Ill-gotten Gains

Over four years, I've become great friends with a guy in my small community. He moved into town from a large metro area, and we met through common interests--motorcycling, surfing, and boating. We also share the same sense of humor, the same interest in world events, and common interests in just about everything else.

He and I, along with our wives, have become close. I knew all along he'd made a considerable amount of money in the cash advance or payday loan business. I know this type of business has a sleazy factor to it, but I never knew how payday loans worked. We were friends, so I wasn't judgmental about his business ethics or morality.

Well, a television show ran a story about these businesses a few weeks ago. They explained how they prey on the poor, the uneducated, and the desperate. People are trapped in super high interest rates, and they can never get out from under. The business is legalized loan-sharking.

It was an eye-opener. It goes against everything I consider good and right. I was so disturbed by the story I abruptly ended our contact and friendship. This was one of the toughest decisions I ever made, and I've thought about it nonstop ever since. My question to you is have I been unfair?

I don't think you can separate what you do for a living from personal relationships, especially when what you are doing is unethical and immoral, even if it's considered legal. It is true the older you get the harder it is to make true friends, and it sure is tough to give up a good one, but I feel I have to stand up for what I believe.

Butch

Butch, many people have noted that ancient peoples were just as intelligent as we are. Their beliefs and customs may seem strange to us, but there has been no change in basic human intelligence in the last few thousand years.

What people seldom note is that there are just as many slaveholders among us today as there were in times past. True, slavery is illegal, but if it were legal, some people today would own slaves. Not all those people are in far-off places. Some of them may be sharing your pew in church or riding to work with you on the bus.

In Joseph O'Connor's novel "Star of the Sea" a character observes that an unrestrained free market "may regulate everything: including who should live and who should die." The economic marketplace, in and of itself, contains no sense of good and bad, right or wrong. That sense must come from within us.

If this man's sense of ethics offends you, feel free to exclude him from your life. Each action we take and each choice we make expresses who we are.

Wayne & Tamara

Mismatch

I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost two years. Everything has been going great except we haven't fixed our problem of arguing every time we go out. Now it's taken its toll on us, and my boyfriend wants us to give ourselves time apart. Is giving each other time a bad thing? Do you think it's over?

Kylie

Kylie, in the child's game Memory, a deck of cards is placed face down. Each player turns over two cards. If the two match, the player keeps them and adds them to their pile. If they don't match, the cards go face down, and the player waits for another turn.

Dating is like playing Memory. The cards you are trying to match are called love, harmony, and oneness of mind. But if the cards you turn up are marked testy, contentious, and quarrelsome, they must go face down and you must find someone else to make a match with.

Wayne & Tamara

Wayne & Tamara are the authors of Cheating in a Nutshell and The Young Woman’s Guide to Older Men—available from Amazon, iTunes, and booksellers everywhere.