Category: Advice

“Dear Dr. Kim”

Advice

“Dear Dr. Kim,
“My girlfriend has just returned from a hen week with three love bites and two new tattoos.  She pouts she got drunk a lot and can’t remember what went on.  She assumes that we can simply carry on as usual, but how dare she treat me like this?”

— Puzzled, UK

Dear Puzzled:

Let me get something off my chest, first.  When the hell did a hen party night turn into a hen party week?  WTF?  Does anyone (other than the Party Girrllzzz Set) think that any good will come out of this?  Oh sure, a mob of drunken women, unrestrained by morals and good taste, out to have a good time without any consequences (they think) for a whole damn week?  Let me tell you:  under the term “Recipe For Disaster” in the dictionary, you’ll find this event as one of the prime scenarios.

And I won’t be distracted by the red herring of “Well, men have bachelor parties toooo!”  because that’s a topic for another time, but suffice it to say, men are idiots and always have been.  Women are supposed to be better than that, and increasingly, they aren’t.

And now that we’re here, let’s get around to your specific problem.

Here’s the executive summary, in case you haven’t figured it out yet.  Your slag of a girlfriend — a self-confessed blackout drunkard — went away for one of these debauched parties, misbehaved utterly, got shagged by (at least) one other man and got two (more, I assume) tattoos.

There are more red lights flashing here than in Amsterdam’s Hooker District.  In case you haven’t figured this out yet, allow me to list them:  habitual drunkenness (not a good feature of any relationship), licentiousness (love bites? strange men nibbling on her neck?  FFS) and multiple tattoos added without memory of the occasion(s).

In answer to your question, “How dare she treat me like this?”  comes this not-so-comfortable response:  because you let her.  You are a weak, pussy-whipped excuse for a man who is allowing this bullshit to continue.

It’s probably too late for redemption, but here’s the deal.  What you should have done, when confronted with the love bites, was demand that she get tested for venereal disease(s).  And when she refused to do so — and she would have, claiming that “nothing happened” (probably a lie) — you should have tossed her out of your life, without regret or compunction.

Which is what you should do now.  If you think that this particular leopardess is ever going to lose her spots, you’re delusional.  So not ditching the bitch is going to ensure that your future life in her company is going to be an unending catalog of drunkenness, infidelity and impulsive self-destructive behavior.

If you want to live the rest of your life — or the immediate future, anyway — under conditions such as these, go ahead, forgive her and carry on.  Just don’t expect any sympathy from anyone, because you don’t deserve any.

Somewhere out there is a better woman for you than this slut.  You probably don’t deserve her.

—

Transplants

Advice

Seen at Insty’s place:

My modest suggestion:

I know, guns aren’t everything… but it sure as hell is a good place to start.  Here’s another one:

*why Soulman’s BBQ?  Here’s what you’ll see at the entrance to ours:


…and it’s seasonally adjusted.

Shutdown

Advice, Drive Time

As Longtime Readers know, I’m not shy to take the occasional swipe at Oz and the Strylians.  This, however, is not good:

We are fifteen days into the Iran–US war. The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow stretch of water through which 20% of the world’s oil and gas normally flows, is effectively closed. Tankers have been hit. Insurers have pulled coverage. Commercial shipping has ground to a standstill for over a week. Brent crude closed Friday at US$103 per barrel, up from $70 before the war, having already spiked to $119.50 during the week. Iran’s military spokesperson has warned oil could reach $200.

Australia imports over 90% of its refined petrol, diesel and jet fuel, almost all of it processed in Asian refineries that are now hoarding output for their own populations. China has banned refined fuel exports. Thailand has suspended petroleum exports. Singapore and South Korean refineries are operating under force majeure. The International Energy Agency has just announced the largest emergency stockpile release in its 50-year history — 400 million barrels across 32 nations.

When the world’s energy watchdog fires its biggest gun, you don’t need a PhD to know the situation is serious.

I hope my Oz Readers (both of them) will take this warning to heart, if they haven’t already.

It’s no longer a joke.

People Who Matter

Advice

In talking about how he has had to deal with online hatred and attacks, Greg Lukianoff passes on the advice he got from some wise man:

You can have friends whose opinions you don’t take seriously, and you can have opponents whose point of view you very much do. So, pick your ten. Figure out who the small number of people are whose judgment you genuinely trust, the people who know you well enough and love you enough to tell you the truth when you’re wrong, when you’re being unfair, when you’re getting carried away, or when — to use the technical term — you are full of shit. Then, when the crowd is screaming, when the internet is losing its mind, when strangers are confidently informing you who you are and why you did what you did, bring it back to those ten. Ask yourself what they would think. Ask yourself whether they would be disappointed in you. Ask yourself whether they would tell you that you had acted unfairly, or out of vanity, tribalism, or cowardice. Or even better, go and ask them yourself.

In my case, I don’t have ten people to call upon, because quite frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck what strangers think of me, and never have.  I do care what certain people think of me, but that number is really small — far fewer than ten — and which people depends on which topic is under discussion anyway.  I am friendly with people who are more liberally-minded than I am, or who are deeply religious, for example, so occasionally I might pause before opening my big yap to expound on what has raised my irritation level, but I have to say, I don’t pause for very long.

People who know me also know about my opinions, and by and large they accept them, or not, as the case may be.  I don’t change my opinions very often anyway, because in most cases they have come after long and detailed contemplation, so (in the absence of further information) there’s little reason to change them — and “because this might offend Person X” is not a reason for change.

That said, if I am occasionally guilty of being full of shit, I will accept the excoriation from these few people and either change my position or else at least acknowledge my stupidity.  Most of the time, it’s because they know more about the topic than I do, and I bow to their expertise without a second thought.

But for the rest?  I don’t care a fig, and never have.