Live Q&As

If it weren't the adult friend's birthday, would you want to go to a potluck or lunch with this friend? 

Seems to me anything that's okay in the regular course of a friendship is okay in marking a birthday.

I like it, thanks, and am also intrigued that you're able to "go get another drink" at work.

The problem with the college-grad shower is that the bulk of your friends presumably will also be just starting out, so you'll all just be buying each other ramen. If there's a grad who has a village of supporters besides his/her peers, then, sure, that village should go ahead and start a trend.

As for the math of the bridal shower, aren't all but the first wave of brides and grooms usually part of a mixed peer group, including single, paired, shacked up, married, ex married? And aren't there plenty of couples who together make less than some singles?

I am all for re-thinking the whole idea of showers (wrote a column to that effect a few weeks ago) but for anything that replaces it, the math has to work.

BTW--four people offering to host a shower? You have generous friends. Maybe combine all your advantages and have a shower that doesn't require people to spend anything on you, like a recipe shower. A little 50s-throwbacky, depending on how you handle it, but it could be useful if you and you rintended actually cook. You could also do used books, photographs (people bring shots of you with friends at various points of life, to be assembled in a photo book or online gallery) ... or you could pick a family or charity and celebrate your good fortune by outfitting them. I'm sure there are other ideas out there. 

Actually, the columnnist is a 9-year-old dressed up as Gene Weingarten. 

It's nobody's business.  Carry on.

Since you seem to want to make the call/send the e-mail, force it by telling yourself you can't X (X being something you look forward to) without calling/emailing Y. You can even order your lists by priority, with call/email preceding something that really needs to be done.

I realize I should put "force" in quotation marks, because you're the one laying down the law, obeying it and enforcing it, which makes it about as toothless as a law can be. But, when you choose to respect it, it's a great method for introducing self-discipline where you're suffering from its absence.

Another motivator: if you send an email early, it can be a sentence or two, or even just a few words. "Hey, thinking of you--what's up?" or, "Free Saturday?"  When you wait, you generally have to write more. (Though somethign terse after a months-long silence is still better than nothing at all.)

You're right, I shouldn't have blown past that, thanks.

You're right, if you're throwing your own party, you pay. But the writer's tone got me to look at the other angle. If a group of people socializes in a certain way, then celebrating a birthday in that same way doesn't get anything of mine in a bunch. I think before any of us judges an invitation as selfish, it's important to look at the context. Let's say you and your friends routinely meet for lunch. If the birthday person thinks one of those lunches would be a great way to mark her birthday, is she supposed to not invite you and wait till you think of it--or would it be okay for her to call and set up a lunch like any other of your lunches? Maybe she doesn't even expect you all to cover her tab; maybe she just wants to see you.

So, like I said, the what-is-with-people? approach applies sometimes, yes, but not always. 

And, when the context says it does apply, you decline the invitation. That's what my original answer was going for--what's the context?

Thanks. Though I bet some people bought bottles out of shame at the idea of sharing their "house" wine. Yes that would be me. But, that would still be my choice. 

"Awful" is bagging out on your sister's wedding after an hour.

"Awful" is also saying, "You can do what you want but unfortunately i'll have to make someone who can actually be there for me a bridesmaid insted of you."

Non-awful is to say, "I'm really hurt that you want to leave my wedding for a friend's dance recital." It's not about your sister's ceremonial title, so don't approach it as if it is.

If your sister responds dismissively to your feelings, -then- you can say, "If that's really the way you feel, then I hope you'll understand that I need to ask someone else to be a bridesmaid in your place. Being there is kind of the minimum requirement."

Good point, thanks. Lower standards are the right idea, but if that's too hard to implement, think volume: The more you're in touch with someone, the less you need to make every utterance a meaningful one.

I was going to say they stole it from Weingarten's desk, or that I was teaching them the value of saving their money to make important purchases and this is what they got, or that they shoplifted it, but then I realized the truth is better than anything I can make up. It's their dad's.

That was taken from a chat so long ago that I can't even remember suggesting it. But, the point then and now is, get whatever amuses you. I'd say to get a  remote-control fart machine, in keeping with the highbrow theme of this chat, but if your beloved is truly The One, s/he will already have one. Possibly two, in the event one breaks.

The first part of this is easier to answer than the second part: You need to block the updates of the people who use social media to brag. That's not what -everyone- is in it for, that's just the way some people use it, and there's absolutely no reason to pay attention to them.

Some might say just to stay off these things altogether, which is a perfectly good and uncluttered solution--but if you see a lot of good amid the bad, then waste a little extra time on your feeds and tweak them till the majority of what they yield is useful.

