Avoidable professional

[mauditsoitils]

Im mid thirties and more or less single after a LTR through my twenties. Im childfree and happy to stay childfree.

Im happy and content in my singleness - truly- I have a nice life, good friends, amazing siblings, brilliant nieces, à career that has its ups and downs but that is rewarding. I am economically stable.

So here is the question - without justification - one evening many yonks ago - my elder sister made me promise to never date people from a certain profession. She didn't want to elaborate but just said "Don't".
My best friend of many years (Male) recently said as long as you don't choose à "same profession" you'll be happy. He didn't want to elaborate either.

Sister is an academic, best friend is a surgeon, I'm a lawyer.

AIBU to ask you to guess thé profession?

I ask because I am being quite nicely flirted with be a man who is "profession" ... He's a relative stranger - we met in real life but no mutual acquaintances.

Oh just seen OP’s update. I didn’t see that coming!

I have no idea what your forbidden profession is but mine would be:

-musician
-artist
-politician
-influencer
-career criminal

Ohhh. I didn’t scan to the end.

Architect? Really?? Haha, maybe that is the French equivalent of estate agent or surgeon in England.

Having said that, all the architects I’ve known have been a strange combo of mathematical accuracy with very demanding aesthetic standards. I guess that is kind of the point. I shared a house with one on my year abroad and then also dated one for 4 months. A sample of 2, so very scientific.

Forces would be my guess… due to the shagging around culture and use of prostitutes I would guess?

Reader, I married one.
A complete arse. Rude, awful to young kitchen staff, violent after drinking, arrogant and behaved entirely inappropriately when around family members on both sides.
Currently living alone in a bedsit in an awful town, which rhymes with Ratley.
Beat up a succession of lovely girlfriends.

My cousin is married to an architect. He’s a really lovely man. They have two children and a seemingly happy life.

See 'The Fountainhead'.
Thought you were going to say Therapist.

Estate agent?

Good Morning!

So I asked the friends I was out with yesterday (some of whom know my best friend, some of whom know my sister).

The consensus was notallarchitects apparently. According to the group Residential architects and Restoration architects are okay. Commercial and Industrial architects are to be avoided. There was talk of ego and self importance and arrogance. Exacting standards. The fact that if you live with an architect your house is "their home and their project" before being your home. And of regimental clothing and glasses. No mention of money/lack of/spending habits/overbudgeting.

As for the veto from my sister... we couldn't work out why she is so strongly anti architect, however a friend pointed out that her (lovely husband - structural engineer ) has worked on quite a few projects with architects, and maybe thats where it comes from.

As for best friend, it's a bit sadder, I knew he was horrifically bullied through high school, he still in his late thirties brings it up sometimes, but not really that much more about that period. A friend who knew him as a teenager told us that both the ringleaders of the bullies (1 girl, 1 boy) went on to become architects.

When I told the surgeon who was with us that people also apparently don't want to date surgeons he replied explained that at least his massives mistakes didn't outlive him and that industriel architects make mistakes that scar landscapes and public budgets for generations and generations.

That is a really bizarre outlook from your friends. I don't understand their logic at all.

I think your best plan of action is:
Agree to go for a coffee. This will not be a Date; it will be a fact-finding mission where you establish whether he is Residential, Restoration, Commercial or Industrial. You can evaluate other characteristics at the same time as long as you remember that This Is Not a Date.
Armed with this knowledge, you can have a chat with your sister and see if she will amend the rules (get specific on which Architects are in/out) or, even, release you from your promise (because times have moved on and so have Architects).
If it's all good at this stage then you can introduce Acceptable Architect to your best friend in order to show him the concept of NotAllArchitects.

Bonne chance!

@senua Perfect strategic planning! Need you as my wing woman ;-)
Merci

But do presentiments among friends on a dark cold december end of year slog evening after a couple of glasses of wine need logic?

Wrong quote! Sorry was for previous poster!

I want to read that now!

Yes! But I think the telling thing is that this was supposed to be the ideal man...
With time, in my opinion, this would be a dangerous point of view ! Though admittedly quite attractive on some levels.

I burst out laughing at the surgeon saying his mistakes don't outlive him! Yeah, surely that is FAR worse than anything an architect could do! I'm going to hell....

Honestly, OP, have a coffee with the guy and make your own mind up. He might not live up to the stereotype at all. Someone mentioned journalists up thread, saying long hours, lots of travel, and dangerous work. Myself and my husband are both business journalists, we keep business hours. Very little oversea travel, especially since the advent of Zoom and no danger involved at all! We both work from home and have a pretty stress free life. A coffee isn't going to hurt!

at least his massives mistakes didn't outlive him

Yep, this dark humour tracks 100% with the surgeons I have met in the past!

That is the only show that makes me about at the TV!

Okay, I clearly misread OP and I thought this was about not getting involved with someone in the same profession as yourself; advice I would personally recommend.
Now I understand the post properly, my guess would have been Recruitment. Which is 100% true, although it sounds like they have stiff competition!

Engineer?

As soon as I read the OP I knew it would be architect - I'm married to one!
He's a decent, kind person but honestly the job kind of ruins you. We met when he was a student. The hours for students and newly qualified architects are insane - the pay per hour when you start out is way, way less than minimum wage. He was offered a job at one of the big London practices and when he spoke to a friend who already worked there she said "We usually work 6 days a week, but often I'm home by 10pm". He ended up taking a role at a less prestigious place with better hours, but even then he regularly had to work late into the evening, go in at weekends etc.
When they're working to a deadline it's all-consuming. DH's boss at the time wanted him to bring some work on our honeymoon because the deadline was looming. He's worked at about 4 different practices now, all in London, and only one - a small startup owned by a man with young kids - had what I would describe as reasonable expectations regarding a work/life balance.
Then there's the perfectionism - I think to be a good architect you have to have really high standards for how things are presented. So god forbid you ever embark on any home improvements of your own - they will have a vision of perfection for how the project turns out, and it will never quite meet their vision. So there's a lot of general dissatisfaction. DH is constantly grumbling about some niggle with the architraves or whatnot.
And of course if you go on holiday, don't expect to feature in any holiday photos. They'll all be of structures, textures, and patterns.
If they try and start a practice on their own, they have to work 24/7 on it (as do many small business owners, I imagine). One of the ways they get work is by entering competitions. So they'll spend weeks working 24/7 (unpaid) on a bid to submit, and statistically they're unlikely to win. Which is a little precarious financially, and also they have to have a really thick skin to handle all the knock-backs.
Don't get me wrong, DH is fantastic, but if I could change one thing about him it would be his profession. His mental health, and pur quality of life, have both taken a battering.

As a military & NHS surgeon it seems I’m bottom of the pile! 😂

Yes!
i was about to say this very thing.
( and impeccably, painfully design conscious, you can never buy them a gift. Ever — it will just be wrong.) )

I recognise the general minor dissatisfactions in my architect friends. One in particular is unbearable because his eyes skip immediately to problems. We have the same dentist and he’s bothered by the fact that one of the doors in the surgery opens the ‘wrong’ way.