Please don’t take this personally, but I am not attacking you. I don’t know you, but what is the point of judging a man by the car he drives, except as something external to him, like a woman’s purse or her shoes. She could be borrowing them from a friend, sister, or even worse, she has bought them, will wear them once, and then return them. Men will sleep with women, who are all made up and “perfect,” but it won’t last long and it will become an excuse to break up if they have nothing in common, they don’t share similar beliefs, attitudes, and values. I married the woman of my dreams. I didn’t and still don’t have a job that I love. This and the fact that she wanted children drove us a part, and I blame myself. What’s interesting is that she wanted me to buy her a Cadillac. I thought that was funny. Although while we were dating, a friend of ours had a new Cadillac and it was amazing. I wasn’t in his league. He was an investor. I drove a beat up Plymouth Champ. I was a writer. The only thing that mattered was that I found a job that I loved. I never did. I do projects outside of my day job that make me happy. Sadly, this made me unbearable as a husband and heartbroken when the relationship ended. She wanted her child and I don’t blame her. Still, the car represents something I guess I have little interest in having if it does not reflect my true status. So many things come first, like the condo I own and remodeled myself, the “Master’s Equivalent in Photography,” the seven books I have written, the paintings, the 9.2 miles in the hills that I run, the graphic design for the San Francisco Opera, the piano compositions that I compose, the songs I write and sing, the ideas that come to me and I will eventually write down, my capacity to do just about anything I would like to do. That’s what is amazing about me, not a car that I can go out and buy that has nothing to do with me and is not an investment. I bought a red, two-year-old FIAT 500L in 2016. I have had no problems with it. I paid cash. I know a guy with a $75,000 Cadillac and a house his mother gave him. His claim to fame is that he has spent $150,000 on marijuana, which he has smoked over the years. Is that the kind of guy you want to marry? What’s funny is he just told me that his current girlfriend doesn’t want to marry him because he doesn’t make enough money: “Women want to be taken care of.” The bottom line is whether or not men and women can find happiness in the work they do. The very nature of the capitalist system is that it leads to monopolies, which unless you are at the top, and in control, you are just a cog in the wheel. There aren’t a lot of big wheels. Good luck to you, whoever you are.
