Sunday, July 21, 2019

A high maintenance article

The Atlantic checks in on "When Harry met Sally" and the discussion of high-maintenance women.
And the writer is not low maintenance about the idea.
As insults go, just as Harry intuited, high-maintenance is extremely effective: Once introduced, it can’t really be argued with. (She is annoyed to be dismissed as high-maintenance? This is, obviously, the clearest evidence of all.) Sally, in the scene that popularized the term, resists the label—or tries to. “I don’t see that,” she protests, when Harry informs her that she is the worst kind. Harry replies with a dramatic rendering of one of her extremely specific restaurant orders: the house salad, but not with the standard dressing, and with the substituted version on the side. The salmon, but with the mustard sauce, and that sauce on the side. “On the side is a very big thing for you,” he concludes.
“Well, I just want it the way I want it,” she says.
“I know. High-maintenance.”

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