I spy

I found out that my boyfriend is meeting his ex for lunch. Should I "accidentally" show up at the restaurant?

By Cary Tennis

Feb 5, 2002 | Dear Readers,

A few weeks ago I told a woman who hadn't had sex with her husband since their honeymoon that maybe they should take their clothes off and get into bed and see what happened. I also told her it sounded as if she had a low opinion of herself and that maybe she should look into why that was.

I got a ton of mail about that. Many people said it was obvious that her husband was gay. Many others thought I wrongly blamed her for her husband's problem, that I was prescribing "self-esteem" for a problem that had nothing to do with her.

My refusal to label her husband as gay is a matter of principle. People get to declare themselves whatever they are; we don't get to do that. It's a commonsense and human principle.

As to the self-esteem thing, it's easy to ridicule the excesses of an overly therapeutic and pampered culture. But that doesn't mean that self-hatred isn't a problem. That belittling, demeaning inner voice chattering like a madwoman about our uselessness, our stupidity, our unloveliness, our lack of talent and the hopelessness of our prospects is a real obstacle to happiness that can be effectively countered therapeutically. This I know firsthand.

By the way, I enjoyed psychologist Lauren Slater's criticism of the excesses of self-regard in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, "The Trouble With Self-Esteem." Basically, there are people who could use a little more. There are also people who could use a lot less. It's important to distinguish between self-esteem and the feeling that you're better than others. It's important to regard yourself with compassion, whatever your faults, whatever a clear-eyed and balanced self-assessment says about you.

And one more thing: No matter how clearly we see ourselves, sometimes just to go out onstage we have to lie a little bit to ourselves about how beautiful we are and what a good voice we have. Nothing wrong with that. Whatever gets you through the interview. No sense being paralyzed by an excess of realism; we don't have to always show the world we know how mediocre we are. Folks have a way of finding that out on their own.

The New England Patriots' bravado prior to Sunday's Super Bowl may have looked a little misplaced, given the realistic odds. But look what happened. Come to think of it, their decision to be introduced as a team rather than individually was a nice emblem of balanced self-regard, and a nice way of avoiding the corrosive effects that egotism can have on a group.

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