I know a cute girl (who’s dating someone else and is too young anyway) who teaches theater to kids and acts and directs community theater. I saw her in Sound of Music recently, and while I’m sure the rehearsal time was low, and the surrounding cast was drawn from the lowest level of the acting ladder, I just couldn’t get myself to really sign on. The acting was kind of hammy and self conscious, and her singing was pitchy at times. I grew up on only classical music in the house (not anymore), and that led me to really cringe at off-pitch singing. I couldn’t go up and say hi afterwards because I didn’t know what to say. I liked the production enough to have paid for the ticket, but it was clearly done by people with little experience/talent.
If I imagine us dating, I wouldn’t know what to do about it. I think I would want to ignore the problem, but it’s such a big part of her life I think it would be too hurtful to know I didn’t think she was very good.
So, do you need to actually respect the job performance of your SO? Please state if you’re male or female.
I’m female, and yes, I think you have to have respect for what inspires and motivates your SO. That doesn’t mean you have to like it, just that you have to understand why she does it, and what she gets out of it. If you honestly believe that she should not be engaging in this type of activity, and should be doing some other kind of work entirely, then I can’t see it working out between you. But if you can understand what she likes about it – teaching kids, being on stage, just singing – and respect that, then you have a shot.
I’d say it helps, yeah, for obvious reasons. Depends in large part if they themselves respect their work. If they’re pouring their heart and soul into it and you think they suck then that’s obviously going to cause problems. If they’re just punching the clock on some generic job then I guess it’s less of an issue.
You sound pretty hard on her amateur dramatic performance btw. Isn’t the expectation for these sort of events that there’s not going to be much quality on display and that they’re just good fun? Saying Damn, I can’t believe the state of the singing in the community theatre sounds a bit mean-spirited.
It kind of does sound mean spirited. I can only say that this is way less of a reaction than I used to have. I still can’t watch the British The Office because of the uncomfortable moments, and I used to clench my fists when hearing some of my old church’s soloists. I guess it’s a bit different than watching someone play softball, because I can enjoy that usually without being actually annoyed, and most people don’t have much personal identity wrapped up in their performance. I think it’s the being annoyed at something someone really likes to do that’s the problem. Heck, she can sing about 5x better than I can. But I still wouldn’t turn up to her singing gig for the singing. I’d be going to be supportive.
Female here, and yeah, I’d have a hard time being in a relationship with someone who (from my perspective) sucked at what they did. It’s possible in this case that the young woman’s real skill is in working with the kids and organizing the show. Her passion and talent for that could make it easier to respect her, even if it’s somewhat irksome to sit through the performances.
You grew up in a house with classical music? I’m guessing you mean that your parents spent good money buying professionally produced recordings of the finest orchestras in the world playing the finest arrangements of music the musicians had grown up on and practiced since childhood.
And it irritates you that the director of an amateur theater company can’t get that level of excellence out of her performers, and her own voice doesn’t measure up to Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland and the other soloists you grew up with?
Would you expect your SO to judge your work against Warren Buffet, Jack Welch and Bill Gates? If you tried to cheer her up, would she dismiss you because you aren’t pulling down five-figure gigs as a motivational speaker?
I am a female.
My SO is a fisherman, from many generations of fishermen; so of course, he is great at his job, and kills many fish.
I am a vegan, and do not eat fish, and hate his job in many ways.
But that does not make a bit of difference in the way I feel about him as a person. He is a wonderful mate, and we have been happy together for nearly eight years.
No, it’s not entirely that. I have Neil Young CDs, and I like them. But Neil isn’t trying to be anything but Neil, and he succeeds at that. Trying to be Julie Andrews exposes most people’s limitations on a few levels, pitch being one of them, here.
I think the real problem is that it isn’t like finding out someone can’t draw (and I can’t draw anything more than a cube). It’s not enjoying the product of someone’s passion. Which is too bad. If she were leading a church small group worship session, I’m sure I wouldn’t really notice, because it’s not as demanding. I’m glad I don’t have this problem in real life, but I wondered if people have dealt with thinking, “Eh, I didn’t enjoy that much” about something the SO had poured so much of him/herself into.
I’m going to suggest, Cardinal, that if off-pitch singing is cringe-inducing, a poor singer won’t cut it for you. We all have our issues, and appareently that’s yours.
Better to stick with the poor drawer, and leave the bad singers for the sketch artists who cringe at people who can’t even draw a cube.
I’m female. And while I’ve never dealt with the situation you describe in a dating relationship, as a college student I had friends who were involved with various amateur theatricals which weren’t necessarily very good.
