Long-Distance Relationships - the New, New Thing

A number of people have asked me why my wife Leslie and I have decided to live apart. I am living in Boston and, at least until the end of the year, she is in Washington, DC. Those of you who have read my scientific study demonstrating that Boston is a 200% better city to live in than DC might have assumed that our decision was based solely on my paradigm-busting findings, that moving back to Boston would increase my happiness and well-being correspondingly. But that's not the whole story. Aside from the fact that being involved in a long-distance relationship is, flat out, the hippest, coolest thing a couple can do these days, there were a number of quite complex factors that went into the decision. Primary among them were as follows:

Aesthetics

Honestly, living with your spouse and falling asleep every night in a comfy bed, snuggled up against the person you love most in the world is a pretty effete, bourgeois, hedonistic thing to do. In terms of artistic creativity and street creds, monkish bohemianism is going to trump effete, bourgeois hedonism one hundred percent of the time. Plus, if you believe in heaven and hell, my understanding (granted, I'm getting a bit out of my element here) is that just about all the governing literature has it that the former is more accessible to the monkish types and the latter more likely for the hedonists. Leslie and I have been called a lot of things in our lives, but never once has anyone ever called us (at least to our faces) effete, bourgeois hedonists. But, just to be sure, lest there be any doubt, we have opted in favor of a more monk-ish, bohemian-ish existence by splitting our one, warm, comfortable home into a stripped down convent and an equally inconvenient abbey. In my new solo kitchen, for example, you'll find only the barest of monkish essentials: beer, baking soda, a frozen burrito and some sliced provolone cheese. And in my uninviting living room, I can sit on a borrowed couch and stare into the corner where the TV used to be. And my living room will be even more monk-ish bohemian-ish when my friend who's lent me the couch takes it back. Then I'll be able to sit on the floor and stare at the corner where the TV used to be. All of this is terrific cosmic training. The next time anyone gives either one of us the what-do-you-know-what-kind-of-hardship-have-you-ever-had-to-endure eye roll, we can respond with a kind Dalai Lama-ish smile and a deep breath of tranquility, knowing that our astonishingly un-hedonistic lifestyle has led us to be at one with the universe.

Community service

The epicenter of federal government, Washington, DC is, of course, where you need to live if you want to have any meaningful impact on national and international policy. Boston, on the other hand, is the second largest hub of venture capital activity in the nation. So it's hard to shape the future of technology and innovation if you're too far from there. It seems like not a day goes by when one or another Congressional sub-committee or banking consortium isn’t trying to drag Leslie or me in for a debrief. You can see the conundrum. By living in only one place, we figured, we might be less readily available to swing by for impromptu Ways and Means Committee rap sessions, participate in nights out with the federal reserve boys, that sort of thing. We were concerned that we might be depriving Congress and the venture capital community of the benefit of our full attention. And in these tough economic times, when knowledgeable people with a cool head and clear vision are so desperately needed to keep the world economy on track, that just seemed almost unconscionably selfish.

Glamour

When we decided to live apart, we wondered if we would be able to afford any real vacations. That became a moot point when we realized that travel between Boston and DC on the USAir shuttle was itself better than any vacation we could ever hope for. I've often heard the USAir shuttle described as a sort of combination of the Orient Express, the QE2 and the Concorde. The luxury and service afforded the elite slice of the population lucky enough to hold a Boston / DC shuttle ticket is so unparalleled that people sometimes book shuttle flights even if they have no reason to travel between these two cities. There is an audible gasp of anticipation when the cabin door clicks shut, all of the passengers knowing that, for a brief hour and a half, all of life's worries and pressures will melt away as they decompress in a cocoon of luxurious tranquility. The only downside to a shuttle trip is that it always seems to go by too fast. By the time you've had a few appletinis and passed hors d'oeuvres and pulled the cucumbers off your eyes after your heated stone massage, there's almost no time left to mingle with the movie stars, business elites, senators and professional athletes socializing their way through the cabin.

Investment Strategy

In today's volatile economic climate, a good investment vehicle is one that performs predictably. I have two words for you: household appliances. When I moved back to Boston, I had to make serious capital expenditures on such big ticket items as a toast-r-oven, a hair dryer and an iron. Investments in household appliances, despite lingering outside the spotlight of the popular press, have, since the advent of electricity, been plodding along at a rock solid pace. With an average lifespan of seven years, a household appliance will generate an annual return of about -14%. In today's market, where chasing positive returns on investments seems downright childish, a negative 14% return is quite robust. If you invested all your money in a stock index fund, based on the current trajectory of around 35% annual loss, it would take just under three years to lose all your money. Had you invested in household appliances instead, it would take almost three times as long before you were broke. Having parked our liquid capital in the aforementioned toast-r-oven, hair dryer and iron, for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2009 we outperformed the market by approximately 21%. Any hedge fund manager who pulled off a feat like would be bronzed and hoisted up to the roof of the NASDAQ. Plus, with this type of tangible investment vehicle, I've been able to take advantage of such positive externalities as looking sharp and being able to broil food. Some might call me a financial genius. I just think of myself as a man who loves toast.

In Conclusion

People who complain that living apart from their spouses “sucks” or is the “worst period ever in the history of their relationship” are obviously sorely mistaken. Sure, living five hundred miles away from your sweetie may make you lonely and bored, and, yeah, you may have to cry yourself to sleep five or six nights a week, but the upside is immeasurable. Leslie and I will be back together sometime soon and we’ll be richer, sexier, bohemian-er and more politically influential than ever.

