# OK, ZPG: Let's get a room. I'm paying. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 21, 2016, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557 "2016-08-21T20:37:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/81 "2016-08-22T21:35:04Z")
I wish I hadn’t found out what **Martian Bigfoot** and **ZPG Zealot** do behind closed doors … I need a shower now … ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/82 "2016-08-22T21:41:09Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I wish I hadn’t found out what **Martian Bigfoot** and **ZPG Zealot** do behind closed doors … I need a shower now … I know you’re joking, but lest anyone get any ideas: \*\*ZPG \*\*and I don’t do anything. We haven’t met in person, or communicated outside the public fora on this board. What you see is all there is, and I fully expect that to remain the case. This for the record. And I suspect that anything that is not even going on is pretty one-sided. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/83 "2016-08-22T21:43:52Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Well, I certainly won’t argue with that. > > OK, you’re saying that the girl’s father expressed a desire to punish your nephew. Furthermore, that he described your nephew as a horrible pervert, and his daughter as innocent and subsequently corrupted. Were these statements and descriptions, the way you phrase them, expressed in these words or something close, or are you paraphrasing? Did he tell this to you, or to your nephew, directly? Or you get this information by way of a lawyer? Or by some other means? > > Also, just wondering, concerning who holds what viewpoint in the situation: Do you agree with those statements at all, or would you describe the relationship in different words? > > About the legal authorities: You went to the police, to get information about whether your nephew might be in trouble, and consulted with your lawyer. However, you did not take legal action against the girl’s family, is that right? The girl’s father initiated legal action? > > I’m still a bit confused about who involved the legal authorities against the other side first, so it would be cool to have that cleared up. > Just to clarify something about the chronology and the ages of the participants here. At the time of the original relationship with the non-Roma girl, both parties were below the legal age of consent. At the time of the marriage to the Roma girl, had your nephew reached the age of consent? Was the Roma girl of legal age of the time of the marriage? The legal authorities were first contacted by my lawyer who informed them in so many words: some possibly photographs were sent to a cell phone belonging to our client. Because our client knows that possession of these photographs could possibly constitute a crime my client turned them over to her legal representative as soon as their existence became known to her. Our client did not solicit these photographs and only wishes is to cooperate with the law for their disposal. The DA’s office took it from there. The girl’s father upon discovery of the situation expressed a desire to have my nephew arrested and prosecuted. He expressed it with such enthusiasm at our doorway on several occasions that I felt very glad for my 2nd amendment rights. Both teenagers were under the legal age of consent. When my nephew got married, his father had to sign a legal permission form. His wife was already eighteen. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/84 "2016-08-22T21:46:59Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I think sexual abuse of females has gone on far too long because people dismiss male aggression against women too easily. Are you male? The world is different for women. Rape is not one of those things we can just forget to think about. It’s a real problem. Again, you jump to the extreme notion without any context, buildup or explanation. You still have not answered why you think allowing children of both sexes to play together leads to rape. YES WE KNOW RAPE IS BAD. YOU DON’T NEED TO KEEP REPEATING, PARAPHRASING OR ILLUSTRATING THAT POINT. While I’m at it, you don’t need to make up any more stories about lawsuits over phone pics. If you can’t explain your reasoning, we won’t see your point. Nobody will. You will accomplish nothing to combat rape if you don’t quit resorting to extremes without SOME kind of explanation. Why do you think you’re getting so much negative feedback? Do you just assume everybody you talk to was brought up to be rude and uncivilized? Are you even Roma, or are you making that up too? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/85 "2016-08-22T21:50:43Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > I know you’re joking, but lest anyone get any ideas: \*\*ZPG \*\*and I don’t do anything. We haven’t met in person, or communicated outside the public fora on this board. What you see is all there is, and I fully expect that to remain the case. This for the record. > > And I suspect that anything that is not even going on is pretty one-sided. 