ask e jean
Tormented? Driven witless? Fear not, help is just a short letter away
SELFISH WITH THE SELFIES
DEAR E JEAN, One of my close friends takes amazing pictures – of herself. As long as she looks good, she doesn’t seem to care that everyone else looks like blobs with eyeballs. And that photo with me looking sweaty and short? It’s definitely ending up on Instagram. How do I deal with her? – Grinning But Not Bearing It GRINNING, MY GLADIOLUS Now, now. She probably thinks you look good. One woman’s “sweaty and short” is another woman’s glowing Olsen twin. At any rate, your friend is fatigued from performing the herculean labour of choosing the photo she looks best in. Let the poor chick have her moment while you take a look at my: INSTAGRAM WELLNESS PROGRAM 1. Since everybody else on Instagram is too busy worrying about how they look in their friend’s photos to notice you in your friend’s, when a photo of you looking like Cujo eating his dinner appears on a friend’s grid, ignore it. 2. If it’s really horrendous, text the person and ask her to remove it. (Of course, you’ll come off as a shallow, uptight twit more fixated on your looks than she is.) 3. If a friend posts a photo of you on Instagram Stories – which disappear in 24 hours – the image will be absolutely perfect. 4. It’s not the photo; it’s your reaction to the photo that causes you pain or pleasure. 5. While you’re alive, Miss Grinning, be alive! There are features of your life far more bewitching than your photos on that blasted Instagram. Your Auntie E is the Henry David Thoreau of Instagram. I live in the woods and like to “front only the essential facts of life”, rather than looking at life shot through a filter. So I avoid Instagram most of the time. But when I do drop by and notice that an acquaintance has posted a photo that makes me look like something that crawled out from under a rock, I praise the hell out of
it in the comments. “OMG! Flawless! So gorgeous! Never have I appeared more than twice as beautiful as you (emoji, emoji, emoji), and here I look six times more beautiful at least!”
IT PAYS TO TAKE A STAND
DEAR E JEAN, I want to live with my lovely boyfriend. Unfortunately, we’re in different cities, and I’m an underpaid junior lawyer. Backstory: despite my bargaining, I receive a lower salary than my male colleagues, who are entrusted with less important work. I’m quite close to the partners, and they are vocal about me being with the firm long-term and becoming a partner. One of them even jokingly threatened that he would kill my boyfriend if he was the reason I moved to the city. I’m adored and given important legal work, yet I’m overworked and underpaid. How do I leave this position in the nicest possible way? Is it best to simply blame it on the longdistance relationship? I’m worried about burning bridges and angering my mentor. – Staying Friendly FRIENDLY, MY TREE FROG If your law firm “adored” you, it would pay you. Do a favour for yourself and for every woman looking for a job. Tell the truth to those dribbling, low-grade, small-town misogynists you work for: you’re leaving because you’re not paid the same as the male associates. How I would have loved to have advised you to screw it and get in their faces! But a cool, resilient, urbane, tough, debonair woman who charms everyone with her feminine power and gives a brace of Cuban cigars to each of the partners and a box of Callaway Chrome Soft golf balls to her mentor – with a handwritten note of thanks, acknowledging the greatness of the firm while stating her “disappointment” in its antediluvian salaries (without the soppy boyfriend excuse) – will enjoy one of the greatest careers ever witnessed.