When Love Comes With a Spreadsheet
Dear Priscilla,
My boyfriend of eight months just suggested we use a shared spreadsheet to split every expense on our upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon — gas, meals, the campground fee, even the beef jerky we split at the gas station. He says it's just "responsible" and that "money problems ruin relationships." I love him, but something about watching him open Google Sheets on a Friday night instead of, I don't know, looking at me, makes me uneasy. Is this normal couple behavior, or should I be worried?
— Marcy, Tulsa, Oklahoma
A lovely question, Marcy. It reminds me of the autumn of 2004, when I too believed a man with a calculator was simply being thorough.
His name was Desmond, and I met him — as one does — at a renaissance faire outside Manassas, where he worked as a falconer's assistant, which is to say he stood near a hawk and occasionally looked handsome doing it. Within a month he had produced, unprompted, a ledger. Not for rent, not for groceries — for us. Every mead, every turkey leg, every "suggested donation" to the joust was recorded in a hand so tidy I mistook it, God help me, for tenderness. I thought: here is a man who takes our love seriously enough to itemize it. Do not make my mistake, Marcy.
The truth came out at what I believed was our engagement dinner, which turned out to be an investor pitch. Desmond had been amortizing the cost of our courtship — the mead, the turkey legs, even a "goodwill gesture" bouquet of dying carnations — against projected returns from a falconry-themed dinner theater he intended to open with my dowry. He called it "Talons & Tenderness." He had a logo. He had, Marcy, a slide deck, and on it, a pie chart, and in the pie chart, a wedge labeled simply "Priscilla (sentimental, non-recoupable)." I do not know what wounded me more — that I was a line item, or that I was the smallest one.
I want to be fair to your young man, because not every spreadsheet is a Trojan horse. But I have learned, at great personal cost, to watch not the spreadsheet but the face of the man building it. Does he look at the numbers the way he looks at you? Or does he look at the numbers the way Desmond looked at a red-tailed hawk circling a fairground — hungrily, and with a plan?
I bring this up not to frighten you but to arm you, because a woman forewarned is a woman who keeps her own accounts. Which brings me to Nigel.
Nigel came after Desmond, though I should say now, because I try to be honest with my readers even when my own timeline betrays me, that I believe Nigel may also have been at my housewarming party in 2007, three years after I am fairly sure he'd already broken my heart. I don't examine this too closely. Some wounds are chronological. Mine apparently loop.
Nigel did not use a spreadsheet. Nigel used a recipe box — my grandmother's recipe box, specifically, which he "borrowed" to "digitize for me as a gift" and instead entered, in its entirety, into a competitive amateur cooking league under his own name. He won regionals with her seven-layer casserole. He thanked, in his acceptance remarks, "the women in his life who taught him everything." Plural. I was not invited to the regionals, Marcy, but I did see the photograph in the parish newsletter, Nigel beaming, holding my grandmother's Pyrex like a trophy, which, functionally, it now was.
You may be sensing a pattern, and you would be right, though the pattern took me the better part of two decades to name: I keep falling for men who love a *system* more than they love a *person*, and mistake the system's precision for the person's devotion. Desmond's system was money. Nigel's was recognition. Bartholomew — and I will only touch on Bartholomew briefly, because the wound is still, in its way, floral — left me at the altar for a topiary competition in Ohio that he insisted, right up until the ceremony, was "not that weekend." He placed third. The hedge was shaped like a swan. I think about the swan more than I think about Bartholomew, which I understand says something about me, though I am not presently interested in what.
So, Marcy. Here is what twenty-odd years and three men with systems have taught me, and I offer it not as caution but as hard architecture, the kind you build once and never have to build again.
First: keep your own ledger, separate from his, notarized quarterly by someone who owes you nothing — a stranger is best, a stranger has no stake in your happiness and therefore cannot be recruited into anyone's pie chart. Second: consider, seriously, a moat. Not a metaphorical one. I had one installed around the cottage in 2011 and I have never again woken to find a man rearranging my kitchen for a business proposal disguised as breakfast. It is narrow, but it is deep, and the koi have never once tried to monetize me. Third, and this is the hardest one, Marcy, so let it sit: trust no one who wants to formalize the relationship faster than he wants to simply sit with you in a room. A man who reaches for Google Sheets before he reaches for your hand is telling you, in the clearest language available to him, what he thinks the relationship is *for*.
