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Live From New York
I’d Like a Table By the Dumpster
The New York media has a new set of darlings: the voluntarily homeless.
I am a habitual watcher of Turner Classic Movies, cable television’s destination for films from a bygone era. Thankfully, only a smattering of Ted Turner’s misguided political beliefs work their way into the channel’s programming (example: professor and frequent Al Jazeera guest Jack Shaheen, who recently hosted a series of films supposedly proving his thesis that Arabs are unfairly vilified in film). Mostly, TCM sticks to anodyne fare like the largely forgotten Academy Award nominated 1947 Christmas film It Happened on Fifth Avenue. The film depicts a “bum” — in the less delicate parlance of the day — who winters each year in the boarded-up Fifth Avenue mansion of a steely business magnate. The mansion’s owner is oblivious, as he in turn winters in Florida. Through a convoluted chain of events, the owner’s daughter begins living with the bum and an expanding cast of motley interlopers. None of them are aware of the woman’s true identity as the daughter of the wealthy homeowner. Spoiler alert: zany hijinks ensue, the woman finds love, and her father learns the true meaning of Christmas.
A decidedly less heartwarming story involving a bum of sorts is currently playing out on real life Fifth Avenue. The New York Times recently devoted some ink to the “plight” of Sojourner Hardeman, a woman who has drifted in and out of homelessness for 20 years. She is currently panhandling on Fifth Avenue, which has raised the ire of law enforcement. She was allegedly “harassed” by members of the NYPD, who had the nerve to take umbrage that she is creating a sidewalk impediment on one of New York’s key thoroughfares. She took her case to court, where a judge effectively affirmed that the NYPD has been overzealous in their interpretation of disorderly conduct laws, and Ms. Hardeman should be allowed to continue to provide her brand of charming local color in one of the most expensive commercial districts in the world. Scarf by Hermes, shoes by Louboutin, cardboard sign by Sharpie.
I tend to subscribe to the masterful arguments of City Journal’s Heather Mac Donald that the public space is for all and should not be violated in such obnoxious ways, but I’ll give Hardeman the benefit of the doubt. Her panhandling, provided that it is not aggressive, is likely a constitutionally protected act. But what really raises my blood pressure is her sense of entitlement about the whole thing.
The Times notes that Hardeman had a job as recently as last August as an assistant in a law office, but quit because she wanted something more fulfilling. About a month thereafter, she lost a rented room in the Bronx. This cause and effect relationship should be clear, but nothing can be taken for granted in a paper that has marveled on multiple occasions that crime has gone down despite an increase in the prison population.
Remember, Hardeman has been homeless on and off for 20 years. We all personally know people with advanced degrees who would gladly work as an assistant in a law office, given the current economy. I am not saying that this woman doesn’t deserve fulfillment, but perhaps preemptively quitting her job to become a living street obstruction was not the wisest way to seek it. The least she could do is entertain us by spray painting herself gold like one of those living statue street performers.
Ironically, her panhandling technique is to hold a sign advertising her skills as a typist and computer operator. Those sound like marketable skills. I wonder if there is some sort of job which calls for a similar body of expertise? Oh, I’ve got it. Perhaps Ms. Hardeman could apply to be an ASSISTANT IN A LEGAL OFFICE!
This air of entitlement is not unique among New York City’s homeless population. In my neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, far less tony than Fifth Avenue, lives an individual known as Cadillac Man. He is embraced by the locals as a sort of folk hero. For years, Cadillac lived under a railroad viaduct, filling endless notebooks with prose. He was discovered, started writing for Esquire and the New York Times, and eventually published a book which was reviewed with great fanfare. Now a published author, he found a new girlfriend, moved in with her, and closed the book on life on the streets. While his writings do not match my literary tastes, his is a remarkable American story of success and redemption.
I have never met Cadillac Man, but I have exchanged words with him on an Internet message board for residents of Astoria. He has always been polite, but he has an even more galling sense of entitlement than Hardeman. Despite the turnaround in his fortunes, he decided that the shopping cart which was formerly his base of operations should remain a permanent blight on Astoria’s streets. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, he variously cemented and chained his cart in place, while readily admitting that it is not an attractive looking street fixture. He once defiantly vowed that if the city removed it, he would simply put it back. While I appreciate Cadillac Man’s unique success story, I don’t quite think he’s entitled to a monument in the public space unless and until he becomes president. Thankfully, he has since decided to remove his wheeled eyesore from Astoria’s streets.
