Hello everyone!
We’re doing the thing today, where people can submit short questions at Patreon or on Twitter (@CAwkward, #awkwardfriday) before noon Chicago time and I will answer as many as I can this afternoon between noon and 2pm. Comments get turned on once everything is posted
Please enjoy this artsy photo of Daniel Striped Tiger hanging out in his new rainbow tunnel/bifrost.
Image: Daniel Tiger inside a rainbow tunnel, walking toward camera like he’s in a Kubrick movie.
Behind a cut for emotional abuse.
Behind a cut for controlling and emotionally abusive behavior. Read More
Hi Captain Awkward,
Let’s call me Elizabeth. My dad and I have a strained relationship, and was not really much in my life for a good year thanks to my decision to have little to no contact. Why? He’s an emotional abuser, and so for the sake of my health I made boundaries. Just getting phone calls, or even texts were skyrocketing my anxiety. But…slowly…I have begun to interact a little more with him, my placating mother, & most importantly my little sister (who wasn’t speaking to me for cutting off our parents, because she didn’t know my side of the story or see the worse of how our dad treated me).
So in May, to my surprise my dad told me he was willing to go to counseling. In the past I practically begged him to go to counseling with me, but he wouldn’t have it. I talked to my therapist, and they were frank that based off what I’ve shared about my dad and their experience in family counseling that they doubt his intentions are genuine. I tried telling my dad, “how about we see how things go with how they are now, & try counseling if old problems come up.” I wasn’t entirely honest, I didn’t want to go to counseling at this point, I’d moved on emotionally a while ago, but couldn’t bring myself to be that direct (cause dad can be scary). He insisted, and next thing I know I’m looking up family therapists, cause I WOULD NOT let him pick a therapist cause I don’t trust him.
I found a family counselor (still seeing my regular one though), and have been dragging my feet every step of the way. I’ve met the therapist too now, and given their business number to my dad so he could make an appointment months ago, as we’re suppose to start going in separately for them to evaluate our different needs and perspective independently of each other. This was months ago, and dad has not seen the therapist yet, and claims to have called em but “the number doesn’t work”. I checked it works.
I’m now irritated, and anxious over this while trying to make progress in being the best version of myself in other areas but now feel held back. I haven’t even heard from dad in 4 weeks since giving him the number a 2nd time. I need scripts for when I eventually hear from him, or see him again, and he inevitably brings it up. I NEED HELP SAYING A CLEAR AND FIRM NO, WITH PREPARED SCRIPTS FOR PUSHBACK!
-Elizabeth
It’s time for that thing we do, where we use the search strings people typed in to find this place as if they were questions.
First, as is traditional, a song:
Lyrics here.
1 “How to encourage husband to make friends.”
The subtext runs deep with this one, does it not? Like, where is problem originating? Is husband lonely and wanting to branch out socially and doesn’t quite know how? Is the husband treating the querent like his entire social world/cruise director/people-ing facilitator? (It happens). Is the husband fine being not very social but the querent is feeling squashed or mismatched here? (It also happens.) Did he ask for help?
I guess I would say that finding Our People is a lifelong project but Our People should not themselves be our projects. If the husband wants to make some more friends, he presumably has all the same resources that other people use to meet each other (MeetUp, hobbies, pubs, churches, sports, community theater/music, trivia night, political activism, volunteering) and all the modes of communication & social media people use to get in touch with friends from other phases of life at his disposal.
If a spouse wants to be supportive of this friendmaking effort, doing what you can to make sure there is time & money & space available for what he does want to do (“Sure, we can have a couple people over for dinner this weekend!” “Sure, go have fun! I’m gonna do my own thing tonight!” “Sure, I’ll be the designated driver, text me 20 minutes out and I’ll pick you up. Can you do the same for me on Thursday?” “Go ahead and take that art class on Saturday mornings, we’ll find the money.” etc.) is a pretty good place to start. Otherwise, he’s gotta take the lead and do the work, he’s not a toddler that you arrange play dates for or a dog you drop off at doggy day care. Also, in this process, make sure you don’t neglect your own friendships & social connections. These don’t all have to be shared.
2 “He just moved closer and now I want to break up.”
It happens. It sucks. I’m telling a story about it in Chicago this Friday.
With proximity, you have information that you didn’t have before. Be compassionate, be honest, be free.
