In the Long Run, Reading Economists Will Make You Lonely

So, here's from a telephone conversation I had today.

A friend of mine told me it was her turn to clean the loo today. She wasn't looking forward to it. Her live-in boyfriend was always so quick and thorough when cleaning; she was slow and sloppy. Hire a cleaning person, I said. No money, she said - deep in the red, in fact. How come, I said, you have a well-paying job. Well, she said, she'd been supporting boyfriend until he'd recently found a job, but that job didn't pay so well that he could swiftly pay off the money he owed her.

It was then that I made a suggestion that I thought was obvious. The suggestion was rejected.

I should be reading economists less and social psychologists more.