My blogroll is inundated by posts discussing the story of a woman who considers not having a college education as a deal-breaker in her romantic relationships. Simply put, she doesn’t want a serious relationship with a man who doesn’t have a college degree and doesn’t share her intellectual interests. Some bloggers say she is classist and seem to suggest that being aware that social classes exist is a huge sin. Others point out how anti-feminist and obnoxious is this discourse of picky women who need to lower their expectations and settle because otherwise they might fail to fulfill the only goal a woman has in life and snag a husband.
Since everybody is interested in this story, I wanted to share my approach when I was dating. This isn’t in any way a suggestion that anybody should see life in the exact same way. The post is not prescriptive. I’m just sharing.
I developed a very detailed description of the only kind of man that I would consider living with. The list of qualities I needed to see in him was from here to the Moon. I believe that knowing exactly what I wanted in a relationship allowed me to find one that is absolutely perfect for me, so I’m really happy I had my list.
One of the top requirements on that list was that my potential partner’s education (I’m only talking about a partner for a very serious relationship that involves living together, not casual partners.) Not only would I not even attempt anything serious with a man with no college degree, I would not go lower than a Master’s degree and even that, I felt, would be far from perfect. I knew I needed a partner with a PhD. I needed somebody who could understand my research and discuss it with me, as well as share his own. Somebody who doesn’t require an explanation why I absolutely need to take 6 heavy volumes plus two kindles on a beach vacation because he is carrying his own, as well. Somebody who wants to stay up all night debating nationalism and ideology. Somebody who has his own reading of great works of literature. Somebody who’d rather die than use a calculator to figure out the tip at a restaurant.
It wasn’t just the level of education that mattered to me. I knew that I could only live in the same house with a person from my own social class, somebody who is a member of intelligentsia, whether he knows it or not. For an autistic, the choice of a person who will share your living space is absolutely huge. If it isn’t a person who shares my sensibilities, who can communicate and address conflicts non-verbally, who cringes at any tactlessness and is traumatized by unpleasant realities of live, I know I will suffer.
There is also the issue of children. Children of families where parents belong to different social classes can’t belong to both. So they choose one of the classes. As a result, the parent whose social class is not chosen feels left out. The children are saddled with perennial guilt. Just imagine adult sons and their mother talking for hours about post-modernism and the father sitting there all bored and confused. Or imagine sharing your life with somebody who grew up in a rich family and never had to worry about debt, unemployment, bills, etc. How do you explain to them your fears, motivations, experiences? How do you feel when your own children start to mimic the rich parent’s attitudes?
Been there, done that, hated it. A perfect example of such a family is portrayed in The American Senator by Anthony Trollope. The father and his eldest daughter are from one social class while his second wife and younger daughters belong to another. Read the novel and you’ll see how tragic the reality of such a family is.
There are brave people who choose to ignore the class divide and don’t worry that their partner is from a different social class. I admire such people and wish them the best. However, I see nothing wrong in confessing that I would not have chosen to fight this battle. I only have one life and it belongs to me. It is my right to organize my personal life according to any principles that make me happy. I refuse to be apologetic for this extremely crucial and intimate choice.
Clarissa's Blog 
A college education is one of my dealbreakers in my list of romantic partner must-haves (Which is also quite lengthy!) In my case, it had a lot to do with wanting to share an intellectual rapport with them, and wanting to be with someone who is constantly striving towards self-improvement, including intellectual self-improvement.
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It’s not just about brains though. My ex-husband is a doctor, a surgeon, and a very good one, but he is totally uncultured. He never reads and thinks reading novels is a waste of time.
It was terrible, and one of the first things I did when I moved was buy a load of shelves and unpack all my books. The bliss!
My wish list post-divorce included being bi-lingual (I get heartily sick of speaking French – I’m not me in French), and being highly cultured as well as bright. It might displease some people that I’m not interested in a horny-handed son of toil but if I’m one that has to talk to him over dinner, I want some intellectual stimulation, not a series of grunts while he’s scoffing his food.
