Dear Dategirl,
My daughter thinks I’m an asshole because I’m taking my wife to Paris and staying in the same hotel that my first wife and I stayed at when we went to Paris together for the first time. It’s a beautiful hotel, very romantic, and comes with a view of the Seine. I don’t see the problem—we regularly stay at my wife’s vacation home that she owned with her dead ex-husband (we’re both widowed). I feel like I know this hotel and I want to go back. If my wife minds, she’s not saying anything, but my daughter won’t shut up about it. Who’s right?
—Dad of Dategirl
Of course your daughter (me!) is right! Look, if you were going to some podunk town with one or two lodging options, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But you are going to the most romantic place on the planet with the woman you love, and you’re tainting it with the ghost of a woman who died 20 years ago.
It’s a completely different situation than visiting her vacation home because, duh, she owns it, therefore it’s a free place to stay. If you owned an apartment in Paris, it’d be stupid to stay anywhere else. But you don’t.
Your wife is a sweetheart, so of course she hasn’t said anything. But do you really want to take any chance at all that her vacation will be less than perfect because of your freaky closed-mindedness? Maybe it is bothering her and she’s just too kind to say anything. Or maybe she doesn’t mind now, but will once you get there. Possibly she won’t give a crap either way, and is just happy to get the hell out of Brooklyn for a few nights. Who knows?
The point is, why take the chance? Why risk having any weird feelings come up and ruin your trip? There are hundreds of incredible hotels in Paris; do both of you a favor and pick a different one.
(True confession: My dad didn’t actually write this letter—I did. I just wish he would have, and you can bet that he and his wife are both getting a copy.)
Dear Dategirl,
What do you do when your boyfriend needs to get some new eyeglasses and he won’t do it because he has money issues? Waking up next to him every day is WONDERFUL, but then he puts on these fucked-up ’80s glasses, and I want to purposely break them so he has to blindly feel his way to an optician and buy ANYTHING as long as it’s not those fuckers anymore. What can I do?
—Four-Eyed Fucker
Can you believe so many women focus on their boyfriends’ awful shoes when, really, bad glasses are far more offensive even than Tevas (though tied for first place with Birkenstocks)? I’d get him a gift card from WarbyParker.com, an online glasses retailer that gives away a pair of glasses to poor peeps with every pair you purchase. You can try on up to five pairs at home; the glasses—with Rx lenses—are only $95; and they ship free. So he gets new glasses, you get a cuter boyfriend, and you’re both helping the less fortunate, all with one magical pair of spex. Problem solved!
