agonyaunt | Dear Prudence: Sconces of Doom

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Dear Prudence: Sconces of Doom

My girlfriend and I have been together for a year and a half and just moved in together. It is a little sooner than I would have ever expected to move in with a significant other, but we were both paying a lot in rent and spent so much time at each other’s places it just made sense. However, I just learned something about her that I’m worried might be a deal breaker … and it’s about something as seemingly frivolous as light bulbs!

Early on when we were dating, I realized when she came over to my apartment that she had a strong aversion to overhead lighting and preferred having them off in favor of using floor and table lamps with softer lighting like she used in her own apartment. I thought this was just a quirk and it didn’t bother me at all—lights to me are either on or off and was something I had rarely thought about. At one point, she even gave me another lamp for my apartment so we didn’t have to use the overhead lights, which we joked about and I even found endearing. I was happy to be dating a woman who is confident and assertive in her preferences.

Fast forward to moving in together—we were able to find a reasonably priced apartment we both liked, which even had minimal overhead lighting, which she loved. There were three built in wall sconces which she said she was fine with, and we signed a one-year lease together. The other day, I came home from work to find her changing the light bulbs in the wall sconces. I asked her what she was doing and she explained that she couldn’t stand the LED lightbulbs in them so was replacing them with incandescent bulbs, and that she had replaced the other LED bulbs in the lamps I brought from my apartment as well. She said she had been “hoarding” warm toned incandescent bulbs ever since Biden announced a ban on them in 2023 and that even though she hates Trump she’s actually excited about him rolling back regulations on lightbulbs.

Here’s the thing: We met canvassing for a liberal candidate for a local office and have not had any political disagreements up until this point, so I was shocked—she describes herself as an environmentalist and liberal so I was completely baffled. I took a walk to process and when we talked about it that night, I told her how I felt and explained the environmental impacts of incandescent bulbs versus LEDs. In response, she argued that individual consumer choices are of less importance than wider systemic change, and that LED lights (even the warmer toned ones I was using) trigger her migraines and might have other health effects we’re not aware of.

She also told me that she was willing to pay a larger share of the electric bill if I was concerned about the financial impacts of this choice. This is not an issue for me at all, and she has never said anything about having migraines before. I don’t want to accuse her of lying, but I do think she is being a hypocrite—she is pretty vocal about her political leanings and does not even seem to be concerned or ashamed about her preference for incandescent bulbs.

I do care deeply about the importance of sustainability, but I’m more concerned about my girlfriend revealing a side of her I haven’t seen before, and I don’t know if I can move past what I would consider to be her hypocrisy and refusal to compromise. She is accusing me of disregarding her health, and I’m at a loss as to how to move forward. Since the wall sconces came with the apartment, I’m considering contacting the landlord to see if there is anything in writing about their requirements for lightbulbs in the building so I have some leverage to try and sway her. Any other ideas? This seems like a ridiculous reason to break up with her, but I also think her attitude about this is ridiculous and reveals a lot about her character. Please help!

—Seeing Her in a New Light

Dear New Light,

Moving in with a partner always involves a bit of a reality check where you have to suddenly reckon with many, many aspects of your partner that you don’t find attractive; it sounds like that’s what’s happening for you, in the form of this lightbulb argument. You’re finding out that your girlfriend is as flawed and inconsistent, like any other human. I can understand why your girlfriend would seem hypocritical and obstinate to you about this situation, but I hope you can also understand that you’re coming off rather obstinate and judgmental. While it’s wonderful that you and your girlfriend first bonded over shared politics, I’m sure by now you realize that most individuals tend to not be 100 percent ideologically pure when it comes to their day-to-day lifestyle choices.

It sounds to me that you’re holding your girlfriend to a pretty high standard, and she’s falling short of it. Now you’re feeling disillusioned and slightly suspicious—and that’s normal! But I think you need to tread carefully here, because she’s likely forming her own conclusions now about your response, too. If I were her, I’d have a lot of mixed feelings about dating someone who turns my—yes, possibly selfish—preference for lighting into a referendum on my character. Put simply: It’s not terribly fun to live with (or to date!) someone who makes you feel judged.

