privacy notice and more…
Tormented? Driven witless? Fear not, help is just a short letter away
GET A GRIP. THEN GET A NEW GIG
DEAR E JEAN, As I’m writing to you, I have a wrenching pain in my stomach from the blatant betrayal. I work for a small, prestigious publishing company, and when I applied for a newly announced position with a long email detailing my desire, ambition and expertise, attaching my résumé and a thoughtful invitation for the owners, the art director and the editor-inchief to sit with me so I can show them the work I’ve done in my two years here – get this: I was rewarded with complete silence! The art director finally assured me I was being “considered”, but they had to “go through the process of posting the job and interviewing”. I’m disgusted they’d even consider anyone else! I’m so loyal to them! I don’t understand this betrayal one bit. Should I leave? – Seduced And Abandoned SEDUCED, MY LOVE Good. I like it. You’re seething like a sea lioness. You may not deserve the job, you may not be right for the job, you may peeve the editor-in-chief no end with your insistence that she “sit with you”, but you’re doing the best thing possible. Use that fire to become the most formidable, brilliant, amazing designer there ever was. Let that “wrenching” stomach pain, that “disgust” energise your career. Begin interviewing at other companies. Tweet good news about your industry. Acquire fresh skills. Create a new position. Dress like the boss. Think like the owners. Use your anger. Nothing fuels success like a snub.
FLIRTING WITH DANGER
DEAR E JEAN, Maybe I just need to watch more Amy Schumer movies, but here’s my problem: I’m a 34-year-old newlywed – my husband and I are activists – and we’ve made our marriage about respect, love and equality. But we work so hard we barely go to bed together or wake up together. When we do have sex, I fantasise about Kit Harington and my husband fantasises about porn. Also, he won’t do any chores and refuses to learn how to manage the finances.
On a rare night out with the girls, I met a tall, muscular South American musician with a baby face and big, beautiful eyes. I’ve never been so attracted to anyone, ever! This man can dress! We were the last to leave the dance floor, and afterwards we began messaging, sexting and exchanging poems and erotic photos – the whole thing. Then he discovered I was married and stopped answering my texts. So I left my husband, moved in with my sister, bought the musician a beautiful watch (the most expensive thing I’ve bought anyone – except for the engagement ring I bought my husband, which he lost), surprised the musician with the watch at the club where we met and told him: “You have my heart.” He refused to look me in the eye and took off (with the watch).
It appears I’ve been manipulated and used by this insecure man, who has no ability to open up to others. Now I miss my husband’s sensitivity and respect. I’m ashamed I betrayed him. He’s willing to take me back – but will he change? I’ve been reading your column for years and you’re my favourite agony aunt. Do you see anything worth salvaging with either of these men? When will guys stop being narcissistic assholes? And could a few more of them learn how to dress for a night out and manage a savings account? – Doubly Heartbroken DOUBLY, MY DELPHINIUM Give me a moment... I must dab my eyes with a hankie. Such an overpowering moment for Auntie E. You’re as gorgeous an example as I’ve ever beheld of a 34-year-old who’s been jamming her brain with Ask E columns. A newlywed running after a baby-faced musician – honey, you break rules like a champion! I love you, Miss Doubly. But one little point, if I may: when our lives are going to hell and we can’t figure out why, we must not blame men. Depending on the time, the place and the circumstance, any of us can be perfect asses. You’ve got yourself a nice, salvageable husbandly chap there (upon whose “sensitive and respectful” hide you could have showered three Hugo Boss shirts, two accountants to do the finances and one Kit Harington wig – the pullback, the curly or the snow-flecked – with the bread you spent on Mr Dancer’s watch).
But you’re a live-in-the-moment woman waging the battle between freedom and marriage – two ideals so at odds that even Amy Schumer, the Simone de Beauvoir of her generation, could not solve the problem in Trainwreck. (To which Miss Amy says: “Don’t judge me, fuckers.”) Hence, I have offered for your consideration your own Marriage/freedom Risk Portfolio. In the chart below, based on my vast experience receiving letters such as yours, as a married woman you would be 61 per cent free to dance with attractive men and women, but only eight per cent free to have cocktails with them. Talk it over with your husband and increase or decrease the percentages as you see fit. Miss Amy lost her nerve in Trainwreck and went for the obvious rom-com ending. (But as far as I can tell, she’s pursuing all her radical ways in real life.) Marriage – tender and sublime as it can be – may or may not be for you. I wish you a beautiful journey figuring it all out.
PS: Mr Dancer should return the watch.
DEAR E JEAN, Which is more important: career or love? I’m 22, fresh out of university and head over heels for someone who also just finished uni and has now moved home – across the country from me. After a lot of talking, questioning and crying, we decided to break up and not pursue a long-distance relationship, but this doesn’t feel right. He’s the one I love, and he loves me. We should be together, right?
My mother raised me to always put my career and education first and boyfriend second, and I agree, but though we’re separated by a continent, we talk all the time and miss each other terribly. He has always wanted to work in international development; I studied journalism and international relations. We want to help people and travel the world, but how can we be a power couple when we’re separately miserable in our families’ homes on opposite sides of the nation?
Ambitious And Blinded By Love MISS BLINDED, MY BEAR CUB What? Wait. You’re telling me there are no careers where he lives? Where is your famous “ambition”? Pack your bags!
Ravishing Regards, E Jean BUT E JEAN! What if I move to be with him and it doesn’t work out? What if I move and it turns out I’ve made a terrible career decision? – Ambitious And Blinded MISS A AND B Oh, well... And “what if” Ryan Gosling comes to my house and asks me to stop answering this letter because he needs to feed me cake and ice-cream? If you want 100 per cent guarantees, Auntie E will promise that you can make as “terrible” a “career decision” by not moving as by moving. Nothing is permanent. Forget finding the job; get a job, learn it, love it, and the more you love it, the luckier you’ll get – and the luckier you get, the wider new doors will swing open. Every woman’s a dud until she’s a success.
Anyway, who says career or love are your only choices? It will be a happy world when you cease believing you have just two selections to prioritise and screw up. Two? Hahahahaha! You have hundreds of options to screw up, and your life will be quite fascinating because of it. Darling! I love you, but it’s not your wedding. Your role is to deliver happiness. Read the poem. And should you take as your dramatic inspiration the great Bette Davis doing her “I’ve Written A Letter To Daddy” in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?… then all the better.
This crazy, psycho, Pinterest-obsessed maid of honour has declared that we bridesmaids must read poems at the bridal shower. (I read my assigned poem to my husband, and he said it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard.) How do I muster the self-control not to insult her?