My office at home includes a nice chair for reading and sometimes Bonnie will come in and read quietly while I’m working at my computer. It’s not “together-time,” but it’s closer than spending all our time in separate rooms. Such was the case on a recent Saturday when I opened an email from a friend inviting us both to dinner sometime before the end of that month.
“Bonnie, we’re invited to eat with Pete and Gladys. They have a nice comp they wish to share with us — and maybe another couple. Do you want to go?”
“Okay. When?”
“Don’t know yet. I’ll keep you posted.”
I sent back an email saying that in general Thursdays and Sundays were best for us. Pete asked about the Sunday coming up.
“Bonnie, other than the show at South Point we’re going to, is there any reason the Sunday eight days from now is out? So long as we leave the dinner by 6:45, we can easily make the 7:30 show time.”
Bonnie told me it was rude to accept dinner reservations and then leave early and we were more flexible timewise on the following two Sundays.
“But Pete suggested this date first. For some reason, this Sunday works best for them. Let’s try to make it work for all of us before we move on to another date.”
“I still think it’s rude. Gladys may not want to eat that early.”
“In that case, it’s up to Pete to say that and if he does, then we’ll move on to Plan B.”
“What is Plan B?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
I sent off the email saying that if we could begin around 5:00 and could leave by 6:45 so we could make the show, we’d be happy to attend. Pete shortly sent back an email saying that 5:00 worked perfectly for them and they were looking forward to it.
When I passed on the information to Bonnie, she told me that if I wasn’t going to listen to her, why did I even ask her?
I explained that I did listen to her response. Since her only objection to this Sunday was that it was rude to leave by 6:45, I decided that I was pretty sure Pete and Gladys could easily cope with that level of rudeness. If she had presented a different objection, it could easily have been a show-stopper and I would have aimed for another night.
“Whatever! Just do what you want. Don’t even ask me next time! I don’t care!”
I knew from experience that continuing the “discussion” that evening would be futile. So, I invited her for a walk around the block as long as the dinner invitation would not be discussed at all. By the next day, everything was fine and there was no lasting resentment.
At the risk of being called sexist, I’ve had numerous versions of that conversation with several women in my life over the years. While there’s plenty of evidence that my social skills are occasionally less than stellar, I suspect this conversation didn’t sound too unfamiliar to my readers.
There are direct analogs from what Bonnie and I went through there to gambling intelligently with a partner. In my current case, I am the only one doing the gambling and I have a partner in life. In other cases, the two partners may both be gambling on a common bankroll whether they are life-partners or not.
One of you is going to have to be the decision maker insofar as what, how much, and when to gamble. The other person can offer input, and sometimes that input is sufficient to change the plans, but one person has to be in charge. And once the decision is made, the other one should go along with it without mentioning that she disagrees with the decision every five minutes.
There must be trust between the partners. If you don’t trust each other with money, skill-set, or decision-making, it can make for an unhappy partnership.
In my case, it’s obvious who the decision maker should be insofar as gambling goes. Bonnie and I have been together less than four years and I was already a video poker professional when she came along. Also, I’m the one with the gambling bankroll. In addition, making logical decisions when there are a lot of competing variables is something I’m better at than she is. (On occasion, Bonnie might dispute this last one.)
In other partnerships, it’s not so clear cut who should be in charge. Should it be the one with the money? Should it be the most knowledgeable gambler? Should it be the one with the best organizational skills? Should it be the one who wants to be the leader the most? Should it be the only one willing to take on that role? Can you agree who’s best at it?
Well, each partnership is different and each must come up with its own way of doing things. We’ve had several “team captains” on the radio show explaining different ways they did things. It’s different if you have the same people in a long-lasting partnership than it is if you’re together only for a weekend for a 3-day play. (I know I’m riding roughshod over the difference between being a two-person partnership and a multi-person team. For today’s discussion, I don’t think that difference is important.)
Can it create hard feelings sometimes along the way? Of course. This depends at least partly on how abrasive the decision-maker is and how sensitive the other person is.