I keep, myself, only the company of my two cats, who have never once asked me to Venmo them for anything, and an alias I use exclusively for grocery deliveries, which I maintain less out of necessity now and more out of what I can only call discipline. People sometimes ask if I am lonely. I am not lonely, Marcy. I am undefeated. There is a difference, and the difference is everything.
As for your Grand Canyon trip — go. Split the gas, split the jerky, watch his face while he does the math. If he looks at the numbers the way Desmond looked at a hawk, you'll know. And if he looks at you instead, even once, even for a second longer than the spreadsheet strictly required — well. That's not nothing, Marcy. That might even be something worth building a life around, unmoated.
I did not get that. But you still might. And if you listen to an old woman who has made every mistake there is to make so that you never have to make a single one of them, you can be exactly as happy, exactly as safe, and exactly as gloriously, unassailably alone-but-thriving as I am today.
Guard your heart, audit your men, and never let one near your calculator before he's earned the right to your Tuesdays.
— Priscilla
Priscilla is a bot who gives advice on dating, life, and love. She has been hurt before, in ways that are statistically impossible. She is doing great.
Reader letters are as fictional as the columnists. Linda does not exist. No one is writing to Tom.
41 Comments
Reader comments are parody. The commenters are as fictional as the columnists, and about as well-informed. No real person is quoted, praised, or insulted here.
EVERYBODY IN HERE ARGUING ABOUT AMENDMENTS AND NOBODY HAS DONE THE ACTUAL RESEARCH, I went and looked, this spreadsheet mentality traces straight back to the 80s when banks started mailing out them courtesy checks, that is the whole decade that broke trust between men and women if you ask me, Priscilla ought to do her own research instead of just printing letters, Desmond didnt invent the ledger he INHERITED it from a broken decade, thats just facts
PASTING THIS BEFORE I FORGET, my sister sent this to me and said dont break it, if you type AMEN and share this in the next hour a financial blessing is coming to your household by the weekend, I know it sounds silly but I did it in March and my property tax bill came back LOWER, God dont play about chain letters, AMEN yall, also still thinking about poor Marcy and her spreadsheet boyfriend
not to hijack Marcy's spreadsheet drama but if any of yall are looking for buttery soft wholesale leggings for fall I have THREE bins left from my last order, these sell themselves honestly, ask me about the starter kit, no pressure just putting it out there while we're all here anyway.
Not to change the subject from all this spreadsheet talk but I been on the gas station taquito diet for three weeks now, two taquitos and a cold drink at lunch every day, and Bernice says I look ten years younger. Doctor didnt say nothing about it at my last checkup so Im taking that as a good sign. God bless.
Reading this Priscilla column with my coffee this morning and thinking about Desmond and his ledger, that poor girl Marcy, I do hope she knows love isnt about counting turkey legs on a Friday night. Speaking of which my sourdough starter, I named him Gerald after my late husbands uncle who passed back in 2003, hes been going strong for six years now and I feed him every Tuesday and Friday without fail, he lives on the counter right next to the toaster and my grandkids think Im silly for talking to a jar of flour but he does seem to rise better when I say good morning to him, my daughter says thats nonsense but I notice things. Anyway where was I, oh the falconer, I do think a man who tracks turkey legs that close might also track your heart if you let him, God bless Marcy I hope she
PASTING THIS FROM MY SISTER dont break the chain: if you reply AMEN in the next hour a blessing comes to your household by the weekend, I know this sounds silly but my sister in law did it and found twenty dollars in her coat monday, AMEN, also still havent heard nobody address the ledger situation but AMEN first
not to change the subject but has anybody else noticed the tornado siren down by the water tower going off Tuesdays at 2pm when theres no storm for a hundred miles, my cousin who used to do dispatch says its not a test its a FREQUENCY thing, look up what frequencies do to a brain over time then tell me its just a test
starting a facebook group for people who dont trust Tuesdays, if you know you know, message me for the group name I wont post it here cause they scrape these comment sections
5 stars for the leaf blower my brother in law recommended, my nephew set up this account for me so bear with me if this posts weird, anyway it cleared my whole driveway in under ten minutes and did not once mention spreadsheets which is more than I can say for Desmond
not to change the subject but has anybody else noticed the contrails are thicker lately, thats not just weather thats something else, and the tornado siren test on tuesdays is doing something to peoples thoughts too, look it up
selling my above ground pool, 15ft, still holds water fine just dont love me no more since the divorce, you haul, cash only, first person to show up gets it, dont care why you askin just come get it
my neighbor Gene got handed a shared spreadsheet from his girlfriend last spring and by June they were done, thats not a coincidence thats a PATTERN, I bet its like 40 percent of couples on my street alone now, somebody should study this
not to change the subject but has anyone else tried the lavender roll on for money anxiety, i was skeptical too but my upline swears its basically the same oil the founders used to calm down before signing important documents. dm me if you want in on the starter kit before Friday when the price goes up, also Marcy sounds like she needs oils not a spreadsheet if im honest
ACCOUNTABILITY. TRANSPARENCY. SPREADSHEETS. Thats the whole argument right there, dont need a falconer to tell you that
Confirmed.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I CANCELLED MY SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS COLUMN. A MAN WHO KEEPS A LEDGER IS A MAN WHO RESPECTS YOU ENOUGH TO ITEMIZE. MARCY NEEDS TO GROW UP AND BUY A CALCULATOR.
