Dear Fury,
I know your column is for writers with writer problems, and I’m not sure my problem falls into this category, though I’m writer with a problem. Hopefully, you’ll find it worthy of your scrutiny. Here goes: I’m a writer involved with a non-writer. This is a new paradigm for me, as I’ve always been preternaturally disposed to date other writers. Something that has not served me well.
For the first time, the person I’m romantically involved with supports my writing. He is not in competition with me and/or my writing. The problem is not my writer, but the type of thinker/person I am because I’m a writer.
When we argue, I point out sometimes that various words he uses trouble me. For example, he refers to watching my son (who he has said on many occasion he wishes to adopt) as “babysitting.” This is but one example. I don’t appreciate the use of the word “babysitting,” for the following reasons: my partner is not in my employ, and my child is a member of our family. I pay babysitters $10 an hour. If I paid my partner, the boundaries might clearer, I just now realize, but that’s not the heart of the problem.
The problem is that he claims I shouldn’t invest so much into what words mean. That they don’t mean anything. That I “read too much into it.” When this issue has come up, I’ve explained, because it seems like a natural explanation, that “I’m a writer.” He finds this annoying and, it would seem, meaningless.
I realize it’s an obnoxious response, and I have told him I will avoid using that as an “excuse.” However, the problem remains. Words carry meaning for me, and that fact that someone could dismiss that fact makes me angry. I believe, as any writer does, that people should be responsible for their language. Whether they are writers or not.
How do I convey this without coming across as a literary bore? My argument seems obvious enough to me, and nothing to get bent out of shape about, but even after I agreed to not use the “writer excuse” anymore, my partner is not talking to me. Ironically, he is upstairs right now, reading.
With thanks in advance,
Silent Treatment
Dear Silent Treatment,
There’s a lot of crap going on in this letter, just like there’s a lot of crap going on in life. As far as I’m concerned, writing and life is all connected. So don’t start underselling yourself before you even ask your question. If I don’t find a question worthy of my time 
and my readers’ time, I won’t fucking answer it. It’s pretty simple, really.
I once dated a scientist, a very un-creative and nerdy person who liked to throw things at my head when angry and in other ways was a complete ass. I thought it would be a relief to get away from the creative types (I’d thus far only dated writers and musicians) but what a fucking mistake that was. It turns out assholes dominate many fields. On the flip side, I know several couples where the one is a writer and the other is… a doctor, a schoolteacher, whatever you call people who work in marketing. These couples seem pretty happy, I mean, as happy as the rest of us, anyway.
I think one of the benefits to dating a non-writer (or non-creative type in general) is that you get to corner the market on moodiness and quirkiness and angst, so you can freak out that the walls are crumbling down and your partner can stand on the sidelines shaking her or his head ever so slightly with a look that says, “Oh my adorable writer!” or “I’m so worried about this tormented soul!”
So if dating writers hasn’t worked out for you (and of course it hasn’t, writers are such a pain in the ass…I know because I get letters from them all the time), then good for you for recognizing that and finding yourself another sort of lover. That said, I don’t think that all writer couples are in competition with one another, as you suggest. I’ve known many to be quite supportive and fiercely proud and protective of one another. Maybe the writers you have dated are just too competitive by nature. Or maybe you are.
Now, you’ve got some other issues here, and one of them seems to be a very common issue about negotiating between new relationships and one’s children. Not knowing you or your kid or your partner at all, it’s difficult for me to suggest what you might do here, except to advise that you give it time and be patient and let the comfort you all feel with each other unfold in its natural way. And if this relationship seems to be something headed for the long term, I would very much recommend couples and family counseling. With a licensed therapist. Not a grumpy advice columnist so far short of how much coffee she needs to drink today she can’t even look at you right now.
But I can agree that, yes, using the term “babysitter” is annoying (I know a man who uses this term to refer to watching his own son) and perhaps this speaks to a deeper issue that your partner has in taking on a new role in this family he’s suddenly a part of, but I suspect it speaks more closely to the way in which much/most of society uses words casually and without care. Whereas you, someone sensitive to words, interpret the word “babysitter” to suggest someone who is paid to mind your child, your partner likely sees the word as a catch-all for anyone who is not the child’s mother.
And this, of course, as you suggest, is the heart of the problem, right? Not the particular comment or word, but that you are so deeply attuned to words and your regular-guy Romeo is not? I mean, you need to figure out whether or not your partner’s inattentiveness to the things you live and breathe will ultimately cause irreparable frustration, resentment and alienation.
You also need to figure out this: Why are you so quick to downgrade your stance here? What is obnoxious about saying “But I’m a writer?” as an explanation for why you might be more sensitive to words than your lover is used to? I get the feeling, just from reading your letter, that you downgrade yourself a lot, and that your partner, or something, has made you self-conscious about being a writer. STOP IT. Being a writer is a privilege. So how about instead of apologizing for thinking word choice matters, how about you respond more like this: “But I’m a writer, motherfucker! Words matter!”
If your partner was a nutritionist and you were lying around in a pile of shit, eating Twinkies all day, that would bother him because he’s a nutritionist, and also because he’s a human being. Which is to say, people need to be responsible for their words whether they are writers or not.
Look, when I read over your letter, I essentially get this: you are in a relatively new relationship (certainly a new kind of relationship) and both you and your partner are trying to get your footing. You feel insecure that your partner doesn’t understand the writer parts of you and it seems like he feels insecure that he’s not equal to the writer parts of you. But you seem to like him and you say he respects your writing, so here’s a final thought: sit down and talk calmly to one another, and talk clearly, and talk carefully.
Words do matter.
Your,
Fury