this I got married at 19. (My father tried to strangle me and my mother thought marriage was a good way to get me out of the house). My husband was unfaithful for the first time (that I know of) when we had been married 5 weeks. I stayed FOR ALMOST 20 YEARS because he didn't hit me so I thought I was doing ok. Also because he convinced me (and my mother helped) that I was fat useless ugly and would never survive on my own.
Marriage at at young age can be as much to escape a bad situation as for romantic reasons. People have different expectations of marriage which comes (largely) from their experience of life beforehand. If you have a crap life beforehand you are probably not going to be equipped to make a good decision. But the passage of time evens things out and hopefully brings wisdom and tolerance!

@glitterary All of my friends are getting married/moving in together and pushing for it to happen with me and my girlfriend (sorry, pushing for 'Commitment Ceremonies' which would just be depressing because the whole day I'd have 'THIS DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING, YOU'RE NOT REALLY HUMAN!' running through my mind).
But ugh. Yeah. My fellow-coupled-friends just like making jokes about me and my gf being 'scared of commitment' and 'put a ring on it already' which always sends me running to hang out with my single friends who DGAF.

@rucifie Exactly. I mean, LW1 sounds like a bitch. The "I'm the sole breadwinner" hand-wringing while her man is paying half the mortgage indicates a fair amount of bullshit, and I'm betting that what's going on is that dude went to law school, dude is raking in about $40K/year doing a non-fancy non-law job while dutifully paying back his loans, and she expected to be married to a white-shoe firm attorney making bank. So generally, shallow bullshit.

But I think you voice a different concern, one that isn't fueled by greed or prestige, but the burdens of being with people whose career ambitions do not match yours, and the tension that can create. I've been there. I left a Serious Relationship because my lovely ex was just never going to get it together in the way I wanted her to, and I didn't want to be the breadwinner -- financially, I did not feel comfortable with it. And that's okay.

@rucifie Yes! "Rumplestiltskin grad school" is now my 2nd favorite phrase (#1 is "Frankenstein machine," encountered here).

@S. Elizabeth This is not about you. Calm down.

@S. Elizabeth Go to acupuncture! It helped me tremendously with my back problems, and I was skeptical.

(I agree with everything else you say, obviously).

@S. Elizabeth I wonder if Eli is into guys? He would totally support LW1's fiance through his job search.

@S. Elizabeth i'm a law student, and who wants to be a lawyer's wife?! i can't even believe my boyfriend wants to be a lawyer's boyfriend. because i am so relieved he is not a lawyer too.

@blahstudent I know quite a few female law students who came to law school to find a husband. Ughhhh.

@S. Elizabeth There were quite a few law school couples in my class, too. Gross. I can't think of a less sexy place than a law school. It had lockers, for god's sake. Lockers.

@Leon Tchotchke

He's probably on the prowl for panty-stealing in-laws of various stripes.

@atipofthehat I foresee a future in which Dear Prudence answers questions ONLY about theft of undergarments by relatives.

@Jaya For real, what was with the PDA? Are her friends 15? Who does that?

@Al Cracka In their defense, if they don't make out, how will everyone in the cafeteria know they've made out before?

@Jaya Word. One of my boyfriend's single friends hangs out with us regularly and it's never a third wheel thing. If anything, we're more attentive to the single person because they are new and interesting and we hear each other talk all the time.

Though we are young enough that we're still hoping single person will get laid someday soon, not worried about settling down.

@mackymoo Agreed! I will sometimes arrive at a bar after my boyfriend, and people will be like, oh let me move so you can sit next to him, and I am like, um, no? I live with him, I don't need to sit next to him every second! I'd rather talk to the people I see once a week right now!

@Hellcat

Also, he should talk to a good bankruptcy lawyer. In some cases, a fresh start is the only healthy option.

@Hellcat This! But also, there's absolutely no way to predict what the future might hold for someone, earnings-wise, so it's kind of ridiculous to say they're DOOMED FOREVER TO POORDOM AND HELPLESSNESS! When I met my now-wife, I had a truly useless liberal arts degree and was working part-time at a bookstore. These days, not so much. The first couple years out of college are a morass of low-pay and unemployment more often than not but, you know, that tends to go away.