Even more infuriating than Cadillac is one Astoria homeless guy who regularly camps out in ATM vestibules and bus stop shelters. He drinks cheap liquor from a paper bag and eats Chinese food out of metal containers with his hands. Occasionally someone will leave him a box of food at one of his hangouts. It sits there for weeks moldering in the sun. I have only been fortunate enough to witness him in the act of defecation once when I was using an ATM, but his favorite haunt is the doorway of an industrial building close to my apartment, I regularly have to look at, and smell, his little presents. Surely, these must fall outside of the bounds of constitutionally protected actions. New York, by the way, is a “right to shelter” city where anyone can seek refuge for the night.
Well meaning advocates claim that it is understandable that men like this should want to remain on the street, since New York’s shelter system is no picnic. I fail to see how brown bagging rotgut whiskey and ignoring plates of food left by kind hearted people is a more therapeutic and compassionate alternative. I have seen the man flag down FDNY ambulances on multiple occasions, and he is usually wearing a hospital bracelet, so he is clearly known to the system. Leaving him on the streets, unmolested, is wrong for both him and the neighborhood. To say nothing of the fact that he lacks the mental capacity to “decide” to remain on the streets.
As a New Yorker, I pay damn high rent and taxes. I’m not without human compassion, but I feel that what I pay out entitles me to not have to look at the excretory byproducts of homelessness every day. This city bends over backwards to dispense social services to the underclass. The subway is full of ads from city agencies, purchased at great taxpayer expense, advising people that they might be entitled to services like free lunches for their children during the summer, food stamps, and free or low cost health screenings. These services are a fine thing, provided that they help people move on to better circumstances. But that does not seem to be the case.
I cannot tell you how aggravating it is to me every time I see a story on the local news about poor conditions in public housing. The story usually leads off like this: “Ms. Jones has lived in the such-and-such projects for over 30 years. Since that time, she says that conditions have deteriorated markedly.” Is the real problem the quality of the free stuff we provide, or that Mrs. Jones and many like her spend decades living off of our government mandated munificence? Mrs. Jones would be foolish to leave, anyhow. In New York City public housing, she is probably lucky enough to have a parking spot. Many, myself included, are unable to afford cars because of the high cost of rent, let alone the difficulties associated with parking in the city.
New York is a place where beggars can be choosers, if we let them get away with it. Travis Bickle, the iconic sociopath played by Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, famously hoped for a “rain” to cleanse the city streets of filth. I’d settle for policy solutions that promote self-reliance for the underclass, rather than a lifetime of dependence.
But if that rain does come, I’ll just see if I can hole up in some wealthy industrialist’s Florida residence while it passes.
About the Author
Bill Zeiser is a communications consultant living in New York City and a 2012 Publius Fellow of the Claremont Institute. Follow him on Twitter @BillZeiser.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (41) | Leave a comment
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Tired Taxpayer PRM| 9.2.11 @ 6:25AM
And you choose to live in NYC. Vote with your feet and move. If enough New Yorkers do it eventually things might change, but I doubt it.
I lived in NYC for two years back in the 80's. I found it to be a bigger, smellier, more dangerous and much more expensive version of Detroit (where I grew up). I fully expect it to end up like Detroit someday.
I see things have not changed for the better since I left.
Joe Snow| 9.2.11 @ 12:19PM
The problem is that leaving solves nothing. There will be someone else to take your place when you are gone, there has to be. In order to move you have to sell your home or move out of your rented digs. Selling your home means someone else is going to buy it and move in. Moving out of rented property means the landlord will find someone else to live there. The only thing moving accomplishes is it removes from you and puts it on someone else. It does nothing to solve the problem.
Skippy| 9.2.11 @ 2:57PM
God did not place me on this Earth to solve NYC's problems.
He put me here to live a moral life, raise my family, and appreciate my blessings.
I left NYC 35 years ago, when the getting was good.
Let the people who live in the city do the work of changing it.
I'm busy.
Occam's Tool| 9.5.11 @ 5:58PM
Actually, Joe, remove enough decent taxpayers from the mix and the politicians will want to solve the problem as it will affect their money.