As you say, we get one go at life, and I’m determined I live mine for me, not someone else. Happily, my dearly beloved is a very good match.
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“It’s not just about brains though. My ex-husband is a doctor, a surgeon, and a very good one, but he is totally uncultured. He never reads and thinks reading novels is a waste of time.”
– Oh yes, I agree completely. If I need to explain why I will spend the last dime at a used bookstore, I’ll just go crazy.
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This is the best argument for this position I’ve seen in a long time. Not that there haven’t been hundreds of artistic works exploring the problems inherent in reaching across any sort of divide, but too many people who go into things like marrying into another class are not thinking things through. They’re afraid that if they do they will be considered classist, or racist, or basically just too cold and clinical to be really “romantic” in the approved way. (Never mind that “romance” is only once facet of a successful marriage.)
Being able to not just talk to each other at the same level, but to be able to sympathize with each other’s habits and routines, is important. If a mechanic marries a professor, they may have a fine marriage, or they may end up driven apart when they realize they have nothing, not even food tastes, in common.
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Hmm. Guess I better break up with my boyfriend then, seeing as he’s middleclass and I’m definately not. Wouldn’t want to shame him with my lack of culture or a degree.
Look, how each of you makes your choices regarding partners is fine. You need to find someone you’ll be happy with. The underlying assumption here is that there’s no overlap between the classes. I’ve met street people who know far more about art and art history than some of my friends in college. I’ve met poor people who love nothing more than to read classic novels and philosophy. I’ve met plenty of middle class people ( I was born middle class with parents who worked their way up from poverty) who want nothing more than to sit in front of the TV or drink beer with their friends in the evening or weekends.
This story of breakup plays on the old “poor, lazy and unemployed”. She doesn’t have to say much else about it because the stereotypes are so strong. What’s interesting here is, she never mentions having a job herself. So either her family is helping her pay for school or she has taken a loan to do so. So who is she to judge him for his lack of work? It also avoids any discussion on how not working may have been his most rational choice. If he were employed at a menial labour job, chances are that it would have been for the bare minimum to class as full time if that. You’re considered full time in Ontario if you work at least 27.5 hours per week. And often, the time you are spending at work impedes your ability to find a forty hour a week job. It can also get you cut off social assistance. So her “bohemian lifestyle” stands a good chance of getting her to think she knows why the poor are poor, without much experience of being working poor.
Is there anything wrong with her introducing him to her interests by having friends over to talk about what they are learning? Absolutely not. She doesn’t mention ever getting in to his interest of drawing though. What did he like to draw? Was he any good at it? We don’t get to find out. If she was trying to save the relationship wouldn’t getting into what he does have helped?
I think she’s young and a bit self involved, which isn’t something to be ashamed of since all of us have been there at one point or another. I also think she’s inexperienced in life, so she didn’t know what she really wanted at the time. The problem is, that the guy she was with may have been subject to a lot of unintentional shaming due to his social class and her attempts to fix the relationship was really more an attempt to fix him. And that’s what some people are objecting to. She has every right to choose who to be with or the qualities she wants. She does not have the right to meddle with who someone else is to make them fit her mold.
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“Guess I better break up with my boyfriend then, seeing as he’s middleclass and I’m definately not. Wouldn’t want to shame him with my lack of culture or a degree.”
– What you should be ashamed of is your incapacity to read a simple text and understand that it says the exact opposite.
” I’ve met street people who know far more about art and art history than some of my friends in college. I’ve met poor people who love nothing more than to read classic novels and philosophy. I’ve met plenty of middle class people ( I was born middle class with parents who worked their way up from poverty) who want nothing more than to sit in front of the TV or drink beer with their friends in the evening or weekends.”
– Why comment on a post that you didn’t even try to read? I also wonder how you went from not being middle class to being middle class in the space of one comment.
” So who is she to judge him for his lack of work?”
– Human beings are entitled to make judgments about anything they want.