@Leon Tchotchke And maybe... he, right now, is writing to some other advice column about whether he should get rid of his pessimistic, naysaying Eeyore of a fiancee before she cramps his style forever and ever.

And whoo-hoo! Unfinished liberal arts degree here (lit concentration) and former bookstore employee!

@Hellcat I am always confused by letters that start off 'He's my best friend and I love him' and end with 'I am completely incapable of discussing a serious issue with him'. If there's a serious issue like this between me and my best friend I wouldn't be able to stop myself from word-vomiting all my thoughts and feelings about it to him on a daily basis. Yet these people don't seem to be discussing it honestly at all.

@atipofthehat Can't discharge student loans in bankruptcy. Take that, educated snobs!

@paddlepickle Maybe he's her best friend because she doesn't have any other friends?

@Hellcat It depends on the situation. I had a friend who was very much in love with her husband, but he lost his way, stopped working, stopped contributing, started gambling (over 2 years of this) and she finally had to divorce him because she needed to protect the house and their son (she paid off his gambling debts before they could take the house). It was a gut wrenching, horrible decision for her to make, but he gave her no choice. And, of course, after the divorce, he sorted himself out, but by then it was too late. So, it is possible that the situation is so dire that LW1 has no choice but to leave him and is only expressing her anger in the letter rather than how she really feels about him. Some things you just can't recover from, especially if only one party is trying.

@WaityKatie UGH, YUP, sadly. And you can thank Sen. Chuck Grassley and the other fine champions of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_and_Consumer_Protection_Act for that delightful change back in 2005!

@Bambi Oh, of course--I agree with you. But she doesn't say that he's not even bothering to try to find work, or that he is doing anything actively destructive to their relationship, financially or otherwise. For all we know, he stays home all day cleaning and repairing stuff around the house and making delicious things for her to eat when she gets home.

To me, it kinda sounds like maybe he's getting in the way of some life goal master plan to have Such and Such a Life by a certain date/age? I don't know. But my own BF is not the breadwinner type either (at this point, and maybe not ever), but I'm 41 years old (you whippersnappers, you!) and meeting him three years ago was the best thing ever. The way I see it, I make the same money whether he's around or not; if I have to share it sometimes so that he can be around, so be it (unless, of course, he turns into some mean-ass ingrate who uses up all my skin products and eats my various cheeses without appreciating it).

@WaityKatie

I know, but you can discharge everything else, which can be a help. And there are various ways at least to stop the clock on student loans.

And...there is also the nuclear option of simply not paying the loans off any longer. If you are under a burden that you can no longer bear, simply walk away. You'll have to live on a cash basis, but that isn't impossible! Credit has done a lot more harm in recent years than cash has.

@Threein3 THANK YOU. I get that it's not the right thing for some, but I got married at 23, and we just celebrated our 12th anniversary. Hell yes, we had to do some hard growing in our 20s, but we did it together.

@Threein3 Thanks, for this, guys! Sometimes the Hairpin (and other internet communities of smart ladies) make me feel like an asshole for getting married young... or like it's impossible to be a smart, successful, career-oriented lady AND get married before 25 because if you get married young you must be a dummy and headed for divorce soon.

@Threein3 Hell yeah, you guys!

Seriously. Any advice? We're young and stupid and have a few years of relative peace left before the more lively life of Looking for Someone to Employ an Obscure Humanities PhD.

@VolcanoMouse We're young and stupid too! I'm dropping out of my grad program soon, losing my loans in the process, so we're young, stupid, AND broke! I kind of thought I had everything figured out in terms of career but now I realize that I'm like every other 23 year old and have noting figured out at all, but I'm so glad to have my best buddy here with me through all this early twenties craziness. It's like we're on a big terrifying adventure of growing up together, but at least at the end of the day we have each other.

@this whole thread OH THANK GOD. I am right there with you lovely lovely people, except not married yet. We're young and stupid and the odds are against us, fuck it!

@YoungMonogamists I re-read this every time I need validation of my life choices.