Cities, to me, are useful for entertainment, food, and cultural activities. All that can be gotten 1 week a year on a vacation. But their drawbacks are too painful to live in them full time. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago (Niles) and spent 4 years in Fort Worth (TCU) and 5 years in Los Angeles (residency) and 1 year in Albuquerque (work). Hate cities.
Pecos Pete| 9.2.11 @ 8:02AM
Public Housing = Insane Asylum
Liberal justice at work.
Petronius| 9.2.11 @ 10:00AM
In this city, homelessness is now a profession. Their public support groups and the media want them to remain as they are. Their mission in life is to be agents of guilt in the face of two thing do gooders loathe; accomplishment and solvency. While it's true there is next to no opportunities for them, when one tries to better himself, he usually gets beaten, robbed, and put in his place by his own cohort. Besides, the people running the shelters wouldn't stand for it. Once one of "their" inmates scrimped $15 by scavenging aluminum cans to buy a bike from the local police auction. He got a job as a courier. When the shelter operator got wind of it he demanded this man give the shelter his entire earnings as rent. He refused. They smashed his bike, rolled him and took the cash he had and then threw him back out on the street. Compassion for who? Charities claiming to aid the indigent are really racketeers, whether it's New York or any other city and all the way to Africa where CARE and Oxfam will do anything to keep populations dependent so that local farm economies do not supplant their power and the donations from Geldoff et al keep on coming. And Those I blame least are the ones who would rather camp under viaducts than surrender the last of their dignity to the poverty pimps.
PolishKnight| 9.2.11 @ 10:05AM
The left successfully blamed homeless on Ronald Reagan while the reality is that it's probably the fault of leftist lawyers who protected the rights of the homeless from being committed to mental institutions or taken away and locked up or put into public housing or shelters.
Here's a shocker for all of you: The left doesn't WANT this problem to go away. Once a particular underclass has grown out of poverty (such as blue collar Catholics), they start to vote Republican. So the left will either import more underclass to vote for them OR encourage existing underclass voters to have children into poverty. Unwed motherhood is ideal for this objective since a housewife of the state and most of her offspring will always be dependent.
PolishKnight| 9.2.11 @ 10:24AM
The author would find these books from here funny: littledemocrats.net "Why Mommy is a Democrat" and "Why Daddy is a Democrat"
It's supposed to be used by Democrats to educate their children (when they have them) about their values but it also helps to show much about their own thinking.
For example, the Democrat Mommy is shown helping children eat and saying "Democrats feed people just like Mommy Does!" and in the background, there's a starving homeless man with an evil Republican couple walking by uncaring.
Yet... why doesn't Democrat Mommy Bear go over and feed him? If Democrat's are feeding everyone, why are these social problems remaining unsolved and even getting worse? And how is Democrat Mommy really "feeding" them? Does the food magically appear in her pantry?
Then you go to the Daddy Democrat book and... there's NO daddy! It's all government workers fighting fires and saving the Earth but daddy is nowhere to be seen.
In other words, in both books, working men don't exist. They're in the gulags working at private sector jobs and paying taxes.
JFGalt| 9.6.11 @ 12:52PM
Democrat Mommy doesn't actually feed these people because she is not stupid and knows that they will either rape her, rob her or kill her so she pays someone else to do it. With that done her conscience is appeased.
JFGalt| 9.6.11 @ 12:52PM
Democrat Mommy doesn't actually feed these people because she is not stupid and knows that they will either rape her, rob her or kill her so she pays someone else to do it. With that done her conscience is appeased.
cicero| 9.2.11 @ 10:51AM
In Michigan, during the 90's, under Gov. John Engler, virtually all of the mental hospitals were closed as a cost cutting measure. As a result, the patients tended to end up in prison or on the streets. This shuffled them from one section of the beaurocracy to another. Engler was granted the reputation as a cost and tax cutter. In fact, overall taxes were not cut, but remained at the same, or higher levels. They were just shifted around. In the meanwhile, the problems remained, and the beaurocracy flourished.
Then, Big John trotted off to D.C., to take the $1million a year job with a lobbying group, while collecting his state pension. Not bad. Once again, the governing class rides to glory on the backs of the taxpayers, all the while professing their do-gooders propensities.
