Gender Roles in Relationships: A Revenge Manifesto

As a man who, on a volunteer basis, writes stories about sexting and refusing to share bacon, it should come as no surprise that I don’t have a lot of money. That being said, I decided to grow up and talk to a financial advisor; what follows is a detailed account of how a massive B-word who is terrible at her job, AKA my financial advisor, accidentally taught me a lesson about gender roles in relationships. Not enough of a lesson to make me feel bad about the B-word comment though, she deserves it.

This story takes place shortly before my most recent break up. I was in a long-term relationship with an older woman and staunch feminist, that being said, our relationship was beyond the parameters of traditional gender roles and all sugar coating aside, she was the man in relationship. Continue reading

Tips on Tipping

Anyone who, like me, has ever been an underpaid, under-appreciated member of the service industry knows how awesome it is to get a tip from a happy customer. Not only can that tip mean the difference between eating tonight and not, it can also make a terrible job more tolerable when you know that someone appreciates your commitment to providing the best service possible to each and every customer. However, when on the other side of the relationship, rewarding someone for a job well done is not quite so clear and simple; the line between thanking and insulting can be very thin. Some professions do not expect a tip, some see a tip as trivializing their work and some see tipping too low more insulting that not tipping at all. How can we be sure that our intended gratitude will be interpreted correctly? Continue reading

The Christmas Debt

The holidays have come and gone once more, but for me this year was unique, it was my first Christmas away from home. Even when I was studying abroad (when you grow up in a town where you’re never more than a few kilometers away from a cornfield, a 3 hour drive is considered abroad) I still came home for the holidays and, more importantly, had financial support from my parents. Continue reading