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"  Maybe it&amp;#039;s the Clash of the Cupcakes (Misses Lindsay and Jessica) for social domination; or perhaps it&amp;#039;s the Balenciaga 6 1/4-inch platforms raising nobodies to the stature of deities, but this month&amp;#039;s letters are all about the Status Sphere...  Dear E. Jean: Are guys worth the effort? I&amp;#039;m 22 and having a hard time because (a) I am really sweet and conservative, don&amp;#039;t go out looking like a slut, and never act like I want to hook up with as many people as possible; and (b) guys are mostly into getting laid, drinking, partying with their buddies, and doing it all over again the next weekend (with a different girl).  My issue: When I find a guy who&amp;#039;s cute, funny, and nice, I end up hooking up with him (not sex\u2014everything but). However, it never escalates into anything more. And I want it to! When I hold out, the guys lose interest and I&amp;#039;m back to square one. This has happened to me with three guys in the past six months\u2014you&amp;#039;d think I&amp;#039;d have learned by now!   They never call (probably because they&amp;#039;re too intoxicated to remember they promised to). I don&amp;#039;t see them all week, then the weekend parties roll around; they get a little Budweiser in them, become all excited when they see me, apologize, start feeding me lines, and we hook up again! I&amp;#039;m a good person! I deserve a nice guy. It&amp;#039;s just really frustrating!\u2014Stop Me Before I Do Something Stupid!   Stop, sweetie : This is going to be great. Trust me. You&amp;#039;ll be the first young lady in the Year of Frustration 2006 to walk into a posh social function, grab a nice guy by the scruff of his Natural Resources Defense Council T-shirt, and kick the hook-up gods in the bollocks.   How? Social hierarchies are based on people&amp;#039;s deep awareness of status cues, right? (Any half-awake homo sapienette in America can size up your clothes, hairdo, accent, etc., and in two seconds peg you correctly in the social pecking order.) The sexual Status Sphere works the same way. If you&amp;#039;re positioned ever so &amp;quot;nice, sweet,&amp;quot; and un-slutilicious, clasping (demure as a doily!) a plastic cup of Jack and Ginger in a specific environment at a specific time (i.e., your usual &amp;quot;weekend party&amp;quot;), the Bud boys will read your cues 100 percent correctly as the cute &amp;quot;frustrated&amp;quot; girl who&amp;#039;s looking for, no, who deserves a nice guy, and they will take massive advantage of the situation.   Stop going to those stupid parties. Expand your personal zeitgeist. &amp;quot;Nice guys&amp;quot; are putting on guerrilla art shows, working with the NRDC, riding in mountain bike rallies, and campaigning to get morons tossed out of Congress. Why not join one of these groups and make a little difference in the world? The men you meet will sometimes be startlingly hot, but who cares? You&amp;#039;ll have time to get to know 10 or 12 of the buggers and decide which one really does deserve you. Dear E. Jean: I have lived all over the world, seek out people of all ethnicities, and don&amp;#039;t consider myself a snob. So it came as a big shock, mostly to me, when I announced at a dinner party last night that I&amp;#039;d &amp;quot;never go to a salsa club that was strictly working-class.&amp;quot;  I then did a shoddy job of defending myself and made things worse by adding some very judgmental remarks. Suddenly the whole table got really quiet. My fianc\u00E9 struggled to smooth it over. I don&amp;#039;t know why I said it! I&amp;#039;m so sad, so guilty, so embarrassed and depressed, particularly because I work with many economically challenged Spanish-speaking mothers in Dallas. Where did my words come from? Can I change? Am I really a bigot?\u2014Horrified at Myself My dear horrified : Hell, the only reason &amp;quot;working-class&amp;quot; salsa clubs are so hot is because crazy little dingbats at dinner parties declare they&amp;#039;d just never go. Stop whimpering about your so-called guilt, you ninny, put on your shortest dress (if it covers your hip sockets, choose something shorter), gather your friends, and go. Bigots are bigots for one reason: ignorance. They lack an open-minded, open-hearted worldview. After one round of tequila and two rounds of bumping your pelvic saddle on the dance floor, it may begin to dawn in that dizzy head of yours that of course you can change: If you change the way you look at things, things change. Dear E. Jean: I&amp;#039;m a 31-year-old woman with a solid career as an investment banker. I&amp;#039;m dating a handsome, loyal, sincere 34-year-old blue-collar musician. He&amp;#039;d do anything to make me happy, but I have a problem being the breadwinner. I like chivalry, tradition, and the man to be the one with the higher salary. (I don&amp;#039;t know how much he earns, but it is significantly less than I do.) So let&amp;#039;s get down to basics: When we go out, who should pay? I don&amp;#039;t ask for much. I appreciate the finer things as well as a slice of good pizza.