Dear Tell All: I’m a UW-Madison graduate student obsessed with the arts, criticism, and the avant-garde. I have very specific taste in movies, music, books, and TV shows. I hate sentimentality and clichés, and I love edginess in the service of an original artistic vision. My heroes include David Lynch, Jonathan Franzen, and Kanye West.
I’ve started dating a woman with the exact opposite taste. She loves stupid romantic comedies, brain-dead sitcoms, trashy bestselling novels and crappy commercial music. It’s painful to sit through a movie that she chooses, listening to her guffaw at the dumb jokes or respond on cue to the predictable manipulations.
By contrast, she’s mystified when I expose her to the art I like. Granted, she’s a good sport about watching experimental film or listening to challenging hip-hop, but she obviously doesn’t enjoy or understand it. I gave her Franzen’s Freedom as a birthday present, and it was painful to discuss the book with her as she struggled through it. Same with watching the reboot of Lynch’s Twin Peaks.
The reason I’m writing is that, while I despise her taste, I like everything else about her. She’s warm, accepting, and kind. We connect well in almost every area other than the arts.
So how much of a deal-breaker should that be? Should I stick with her in spite of her bad taste?
Critic
Dear Critic: I admire your deep appreciation of David Lynch, Kanye West and Jonathan Franzen, but I’d point out that none of them is exactly known for having a heart. You don’t seem to have one either.
While your girlfriend is accepting and kind toward you and your passions, you smear the things she loves with words like “brain-dead,” “trashy” and “crappy.” While she’s a good sport about watching the navel-gazing new Twin Peaks or reading one of Franzen’s snide epics, you don’t have the generosity of spirit to return the favor.
You’re lucky to have her, Critic, but you don’t deserve her. Why not just break it off now and spend some quality time at home with the latest prickly Kanye West album? You and Kanye are made for each other.
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