In one case, I complimented my friend on his hard work and on his singing, even while acknowledging that “Sunday in the Park with George” was not my cup of tea. A mutual friend refused to compliment hard work, since he was so confused by the show, he couldn’t tell whether it was well sung or acted or whatever.
In another case, several of us jointly agreed that the show was in general quite enjoyable, despite the flawed pit orchestra.
In no case was the person involved with the show blind to the performance’s faults.
Cardinal–what do you do in the arts? You said “Heck, she can sing about 5x better than I can.” But she works with kids & does amateur theatre. Even if you don’t earn a living in those arts your parents introduced you to–do you perform for the love of it, or even just sing at home? With all your knowledge, can you teach others?
Besides, she’s cute, “too young” & dating somebody else. Keep on feeling superior; I doubt she’ll ever be your SO…
Yeah, that is too bad. It seems to me like you’re saying you can’t appreciate anyone doing anything for the pure enjoyment of doing, and that you judge all creative work by its technical proficiency. (Neil Young gets a pass because an artist performing his own work pretty much defines the standard of performance.)
Do you ever spontaneously sing in the shower? Do you ever doodle on a scrap of paper? By your own admission you can’t sing or draw, so that would be a waste of time, right?
If you ever have a kid, and she shows you her drawing of a unicorn, please don’t tell her that the horn is too long and the rainbow has all the wrong colors in it.
I’m a guy. My gf is in advertising. She is very good at what she does and is paid an outrageous amount of money. However, neither of us has any “respect” for her work.
ROYGBIV or it doesn’t go up on the fridge, got it?
Actually, I can kind of sympathize with the plight of the OP. I had two dates with a person before he pulled out his bagpipes. And that unfortunately was not a euphemism. Bagpipes are hard enough to listen to. Bagpipes played poorly? I declined a third date.
I was once asked out on a date by person who on the side did tarot card readings. I said no because, well, I couldn’t respect someone who would get paid to lie to other people.
On the flipside, after 4 years of vocal training my voice is still not great. I play guitar and sing for fun and my SO puts up with it. Then again, it’s also not where I get paid, so there’s that as well.
JMHO but it sounds like maybe you weren’t really that crazy about her overall and the performance made you realize it. That is, if it were the love of your life up on stage, doing the same performance, then you’d be tapping your toes and having fun rather than cringing. You might still recognize where the peformance went of the rails but it wouldn’t keep you from speaking to her afterwards.
So my answer is yes, you do have to respect their work, but when it’s your SO you’re naturally inclined to do SO. Obviously if someone is a professional hitman than it’s hard to look past that, but there’s a huge difference between not respecting illegal/unethical activity and, you know, thinking that someone who teaches theater should have a better voice.
I think it’s a lot easier to have a long-term relationship with someone whose work you think improves the world in some way. Otherwise, I should imagine you’d be more likely to get in fights when thier work interferers with your togetherness or social time.
IMHO, someone like florez, who appears to acknowledge her SO is great at his morally repellant family business, is going to be a happier partner than someone who doesn’t.
I think you should be able to have the same respect (or lack thereof) for your SOs work that they do.
However, I gotta side with the OP on this one. There is nothing worse than singing off-key. I can’t stand it. There are so many people in the world who can sing on key (at least 99% of the time) that there is just no excuse for ANYONE to be on stage singing who can’t stay on key.
The verb respect can mean at least two things. It can be to feel that soemthing or something is worthy of high regard; that is involuntary. Or it can also mean to treat a person with courtesy; that is under your control.
I do not understand why people act like the second part is so hard. Unless your wife or girlfriend or husband or boyfriend actually asks you for a critical evaluation of their work why would you want to say something hurtful? It is not dishonest to keep your mouth shut; it is called being a grownup. People who insist they must always tell the blunt truth about their opinions of other people even if the other person has not asked for it are being jackholes.
I dated a guy for a while who fancied himself a guitar player. He was in a band and I used to go and see his band. They weren’t completely awful but he was clearly the weakest link. He was just horrible on the guitar. He played lead. It was excruciating.
Problem is/was that I am also a musician. I have a bachelor’s degree in music and have been a semi professional musician since I was 17
He would regularly ask me how he was or what I thought and he was looking for a critical evaluation. All I could ever bring myself to say was that I thought he needed to “spend more quality time with his guitar”. Meaning he needed to practice. I’m not sure he got that.
The kicker was that he was also a software engineer and made really good money and as a single guy had few obligations so he felt free to spend his disposable income on gear. He had a very nice guitar collection and amps and accessories that would make any pro envious. He couldn’t play any of it.
