No, I'm not talking about the big 5-0 this week.

I was in Washington, DC the weekend of the first presidential debate and the beginning of the Great Bail-out of 2008.  I was there to promote a book, but it was impossible to ignore the tension in the city tasked with saving Americans from themselves.

This may come as a surprise from someone who is a Contributing Editor for Business, Personal Finance and Career, but I don't like to talk about money. Truth be told, I avoid the topic at all costs. I hate money. Yes, I like to use money. But I hate what it does to people. It divides. It judges.It makes people who have great personal success feel like failures.

While Financial Infidelity Seven steps to Conquering the #1 Relationship Wrecker is not a book targeted to business partners,many of the lessons and exercises offered up in the book can be adapted to business partners --okay not the one where the author Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil suggests that: 

I recently attended the wedding of a college roommate and dear friend. It required travel, and in doing so, I was able to spend some time with my other roommates, friends I have known since we were all buying pizza with the coins we found in the ashtray of an ancient Festiva, friends who now range in professions ranging from psychologist to speech pathologist to elementary school principle. Well-educated, dual-income couples. Out of the five of us, three couples have kids. Actually, everyone but us that has kids has TWO of them. And we’re all broke.

My roommate and I are watching MTV’s True Life: I’m Moving Back to New York. There is one girl who just graduated from college and moved to the city and is making so little that her parents are paying $1000 of her $1325 rent and the rest she is to use for ‘necessities’. The girl decides to go on a bit of a shopping spree and spends $600 on a shirt and a pair of shoes.

Last Friday was one of my worst personal finance days in quite some time. One of those days when I had to laugh and then have a Bloody Mary and Fried Ravioli, to keep from crying. Obviously alcohol and carbohydrates keep the feeling of complete stupidity at bay. It was a case of minor miscalculation and yet the feelings of irresponsibility and knowing that everyone in my office is aware of my mismanagement and poor credit were slow to dissipate.

I am perpetually afraid to look at my bank account online. This is rather inconvenient when I need to write a check and instead of just casually writing it and being done, there is a lot of teeth grinding and eye twitching involved, which means that I spend a lot of my time looking pained and in stress.

A few months ago, I attended another blogger’s son’s first birthday party. During the party a family member asked how the blogger and I knew each other and she replied that I write about personal finance online and that was how she found me. The family member then proceeded to ask me about finance since she needed help in that department and I just stood there dumbfounded. I’d say that ‘writing about personal finance’ is a far stretch for what I do, but you know, bygones.