“I think she’s young and a bit self involved, which isn’t something to be ashamed of since all of us have been there at one point or another. I also think she’s inexperienced in life, so she didn’t know what she really wanted at the time. ”
– Just look how easily you judge people. And complete strangers, too.
“She does not have the right to meddle with who someone else is to make them fit her mold.”
– You can’t “make” anybody do anything unless you hold them against their will.
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“Human beings are entitled to make judgments about anything they want.”
Yes!!! Thank you.
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““Human beings are entitled to make judgments about anything they want.”
Yes!!! Thank you.”
– You are most welcome! 🙂
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I do agree with you that it’s important to find someone who shares (or at least understands) your interests and passions. Personally, I sort of had a different experience in finding love. I think that at one point, I was too rigid. I had my “list of qualities” so to speak and I met people with those qualities and never really fell for anyone. As I got older, I sort of started straying from “my list.” Not because I was “dropping my standards” but because I realized that perhaps my needs could be met in various ways. My partner now certainly strays from the list that I had at one time. But I have never been in a relationship so fulfilling and wonderful. So on one hand, I agree that it’s crucial that people know themselves and what they need be happy (in my experience, women in particular will date/live with and even marry mismatched partners because they so desperately want to be with somebody); on the other hand though, I just think that sometimes people should be willing to explore a bit and experiment. Sometimes the person who doesn’t look right “on paper” is perfect. 🙂
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” (in my experience, women in particular will date/live with and even marry mismatched partners because they so desperately want to be with somebody);”
– Very true!
“on the other hand though, I just think that sometimes people should be willing to explore a bit and experiment.”
– I did that, too! I thought I’d never get together with a Russian man, and then I did, and he turned to be amazing. I’m glad I got over that prejudice!
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I completely get your position, and I completely agree. I feel the exact same way myself.
But let me raise a slightly different question: if someone said that they are not willing to date someone from a different race for similar reasons (difference in values, etc), would your response be the same?
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Do races have different values? It’s like saying that people with red hair have their own system of values.
But I totally understand not wanting to date people from a certain culture.
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How does one go from being middle class to being poor? Gee idunno..
My family was dirt poor. They worked hard and were lucky and by the time I was nine we were living a middle class life. When I grew up I did not attend college. Why? Because my passions in life do not translate into degrees or a lucrative career. Which means I work minimum wage jobs, which means I’m working poor. That’s how it happens. There’s a lot of ways that happens.
I’m being judgemental for allowing her the very human experience of being a bit self involved? I don’t think there’s any particular way to avoid that problem, and I don’t think its necessarily a bad thing. It is in fact quite necessary, to figure out who you really are and what you want to do. I’m sure she’s grown from the experience.
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Poverty does not destroy middle-class sensibilities. I chose to buy books and preferred opera even when I didn’t have $2 to take a bus. You seem to confuse one’s class position with one’s economic status, which is a big mistake.
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Geez you people are unbelievably snobby.
‘Preferred opera’? So you mean you actually enjoy opera or you just listen to it so other people can see you listening to it or you can talk to other people about listening to it and they’ll be like ‘omg she’s so cultured!’.
All the talk about wanting to be intellectual and have challenging intellectual discussions and blah blah intellectual blah blah intelligentsia blah blah intellectual. How about living an authentic life, have a laugh, watch TV drink some beer, maybe try not denigrating non-snobs at every turn… Bourgeois pseudo-intellectual bs.
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“So you mean you actually enjoy opera or you just listen to it so other people can see you listening to it or you can talk to other people about listening to it and they’ll be like ‘omg she’s so cultured!’”
– Weird projections have started.
“How about living an authentic life, have a laugh, watch TV drink some beer, maybe try not denigrating non-snobs at every turn…”
– Thanks but no thanks. I can be very authentic while laughing, denigrating and living without TV or beer. You, however, are as entitled to live your life as you see fit.
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Haha! But it’s IMPOSSIBLE that someone could genuinely LIKE opera! (Sarcasm, in case it wasn’t clear)
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You can’t make anyone do someone unless you hold them by force. You realize that that attitude is held towards victims of mental or emotional abuse or rape victims right?