The Raging Coupon Cutting Debate: Why We Should Be More Like the French

My apartment building puts out a monthly newsletter – a glossy thing with some stock photos of smiling, racially ambiguous people and a few brain dead articles that could probably have been written by an algorithm. If the newsletter were an animal, it would have about the lifespan of a fruit fly. 12 – 24 hours maximum from the time the ink dries to the time it is returned to nature via the building recycling bin. Perusing the main newsletter headlines usually doesn’t take more than about ten seconds of my monthly time so, after spending another ten seconds muttering a few derogatory comments about the thing, I can get on with my life without too much anguish.

But then this month I discovered a disclaimer in the corner of the second page. Maybe it had been there every month and I just now noticed it for the first time. Or maybe it was new. Here’s what it said: “the views expressed herein are not necessarily those of [the management company] and neither [the management company] nor its affiliates… assumes responsibility for any materials submitted for publication or for any loss or injury arising out of the publication of such materials.” Additionally, “any action taken in reliance on the views contained herein is taken at the risk of the reader.” The disclaimer piqued my interest. Why would something like that be necessary unless there was going to be some good risqué stuff? Maybe management had found some new writers and finally decided to replace the usual drivel with some more interesting articles – something along the lines of “KABOOM! How to make a powerful bomb out of everyday bathroom supplies!” Or maybe a piece on how to buy a kidney or beat a drug test or operate a slim jim.

But, alas, the two most prominent features were a recipe for caprese pizzas and an article entitled “Can clipping coupons save you money?” The coupon article concluded with this Pulitzer prize-worthy insight: “Whether clipping coupons is worth it depends on your situation. If your life’s responsibilities are weighing on your wallet, then the time invested is probably worth it. If, however, your time is in shorter supply than your money, you’ll probably find the effort is too consuming to maintain.” I understand that a publication like this, distributed to a diffuse audience with varying tastes and interests, has to be fairly middle of the road. But, at some point, inoffensiveness can itself be so extreme as to actually become offensive. The combination of such milquetoast writing with such a paranoid disclaimer almost made my head explode.

I tried to imagine a situation in which the articles in the newsletter could actually result in the kind of damages contemplated by the disclaimer. Unwitting resident gives the caprese pizza recipe a shot only to have one of her guests be so disgusted with it that she gouges out the hostess’ eyes with her salad fork and then throws herself off the 12th floor balcony? Hostess sues, only to have judge rule that she had implicitly consented to the elegantly worded disclaimer and had thus assumed the risk of any such potential outcome, absolving management company of any liability it may otherwise have had (and that, further, management company was justified in retaining hostess’ security deposit to replace bloodstained / eyeball residue-covered carpet in dining alcove)? Old man who had been using coupons his entire life became so distraught over the thought that doing so may not actually have been the best use of his time that he has nervous breakdown and now requires full-time home care and monitoring?

How is it that we’ve gotten to the point where we have to disclaim all responsibility for offering opinions on coupons and caprese pizzas? Frivolous lawsuits made possible by sometimes quirky tort laws may be part of the explanation. And a general refusal to take any responsibility when things go wrong – a possible byproduct of out of control personal empowerment – must have something to do with it. But, on a more fundamental level, I think we’ve all just become a little too afraid of a good argument. This, I believe, is a uniquely American phenomenon. In moving beyond our oversensitivity to contradictory points of view, I would suggest that we could learn a little something from the French.

Some of the qualities – self-assuredness, confrontativeness and argumentativeness – that make the French so obnoxious are the same qualities that make their culture so vibrant and dynamic. If you’ve ever used the term “freedom fries” seriously, you’re probably more inclined to focus on the obnoxious side of the coin; if you’ve ever heard yourself refer to your college years as a “liberal arts” education (and if you were entirely unemployable when you graduated), you may have a slightly greater appreciation for the vibrant component. Every French citizen is a renowned expert on every subject ever to have been contemplated by mankind, loves to argue and will never hesitate to explain to another person why he is absolutely, unconditionally right. If a French apartment management company ever put out a newsletter, its disclaimer would most likely say something like “the views contained herein are unequivocally correct and anyone who disagrees with them is poorly educated and of ill repute and questionable moral character.” And that’s why it’s fun to be in France. The French thrive on engaging conversations, which can only exist when people are willing to confront and be confronted, and when confrontation is not viewed as a personal assault.

For most Americans, cultural diversity is a point of pride. And, for the most part (there are a lot of obvious exceptions, but that’s a conversation for another time), the acceptance of diversity in the US is real and commendable. But the US brand of multiculturalism is more often based on a live-and-let-live philosophy than on a proclivity to engage one another – to probe, learn, question and, ultimately, understand. The general expectation that others will let us live in whatever way we choose has conditioned us to interpret being questioned as being affronted, which, in turn, completes the loop of non-confrontation and lack of discussion.

I know this isn’t a sentiment that is voiced all that often in the US, but I’d like to suggest that we all try to be a bit more like the French. Discussion is fun! Arguing does not have to be a bad thing! If we were all just a bit more inclined to say frankly what we think, even while in the company of non-like-minded people, and to listen genuinely to what other people think, we might just end up having a jolly ol’ good time. And then, once robust debate became more fundamentally woven into the fabric of our society, maybe just maybe (and don’t get me wrong here; I enjoy a good caprese pizza and clipped coupon as much as the next guy) my apartment newsletter could lose the disclaimer and tackle some just slightly more engaging subjects.