\u2014Don&amp;#039;t Want to Be a Sugar Mama Sugar, sugar : Huh? I always think pizza is the finer thing; but let&amp;#039;s not quibble. Miss Don&amp;#039;t, I sympathize, but, darling, come on. If you can&amp;#039;t grok that you should pay about half the time\u2014not as a manifestation of power, but because it&amp;#039;s an ineffable joy to treat someone you love\u2014then no matter how hard the poor brute endeavors to &amp;quot;make&amp;quot; you &amp;quot;happy,&amp;quot; you won&amp;#039;t be. Dear E. Jean: I met my good friend through our children. Her daughter, unfortunately, is a very rude little girl\u2014spoiled, no manners. I tactfully stopped the play dates and still maintained the friendship with the mother. Now (two years later) I&amp;#039;m starting to hear about ski trips and beach trips with a select group of her girlfriends and their daughters. My child and I are never invited.   My friend always says how &amp;quot;close&amp;quot; we are, but my husband gets very upset and says she&amp;#039;s not a friend, that we&amp;#039;re not in the &amp;quot;right tax bracket,&amp;quot; and that she wants her daughter with people who &amp;quot;spoil their children and have money.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m proud of who I am! I&amp;#039;m raising my daughter to have respect for everyone. Should I end this friendship?\u2014Not a Social Climber  Miss Not A : You were correct to stop your friend&amp;#039;s rude little twerp from playing with (and influencing) your daughter. The &amp;quot;right tax bracket&amp;quot; I believe in my very soul to be the wrong bracket. What many people do for money is stupid; what people do for people with money is even stupider. That said, plan your own glamorous day at the beach (swimming, a cookout) for your daughter and her friends. And because you believe in love and respect, invite your friend and her daughter. Time has passed, children do mature, and it&amp;#039;s wise to keep all avenues open to your daughter.  Dear E. Jean: I&amp;#039;m a magnet for men and women. And I don&amp;#039;t quite know what to do about it. I look androgynous (think a Lenny Kravitz/Alicia Keys cross), and I&amp;#039;m friendly, generous, flirty, and confident. I like to cook, and I also have a trust fund and a decent career as a trader. Is it possible I have too much mojo? I can never determine who&amp;#039;s interested in me for me, not just my money. I&amp;#039;ve been duped in the past (the women I meet are super possessive and demanding and want gifts and money; men want sex first, then my money). How can I recognize the real thing?\u2014Gift Horse  Gift, my girl : Phoo. It&amp;#039;s easy to spot people who want money and sex\u2014everybody wants money and sex. The secret is: Don&amp;#039;t give it to them. If they drop you, you&amp;#039;ll know they&amp;#039;re greed-headed sextards. If they stick, you&amp;#039;ll know they probably still want money and sex, but also that they like you\u2014for you\u2014and admire your mojo (of which, BTW, it&amp;#039;s impossible to have &amp;quot;too much&amp;quot;). Dear E. Jean: My best friend is getting married. The man is awesome. However, she has many new, wealthy friends in Boston where she works. I simply can&amp;#039;t see myself at the wedding with all her phony rich friends. I have nothing in common with them. It just feels wrong.\u2014I Knew Her When When, hunny : Listen carefully, because I&amp;#039;m only going to say this once, and then I&amp;#039;m coming to your house (your return address is on the envelope) to knock some sense into you. Wrap up the $70 ceramic fondue set; slap on the bow; snap on the pretty, no, the entrancing outfit; and go to the wedding. Lord! She&amp;#039;s your &amp;quot;best friend.&amp;quot; Consider yourself warned. E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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