If he loved her, or if he was willing to be with anyone, even a mismatched partner (and as many women who do this…there is likely an equal number of men assuming you’re refering to hetero relationships) the fear that she would leave might be all the “force” that would be needed.
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“If he loved her, or if he was willing to be with anyone, even a mismatched partner (and as many women who do this…there is likely an equal number of men assuming you’re refering to hetero relationships) the fear that she would leave might be all the “force” that would be needed.”
– That is his problem.
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Finally, a reasoned take on this. Thank you.
Yes, there are intelligent people without college degrees. Yes, there are people with college degrees who are completely uncultured and boring. But I don’t have the time or energy to invest in every single potential partner who comes my way, so I need some sort of way to narrow them down. In general, I have little in common with someone who’s not interested in intellectual achievement. And I’d say that your post is misnamed, because there’s nothing “classist” about that.
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“I don’t have the time or energy to invest in every single potential partner who comes my way, so I need some sort of way to narrow them down.”
– That’s exactly how I feel.
” And I’d say that your post is misnamed, because there’s nothing “classist” about that.”
– Stick around, I promise that I will be called all kinds of names for this post.
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Oh, I definitely agree that there are people who would call your point of view “classist.” I read that Feministe piece too. It just bothers me that the word isn’t being reserved for, you know, actual classism.
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I’m not old enough to be dating people with college educations, but for some reason I don’t think I would feel right in a relationship with somebody who isn’t smarter than me.
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“I’m not old enough to be dating people with college educations”
– Really? How come I have so many extremely intelligent young people read my blog?
And then people keep criticizing the younger generation!
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Oh I realize that economic and social status is two different things. Finding yourself in a lower class does force you to re examine a few things though. Considering my upbringing is mixed too (its not like my parents forgot all the values they were raised with), I don’t have a problem with that. The fact remains that liking opera or philosophy or science isn’t just a middle class thing. Its a preference that some members of the poor do as well.
Being needy may well be his problem. Her wanting to make him something he wasn’t should not have been.
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I don’t understand how you are using the term “class” here. It sounds to me quite similar to “cultural/educational level” or something, a characteristic related to but not the same as socioeconomic class. The “intelligentsia” are not a “class” in my opinion. So what exactly do you mean by it?
I agree that you have a right to use any criteria you want in selecting romantic partner, but using degrees as a selection mechanism in this context nevertheless sounds pretty credentialist (not “classist”). I can understand an employer doing it (though it’s not totally fair) when he has to cut down the pile of applications in front of him even if it means possibly losing out on a talented un-degreed applicant, but why do it when you can get to know a person anyway? There generally isn’t a need for crude sorting mechanisms unless we’re talking about online dating or other similar “high candidate volume” situations.
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We judge people around us every day, it is necessary to live to be honest.
The only problem I potentially could see with that woman’s situation was in her attempts to “fix” the guy. If somebody is a lazy slob, a drunkard or a junkie, please- do not play the savior and don’t try to help him, people like that act like a black hole- they SUCK every effort, every penny you have and every emotion out of you.
It is a tragedy when you have a family member like that; it’s entirely avoidable when you’re just dating.
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” If somebody is a lazy slob, a drunkard or a junkie, please- do not play the savior and don’t try to help him, people like that act like a black hole- they SUCK every effort, every penny you have and every emotion out of you.”
– I agree completely. The saviour game is very unhealthy.
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Can we discuss ways of instilling the value of education, hard work and intellectual curiosity in children? It scares me to read stories of people whose parents came from humble beginnings, managed to climb out of poverty through hard work and then had a child who is proud of having no education and working low level jobs. How does a parent make sure this doesn’t happen??
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If somebody has an answer, I’d sure like to hear it.
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Make it fun to learn. Some kids enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together. Others inhale books, and having access to reading materials is always good. If a kid is doing something they like, it’s much easier to get them to start thinking about it–how it works, why it works. Puzzles and games are cool. I think it’s about being in an environment in which a kid feels comfortable thinking their own thoughts. Encourage questions, too. That’s a big one. Clarissa, I think you said once that your father told you to never agree right away. Things like that help.