My advice to you is that you should think deeply about what actually is bugging you about this lightbulb stuff. If the lighting choices in your apartment don’t actually affect you personally outside of what it “symbolizes” about your girlfriend’s belief system, you need to spend some time considering your ability to tolerate a partner’s choices that you don’t agree with. The question isn’t, “Who’s right about this lightbulb situation?” but “Can I respect and live with a partner who doesn’t always live according to my own standards?”

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One thing I have noticed over time is that much of the time "I don't like this" means "I find the sensations this produces unpleasant to unendurable" It is somewhat well known that many people are irritated by the flickering and other aspects of fluorescent lights.

Another thing I have noticed is how much people are willing to extend benefit of the doubt to others in their lives, and the conflict between rules and actual people. I noticed the latter in American Evangelical Christianity, which is extremely focused on rules as ascendant over human contradictions, and whose philosophies extend much further int US culture than people often expect.

Also LW needs to get over his judgy little self. I don't know if I hope more that he actually learned some mental flexibility or that she left him.

Edited 2025-03-11 13:45 (UTC)

People are frequently unwilling to believe strangers about migraine and sensory triggers, but the idea that this guy was willing to move in with someone, but not willing to take their word about those things, is just...

So, he prefers to be absolutely pure in his environmental sustainability over catering to her migraine triggers?

What next, diatribes that she is subsidising Big Pharma by her preference for effective migraine drugs over, what, meditation and crystals?

And he acts like her comment about structural change is meaningless when it's actually true and central to progressivism! This guy needs some therapy and consciousness raising.

On the one hand, it's true that individual consumer choices are meaningless compared to structural change, but on the other hand... banning inefficient bulbs *is* structural, so I can see why you'd get frustrated at someone saying they oppose government regulation because they want *structural* change.

Anyway, LW is more wrong than GF and there are valid reasons to need special kinds of light but I can also see why in this climate someone might get a bit overwrought at someone saying they blame Biden for things Biden didn't do and they're glad Trump is fixing them by making everything worse because it removes a slight inconvenience for them.

They both need to work on communication and lining up their ethics but then who doesn't.

That's true. A lamentable opinion from the gf there that is wrong and bad in multiple ways, and anyone would be correct to be perturbed at the expression of such from a partner they had chosen, they thought, on a firm basis of shared principles.

And yeah, you're right, dismissing compliance with environmental regulations in principle on the basis that 'structural change' is the only important kind is a logical fallacy. And anybody has a right to make compliance with environmental regulations a strict rule of their ethics if that's what they feel. And if that was the only thing he were saying I don't think he'd really be in the wrong. Those things coming along with a broad dismissal of her stated discomfort and jumping right to the idea that she's lying about migraine triggers though... not a good look, and makes me inclined to interpret the rest of his stated argument with side-eye.

True, but on the other hand, I do feel like the way to tell someone about migraine triggers that have specific requirements for your living space is preferably *before* you move in with someone after a year and a half of quietly changing things in his apartment without telling him about it. This is a situation where two people mutually aren't trusting each other and using each other's mistrust to justify their own.

On the *gripping* hand though, if his first thought when his "very environmentalist" girlfriend is using slightly suboptimal light bulbs is to mansplain to her that they are less energy efficient, I can see why she doesn't tell him things.

That's true, that is an odd oversight given how extremely eccentric her thing for incandescent bulbs is in today's world. I suppose she figured that he was fine with her lighting in her apartment so it would be fine here too? But it's still weird to just assume the other person would never notice or have any feelings at all about your taking complete control of all lightbulbs in your new cohabitation arrangement, even without the environmental angle.

yeah, this was my reaction exactly. I have strong migraine-induced opinions about lightbulbs, though luckily I'm fine with most LEDs. And some environmental activists are shitty about accessibility. (The tiny subset of urbanists who insist "elevators shouldn't be mandated" or "nobody needs access to a personal vehicle" are a practically infinitesimal subset of yimbys, but when I come across them I still feel extremely punchy.)

