Thursday, 19 May 2011

• Keep The Shoes! Faking Conviction with Cash

  

  Last night, while working at the bar, one of our regulars motioned me over with his near-empty Miller High Life. "Listen to this," he said, and signaled his female friend to re-tell her story.

  His friend was a beautiful Russian woman named Tatiana, who moved to New York nine months ago. At High Life's suggestion she proceeded to tell me, in her delicious accent, the story of a wealthy investment banker she had met before leaving her home country, who shall be called Karl.

  Tatiana and Karl hit it off in Russia only weeks before she was supposed to move to New York, and since then Karl had been adamant that they remain committed to each other long-distance. But after six months of this, Tatiana grew tired of the arrangement. "If we're going to keep this up," she said, "you have to come to New York."

  Karl wasn't phased. "You tell me when to come," he said, "and I will come to New York." They agreed that he would come visit in the beginning of June.

  But then, weeks before he was due to arrive, Tatiana received a package in the mail. Inside were two brand new pairs of Manolo Blahniks, with a note that said: "Don't think I'll be able to make it in June."

  Tatiana promptly sent the shoes back, unworn, with a note that said: "Keep the shoes."

  Now, High Life had wanted his friend to re-tell her story because he thought she was being harsh by not giving Karl a chance to explain himself before rejecting his gesture. But, as Tatiana and I discussed the reasons behind her actions, the underlying issues became clear.

  What Karl is guilty of is faking conviction. When someone claims to believe in something (like a relationship) enough to do whatever it takes (like visit when a visit is make-or-break) and then cops out at the last second without a real reason, this is a person who fakes conviction. Tatiana was upset because Karl thought he could cover up his fake conviction by making a beautiful shoe-gesture. High Life thought that she should have given him a chance to explain himself before rejecting said gesture, but we women maintained that if he had a good reason, Karl would have found a way for her to hear it before or at the same time as he told her he wasn't coming. It was disingenuous of him to give her a gift in the absence of a real explanation.

  But beyond this, Karl's actions are indicative of something bigger and more dangerous than simply fake-conviction. His actions reveal the tremendously worrisome attitude that money fixes things. Now, while money is a tool and is indeed capable of fixing certain things, it is no replacement for time. For someone who makes as much as Karl does, money doesn't really mean anything. Anyone with money can get their personal shopper to find some beautiful shoes and UPS them across an ocean. It's time that's valuable, and the assumption that the two are interchangeable is the really troubling factor. If your husband had this attitude, how would he react when your kid acts out at school or starts doing drugs? Would he talk to his child, or would he pay someone else to talk to his child?

  Finally, Karl's thinking perpetuates the assumption that rather than seeking a real partner, women just want men to pamper them with things. Tatiana rejected the shoes not because they weren't beautiful or because they didn't fit (they did, perfectly, which angered her more); she rejected them because his thinking was fundamentally offensive to her relationship sensibilities.

  Do you think Tatiana's reaction was justified? What do you think about the importance of conviction, money, time and things? What would you have done?

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