@oodelally That is amazing, thank you for posting it! (APW is pretty much always awesome. I just sent a recently-engaged friend of mine the APW book, and am planning on doing so with all of my friends as they get engaged, at whatever age makes them happy.)

@oodelally A Practical Wedding is one of the sanest (the only sane?) wedding-related anythings out there, man, but I hadn't seen this! Excellent stuff.

@VolcanoMouse Aaah, someone else doing an Obscure Humanities PhD!

@bonnbee Oh you guys I want to be like you and have my best friend by my side for the rest of my 20s (I have 5.5 years left!). I am semi-fake bitter about some* early 20s marriages because secretly I just also want to be married (mostly the one of the boy I meant to be married to by now who got married 3 years after we broke up our 3 year relationship, sad face). This is NOT the rule, probably the exception in fact, but you guys keep living the dream okay? Bring the young-people divorce rates down! I want to believe in love!

@antilamentation yes, of course. but that conversation would require LW1 to see her man as an equal, an adult capable of contributing in some way. and she doesn't see him that way at all. it sounds like the well is poisoned.

@madge It's true, I don't get any sense from her letter of her wanting to work on the relationship. More her feeling guilty for wanting to break it off, than her thinking about how to try and address her issues or her fears together with him. It may well be that she's long given up on seeing him as an equal. Either way, she's certainly not giving him a chance to allay those fears. I think the guy would benefit from getting a more honest sense of where he stands with her, because I can't imagine many people would be happy staying engaged to someone who is only hanging around with them out of guilt.

@RK Fire I always ask my single friends to tell me about their dates/hookups! I fist bump, though, not high five.

@RK Fire I wish I knew more married ladies like you! Because every one of my committed-relationship lady friends have that condescending "Oh...hmmm...." thing down pat, and they go "So, do you think this might be the One?" and then when I break up they go "Don't worry! You'll find someone! And it'll be just when you're not looking!"

Be my friend instead, please.

@RK Fire *high five*

@The Lady of Shalott OMG, seriously? Your friends sound terrible, sorry.

SORRY LADIES (AND DUDES) WITH TERRIBLE FRIENDS. I mean, I've always known my friends were awesome, but I didn't realize how many people have terrible friends until recently.

@Lily Rowan I should be more specific! For my Master's program I chose to move 700km away from all my friends, and as a result I'm forced to socialize mostly with people in my program, many of whom I dislike. So I keep saying "friends" rather than "people in my social group" but I shouldn't because my REAL friends are wicked awesome and would never say that!

But "people I know and I socialize with" is so cumbersome to say!

@RK Fire i am always trying to get my BFF to go on more dates with more dudes, cause she has a habit of assuming each one is The One until they prove to her (usually quite emphatically) that they are not. i'm trying to get her to do it the other way round, old almost-married lady that i am ...

@The Lady of Shalott "The terrible people I'm hanging out with right now"?

@SarahP: In hindsight, I don't really high five my friends either, I just drink beer or gin and giggle a lot. But in my mind, that is a high five.

@The Lady of Shalott: I would love to be friends in real life but I'm outside of Washington DC. :( Your social group sounds like no fun though, or at least tone deaf re. singleness.

@beeline96: *toasts beer/gin/drink of choice*

@madge: Ah, that is totally different kettle of fish. Honestly, my closest friends are either already coupled or emphatically single, so I don't have much conversation with women who are searching for The One. Dudes, on the other hand.. I do have a couple of dude friends who were making the "Forever Alone" face every chance they got.

@RK Fire
I get irritated when my friends get serious with someone because it means an end to the stories about dating mishaps!

@P.S. Please don't hate me Nothing quite takes the sting out of a dating mishap like having all your married friends champing at the bit for a story about it, the more horrible the better.

@RK Fire Whyyyyy do people have terrible friends? It makes me so sad!
@The Lady of Shalott "These assholes I'm temporarily around," perhaps?