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Never give up on the kid. If you want that kid to go to college and work their butt off you better be able to do the same to make sure it happens. If I didn’t have my mother forcing me to sit down to learn to read and catch up with the other kids some teacher’s may have seen me as a lost cause. I think I have a mild form of dyslexia I learned to cope with in and amongst the occasional screaming matches we had. When I got older we would go to barnes and noble for a couple hours as a family. My choice was read or be bored to death. So I read stuff I enjoyed and fell in love with reading. When I was in high school my parents suggested different careers that I might enjoy based off of my interests.
My grandfather convinced me to go the engineering route and I remember that conversation distinctly. I was driving somewhere with him and I wanted to be a tool and die maker. He asked me why. I said I love how technical it is I love making stuff and the atmosphere. Then he was like do you like machining that much or do you like machines? If you go the engineering route you can design the machines. If you don’t like that then you could always become a tool and die maker easy but not the other way around.
So now I have an engineering degree from a good school. I work at a good company and I occasionally tell my coworker crude amusing renditions of Scheherazade’s tales. Largely in part to my mom never giving up on me ever and direct me down a path she thought I would enjoy.
It’s a long answer but it’s a complex question :P.
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Thank you for this great comment, Mark!
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The most important thing is to plant a desire : a desire to maintain the way of living (if the kids are born into the middle class) or to get into the middle class by hard work; and to make a kid realize that the only realistic way to get there is to get as good education as possible, to read many books, to learn to enjoy learning, aiming higher and higher.
When kids sit on their asses and do nothing the race is over before it began.
I remember a guy (back when I was a teenager) who constantly asked teachers why he had to learn subjects like English (a foreign language), Polish, Mathematics and the like.
Last I heard of him he…. well… ragequitted ?
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We never asked any questions in school, but we learned rather efficiency under an authoritarian system.
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efficiently
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I don’t understand how you are using the term “class” here. It sounds to me quite similar to “cultural/educational level” or something, a characteristic related to but not the same as socioeconomic class.
I agree that you have a right to use any criteria you want in selecting romantic partner, but using degrees as a selection mechanism in this context nevertheless sounds pretty credentialist (not “classist”). I can understand an employer doing it (though it’s not totally fair) when he has to cut down the pile of applications in front of him even if it means possibly losing out on a talented un-degreed applicant, but why do it when you can get to know a person anyway? There generally isn’t a need for crude sorting mechanisms unless we’re talking about online dating or other similar “high candidate volume” situations.
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“ut using degrees as a selection mechanism in this context nevertheless sounds pretty credentialist”
– Ah, I said I’d be called all kinds of names. 🙂
“but why do it when you can get to know a person anyway?”
– You are not a big-chested blond woman with an angelic face, a fantastic personality, voracious sexuality and a great sense of humor, I gather? 🙂 🙂 If you were, you’d know that one gets such a number of admirers that getting to know each of them would take 20 lifetimes.
“There generally isn’t a need for crude sorting mechanisms unless we’re talking about online dating or other similar “high candidate volume” situations.”
– I did have a very high volume of candidates. 🙂 Even now as an old married woman I still do. I think I will be in the high volume situation even at the retirement home. 🙂
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Wow. I could ALMOST excuse your ignorance by telling myself that you were probably very young and still somewhat ignorant, but now you call yourself “old,” and all I have for you is contempt. Just awful.
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I find it hard to believe that someone who claims to have read Trollope (or any number of great books,) has such little concept of what the class system is. You do not achieve your class status by reading books or listening to opera or getting a PhD from Ohio State. You are born in to your class and regardless of whether you prefer Berlioz or the Ramones, you are what you are. As someone who is extremely classist, I have to inform you that you will never be anything other than lower middle class. Fortunately a lot of lower middle class types have PhD’s so it won’t hurt your dating prospects.
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Buddy, I’m from a different culture. Your middle, upper middle and lower middle classes are no concern of mine.