Gary| 9.2.11 @ 12:01PM
A bum is a bum is a bum. this romanticizing of such people is typical who have privilege and money but disdain for middle class working Americans. Such bums are parasites and not worthy of compassion. What they really are are street con men playing on people's sympathies. Sure, there are truly needy people on the street but I venture their numbers would not be as great if people like the woman in your article would get off their asses and work like respectable, responsible human beings.
The Big E| 9.2.11 @ 3:04PM
All men are worthy of compassion. But having compassion for them is not the same thing as enabling them to continue a self-destructive lifestyle, or condoning their way of life. Having compassion for someone does not mean relieving them of the consequences of their actions and decisions.
Slacker| 9.2.11 @ 12:08PM
Unfortunately it is not limited to public services. Churches are also complicit in enabling bums, naturally with the best of intentions. When pressed, an evangelical coworker told me he doesn’t care about unintended consequences because God instructs us to help the poor and I was over analyzing. He also claims successfully rehabilitating just 1% of the bums justifies their work. The other 99% are not considered. They simply refuse to consider the possibility that they are enablers.
SF_Exile| 9.2.11 @ 3:33PM
No, I wonder every time I take sandwiches to my parish for a St. Vincent de Paul pickup whether I am enabling. My husband and I go around and around about this. But, of those whom St. Vincent de Paul feeds, how do I know they are not elderly or infirm? How can I make a judgment on whether their neediness is real or not? I can't and I shouldn't. That's not up to me.
Simon Templar| 9.2.11 @ 12:20PM
This is just another case of liberal elitist and liberal wealthy romantacizing the poor and destitute and using them to make themselves FEEL better and improve their image of themselves as the caring, hip, enlightened, people that you damn well better recognize as such.
The truly tragic aspect of all of this is the plight of so many real homeless and destitute people who really want to work, want an opportunity, or face serious disabilities that effect their ability to work or obtain it.
Of course, you do not see any liberals down there helping these people..they rather make films about them, write about them, and leave the rest to big government to deal with...and we all know how very effective and efficiently they deal with it.
Delta Zelda| 9.3.11 @ 2:03PM
If liberals/Democrats honestly cared about the less fortunate and homeless people, they would invite said group to live in their homes and apartments and ride in their cars. How many times did Ted Kennedy bray about the "poor people" and personally provide relief? When did Andrea Mitchell take some home with her? No public liberal has personally provided help to these people. Hypocracy, thy name is liberals.
Occam's Tool| 9.5.11 @ 6:01PM
There's about 1/3 of them that are mentally ill---but Liberal lawyers want to make it difficult to treat them efficently and the Conservatives don't recognize the damge---it's a perfect storm.
Ron| 9.2.11 @ 1:05PM
Even in Juneau, Alaska, being homeless seems to have become and avocation...We have a local homeless shelter called (I think misnamed) "The Glory Hole." That was actually the name of a mine back in the early 1900s, where miners worked and toiled to produce a product and earn a living. The current "Glory Hole" bears no similarity to that enterprise. Every day the "clients "(I kid you not, that is what they are called) of the homeless shelter toil in the difficult task of smoking cigarettes, and drinking coffee provided by the local coffee wholesaler (stuff i cannot afford, really.) They get fed delicious breakfasts of bacon, sausage, eggs, pastries (while often I make due with a bowl of cereal from home, or an Egg McMuffin on chilly days on my way to work.) Then, they hang out in doorways (during the winter, or in the shelter itself) or beg change from tourists during thew summer. luncheon is provided, of course, as is dinner. Out local Jewish synagogue volunteers once a month on Sunday to feed the bums, er sorry, clients, because the bigger and more aggressive ones would take all of the food if it was a "serve yourself" operation. Then there is the bum I call "Bird Man" because he will take pastries and bread and through it into the street for the raves...Food that was just served...needless to say, my compassion is honestly for my family and friends nowdays.
Nina| 9.2.11 @ 1:16PM
I do believe many of these homeless are mentally ill and due to closings of mental health hospitals, were dumped into the streets and given the choice of taking their meds or not. Lots have chose not. I mean, we can't force anyone to take meds even if it means they would have a clearer mind to think rationally with, even if they harmed others or themselves.
Southern_Comment| 9.3.11 @ 2:36AM
The streets or locked up, nobody has any right to be a threat to others due to choices they make.
Occam's Tool| 9.2.11 @ 1:42PM
Thanks to Liberals, it is much harder to give the mentally ill medications against their will. The ACLU are vermin.