But I would also have a knee-jerk reaction if anyone I loved suddenly said "I'm glad Trump is rolling back" literally anything, just as a matter of framing. And as you say, the lightbulb regs are systemic change, not individual!

Nonetheless LW is being an ass. Believe your GF when she says she has migraines, dipshit. And don't require her to be perfect. Will you break up if she uses a straw? Buys something in a plastic container because it's cheaper than glass? Shops at union-busting Whole Foods? Takes a Lyft home instead of biking? Uses an LLM? Buys something individually wrapped? Eats almonds? Eats food from more than 100 miles away? Where's your line? And speaking of all those hypotheticals, how many of them do you ever do?

(TBF I might break up with an LLM advocate, but that's for different reasons.)

Right? she has never said anything about having migraines before MAYBE BECAUSE SHE CAREFULLY AVOIDS TRIGGERS???

That was my thought, too!! She hasn't talked about migraines because *she has carefully adjusted her home environment to reduce them.*

(We recently ran into this -- our housemate changed the bathroom light bulbs to something unbearable, and we had to explain that we keep them That Way for a reason.)

I do severely side-eye the Trump comment -- I would definitely want to look into whether that goes deeper than light bulbs, because Trumpism and Trump-apologists are a dealbreaker, but if she was saying it as a "stopped clock is right twice a day" way, I don't think that makes her a failure as a progressive/environmentalist/person.

Yes, but if she has specific environmental requirements for that, it's relevant information she needed to provide to someone thinking of moving in with her. Like, my sister needs to avoid chocolate; I need to avoid ricotta.No one we move in with needs to know about them unless they're going to be cooking for us.

But my spouse can't have certain scents in the house. That's something that anyone living in or buying anything for the space needs to know in advance! It would not be OK for him to have asked me to move in and then AFTER i moved in, he replaced all my grooming products with different ones without asking me.

if she has specific environmental requirements for that, it's relevant information she needed to provide to someone thinking of moving in with her.

Oh yeah, I agree, although I wouldn't be surprised if she thought she had - no/minimal overhead lighting seems to have solved it when she was at LW's place before they moved in together, and she might not have thought to bring up the lightbulbs. But either way I was more reacting to him seeming sceptical that she even has migraines, given that she's apparently put effort into avoiding triggers.

I am deeply, deeply grateful that one of the good friends (who I could have seen myself living with otherwise) mentioned UP FRONT the way rose scent gives her a migraine, and she has a glitter phobia. (I love rose as a scent, and multiple people have occasionally gloatingly told me that various forms of glitter are being outlawed.)

Random comment: you know about edible glitter, right? Ive given it to several glitter loving children so they don't have to be dissuaded from eating the glitter.

Yes! It's fantastic!

God, thank you. I saw this in Slate, and the comments were...not great.

ugugugugugugugughghghhghghg

Hey LW, some people have real problems with LED lightbulbs: LEDs flicker when not running at full current (as do overhead fluorescent lights), and the flicker is almost physically painful on my eyes. Also, the cool/blue LEDs have been shown to be both detrimental to night vision, and contribute to light pollution outdoors.

(Anecdotally, we found that when we switched from incandescent to LED lighting, our winter heating costs went up a little. Yes, incandescent lighting emits 90% of its energy as heat, but that heat isn't always wasted.)

If LW is going to keep missing the forest for the trees, I won't be surprised to learn that GF left him.

If you rat your gf out to your landlord, you will NOT have a gf much longer, even if you were in the right.

Anyway, this is another reason we need rents to be lower, so people have more time to figure out if they should live together (& it's not as big a deal if you can't)

The only thing the LW should be concerned about is that the wattage on the new bulbs is correct for the fixtures. That's it.

Everything else is him having issues with someone being a human being who isn't him.

