Welcome, BuzzFeeders.

~ JenniferP

I’ve got a piece up on awkward holiday conversations at BuzzFeed this week.

If you’re a new reader, here’s some stuff you might like to know:

Welcome!

 

28 thoughts on “Welcome, BuzzFeeders.”

  1. Your piece on BuzzFeed “The 6 Awkward Conversations You’re Dreading, and How to Deal with Them” is brilliant! I really needed the belly laugh I got from reading it and will be using your one liner of “It’s hard to say” from now until the New Year. I hope to see more of you on BuzzFeed in the future! Happy Holidays!

    1. So glad you liked it! Gonna try to get audio & video of my older brother’s “haaahd to say” at Christmas when I’m home.

        2. Or even “Paahk ya ca at Haahvad Yaad”. =)

          Loved the BuzzFeed, it was “Wicked Pissah!” …. in NZ it was “CHOICE!”

      2. PLEASE DO. I’m a New Englander who recently transplanted to the West Coast, and I miss the Boston accent something fierce.

        1. Have you seen / listened to “The Devil Came Up to Boston”, by the Adam Ezra Group? It’s a very well-distilled bit of Bostonness.

  2. Congrats Jennifer! So cool to see this! And as always, super helpful.

    For #4 all I could think of was ep2 of Master of None after Dev criticizes his mom’s choice in food she retorts: “I like to eat what I like to eat, do I tell you what to eat?” It’s pretty much The Best.

    Also my favorite shut down response for the “when are you . . . going to get married/get a real job/get a haircut” question when I was a kid was “when I want to.” I had no idea this was “rude” it was just honest. I am tapping into my little bad-a self and using that again.

    1. My friend’s wife was on Jeopardy! a few years ago, so he went along and chilled out in the studio audience. They do a Q&A thing with Alex Trebek before and after, so my friend asked him, “When are you going to grow your mustache back?” Trebek said something like, “As with most things in life, I’ll do that *when I feel like it.* Next question?” I’ve started using a variation of this, but accompanied by a wide grin, when I don’t feel like talking about something. As you said, it’s pretty much The Best.

  3. I just wanted to say that your Grandma Louise sounds a lot like my Grandma Louise sounded, and now I am seriously contemplating reviving the name Louise for my future padawan because I think there is something about that name that bestows magical powers of stone cold badassery upon a person.

    1. Grandma Louise is also responsible for one of the sickest burns I’ve ever heard. When I brought a boyfriend home to meet them in college for the first time, she was unflaggingly polite to him (she was polite to everyone) but when I asked her what she thought of him she wrinkled her nose and said “He starts all his sentences with I.” SO HE DID, GRANDMA. So he did.

    4. My awesome matriarch grandmother had Louise as her middle name. There may be something in this.

  4. So pleased to see you on Buzzfeed! Yet another step closer to the point where the sun will not set on your empire of wisdom and awesome advice!

  5. Great tips, will use!

    My go to “so when will we see another generation? (long stare at me)” (seriously, my great aunt, everybody! I’m not even dating anyone!), is “In [month in three months]” o “Next month”. I used it twice on two different sides of the family, it works great and usually some cousin/cool uncle save you by getting the giggles.

    This year, thankfully, my cousin got engaged, so him and his fiancee will be the centre of attention!

    1. That one is totally the worst. My mom has never really pushed at me for that, but I know there was a lot of hinting to my older brother.

      And then my little brother’s now-fiance got pregnant and I am totally off the hook yessssss. My nephew is awesome, as is the instance niece I acquired.

    2. Hah, my husband used to say something like that. Someone would ask when we’re having kids and he’d go, “Well, we were gonna wait to tell y’all this but…”. At one point he threatened to start asking relatives who gave him that question for sex tips (you know, best position for getting pregnant).

      He always got that question more than I did because he lived near a lot more of his extended family.

      They also calmed down a lot after his brother & sister-in-law had a kid.

    3. I’ve been happily single for almost three years, and I am all but positive my dad knows about and even approves of the tubal occlusion I got last year (I wrote about it! For a website! Linked to my real name!), so my relatives have largely given up on me. When I was still fertile ground (ugh) for that sort of thing, however, my go-to was usually something snippy, like, “As soon as you’re willing to carry the pregnancy and raise it for me.” This year, however, the big news is that my cousin has decided that her boyfriend of six or seven years is move-in material (a thoughtful and analytical woman, my cousin is!). She will be spending the holiday with the other side of her family, however, leaving gossip to run rampant about their future.

  6. Oh my gosh. I am going to start answering these questions in a thick Boston accent. This will utterly faze my relatives, as I am from England England, not New England. I will take advantage of their confusion by lunging for the bottle of Baileys and making a sharp exit.

  7. I had to laugh a little when I got to “I see you’re having both kinds of pie”. I DID make two kinds of pie for Canadian Thanksgiving, and we all ate a piece of both (or ate one because we were stuffed and I sent people home with a slice of the other). My family is the kind where we show love by feeding people so thankfully I’ve never had to deal with much food policing, but when I’m out with other people who sometimes make noises about “are you gonna eat that?”, my go-to answer is “I sure am!”

    1. Mmph. My family does food-is-love, too, but combines it with fat-is-bad, so you get the emotional whiplash of “why haven’t you eaten the pie? Did I make it wrong? Can I get you something else?” on one hand and “are you sure you really need to be eating that much?” on the other. In related news, I bet you’re surprised that a) I had an eating disorder in my 20’s and b) I no longer spend Thanksgiving with my family.

      1. Ugh, entendante, I thought mine was the only family that did that. I luckily escaped an eating disorder, but not some really messed up ideas about food that I didn’t (mostly) sort out until I was in my 40’s.

Comments are closed.