Disclosure, I'm in the midst of this process myself, and I'm almost to the point where my feeds serve up news, links to great stories I would otherwise have missed, photos of people I care about and art that's suited to online delivery (music, video, photography ...).  

The next question I'll have to answer now is about staying on track then there's a steady stream of thoughtful distractions available to one 24-7, but at least you won't have to worry about looking at the march of brags.

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Oh goodie, I get to chastise you for equating porn to rap music.  Such a false equivalency.

Porn equates better to alcohol, gambling, or even sex itself. It's something -responsible adults- can enjoy in a way that isn't problematic, but overindulging or indulging recklessly: is linked to addiction, can wreak havoc on your self-esteem and your intimate relationships, may interfere with job performance, and can introduce ancillary problems like debt and legal problems.

And, if you read my column, then you know I advised her not to try to control what her BF reads and does, but instead to accept this is his way and decide whether she can live with him or not.

"Um, would you please wash your hands after you go to the bathroom?"

Also, consider putting a hand sanitizer (pump dispenser) in your bathroom. Shorten the distance between the two points. 

--Skeeved in D.C.

Dunno where to start, except to ask if you're all fish in an aquarium, and you dictated the letter to your human keeper?

I'll try answering bottom to top:

-Your friends are right, Judy has no right to insist you and James can't date.

-You can, out of respect for Judy and her relationship, choose both to hold off for a while while Judy recovers from her attachment to/detachment from James, and, if you do start dating James, to honor the distance between him and Judy as necessary for Judy's peace of mind. Ideally she'll have eyes only for her fiance,* but reality says sometimes a person stays on your mind, and at some point you have to get on with your life. 

-There is an appropriate time for you and James to try dating--after Judy is married makes for a nice milestone, but I'm not convinced that day should ever come,* or will. If it doesn't, then I'd say wait till Judy stops dwelling on him or when your interest in James outweighs your friendship with Judy, whichever comes first.

-About the aquarium. I might be way off here, but if you are all inhabiting a smallish world, then it may be that you and James are interested in each other because you've exhausted your interests in the other available people. Offices get like this, grad programs do, college buddies do, and tv shows that have been on the air for more than a couple of seasons ... anyway, all that means is that it's a good idea to question your interest in james before you act on it, just in case. Probably a sensible path with anyone but it's especially important when a circle of friends gets a bit incestuous.

Normally I'd agree--love just about any busybodyist rant--but it is in fact possible to hear 1. what a soul is doing in a bathroom and 2. not hear running water afterward and 3. be quite aware there's no hand sanitizer in the bathroom. 

Ah, shared living. 

Or, even creepier, some people feel pressured to glow/gloat (glowt?) publicly about gifts because their partners look for it and get upset if they don't. 

And, too, some people just live out loud, and would have done so at any point in history, using whatever tools available to them. 

I guess the upshot is, if you know your friends, then you have a good idea why you're seeing posts of their V-Day bouquets.

There's that, too, thanks.

Both of those outcomes are possible--in fact, I'm never sure saying anything will accomplish what the speaker intends. People are always the X factor. But, if you're as sure as you can be that he's doing this, then you might as well try, on the off chance he doesn't actually know how dirty even a clean bathroom is. 

If you think he's punitive or unstable, then that's something else--and it involves finding a new housemate.

And do consider the hand sanitizer. Make it easy for him just in case.

And while I'm at it, instead of demonstrating how to load the dishwasher again and again, why not suggest that he load it while you watch, so you can "make sure he's doing it right"? I.e., approach him as someone who never learned some valuable, basic lessons about taking care of himself, be it due to a diagnosable condition or just negligent parents. It does happen.

Putting this out there as a PSA, but I might be inclined to go with the "better-than-nothing" solution if "nothing" remains a real possibility.

Is snorting coffee like alcohol, gambling and porn?

Hasn't had sex, right? or else his FB posting would take on new meaning. 

A fine idea. And if that doesn't work, post in the kitchen another bit of English sloganeering, "Keep Calm and Carry On."

Reflexively, the first thing I want to leap on is the "make you feel" phrasing, since that's just a tar pit. The only way someone can "make" you feel anything is by taking away your choices. 

Anyway. I think your point goes back to the issue of context that's hijacking this chat from the R-CFM. If you know your friends, you know that Susie posts a picture of Bo because she's a goofball and would just as easily post a picture of the collapsed souffle she perpetrated last night, and Sally posts a picture of Bo because she needs everyone to know She Was at the White House Last Night. 

