Rachel Kramer Bussel

Articles

Dealbreaker: He's a Socialist

Before I met Harry, I didn’t draw much of a connection between my obsession with cupcakes and worldwide systems of oppression.


In our Dealbreakers series, exes report on the habit, belief, or boxer brief that ended the affair.

When I first met Harry at a dinner with friends, he practically staged a radical stump speech over appetizers. I was drawn to his outspoken idealism, but I pegged his type as a short-haired food co-op girl who dressed in camouflage. I wear fishnets and lipstick and edit a blog about cupcakes, and I wasn't sure we'd be a match. But I soon found that I fit right into one half of Harry’s political and personal divide.

Harry called himself a socialist, but he looked like any other high-end hipster. He didn't wear ratty clothes or buttons supporting any particular cause; in fact, he had a taste for fine foods and designer fashions. But his mind was consumed deeply in his radical politics, and in between his consumerist indulgences, his views rushed out in scathing critiques directed at anyone who didn't live up to his ideals. Harry could jump from comparing vintage cheeses to declaring that some new politician was just in it for the money. And as we slowly developed a relationship, Harry began to turn his political analysis on my lifestyle, too.

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