All I can say that, based on your total cluelessness, you are not fit to raise your eyes to me. Go back to your trailer, you thing.
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No one with class uses the word ‘buddy.’
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“No one with class uses the word ‘buddy.’”
– Only complete trash uses the expression “with class.”
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Probably nothing depresses me more than the fact that America is the opposite of New York: If you can’t make it there, you can’t make it anywhere. 😦
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@Fanshawe
Class has nothing to do with where you are born on your so called list. Its all about perception………..Im curious to know where you perceive yourself to be?
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@tit
I’ll bet you’d like to know, but I have no interest in dating you thank you very much. You sound like a filthy pervert, to be honest.
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Why come out if you dont want to play? Geez, so typical.
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@Fanshawe
Fucking in the penthouse or fucking in the street, its still fucking. 😉
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What a mind-bogglingly ignorant post. And to think you were responding to a post at a feminist website, and you call yourself an academic. Is this some kind of farce?? Never mind whether you actually understand half the words you’re using- you’re so nasty and insulting to anyone who writes in to disagree with you that it doesn’t even matter.
As for me, I was raised by poor parents with a propensity for violence. I ran away from home and had to scratch my way up. I never went to college, yet today, I earn a six figure salary and own my own home. I have bookcases full of books, I visit art museums, go to plays, and I have political and philosophical debates with friends over coffee. I have traveled extensively, and I have made friends from all walks of life. I am a loyal and warm friend, a trustworthy confidante, and I am generous in my community. But according to many of you, I’m worthless. Congratulations on your astounding simple-mindedness. I’m so glad to know that our higher education system is indoctrinating you into the social-status-Borg instead of actually teaching you critical thinking skills. (That was sarcasm, for those of you who might not be sure.)
Gross. Just gross.
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And now the hysterics have arrived. . .
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I have no idea why people get so emotional about this. If somebody said, “I wouldn’t date a Russian -speaking Ukrainian because they have very difftent eating habits, watch weird films, are too cynical and have crazy families “, I would not mind in the least. Id readily support them in that decision. Mind you, one could always get diplomas but I can’t stop being Ukrainian. Yet I dont mind in the least. And you know why? Because I don’t have an inferiority complex.
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“one could always get diplomas…”
AND THIS IS WHY YOU’RE AN IGNORANT, CLASSIST JERK.
No, not anyone can get a diploma. Did you even READ my comment?? There a LOT of people in the U.S. who are 100% capable and willing, but CANNOT afford to get a diploma. The cost of higher education has skyrocketed, and people who come from poor families, or who have no family to help them, are screwed. And the idea that anyone can get enough financial aid / student loans is WRONG. Only someone who is well-to-do enough to have NO IDEA how bad this situation is can ignorantly prattle on about how anyone who wants to can get a diploma, and THAT is where the classism accusation comes from.
For all of you writing in to summarily dismiss those without college diplomas — how many of you had help from your parents in paying for college? Whether in paying for tuition, housing and feeding you, or spotting you cash when needed? Yeah, well some of us never had that.
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Buddy, I’m an immigrant from a 3rd world country who got 5 degrees in North America. Three of them are from Yale. And if I, a penniless immigrant with no connections and from a completely different cultural and linguistic environment can do it, then somebody who is in their own country, knows how things work, what a library is and how to check books out of it, and is expected to do all this in their own language definitely can.
At my state university where I teach right now, even if you get no scholarship or financial aid (which is the case only for students from comfortably middle class families) tuition is 4K per semester (including textbooks). Be reasonable and agree that this is not a lot. So yes, anybody can afford to get an education if that’s what they want. We have students from very modest backgrounds attending our university, so please quit the drama and accept that it was your choice not to go to college.
And if it were a choice you were happy about, you wouldn’t get so angry about my post where I outlined my dating policy 5 years ago. It is hardly my problem that you are so unhappy about your own choices.
