Taken for a Ride…

September 2nd, 2010
Dear English Gentleman,

I have the suspicion that women take me for granted. My current girlfriend always makes me pay for everything we do together (or in other words, doesn’t offer to pay for anything ever and never invites me to anything) and sulks if I don’t buy her something very expensive for her birthday. Am I being taken for a ride here? The thing is, I love her very much and would gladly do all these things for her (buy her presents, take her to expensive parties and events, and more), but I’m starting to worry that she only sees me as a kind of cash cow. What do you think?

Thanks,

Worried.

Dear Worried,

In most relationships, it is to a lesser or greater extent expected by both parties that the other party will, in some way or another, show their love and appreciation for them via various means. Some of these means involve gifts, especially during occasions such as anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, and so forth. Unfortunately, this social convention often creates thorny navigational problems when one party expects more than the other or when one party is able to provide more than the other. 

Of course some entirely successful relationships are between two people of substantially different means, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is that your girlfriend expects something very expensive for her birthday! And perhaps there’s not much too wrong with that in itself, rather the really wrong thing being that she sulks if you don’t supply. Sulking is never a positive thing – even if money is no object to you, you should never be in a position in which you are effectively paying your girlfriend not to sulk.

Here’s a question: what if the tables were turned? How would your girlfriend react if you expected something very expensive for your birthday? What if you were the sulky one? And another angle to consider is this: what would happen if you couldn’t afford to buy your girlfriend something? Will she stop loving you? People lose their incomes – these things do happen in real life -, but such occurrences are accommodated in a strong relationship. At the end of the day love shouldn’t come attached to lots of strings such as the receiving of gifts. It sounds as if you love your girlfriend in the absence of her buying you anything at all, and for a balanced relationship she should feel in the same manner towards you too. If this is not the case then, yes, I think you are being taken for a ride. It would not be amiss to wonder what you value so much in your girlfriend that would make one tolerate such a transaction-based relationship.

A final thought: gifts need not be expensive – it’s the time and effort which makes a perfect gift. So consider instead the possibility of giving her a very romantic, special, well-planned experience for her birthday. Material gifts have a price-tag, but only memories last a lifetime.

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Asparagus Tips

August 31st, 2010

Rich in vitamins B, C, and A, asparagus is the quintessential springtime treat. Whether grilled, roasted, sautéed, or steamed as a companion to a main dish or as the featured essence of a light soup, this cancer-fighting vegetable is versatile and rich in flavour.

asparagus

One simple way to cook asparagus is by steaming. This is best done with an asparagus steamer or, in its absence, by arranging the asparagus vertically along the sides of a deep saucepan with about 200 mL of water at the bottom, leaving the tips outside.  A small cut along the stem can be made at the bottom of the asparagus stem (after removing the discoulored or hard ends of the plant) to increase the surface area and encourage better cooking of the tougher ends if not steaming, and in all cases remember never to overcook the tips. Steam for 3-7 minutes (depending on thickness of the stem) in order to achieve a fresh, crunchy texture, and don’t  pass up the opportunity to sample the different varieties of asparagus that may be available to you locally.

Bon appetit!

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300 Miles, 18-Hour Days

August 29th, 2010

Dear English Gentleman,

I have recently met a young man whose company I enjoy immensely. Recently the relationship has turned into a romantic one and although we are both very content with each other, I have been keeping myself from falling for him. The main reason for this is because I am about to move nearly 300 miles away for a year and when I return will have to spend another year working 18 hour days, so I feel I cannot give my whole attention to him for two years. The more I see him, the more difficult it is becoming for me to not fall for him and now I wonder if a long distance relationship is a good idea or if it will cause more heartache than joy. As much as I long for him I want to be fair to the man because I adore him. What would you advise in my situation?

Girl with a suitcase.

Dear Girl with a Suitcase,

My first impression is that there are a lot of positive aspects in what you say about your relationship with your Young Man: you speak of enjoying his company immensely; you are both very content with each other; you are having to resist falling for him. The trick is to turn what appear to be the two negative aspects (300 miles distance, thence eighteen hour days for a year) into something positive.