I’ve known of marriages that have broken up because of gambling. I’m not talking here about problem gamblers (who have their own set of problems and certainly many marriages have been ruined by problem gambling). I’m talking about winning players who couldn’t agree on things such as how much, how often, and when — and when you should get away from gambling for a while. Just having money coming in is not nearly enough for a happy life.
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Bob,
Great article. First, Bonnie accepts your gambling and your decisions in gambling….Nice lady like that is harder to find. Second, you think logically like myself. Maybe Bonnie really didn’t want to rush it and she wanted do a different weekend. You had asked her for her opinion and with women I dealt with in the past, that means we do whatever they want to do. When asking a woman a question, there should be a follow-up question… “is that what you want to do honey?” Overall you won Bob, because I believe about 5% of women are willingly to have a relationship with gamblers.
My motto: Does it make me money, does it get me drunk, does it get me laid….then why do it?
Well written about the dilemma for the marriage life of a gambling professional even if he ends up to be successful at what he does..
Most importantly, this column gives me a constant reminder that some people can be difficult to understand at times.
When you:
1. Make a plan and then ask the other person if he/she has any objections
2. That person indeed voices an objection
3. You proceed to argue against or dismiss that objection;
No matter how cool and rational your point of view, and however legitimate your take on things, that will feel like condescension to the other person.
To move to your gambling partner comparison, it’s never going to work if one person always takes the wheel and doesn’t defer to the other person’s wishes or listen to his/her advice/recommendations occasionally. I’ve been on the “inferior” side of such partnerships before. The “boss man” may indeed have known more about the games than I did, but I never liked to have my point of view dismissed or ignored, and that includes those times when maybe I SHOULD have been dismissed or ignored.
In Book II of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Satan asks the assembled devils what course of action they should take, gets their (quite cogent) input, and then proceeds to do what he had planned to do all along. Superiors need to listen to their subordinates, and even defer to their wishes occasionally. Did you ever consider that Bonnie might have wished to not feel rushed at the dinner, but didn’t want to say so? Or for that matter, that a later date would actually have been preferable for your friends, but they accepted your suggestion out of politeness?
Kevin makes a lot of sense.
This happens in gambling all the time. Your neighbor will ask “what would you do?” on a close (sometimes not so close) decision. You give him/her the proper advice but they do something else.
Last weeks column fits right in here. They’ll get dealt two pair on DDB (no aces) and mull over holding one or both pairs. Then they ask the inevitable “what would you do?” You tell them two pair but they hold only one anyway.
Kevin’s reply was very insightful if you listen very carefully Bob.
I printed this one out as I occasionally do for my wife to read. She put down the book she was reading, read your article and said “there is a lot of truth to that”. Translated it means she agrees with Bonnie. Placing an end time to a pleasant meal with good friends she would consider “being rushed” and therefore most likely unacceptable.
Your wife is certainly welcome to her opinion — but I certainly wouldn’t want to live my life under her rules.
Two hour dinners are not Bonnie’s and my thing. We have WAY too many things on our schedule to allow entire evenings to be devoted to eating.
In no way do I consider only allowing one hour and forty-five minutes for a meal to be rushing anybody. If we had to allow more than that, we’d need to give up either several hobbies or never visit with friends.
If your wife wishes to prioritize eating and visiting differently than I do, I have no problem with that. But she and I would have found that out about each other rather quickly were we ever to date, and never would have become a couple. The fact that Bonnie and I are still together indicates our opinions on this matter are compatible with each other.
It is silly to assume that just because your wife and I disagree on this that that means Bonnie and I disagree.
I think you missed the whole thing Bob. In today’s busy society, much socializing is done over a meal. The eating part which can be accomplished quickly is often secondary to the social aspect which can and often does take longer.
Bonnie’s “rude to accept dinner reservations and then leave early” I suspect is her objection to putting a time limit to the social part even though, more than likely, an hour and 45 minutes will be more than enough.
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