{"id":1205,"date":"2011-12-29T14:45:20","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T21:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/?p=1205"},"modified":"2012-01-02T15:19:24","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T22:19:24","slug":"advice-my-father-gives-me-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/2011\/12\/29\/advice-my-father-gives-me-part-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice my father gives me, Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the past few years, my has father voiced his concern that his only daughter is going to wind up a spinster (and when I reflect on it a bit more it&#8217;s come through in other ways my whole life, more or less; anyway, I digress.) A few days ago my father decided that it was time for his yearly &#8220;love life&#8221; <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_1205_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1205_1_1');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_1205_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1205_1_1');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_1205_1_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">1<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1205_1_1\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">Previously: <a href=\"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/?p=1092\">Part I<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/?p=1161\">Part II<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1205_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1205_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script> talk with me.<\/p>\n<p>It went a little something like:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Daughter, if there are any boys interested in you, you should reciprocate! By the time you&#8217;re 30 all the good ones will be gone. Don&#8217;t trot out the fact that your own parents didn&#8217;t get married until their thirties, things are different for you.&#8221; <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_1205_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1205_1_2');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_1205_1('footnote_plugin_reference_1205_1_2');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_1205_1_2\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">2<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1205_1_2\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">Yeah, Dad, things are pretty different, all right.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1205_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1205_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script><\/p>\n<p>My only response here was a lame kind of &#8220;I don&#8217;t have time for a boyfriend right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s something in his reasoning here that&#8217;s kind of bothering me, but I can&#8217;t quite put my finger on it at the moment. It has to do with a) this idea of &#8216;take the first one who comes along&#8217; (and implicitly: &#8216;because that&#8217;ll happen rarely enough that you really should cut your losses&#8217;) and b) the other idea that people (but men in particular) are only single because they&#8217;re not up to snuff.<\/p>\n<p>Not really sure which one is more upsetting. Probably the former, since the second is much more easily rationalized away&#8212;how many times have you thought, &#8220;What do they see in that person?&#8221; But telling your own daughter (however subtly) that she just isn&#8217;t good enough&#8230; well&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container\"> <div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\"><p><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_label pointer\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_1205_1();\">&#x202F;<\/span><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"display: none;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_1205_1();\">[<a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_1205_1\">+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div> <div id=\"footnote_references_container_1205_1\" style=\"\"><table class=\"footnotes_table footnote-reference-container\"><caption class=\"accessibility\">References<\/caption> <tbody> \r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_1205_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_1205_1_1');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_1205_1_1\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">Previously: <a href=\"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/?p=1092\">Part I<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/?p=1161\">Part II<\/a>.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_1205_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_1205_1_2');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_1205_1_2\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>2<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">Yeah, Dad, things are pretty different, all right.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_1205_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_1205_1').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_1205_1').text('\u2212'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_1205_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_1205_1').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_1205_1').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_1205_1() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_1205_1').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_1205_1(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_1205_1(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_1205_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_1205_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_1205_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_1205_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the past few years, my has father voiced his concern that his only daughter is going to wind up a spinster (and when I reflect on it a bit more it&#8217;s come through in other ways my whole life, more or less; anyway, I digress.) A few days ago my father decided that it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[124,125],"class_list":["post-1205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quotidian","tag-fatherly-advice","tag-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1205"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1207,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205\/revisions\/1207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}