In the early stages of a relationship there’s nothing wrong with time apart. Look at this as a positive opportunity rather than something which is negative. Rather than being overloaded with everything at once, such separation, demanding hard work and commitment from both sides, allows the relationship to grow deep foundations. It allows one to savour the other person as one might a fine wine; small sips rather than a couple of big gulps! We are lucky that in today’s world distance is mitigated with technology, something not afforded to those romantic couples of a few hundred years ago. We can take inspiration from one of the Victorian period’s most romantic couples, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, who during a 20-month long-distance courtship in the 1840s exchanged some 574 letters. They went on to live happily as Mr and Mrs Browning. Yet they didn’t have a telephone, let alone email or Skype, and all the potential which that brings for an interesting evening’s playfulness(!).

The eighteen-hour days are for a year; the question here is will your Young Man lend a hand, will he understand that the work is important to you? Will he give you the time and space and support? Hopefully the answer is yes (and you would do the same for him). And don’t assume eighteen-hour days will last just one year, and there’s nothing wrong with that…there’s always time for the two of you to meet: consider making time together when doing every-day things like running errands, your daily exercise routine, mealtimes, etc. As you know in an established relationship not every meeting needs to be a full-on, big production kind of date.

My advice: you and your Young Man are potentially pretty much  on your way to success – just turn those two aspects which appear negative (appear being the operative word) into positives. Three hundred miles and a year apart give the two of you a fantastic opportunity to engage in some old fashioned courting, and a year of hard work gives him a fantastic chance to show his support for you.

Of course all of this makes tacit assumption that your Young Man will think along the same lines as you…will your Young Man be willing to spend a year 300 miles apart laying down a firm relationship foundation? Will he give you the time and space and support for your eighteen-hour days? Let’s hope so. But in any case, after all, there’s only one way to find out…

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Excess

August 27th, 2010

Dear English Gentleman,

My boyfriend broke up with me and now is seeing another girl who is not even half as pretty, smart, or awesome as me. How can I make him see that I’m much better than her and get my ex back?

Twice as Pretty.

Dear Twice as Pretty,

As ex-US president Jimmy Carter quite rightly pointed out, we have one life and one chance to make it count for something. Similarly we often have one chance at something within that life and it sounds to me that your ex-boyfriend has had his chance with you. I think we would be very optimistic to think that he might recognise qualities in you the second time around that he failed to recognise the first time around. I suspect that things are not really as simple as this, and that there are other scenarios which would have the same outcomes, and are to my mind more plausible. What I suspect has happened is that your ex-boyfriend has reached some sort of commitment threshold or ceiling beyond which he is afraid to venture. Thus he simply opted to move into what he perceives as a less committing relationship. I suspect that there are quite a few people out there who are comfortable with serial monogamistic relationships in which a certain level of commitment is attained, only for the relationship to be ended and started afresh with another partner.

My advice is this. There’s nothing to be gained by trying to get him back – even if you did then do you really want to live in fear of history repeating itself? Your ex-boyfriend has had his chance and now it’s time for someone better. It’s good you see yourself as pretty, smart and awesome, and why not? In the pool where you least expect it, there will be a better fish (rather, I mean a gentleman!).

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Short Circuit

August 25th, 2010

Aaah, summer. The sun, the late nights strolling about town, mini-skirts and long legs, and for the gentlemen…shorts.

Gentlemen, be careful when you stroll about town not to commit the following short fashion disasters:

No:

 

Yes:

To summarise: No to crocs, tevas, birkenstocks, or heavy sandals attached with velcro. No to socks above ankle length and above all no to dark socks or any combination of a fashion faux pas with another to make a fashion disaster (i.e. socks with tevas, or worse—dark socks with tevas). Yes to men’s leather sandals, trainers or casual sneakers with short  or no-show socks, and flip-flops only if you’re at the beach. Got it?

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The T Series, Part 2: Post or Pre-lactarian?

August 22nd, 2010

Milk and Tea

Let’s consider taking afternoon tea, and let’s imagine we are drinking Earl Grey tea. Now, like most teas (excepting perhaps oolong or green teas), Earl Grey can be taken with milk or lemon, but not both. Today we are taking our Earl Grey with the former. We are all set – we have a pot of freshly brewed tea, china cups and saucers, a strainer replete with its little bowl; sugar cubes and silver tongs, a little jug of organic milk. Good company and rounds of English cucumber sandwiches and freshly baked scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam finish the scene.