The comments about being excited for TFG to bring back incandescent bulbs would bother me a lot, too. It's like the people who start sentences with "Of course RFK is right about clean foo-" NO. SHUT UP. You don't give these people power over the narrative, ever, because their narrative is a lie. But that's separable from whether LEDs are really a problem for LW's partner.

Oh wow, I don't know how but I missed that line while being mad that he wasn't taking her migraines seriously. That was selfish and foolish and immature of her, at very best. But I still think I'd assign that fewer demerits than not taking one's partner's medical issues seriously. Maybe neither of them are grown enough to be in a relationship right now.

Edited 2025-03-11 17:44 (UTC)

NO. SHUT UP. You don't give these people power over the narrative, ever, because their narrative is a lie.

yeah they aren't even stopped clocks. It's more like, if Doctor Doom makes an army of killer robots flinging bricks at all an sundry, one of those bricks might hit a purse snatcher. That doesn't mean they were right to throw bricks, not least because Doctor Doom probably murdered the people responsible for early purse snatcher intervention. (In the clean food case, by killing SNAP farmer's market subsidies, and free school meals, and subsidies to buy school meals from local farms, and et cetera et cetera.)

Is it possible this is ragebait? That letter is so full of red flags I'm surprised I can read the text.

Where did that reply come from?

He has no reason to doubt his GF and every reason to believe her, so why present it like he's right?

Yes, people don't all live up the standards you'd hope, but dude isn't saying "I'd suffer that amount of pain for an inconsequential environmental gain", if the gain doesn't really matter, it's not really a "higher" principle, he just wants to stick to it and not think about the cost to someone else.

It seems she handled it weirdly, but on this issue it seems like he could just cope.

They should break up until he learns to take himself less seriously or learns how to help brainstorm alternative solutions instead of shaming and clutching his pearls, because if he’s going to be this controlling about lightbulbs he’s going to be overly controlling about other things too

Mixed feelings. If anyone I know showed excitement about anything Trump is doing I too would be bothered, so I get where LW is coming from there

On the other hand it rubs me the wrong way that he's so unwilling to believe her about the migraines, also the expectation that she should be ~performing shame~ about the whole thing. And I actually kind of get that as someone who sometimes feels a lot of shame about that kind of stuff. Sometimes it shocks me that other people don't seem to feel that shame, that they seem so carefree, and I would be lying if I said that doesn't bother me a bit

But then I'm sure I'm very carefree with certain things and in certain ways that would completely horrify others, becasuse we all have our own needs and priorities. It's just not reasonable to expect someone to be perfectly unproblematic in every single aspect of their life

I wish she didn't change the lightbulbs without saying anything though. I have to assume she did it because she expected this kind of reaction from LW if she said anything, hoping he wouldn't even notice the change, so in that sense I can understand that decision, but I feel it just made the situation a bit messier than it needed to be in the end. And personally if someone I live with did that without telling anyone it would really weird me out, but maybe that's a me thing

Yeah I don't really know how to feel about this letter. Right now I'm just glad that LED lightbulbs don't bother me, and that I don't have any interest in being in a relationship or sharing my living space with anyone I don't live with already lol

The wrong type of lightbulbs can be

a) a migraine trigger;

b) not a migraine trigger, but painful if you already have a headache;

c) not a migraine trigger, but distracting/exhausting/annoying.

A lot of shopping centre/office lighting is hell, for example.

I have a lot of sympathy for the girlfriend bothered by the lights.

That said, ideally she would have talked to her partner rather than switch out the bulbs in secret.

I think, looking back, that one of the reasons I sympathized with her (enough to miss half a paragraph, it seems) is that doing things in secret was my MO for decades because of the perverse incentives of my childhood. I forgot to call it out and say it's something she needs to grow out of -- being upfront can be scary but it's necessary -- because men dismissing women's pain gets me on a sublogical level.

Rar, I say, waving my tiny firsts. rar.

This guy sounds like he's confirming all of her rationale for keeping it quiet.

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Dear Prudence: Sconces of Doom

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