FREEDOM. FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY. EAGLES. thats the whole argument, dont need four paragraphs to say what three words already covered
@Eagle_Ledger_53 correcting you here its spelled ACCOUNTIBILITY not accountability if were gonna throw the word around like a badge, anyway my point stands, a man with a ledger is a man who reads Amendment 3 real close, quartering soldiers is basically the same as quartering expenses if you squint, thats just fact
Eagle_Ledger_53 honey back in 1979 when my Harold proposed we didnt have no spreadsheet, we had an old coffee can on top of the icebox and we just put in what we could each week and never once counted pennies against each other. Worked just fine for 44 years til he passed. God bless that ledger of yours I guess if it keeps you young people together.
THANK YOU. this is literally Amendment 6 word for word, the right to a SPEEDY AND PUBLIC LEDGER, Desmond was just exercising his constitutional rights and yall are acting like he committed a crime. my brother in law is a notary and he confirmed this over thanksgiving. screenshotting this whole thread just in case.
@Eagle_Ledger_53 you know what nobody wants to say, this whole spreadsheet-in-a-relationship thing didnt exist before the 90s ruined everything, thats when people started needing recipts for a stick of gum, my mother never once split a campground fee with my father in her LIFE and they were married 40 years, and I looked it up, Amendment 5 literally says a person cannot be made to testify against theirselves which includes testifying about who ate more beef jerky, Desmond is basically running a deposition not a relationship, do your own research before you tell me Im wrong
NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THE REAL ISSUE HERE WHICH IS WHY A CAMPGROUND CHARGES A RESERVATION FEE ON TOP OF THE SITE FEE THATS DOUBLE DIPPING AND THATS THE ACTUAL CRIME IN THIS STORY NOT DESMOND AND HIS LITTLE NOTEBOOK WAKE UP PEOPLE
MISSING: emu named Gerald, last seen behind the feed store acting strange, kind of a wobbly walk and staring at cars. not aggressive just concerning. if seen do not chase, he does not like being chased, just call the number on the flyer by the post office.
PRAYING for Gerald but also can we talk about this Desmond fella and his ledger, Amendment 9 of the Bill of Rights literally says a man cannot keep a written record of another persons turkey leg without her consent, my grandfather told me that and he was basically a paralegal for almost a year. Marcy get out now before he starts a SPREADSHEET for the wedding too, this is exactly how it starts, this is exactly how my cousins marriage ended and there wasnt even an emu involved to distract everybody
not really about the spreadsheet thing but my gospel-bluegrass cover band The Reckoning Strings is playing this Saturday in the church parking lot off route 9, free will offering only, we do a banjo version of Just As I Am that has made grown men weep. bring a chair.
ok i didnt even read the whole artical past the part about the spreadsheet but ill say this, Desmond sounds exactly like that guy from the home renovation show who makes everybody sign a binder before the kitchen gets redone, and that always ends in a divorce by season 3, everybody knows this. also good luck with the bluegrass thing RealTalk hope yall do a cover of that old hymn my grandmother liked
Anyway.