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I think it’s very difficult for people to read what “my class” is, since I also developed my character in another culture. I’m not at ease with classism at all, since I don’t put myself into a category. However, I will never fail to surprise those who put me into one. And people are always doing that. I’m working class, but I’m a snob. I’m middle-class, but I have working class mannerisms. Whatever. Certainly, it must be that I’m trying to trick people, by seeming to be one way and then showing that I am another. But that was my original culture — very earthy, very prone to teasing, brawling, all sorts of things, and at the same time valuing education highly.
Obviously, it was difficult for me to find anyone who had these similar qualities, but I eventually found my guy on an Internet Hegel list. He has all these qualities: brawling, intellectual, rural background, military background, liberal-minded. He’s a bit older than me, mind.
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You see? You knew who ‘d make you happy and you got him. And so did I. I wonder why it bothers some people so much that there are women who are unapologetic about our preferences.
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I hypothesize that most people are too busy to think about their personal interests, so they end up trying to make decisions on the basis of categorical distinction rather than instinct. That method is always a mistake.
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//I chose to buy books and preferred opera even when I didn’t have $2 to take a bus
RE opera and classical music in general. How were you acquainted with it? Have you got any education to be able to understand just music without words better than somebody with no background from the street? I have a feeling that if somebody uneducated just tries to listen to it, he won’t understand or enjoy it (partly because of not understanding). How can one educate oneself to truly enjoy it?
The most non-pop I’ve ever liked was Bill Douglas’s compositions, may be you’ll enjoy them too. He has a BA in music education, is quite famous and created several disks with only music or music for words of famous English poems.
That’s one of my favorites: Bill Douglas – A Place Called Morning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCAfu1W-ZTg&feature=related
Example of his music without words – “Return to Inishmore”:
Except thinking that the 2nd has a nice melody & checking what Inishmore is, I don’t understand the music. I hope you see what I mean. If you do understand, how have you learned it?
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My parents took me to the opera all the time when I was a kid. We always had seasonal tickets. And there were also endless concerts at the Conservatory.
(For non Soviet people: this was all extremely cheap in the Soviet Union. One school lunch cost more than a ticket to a ballet).
Still, I didn’t get opera or the classical music as something you can listen to for pleasure until I was much older. I think one needs a certain level of emotional maturity for that.
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Those brave people who choose to ignore the class divide are not non-classists, they are class denialists, which is something else entirely.
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What’s wrong with classism? Well it produces ignorant elitists like you who like to pass off their tastes and positions on subjects as gospel and unquestionable truth because of your academic accomplishments and believe that people of any worth must be exactly like you or beyond you.
Such arrogance and hubris does not build strong societies I’ll have you know. This adherence and defense of classism even in dating doesn’t bridge socioeconomic divides it reinforces them and builds the walls even higher.
You may have accomplished a lot but I have to say you’re one of the most arrogant and vapid people I’ve ever read; I pity anyone who dates you because honestly your ego is a huge burden to carry.
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I pity anybody who tries to date me, too, because I’m deeply in love with my husband and wouldn’t be interested.
As for the ego, I’m fine with the ego it’s the superego that’s a bitch.
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well then i definitely pity your husband if you haven’t change from the condescending arrogance you displayed five years ago.
But then I’m willing to bet you haven’t. Hubris and pomposity on the levels you demonstrate don’t cool down they get worse and worse.
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Instead of expending so much energy on fretting over people with blissful personal lives, you’d be better served on contemplating the reasons why your own personal life is not working out.
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Oh that’s right I forgot. Because my life isn’t exactly like yours or something close or even beyond it then i must be unhappy. Brilliant analysis. I see those multiple degrees are paying off quite nicely.
My issue here is that people such as yourself are actually socially and progressively stagnant who love to inject their huge egos into everything and point to their successes as a justification or excuse for being what is essentially a complete pompous asshole.
I find it ironic that you’re against Trump (I saw your nice little ironic article on him which I interestingly enough agree with.) seeing as your charming self is so much like him.
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Have you tried reading the posts on the nation-state? I’m sure you will be interested. There is a page where I listed some of them.
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