There is a reason I live in a small town in Minnesota. I trained in Los Angeles.
Stammon| 9.2.11 @ 2:20PM
You get what you pay for. You pay for indolence, sloth and waste, that is what you are going to get.
Buck Ofama| 9.4.11 @ 11:14PM
True. Example: Jokebama.
Joe D.| 9.2.11 @ 4:50PM
Bill Zeiser, you are absolutely correct. This intitlement mentallity needs to end. It is wrong and bad for America (everyone).
Nick | 9.3.11 @ 12:44AM
I'm a little confused about the gold paint thing. It sounded like humour, but would Bill Zeiser — or the other readers of this blog — commend street performers for their actions?
I mean, yeah, they're not just sitting around with a sign, most are working pretty hard at what they do, it looks like perfect capitalism (people vote with their money; no talent, no pay), and once they've taken the bleeding-heart liberals' personal money they won't have to rely on government handouts.
But if she did paint her face gold instead of holding the cardboard sign, then would she be less of an obstruction? I saw that Benjamin Franklin, Hank Williams, Lou Reed, Rod Stewart and others have all used the streets as a platform. So, are we now advocating street performance as a viable occupation?
ds80| 9.4.11 @ 9:00AM
It's called sarcasm.
Nick | 9.8.11 @ 9:46PM
Well, yeah, but then I'm asking a serious question. Are street performers doing something worthy?
Abu Nudnik| 9.3.11 @ 12:45AM
I disagree that privatizing public space is a constitutionally mandated right. Firstly, the constitution does not mandate rights but prevents the government from removing them. Secondly, since public space belongs to everyone and no one equally, taking up a spot is to deprive others of it. We have two kinds of property rights: private and public. Both must be assiduously protected.
POST American| 9.3.11 @ 2:29AM
--Great piece! Olny one proviso --ALLLL major
media is Freemason controlled and working
the relentless advance of their Globalist agenda.
In short, the many facets of the broad daylight
America takedown and RED China TREASON and EUGENICS OP.
SO, as ever ---keep a goin'
----------Trump dumps, wampum n' viagra
-----------------------JUST KEEP A GOIN'
Dan Mathewson| 9.4.11 @ 1:55AM
Roger that.
donserge| 9.3.11 @ 8:19AM
In Raleigh NC in the 1990's there was a jobless/homeless guy who staked out a well travelled corner during rush hour. One day I rolled down my window and said; "Why don't you get a job?" (according to the local newspaper, he had been offered several). He proceeded to show me his KFC bucket with many 5's 10's and 20's and said: "Why?" And then proceeded to cuss ME out!
John Navratil| 9.3.11 @ 9:47AM
The author had me, but then he lost me with "but I feel that what I pay out entitles me to not have to look at the excretory byproducts of homelessness every day."
Entitled? Civilized behaviour is why you shouldn't have to do so, not some protection from the government. If I were impoverished paying no taxes, I should not have to deal with someone else's excrement in the public square. Tolerating this behaviour is tolerating the destruction of society and a devolution to the animal.
AuntHoo| 9.4.11 @ 9:46AM
I love Mr. Zeiser's writing. I read this article twice without stopping, for the pure pleasure of it. I agree with the writer, but mostly I was too busy enjoying the writing to get worked up over the entitlement issue. That Pandora's accessory was opened a long time ago, good luck trying to cram anything back in without losing fingers, an arm and our sanity in the process. Feelings of entitlement are apparent in every area of life. College kids believe they're entitled to four to eight or twelve years of nonproductive beer drinking, college professors feel entitled to propagandize in classrooms, and
to lifetime tenure no matter how poor the quality of their teaching, hospital workers feel entitled to their jobs, no matter how poorly done, teachers feel entitled to paid entire summer vacations, teenagers feel entitled to everything, many people who are here illegally feel entitled to medical care they don't pay for and to schooling for their kids (they don't pay for that either). People who are barely making it or are on some form of welfare feel entitled to cable TV , internet access and meat or fish at every meal. Hospitals feel entitled to encourage, even counsel, very ill or just old people to sign DNR's , to boot them out of ICU's and to make certain their physicians don't order too many treatments or tests so the hospitals won't have high mortality statistics and won't have to supply very expensive antibiotics, while a-perhaps the- prime cause of infections that kill people is nosocomial-hospital acquired- and the reason,usually, for that is not other patients, but employees' inadequate handwashing and poor sterile technic; C.A.I.R. feels entitled to cast outrageous aspersions without being shut down, Parents feel entitled to give their children the latest toys and books and devices no matter their income, ...Homelessness and entitlement is just another expression of how deeply enmired we've become in illogic, bad manners, incivility and selfishness. Frustrating, rebarbative. But Mr. Zeiser's writing is balm.