😉 No … this is our fault … we said “get a room” … we didn’t have to follow you two in. But I am taking notes, I want to see if these come-on lines will work on the girls around here … ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/86 "2016-08-22T21:51:37Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > Let’s cut through the bullshit between what you said vs. what you mean. > > Your handshake = rape assertion requires the necessary belief that all contact is equal. They are not, _obviously_ > > It focuses on the very specific idea that physical rape requires _only_ that an unwanted touch occur, ignoring any context. It would be like saying cake is food and therefore all food is cake. > > Yes, sexual violence is often dismissed as incidental touching, but you forget something: INCIDENTAL TOUCHING ACTUALLY HAPPENS! > > Furthermore, by thinking as you do, you trivialize the actual harm of actual rape victims, which is why most of us think you’re full of shit. If you’re merely existing off in your corner with all the stupid beliefs bottled up inside your head, that would be one thing, you’d be a weird curiosity and nothing more, but you leave your hole to spread hurtful, damaging, and dangerous information based on the above misconceptions. > > You’re the kind of person who would cry harassment if someone looks at you wrong. You’re the kind of person who spreads conspiracy theories about social norms because you don’t like them. You’re the kind of person who is probably very inconsistent in their own life because no human can possibly believe the shit you do and have it interfere with daily living every single second of the day. > > Only if there is a sexual component. If I headbutt you, I didn’t rape you. If I roundhouse kick you in the face, I didn’t rape you. That you think it has is more your problem than mine, because I’m not going to stop roundhousing random people in the face > > Part of what you learn as far as mental illness goes is that something is an illness when it is debilitating, when it affects other parts of their life, and when it substitute a fake reality for the actual one. A person can be eccentric without being mentally ill if it doesn’t impair your life. You can believe something crazy but if it doesn’t affect anyone else negatively, there’s no reason to lock you up. No matter what is “reality”, medically and legally, you probably won’t be committed to a hospital for simply thinking crazy or odd thoughts if you can still function as a normal human being. Nobody is dragging you away if you believe in fairies unless you’re dressing up like them and hunting them in the woods with a shotgun. > > What’s the point of all this? Well, if the vast majority of people are ok with enforced handshaking, and it doesn’t negatively impact them, and they are not harmed, and you still think its rape? Maybe you should be more tolerant of your idea of rape. It is, after all, just a word. Calling some mild action “rape” doesn’t make the mild action worse, it makes the word “rape” less serious. This is the very attitude that makes it hard for victims of sexual violence and continues the cycle of violence of again. A mild action of violence is like a mild state of pregnant. No such thing. As long as you can brush something off as just a “mild” action of violence, just about any sort of foul behavior is excused as a “mild” action of violence. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/87 "2016-08-22T21:52:46Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > When my nephew got married, his father had to sign a legal permission form. His wife was already eighteen. Just to clarify again: At the time of the marriage, your nephew was still under the legal age of consent? ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/88 "2016-08-22T21:56:31Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Again, you jump to the extreme notion without any context, buildup or explanation. You still have not answered why you think allowing children of both sexes to play together leads to rape. YES WE KNOW RAPE IS BAD. YOU DON’T NEED TO KEEP REPEATING, PARAPHRASING OR ILLUSTRATING THAT POINT. > > While I’m at it, you don’t need to make up any more stories about lawsuits over phone pics. If you can’t explain your reasoning, we won’t see your point. Nobody will. You will accomplish nothing to combat rape if you don’t quit resorting to extremes without SOME kind of explanation. Why do you think you’re getting so much negative feedback? Do you just assume everybody you talk to was brought up to be rude and uncivilized? Are you even Roma, or are you making that up too? Because too often the little boys are allowed to prey on the little girls. If children are properly supervised, there is little risk, but that isn’t what happens in most cases. Instead it’s Lord of the Flies. Separating the children is ultimately easier and safer. You could argue that there isn’t a reason not to let little boys play in the recreation yard of a prison for sex-offenders as long as the intimates are properly supervised. Anybody think that’s a good idea? ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/89 "2016-08-22T21:58:02Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Just to clarify again: At the time of the marriage, your nephew was still under the legal age of consent? Yeah, otherwise his father would not have had to sign legal documents giving permission for him to get be married. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/90 "2016-08-22T22:02:37Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Yeah, otherwise his father would not have had to sign legal documents giving permission for him to get be married. OK. You are saying that your nephew was under the legal age of consent at the time of the marriage, and, in order for him to marry, his father had to sign legal documents. Does the law work like this? Honest question, I am no legal expert. Can you marry (arranged-marry, at that, in this case) your way around the laws regarding the age of consent? I had not heard of this. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/91 "2016-08-22T22:08:19Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > It was only after my father taught me how to grab the penis and developing balls and try to tear something off that the little bastards left me alone. Oh, well that’s a perfectly appropriate response to getting tapped on the shoulder. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/92 "2016-08-22T22:10:50Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > jsgoddess says that women should go along with the sexual victimization of another women to please men. What’s wrong with that. Hillary’s been doing it with Bill for decades now. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/93 "2016-08-22T22:11:42Z")