Yes, we're all human, and yes, life is a lot more complicated than any story that can fit in a letter. I get letters like yours occasionally, and people who see their letters in print sometimes go on to supply a missing part of the story that changes everything.

I want to see that in yours, but I don't. What I see is that you've changed your story since you wrote the letter. In the letter he's a "long-standing crush." Here he's just "my former office crush." In your letter, your BF was "the consolation prize," and here he's "a prize I want." And in this new update, there's an inconsistency: is it " not fully loving my ...  boyfriend," or is it "truly loving someone"?

I'm not new to anger at me and at the comments-section crew, and sometimes we deserve it (though never all of the commenters; they're generally an even handed bunch and often it's just a handful who wade into outrageous waters on any given day). But here ...? The phrase "changing your story" is stuck in my head. If your feelings haven't genuinely changed since you wrote your letter, then you're not helping yourself or your boyfriend by defending your feelings for him.

Um. Not really, not if he expects his housemates to do all the work.

I got tired of typing "remote-control fart machine."

Please don't bring a gift. The donation is their way of accounting for people who are constitutionally incapable of showing up empty handed.

And yes, I realize the no-gifts request as well as the charity solicitation are both etiquette violations, but the etiquette doesn't take into account the groundswell of STUFF that accrues in the lives of kids from financially comfortable backgrounds (not rich, just anyone above scraping by). A more etiquette friendly approach might be to skip the big B-day party altogether (FWIW, child-development types see the child's age as a guideline for the right # of guests), but sometimes people have their reasons for inviting the whole class, and no kid of any age needs 20 gifts. Many, if not most, don't even want that many, whether they realize it or not.

Why does the "credit" (ew?) need to be in front of your friends? (And, on a completely different note, is there such a beast as acceptable bragging?)

To me this isn't about being boastful so much as being needlessly public. Okay, send a bouquet to someone's office -so a person can enjoy the flowers-, since often most waking hours are spent there vs home. But proposing on stadium Jumbotrons I thought was a fad that needed to die, not one that needed to be shrunk down to fit individual screens.

I think it's fine, even appropriate, for you not to contribute. You're not her friend anymore, the wedding is what exposed your friend as someone you don't actually like, and so there'd be no integrity in getting fake-misty just to get the Mom of Bride off your back.

If you feel obligated for some unforeseeable reason, though, you can tell a truth, if not -the- truth: "I saw my friend get exactly the wedding she wanted," or something to that effect.

Have you done anything more concrete than "wonder why"? I'm less interested in whether narcissism can be cured than whether your attraction to it can be exposed, understood and cognitively/behaviorally redirected toward healthier people and relationships.

"My bf has said he likes my son, enjoys their rapport and appreciates his efforts to help."

Okay. But does your son like your BF, enjoy their rapport and appreciate his efforts to help?

Given that most children are abused by someone they know, the idea of "more permanent housing" is one with potentially serious consequences for your son. And while it's probably not the case that you're letting an abuser pick up your son after school, just by the numbers, you did write almost your entire question from the perspective of how good this arrangement is for your BF, and only at the end do you mention being "mindful of my son"--and even then, listing your relationship in the same sentence, as if they have equal weight.

This might just be an accident of haste in composing your question, but, wow, your son needs to be the axis on which this entire household decision spins. Is he safe here? Does his mother have his welfare in the front of her mind? Or is she preoccupied enough by making her potential mate happy to be looking for all the wrong "red flags"? 

When practical, talk to the child--even if you have to ask the parent, "Okay if I say hello to your little girl?" If you get a yes, then try to get to child height and ask about, say, the stuffed animal or drawing she has in her hand, or her dress, whatever. Ask nice, simple questions and let the child talk. It can take  wound-up parents out of an angry moment and remind them how cute and small their children are. If it backfires and the parent won't let you talk, yells at you, etc., then you can put your hands up, say, "I understand," and, "Children are such a blessing," or something general and innocuous. Even in that case, the child sees and hears someone step in to help, which matters. (This isn't from me, but instead from those who have been in the child's place here.) 

When possible, too, say something to -support- the parent. "Tough day?" All that stinkeye from fellow passengers could have had the opposite effect from the one you all intended. A young parent feeling pretty low and taking it out on a kid will arguably feel lower at all the eyeballs, and who's going to get the brunt of it then?

Thanks! And it does sound as if you need to tighten your circle of friends a bit. Not by doing anything drastic, but instead by being present as a rule for the ones you really care about, and declining guilt-free the invitations of those who feel more like acquaintances than friends.