Diz Pareunia| 9.4.11 @ 5:11PM
My friends, there is plenty of blame to go around. I witnessed the destruction of the California state hospital system, by an unholy alliance of leftists who decried "warehousing", and rightists who just didn't want to pay for those "warehouses".
The result: public libraries of such danger and stench that ordinary citizens were afraid to use them. Proud of yourselves, are ye, Wingers?
Buck Ofama| 9.4.11 @ 11:17PM
There was a "blind Cadillac Man" around Beale St. in Memphis. The assh0le wore black sunglasses and tapped about with a blind-man's cane. Drove a Cadillac. I hope the c0cksucker was drowned in the river.
POST American| 9.4.11 @ 11:25PM
-------------------------BTW--------------------------
DO we remember how outrageous housing
costs started first in New York as part of the
initial biz nihilist thrust --POST the 'Nix is on'
and MAO sellout summit.
Sleaze pot 'Trump-dump think'
has been a scourge that's been with us
ever since.
SO --Keep a goin' kiddies! ---keep a goin'!
------franchise slums, wampum n' porn
-----------Just keep a goin'!
D Roamer | 9.5.11 @ 12:34AM
O.K. then round them all up and put them back in the asylums, most are incurable, but some are dopers and perhaps they will not break away as well. which is humane, let them run around bumming or confined in the asylum. Liberals thought it inhumane to confine them and the release from asylum is more humane. It's Debatable.
bluecollarbytes| 9.5.11 @ 9:38AM
Thanks to new yorkers who live there, I don't have to.
What exactly is the appeal of a stanky concrete jungle? If you can fake it there you can fake it anywhere....so again, why?
QMC| 9.5.11 @ 11:40PM
OMG, Bill hits the big time. I'll always be able to say I knew you (in an internet sort of way) back when you swung your cudgel in the much smaller space provided by astorians.com
Kim Cole| 3.29.12 @ 4:47PM
While you talk about what other people feel entitled to you speak about your entitlements. You are entitled to a beautiful place to live for all you have paid. But because you work and earned it. But using your own sentiment then if Ms. Hardeman or Cadillac Man has paid more than you in taxes for all the years they worked then they should have the same entitlement to their buggy or billboard as you do to your street the way you want it. For all you know Cadillac Man may have worked on the stock exchange and Ms. Hardeman may have owned a multi-million dollar business which paid more in taxes in one year than you have in your lifetime. That is why there are laws recognizing people's human needs. If you cared about your neighborhood you would know the people you are talking about and interact with them no matter what level of life you think you know something about. Each person has a story. For all you know Cadillac Man or Ms. Hardeman's recess from the work place in a manner in which you find acceptable may have saved someone else's life. Would you rather a person worked until they snapped and shot up everyone in the workplace, or rammed a plane into skyscraper, or enter a train and randomly just start shooting, all of which are also a part of New York's history. So if they are a moment of an eyesore, realize that unless you have approached them to find out what they consider a more fulfilling workplace or an acceptable transition to the workforce like the gentleman who now works for a magazine you have only your warped view of the world with which to discern their needs. Ms. Hardeman may just want a workplace like I do where my boss doesn't insult me by asking me to sleep with him because God gave me big boobs. Cadillac Man may have other ghosts haunting him that make him safer on the street then sitting next to you in a workplace. While you want to mention the poop on the sidewalk...New Yorkers pick up their dog's shit so if you find the poop on the sidewalk...clean it up. It is in your neighborhood. Put a planter there so he can poop in the planter and help the flowers grow. But before you think that your eyesore is something more than not caring for the people you don't know, try getting to know the person and you may be able to meet a happy accord and fulfill what both of you want, rather than make it seem like they are keeping you from having an enjoyable life. If this is where you chose to put your focus I can assure you...you already have a miserable life.