[QUOTE=jsgoddess] ZPG says killing children is fine. [/QUOTE] Her bit about how infanticide is sometimes justifiable is when I checked out (emotionally.) > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > The Dope is the only place outside of volunteering at a homeless shelter or working with teenagers in poverty that I have encountered so many people ignorant of such basic etiquette. Fun fact: I’ve reported other people for harassing you in non-Pit threads. Sometimes you say things about the importance of consent to physical contact and respecting other people’s boundaries, and our society’s tendency to minimize sexual violence, and I’m like, okay, she has a point. People like to hijack threads with dumb handshake rape jokes and it’s basically bullying to my mind. Then you say classist bullshit like this. You confuse wealth for education, intelligence, integrity, respectability, and use rules of etiquette to draw a hard dividing line between those who deserve respect and success and those who don’t. That’s it. I’m guessing it serves some psychologically protective function because you associate all people of a certain social class with the monsters you endured in your childhood, but really there’s no excuse for making broad generalizations about people, not even a hard-luck childhood. I started my adult life at the age of 17 with $600 in my bank account and a full plate of coursework my senior year of high school, including college classes I was taking for dual enrollment and multiple extra-curricular responsibilities. While most of the people in my social circle abandoned me, including multiple members of my family, because my experience of abuse was inconvenient for them, I worked full-time as a waitress to pay my bills while living with my Aunt (yes, I too recognize the value of aunties in the world.) I had a nearly 4.0 GPA and multiple senior awards, but there were no open houses for me, no celebrations of my accomplishments, no time to do anything but work. When everybody ran outside on the last day of class to celebrate graduation, I sat inside balancing my checkbook. That was my senior year. I was poor before that, but my basic material needs had always been covered. I never really had any encounter until that point with the social services system, the charity networks, the kinds of places you volunteer. And what struck me the most was how virtually invisible I became in those settings. People assumed I was stupid and uncultured, that there must be something wrong with me because I was poor. Since I’d been told all my life I had great potential and had a million teachers supporting and encouraging me throughout my life, I found this difference in treatment, solely on the basis of my perceived social status, rather striking. What’s worse, when I studied social work years later, I realized this is the default treatment most poor people get. That teachers look at these kids and say, ‘‘I dunno why you even bother studying, you’re just going to end up knocked up anyway.’’ Most people, including myself, cannot fucking fathom what it’s like to have zero people who believe in your ability to succeed, but that is the reality that many kids face. As for me, I aced all my classes that year and graduated Salutatorian. I made a speech in front of the entire school and had no idea at the time if my parents were even sitting in the audience. I got a full ride scholarship for being that winning combination of poor and smart. I scratched and clawed my way to the educational level I am at now, and I paid for it all in blood, sweat and tears. I’ve spent a good portion of my life among highly educated people, from brilliant, compassionate creatures like my husband to elitist assholes who don’t even know how bigoted they are. I got the requisite fancy degrees that were supposed to be my escape from the shithole that was my childhood, and it didn’t erase the past as I had hoped. Surprise! Pain still hurts, and also so does student loan debt. Am I better off for being well educated? Absolutely. In addition to earning power it gives me an advanced set of tools to solve the social issues that I find most vexing. But I will never, long as I live, buy into elitist lies about what it means to be poor or disadvantaged. I will never believe social status is a mark of character and I sure as fuck will never condescend to others because they got the shit end of the stick in life in ways that I didn’t. Some people take their pain and their trauma and they use it to close themselves down. They shut up like telescopes, they draw hard lines in the sand, they build walls, they disconnect, they create arbitrary distinctions between self and other. I must not do this. Ignorance is at the root of everything bad that was done to me. We’re either all in this together, or we’re not. The petty, judgmental people whose ways you seem to admire and emulate are the antithesis of everything I want to be. I know plenty of those people, and when I am in rooms full of them, I pity them. I feel like I have – let’s call it – the privilege of being able to live an authentic life. The privilege of having people who love me for who I am and not the front that I project. Those of us who reject that kind of social bigotry are no less intelligent, respectable, or accomplished than you. [QUOTE=Martian Bigfoot] Does the law work like this? Honest question, I am no legal expert. Can you marry (arranged-marry, at that, in this case) your way around the laws regarding the age of consent? I had not heard of this. [/QUOTE] In some states, you can bypass consent laws with parental permission to marry, yes. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/94 "2016-08-22T22:11:56Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > OK. You are saying that your nephew was under the legal age of consent at the time of the marriage, and, in order for him to marry, his father had to sign legal documents. > > Does the law work like this? Honest question, I am no legal expert. Can you marry (arranged-marry, at that, in this case) your way around the laws regarding the age of consent? I had not heard of this. Yes, that’s the way the law works. As long as the teenagers don’t object to being married, a legal marriage is an accepted way around the age of consent laws. Now of course, many states have laws that only consider a marriage to be valid if the participants are at least sixteen even with parental permission. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/95 "2016-08-22T22:24:36Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > In some states, you can bypass consent laws with parental permission to marry, yes. > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Yes, that’s the way the law works. As long as the teenagers don’t object to being married, a legal marriage is an accepted way around the age of consent laws. Now of course, many states have laws that only consider a marriage to be valid if the participants are at least sixteen even with parental permission. Well, ignorance fought on my part. How young can you go? Are there any states where you can be younger than 16? ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/96 "2016-08-22T22:27:04Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Now of course, many states have laws that only consider a marriage to be valid if the participants are at least sixteen even with parental permission. That’s terrible. Johnny Law should not have a say if my 2 year old wants to marry the 3 year old next door. Fucking fascists. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/97 "2016-08-22T22:27:50Z")
[Here’s a summary](http://marriage.about.com/cs/teenmarriage/a/teenus.htm). Not reading through all the states, in Alabama you can get married as young as 14 with parental consent. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/98 "2016-08-22T22:29:30Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Her bit about how infanticide is sometimes justifiable is when I checked out (emotionally.) > Fun fact: I’ve reported other people for harassing you in non-Pit threads. Sometimes you say things about the importance of consent to physical contact and respecting other people’s boundaries, and our society’s tendency to minimize sexual violence, and I’m like, okay, she has a point. People like to hijack threads with dumb handshake rape jokes and it’s basically bullying to my mind. > > Then you say classist bullshit like this. You confuse wealth for education, intelligence, integrity, respectability, and use rules of etiquette to draw a hard dividing line between those who deserve respect and success and those who don’t. That’s it. I’m guessing it serves some psychologically protective function because you associate all people of a certain social class with the monsters you endured in your childhood, but really there’s no excuse for making broad generalizations about people, not even a hard-luck childhood. > > I started my adult life at the age of 17 with $600 in my bank account and a full plate of coursework my senior year of high school, including college classes I was taking for dual enrollment and multiple extra-curricular responsibilities. While most of the people in my social circle abandoned me, including multiple members of my family, because my experience of abuse was inconvenient for them, I worked full-time as a waitress to pay my bills while living with my Aunt (yes, I too recognize the value of aunties in the world.) I had a nearly 4.0 GPA and multiple senior awards, but there were no open houses for me, no celebrations of my accomplishments, no time to do anything but work. When everybody ran outside on the last day of class to celebrate graduation, I sat inside balancing my checkbook. That was my senior year. > > I was poor before that, but my basic material needs had always been covered. I never really had any encounter until that point with the social services system, the charity networks, the kinds of places you volunteer. And what struck me the most was how virtually invisible I became in those settings. People assumed I was stupid and uncultured, that there must be something wrong with me because I was poor. Since I’d been told all my life I had great potential and had a million teachers supporting and encouraging me throughout my life, I found this difference in treatment, solely on the basis of my perceived social status, rather striking. What’s worse, when I studied social work years later, I realized this is the default treatment most poor people get. That teachers look at these kids and say, ‘‘I dunno why you even bother studying, you’re just going to end up knocked up anyway.’’ Most people, including myself, cannot fucking fathom what it’s like to have zero people who believe in your ability to succeed, but that is the reality that many kids face. > > As for me, I aced all my classes that year and graduated Salutatorian. I made a speech in front of the entire school and had no idea at the time if my parents were even sitting in the audience. I got a full ride scholarship for being that winning combination of poor and smart. I scratched and clawed my way to the educational level I am at now, and I paid for it all in blood, sweat and tears. I’ve spent a good portion of my life among highly educated people, from brilliant, compassionate creatures like my husband to elitist assholes who don’t even know how bigoted they are. I got the requisite fancy degrees that were supposed to be my escape from the shithole that was my childhood, and it didn’t erase the past as I had hoped. Surprise! Pain still hurts, and also so does student loan debt. > > Am I better off for being well educated? Absolutely. In addition to earning power it gives me an advanced set of tools to solve the social issues that I find most vexing. But I will never, long as I live, buy into elitist lies about what it means to be poor or disadvantaged. I will never believe social status is a mark of character and I sure as fuck will never condescend to others because they got the shit end of the stick in life in ways that I didn’t. Some people take their pain and their trauma and they use it to close themselves down. They shut up like telescopes, they draw hard lines in the sand, they build walls, they disconnect, they create arbitrary distinctions between self and other. I must not do this. Ignorance is at the root of everything bad that was done to me. We’re either all in this together, or we’re not. > > The petty, judgmental people whose ways you seem to admire and emulate are the antithesis of everything I want to be. I know plenty of those people, and when I am in rooms full of them, I pity them. I feel like I have – let’s call it – the privilege of being able to live an authentic life. The privilege of having people who love me for who I am and not the front that I project. Those of us who reject that kind of social bigotry are no less intelligent, respectable, or accomplished than you. You seriously misunderstood my point about homeless people and impoverished youth not understanding basic etiquette. It was not to imply they were incapable of behaving appropriately, but rather that their circumstances made it very difficult for them to learn proper etiquette. I was very poor myself for significant portions of my life. Poor as in ate out of garbage cans and panhandled for money. But I got out of that and got an education. The woman who sponsored me at Sweet Briar gave me a copy of Tiffany’s Table Manners for Teenagers before I had even met her. I read. I memorized it. And the first former dinner I attended, an older woman remarked that my mother must be very proud of how well I learned my manners. I said thank you and reframed from sharing my true opinion of my mother with her. The wonderful egalitarian thing about etiquette is that anyone can learn the proper manners if they are willing. It’s the people that don’t bother, but expect everyone to consistently look over their bad behavior that make me angry. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/99 "2016-08-22T22:40:27Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > You seriously misunderstood my point about homeless people and impoverished youth not understanding basic etiquette. It was not to imply they were incapable of behaving appropriately, but rather that their circumstances made it very difficult for them to learn proper etiquette. I was very poor myself for significant portions of my life. Poor as in ate out of garbage cans and panhandled for money. But I got out of that and got an education. The woman who sponsored me at Sweet Briar gave me a copy of Tiffany’s Table Manners for Teenagers before I had even met her. I read. I memorized it. And the first former dinner I attended, an older woman remarked that my mother must be very proud of how well I learned my manners. I said thank you and reframed from sharing my true opinion of my mother with her. The wonderful egalitarian thing about etiquette is that anyone can learn the proper manners if they are willing. It’s the people that don’t bother, but expect everyone to consistently look over their bad behavior that make me angry. I told you that story because I figured you’d relate to it on some level. It really does sound like you use your current social status as a kind of psychological buffer between where you are now and where you came from. It’s not a thing I have ever been able to do. I blend in almost any social situation but I never feel I fit in with any particular group. The only place I really feel I ‘belong’ is among fellow crazy people (of all different social statuses and wealth levels.) I fit with people who know pain and use it to try to ease the suffering of others. The people I relate to most right now are my fellow writers. That’s all I’ve got. There are certain people in my life who are insanely wealthy, and who may have the veneer of proper etiquette at social functions but I know their secret, miserable stories. I know how they beat their coke-addicted wives and how they draw a paycheck even though they spend their work hours screwing prostitutes instead of working. And I don’t have any respect for them and I don’t understand how they sleep at night. Their $5,000 Prada bags (or whatever fashion is trendy these days) or their ability to use the proper silverware at a formal meal mean nothing to me. I also know equally wealthy people who feel exactly the same as I do. Rich or poor, if you value others, you are my people. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557/100 "2016-08-22T22:49:26Z")
I paid $20 at the door for this? Phaw … I want my money back. Pitting failed … **ZPG Zealot’s** heart is in the right place, who cares if her expression leaves something to be desired. Can I have a hug? … [wolfish grin] … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-zpg-lets-get-a-room-im-paying/763557.md?page=6)