Prompt: Facade
Dear Agony Ant,
My boyfriend says he doesn’t like spaghetti, but eats it all the time. I don’t like spaghetti, and so I don’t eat it. Why is he eating spaghetti?
Sincerely,
Perplexed
Dear Perplexed,
Your boyfriend is a fraud. He says he doesn’t like spaghetti but then, unlike you, he eats what he purportedly can’t abide. This makes him a fraudulent, deceptive excuse for a human being.
On the other hand, spaghetti is good, providing it is sauced correctly. Do you only have experience with incorrect saucing on your spaghetti (ketchup or some canned sauces, for example), while your boyfriend has consistently enjoyed balanced, flavourful sauces on his pasta? If you have been exposed to homemade sauces and deliciously coated spaghetti and still deem that you don’t like it, there is something wrong with your brain.
If your boyfriend is not a lying scumbag, it could be that he is trying to create a peaceful environment in which to enjoy a relationship with you (why, I don’t know, since you don’t like spaghetti), so he puts up a genial facade and agrees with you on all things, but ignores such preferences completely in his day-to-day existence.
I suggest you both seek intensive couples’ therapy.
Peace and love,
Dear Agony Ant,
I had a bad experience with spaghetti as a child— it has nothing to do with sauces.
My boyfriend does agree with me on everything, which I thought was a good thing. I see why couples’ therapy might be necessary, since he also says he likes White Zinfandel.
Sincerely,
Perplexed
Dear Perplexed,
Overcooked spaghetti does not constitute a childhood trauma. Get over it, start eating spaghetti again, and lots of it.
Peace and love,
Fluffy Pool 