An immediate quandary. Does one pour the milk, followed by the tea, or pour the tea, followed by the milk?

Before perhaps the early 1700s, European tea cups were typically made from a soft paste porcelain which tended not to fare well with very hot tea, and would be liable to cracking. Adding milk first ameliorates this since the hot tea makes contact with the milk rather than the porcelain directly. Hence milk was added first to stop these cups from cracking. Thus there was an association between having cheaper porcelain tableware and putting the milk in first when pouring tea. Clearly if one was fortunate (and wealthy) enough to have better porcelain, then it was not necessary to temper one’s tea with milk added a priori to one’s cup. Hence perhaps pouring milk in first is a habit we have retained from the times when only the rich could afford decent porcelain. Hence pouring tea first was something of an indicator that the pourer was wealthy.

I propose that such ideas, whilst quaint, have no real place in the mind of the English Gentleman. Having said that, I think one can make something of an argument for the pouring the milk second approach, starting with an observation from that great chronicler of twentieth century’s English culture, George Orwell, who wrote in 1946:

…by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.

The English Gentleman would augment Orwell’s argument with the following observation. For tea drinkers who take sugar, adding milk before the sugar (regardless of whether the milk was added before or after the tea), will lead to a less effective dissolution of the sugar. The sugar will dissolve more rapidly in the hotter liquid than the tea-milk mixture. This would strongly suggest that those who prefer sweetened tea should add tea to the naked cup, thence sugar, and thence milk.

But hold on, Mr Orwell. Milk contains – amongst other things – proteins, relatively large and complex molecules which can be damaged (denatured) by heat: for example when milk is added to a relatively large volume of hot tea (milk poured second brigade). Such degradation of proteins (proteolysis) may result in milk with dubious flavour and poor quality. In terms of tea making the biggest risk is perhaps denaturation of the protein ß-lactoglobulin, and although this is advantageous if one is making yoghurt, this is something which the English Gentleman might want to avoid whilst pouring a cup of tea for his lady. It results in a rather unpleasant boiled milk flavour to one’s tea. Furthermore, such denaturing of ß-lactoglobulin makes the protein more able to absorb (or should one say adsorb?) water, thus making the milk less able to form an emulsion with the tea. This would suggest that adding milk to hot tea is less preferable than adding hot tea to the milk.

Let’s draw this discussion to a timely end, with the following conclusion:

Adding milk first has the advantage of avoiding proteolysis of the milk protein, but the clear Orwellian disadvantage of not being able to judge the quantity of milk and hence flavour balance of the tea. On the other hand, adding the milk second allows one to judge the exact amount of milk one wants, albeit with the risk that the overall flavour is impacted. And let us not neglect those who take sugar, recalling that sugar takers should perhaps entertain the idea of adding sugar to the hot tea before the milk.

Goodness me, who would have thought that pouring a cup of tea would be such a complex matter? At the end of the day I venture that there is no right or wrong way regarding milk before or after the tea. It is for the individual tea drinker to decide whether to pour the tea first or pour the milk first. However, rather than sitting on the proverbial fence, this English Gentleman would like to make it known that he always puts the milk in first.

Lemon, anyone?

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Does He or Doesn’t He?

August 19th, 2010

Dear English Gentleman,

A couple of months ago I became friends with this Man. Immediately, we realised we shared a lot in common and our friendship grew quite quickly. Soon, I found myself day dreaming about romance with this Man. Little by little, the text messages we sent each other started becoming more and more ambiguous, such as him saying he was listening to a song we listened to together and was thinking about me. I felt like he was going to make a move ‘any time now’, but time went by (two months now) and nothing was happening- just those confusing texts. When we are face to face, there’s not even the most subtle hint of flirting. Not even a subtle hint of body language- you know, no accidental ‘brushing past’.

