The spreadsheet was only a tool to ensure that both parties participated more or less equally
Throughout my life I have answered "Who has done more?" arguments in personal relationships -- my own and others -- with what I have thought was sage advice: if you're going to count, you need to count. Sometimes it makes sense to count, though even household chores runs into tricky division of labor problems that require agreed upon values. So normally the point of this quip is to impress upon a person the futility of trying to balance the ledger, sometimes after years of transactions not previously understood as such, or to demonstrate that negotiating the values is so tedious as to be absurd. It has worked for me, as it is almost always more constructive to find a mutually acceptable arrangement for the future and attempt to address cause for perceived unfairness in other ways.
p
Throughout my life I have answered "Who has done more?" arguments in personal relationships -- my own and others -- with what I have thought was sage advice: if you're going to count, you need to count. Sometimes it makes sense to count, though even household chores runs into tricky division of labor problems that require agreed upon values. So normally the point of this quip is to impress upon a person the futility of trying to balance the ledger, sometimes after years of transactions not previously understood as such, or to demonstrate that negotiating the values is so tedious as to be absurd. It has worked for me, as it is almost always more constructive to find a mutually acceptable arrangement for the future and attempt to address cause for perceived unfairness in other ways.
You, sir, sound quite willing to count. I kneel.
More options
Context Copy link