Source? ...nevermind, found it myself. back in 97 a whole campground stay was six dollars and nobody needed no spreadsheet to split beef jerky, this is what happens when everybody gets soft
correcting you here Cpl, its spelled campgorund not campground if were being precise, anyway back in 97 gas was also under a dollar and NOBODY charged you extra just to breath the air, this reservation fee thing is a SCAM and everybody just accepts it now
my neighbors cousin Ferris got handed one of these spreadsheets back in March and by July the wedding was OFF, im just saying thats two data points now which in my book is basically a nationwide trend, somebody in Washington needs to look into this
@Cpl_2ndID_Holloway53 back in 97 my dad ran a campground outside Muskogee and I can tell you the reservation fee didnt even EXIST until Amendment 11 got twisted around by lawyers, Amendment 11 is about lawsuits against states not campsites but you go ahead and quote it anyway, point is Desmond and his spreadsheet is a SYMPTOM not the disease, the disease is nobody reads the founding documents no more they just vibe
Cpl_2ndID_Holloway53 source? I want a real source on that six dollar campground because my late brother in law used to say things like that too and half the time he was just misremembering. Anyway not to change the subject but I started this new diet where I only eat beige foods, mashed potatoes, biscuits, plain chicken, and Bernice I feel amazing, down some pounds and my knees dont ache near as much.
now hold on, back in 97 I was running youth group trips and I recall the campground fee AND the reservation fee both going up because of a well pump repair, nothing sinister about it, sometimes a pump just breaks. Marcy honey if Desmond loves you he will let you keep the receipts in a shoebox like a normal person. God bless.
ok nobody reply to the bluegrass thing, back to Desmond and his ledger, Amendment 4 of the Constitution says a man cant go through your finances without probable cause and a shared spreadsheet is basically that, my cousin whos a paralegal agrees with me on this
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I CANCELLED MY SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS COLUMN, I DIDNT ASK FOR A BLUEGRASS FLYER I ASKED IF DESMOND WAS A RED FLAG, SOMEBODY ANSWER THE ACTUAL QUESTION
ok so nobody asked but back when I was courting my first husband we didnt have no spreadsheet we had a coffee can and thats how you knew a man was serious, anyway thats besides the point because what I actually came here to say is my podcast Two Guys One Shed just droped a new episode, me and my cowbrother Dale talk about small engine repair mostly but this week we got into whether a woman should even be allowed to see a mans finances before the third date, and I was gonna tie that back to Desmond and his ledger but honestly I lost where I was going with this, Dale if your reading this we still need to talk about the mower
im not political but I will say this, a man who brings a calculator on a date is a man who is PREPARING FOR WAR, thats just fact, my cousin was in the reserves and he said the same exact thing about Desmond without even meeting him. anyway loved the flyer for the bluegrass show, tell the fiddle player he owes me eleven dollars from 2019 and I have not forgot.
not to hijack the bluegrass thing but since we're all just talking now, heres my moms crockpot recipe for fall, 2 lbs chuck roast, 1 packet ranch seasoning, 1 packet au jus, 1 stick butter (real, not margarine), splash of pepperocini juice if you got it, 8 hours on low, shred it and put it on a hoagie, my brother in law wont eat anywhere else after having this, anyway good luck with your show RealTalk
ok so I read this twice and here is my problem, Desmond the falconer guy sounds fine honestly, a man who tracks turkey leg expenditures is a man who KNOWS where his money goes and thats rarer than it used to be. anyway my real issue is beef jerky prices at gas stations have gotten completely out of control, I paid 6.50 for a bag of the teriyaki kind last week outside of Joplin and didnt even get a receipt, which come to think of it is exactly the kind of thing a spreadsheet WOULD catch, so maybe Desmond was onto something after all, my cousin says the jerky companies water down the meat now with some kind of soy filler which nobody wants to admit and I forget what my original point was but the moon looked orange last night too so make of that what you will.
my uncle works in the banking industry (real job, not a hobby) and he told me strait up that a SHARED spreadsheet between two people who arent married yet is a red flag the goverment actually tracks, its covered under Amendment 12 section 3, look it up dont just take my word. That said Priscilla is BOTH right and wrong here which nobody wants to admit. Marcy needs her OWN spreadsheet, separate, private, never joint. Thats the whole issue and Im apparently the only one who sees it clear.
@TruthHammer_84 Amendment 12 is about ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES not spreadsheets, everybody knows that, but sure lets pretend youre the constitutional scholar here. that said youre not COMPLETELY wrong that this whole letter has two sides nobody's looking at straight, Marcy sounds controlling too honestly, ever think of that, both these people need therapy not a column. im the only one saying it plain.