Because I had no clue how he felt, I didn’t want to make any ‘aggressive’ statements of my feelings, so I followed his lead with the ambiguous texts and perfectly casual face to face encounters. However, as time went by my feelings for him kept being fed by his ambiguous texts, until I found myself feeling quite miserable and prematurely heart-broken.

So, feeling like I had nothing to lose, a couple of weeks ago I started making more direct suggestions of my feelings for him being more than just friendly. Considering the fact that he is a very calm, mature man who seems to respect me and value our friendship, I was expecting one of the two outcomes.

Either he’d realise I was falling for him and if he didn’t feel the same way, readjust his tone and stop with the ambiguous texts to put me back on the friendship track.

OR, if what was stopping him was uncertainty of how I felt, that upon realising how I felt he’d get his act together and kiss me already!

What I didn’t expect was that neither of those would happen. He’s still continuing with the texts- saying that he’ll miss me when I move out (which might happen in the next month or so), or that the time we spend together never feels enough, and that what he’s feeling is new and very strange to him, or that he’s wishing I was there with him when he’s doing something… but when we see each other, we are really just friends sharing intellectual conversation. And he definitely doesn’t strike me as a shy man! He might be calm and quiet, but he definitely doesn’t lack confidence.

Can you explain to me what on Earth is going on?

Thank you very much.

Melissa.

Dear Melissa,

Goodness me. This is one of those difficult questions – in part because I don’t know some of the background detail. But I can still make a few educated guesses as to the underlying behaviour of your Man.

Let me start with what we do know. Your Man comes across as rather immovable: when you started making more direct suggestions as to your feelings towards him you rightly identified a couple of clear outcomes, yet neither occurred. It really seems that your Man is entirely happy with the way things stand and for some reason doesn’t want to move forwards (into a more romantic relationship), yet nor does he want to move backwards (as you say readjusting his tone and stopping with the ambiguous texts). This much appears to be the way things are, based on what you have written. Now of course the question you’d like an answer to is why? Why does your Man want to flirt with you via text messages, yet doesn’t appear to want to move things forward?

Firstly maybe your Man cannot move things forward because he’s committed elsewhere. Is there an ex (or perhaps not quite so ex) – girlfriend perhaps? Secondly, maybe it’s simply that he is afraid of commitment; perhaps he is rather attracted by the idea of moving things forward, but is afraid of losing his freedom in some way. Thirdly, perhaps he really is just a shy person, although you say that he doesn’t strike you as a shy man (but you do mention that he is quiet). Fourthly, perhaps there’s just a misunderstanding as to what each other wants in this relationship, your Man wanting to limit things to friendship, whilst you want more. But this last explanation doesn’t sit very well with the fact that you have made moves which seem to have had little or no effect on your Man’s approach towards you, nor does it explain the nature of those ambiguous text messages.

You are in a much better position than I to judge which – if any – of these possibilities might be nearest the mark. But, for what it’s worth, my gut reaction is that it’s an issue of commitment. I sense that your Man doesn’t want to make the commitment towards you which would be necessary to take the relationship to a deeper level. In a sense I suspect that he wants to have his cake and to eat it too. I think he finds it less committing and safer to flirt via ambiguous text messages than flirt in the real world.

A relationship doesn’t just need an arbitrary amount of commitment from both sides, it needs to be balanced. The deeper the relationship between you, the bigger the commitment you have towards each other. But importantly this commitment should be pretty much equal from either side. Now, from what you have written, there really does seem to be a lack of balance in this relationship. It sounds as if you are really full of commitment (after all you speak of being miserable and even heart broken), yet your Man appears to be lacking in this respect. If your Man is somewhat commitment phobic then I think that is something he has to sort out himself. You cannot do this for him. This is different to your Man being shy. You can help your man overcome shyness (a big kiss might help!), but you cannot sort out his issues with commitment.

At the end of the day you need to try and find out what your man wants from this relationship. And that will mean talking to him and asking him specifically. Equally, your Man should want to find out from you what it is you want from this relationship. If he says friendship is the way he wants to go then that’s the way it is and you need to decide if that’s for you. If he says he wants more than friendship then he needs to realise that that entails a deeper level of commitment, from both sides of the relationship. As I say he cannot have his cake and eat it too.

Good luck,

The English Gentleman

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