@RK Fire I know, right? I'm single, I've got single friends and married/coupled friends and we all hang out and we all talk about our adventures, whether they be about our dates or our partners. It's just about being good friends! Marital status doesn't mean shit. I think LW1 is thinking about this a bit too much? Why not:
*ask your coupled friends how it's going
*tell your coupled friends how it's going

@The Lady of Shalott "Your cohort".

@RK Fire SO TRUE! I was the single friend that went on horrible dates and amused all of my married/cohabiting/LTR friends with my ever-so-slightly-dramatic re-enactments. At one point I was in the middle of a story about how I went out on 3 days with a guy I'm 90% certain was gay (but living deep in his organized-by-colour-and-event walk-in closet (not kidding about his organizational habits)(or the size of his closet)), and my friend stopped me and said, "Packedsuitcase, I'm so happy these things happen to you because you're the only friend I have who can appreciate how ridiculous this stuff is while you're in the middle of it." It's fun to be that friend. Now I have to figure out how to tell entertaining stories about being in a(n? not sure what is correct grammatically) LDR.

@isavedlatin If I were faced with getting judged and ripped apart, I'd want some emotional support by my side.

@isavedlatin Amen. Just admit that your close friend's wedding is getting in the way of an important evening of babbling pet names and playing footsie at home. I'm sure they'll understand.

@SarahP I'm just saying, I'm a big believer in being able to go to things alone. Or maybe a dingo ate your baby, who knows.

@isavedlatin Sure, but she's not saying "I'm completely unable to attend anything by myself," she's saying that she wouldn't go to this wedding without her partner.

@Nutellaface i'm having an oddly visceral reaction to everyone being so mad at LW1. i see that her brain is all screwed up here, but i also have a lot of sympathy for her. it's a crushing weight to feel like you are the only one in your whole family who is capable of dealing with life in any reasonable way and everyone else just kind of stands around waiting for someone to fix things.

but yeah, i may be reading into this a bit ...

@Too Much Internet Isn't that basically the only reason people write in? When they haven't made up their mind one way or the other, they're simply looking for the columnist to tell them how they can have their cake and eat it too.

@Too Much Internet Okay, but also, would you really write to someone you don't know in regards to something you are completely undecided on? And if you are totally ambivalent about something, what would the point be, anyway. You'd just do whatever your boyfriend or mom wanted you to do.

Which is to say that I think, generally, people write in to advice columns when they know what they want to do but want to make sure they have not lost their mind/are completely off base.

@rocknrollunicorn: Making yourself vulnerable to potentially unexpected or unwanted advice is part of the maturity of asking others their opinion or counsel. If you stack the deck by bending the details or letting your own bias into the question, you influence the answer you will get from the other party.

@Too Much Internet Wait, that is a completely different accusation than saying they have their minds made up and are looking for reinforcement. It's possible to be strongly leaning in one direction, yet still write a (mostly, I mean we are human) unbiased account of the issue.

Personally I would never write to a stranger about something I had no real opinion on; I'd go to a friend. I'd say advice columns are for those things you already feel strongly about, and so need an objective opinion outside your life. Like the kind your sister probably would be unable to deliver, being too close.

@paddlepickle SOLD!

@paddlepickle Okay, that is a great idea but we need levels of behavior and response, because it's often a little grayer than we'd like it to be. Like Defcons.

Defcon one: certain proof of infidelity or murder or whatever other terrible thing

Two: It looks pretty bad, like you saw a text that was all "Thanks for last night it was soooo hot! Don't tell your wife!" but, I mean, technically he could have enlisted his aunt to help scope out a sauna in order to surprise her for her birthday

Three: You just kindof in general think he's an asshole.

Issues like this are, like, ALWAYS level two for me, which is why they're hard.

My own answers, in case you all have need of them, which would be pretty weird because you don't even know me: no, no, yes.

@paddlepickle This is a great idea! Can someone less lazy than I draft up a little document so I can email it out to all my friends?!

@lil_bobbytables Plato perhaps said it even better, or maybe not:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

I think probably Jesus said something like this too.

Amazingly hard advice to follow! Maybe the hardest!!!!!! (see: all world problems)

@dracula's ghost My favorite quote on this topic is Vonnegut: "Goddamnit, babies, you've got to be kind."