3 “Breaking up because geography.”
Sometimes that’s a really good reason.
4 “Is it selfish to break up with my boyfriend bc I want to experience other people?”
Breaking up before the “experiencing other people” part might be the best order of operations if that’s what you want to do. I’m sure that’s not an easy decision, but what if you could make decisions about what you want without calling yourself names in the process?
5 “captain awkward how to dump someone”
Quick review:
6 “Hi dad mom died sex”
Whatever word association game is being played here, I want out.
7 “Mum got angry at me but idk why and she wont tell me or even talk to me.”
Check out #5, here, re: The Silent Treatment.
There’s no fair way to play this game your mom is playing, so, DON’T TRY. If she won’t tell you why she’s mad, give her a wide berth. Let her silence be a gift to you instead of the abusive burden she intends. She has choices about how to communicate with you. She is making a bad one.
8 “How to tell friends you can’t afford to go out for expensive dinners.”
“I’m on a tight budget right now and I can’t afford to eat out so much, but I’d love to spend time with you. Can we do [something cheap or free] instead?” More here and here.
9 “My grandparents hate my tattoos.”
Your grandparents are entitled to their opinions but not to be jerks about it.
You are entitled to do what you will with your own body.
Sometimes a cheerful “well, good thing it’s not your body!” response works to cut down on the comments, and sometimes the sincere discussion works, i.e. “Grandparents, given that it’s my body and the tattoos are already here and not going anywhere, what are you hoping for when you comment on them that way? Do you really want our relationship to be about these tattoos you don’t like, or could we find a way to just be kind to each other?”
10 “I’m scared my parents are gonna catch me stealing their Adderall.”
Well, yeah! Stealing another person’s prescription medication is illegal and wrong. It’s dangerous for you. It’s bad for them – your parents have that prescription for a reason, and if you’re stealing their pills they aren’t getting the medication they need. If you need evaluated for ADHD and to possibly be on your own medication, then ask your parents to help you do that. But stop stealing their drugs, please!
11 “Am I a selfish bitch for wanting more money?”
What if you could name the things you wanted without calling yourself mean names?
12 “Hinting that you want to get invited to someone’s house.”
Hinting doesn’t work. Try inviting these people to your house if you want to spend time with them, and if it really is about being inviting to something in particular just say it: “Next time you’re all playing badminton while wearing fancy hats, if you have room for me I’d love to join you.” Then withdraw. You’ve said your thing.
13 “Best response to someone who is seeking for a relationship from you.”
Hands down, the truth about what you want is probably best.
14 “Are grandmas always right about your gender?”
Not if their ideas about your gender conflict with what you know to be true about yourself!
15 “Why is my mom mad at me for taking a better job?”
IDK, but she’s not the one who has to work there, so your opinion is probably the important one here.
16 “How do you get your husband to set boundaries with his parents?”
He may or may not ever learn to do this and you can’t control that. So, you set boundaries with him, and with yourself. Basically “Husband, your relationship with your parents is yours to manage, but this is what I need from you to be happy and okay, so if your parents cross certain lines, I’m going to speak up and/or absent myself and let you deal with it.”
17 “My boyfriend is always counseling me.”
“Hey dude, if I want a therapist I’ll hire one.”
“Hey dude, if you want to be a therapist so bad, go be one!”
“Hey dude, even if you were a therapist, you couldn’t be my therapist, so stop.”
“Stop.”
18 “Best friend wants to be roommates but she’s too messy.”
Tell her “Friend, I love you so much, but I don’t want to cross those streams. I think we would stress each other out a lot if we lived together.” It doesn’t have to be a judgment on her, just, people will be happier living with people with similar definitions of clean when they are signing up to share housing. Knowing this about yourself is a good thing, decide accordingly.
19 “How to friendzone a guy you led on.”
First step, RETHINK EVERYTHING ABOUT HOW YOU ARE DESCRIBING THIS. If we rewrite your whole question to “I wasn’t sure how I felt about this person, so I flirted with them, but now I’m pretty sure I just want to be friends, how do I let them know” we remove all the sexist assumptions that you owed your friend a certain outcome here.
Maybe try “I know we’ve been talking/flirting/kind of considering getting involved romantically, but I’m only interested in being friends.”
Then, stop flirting (it’s the kind thing to do), and give the person a little space to process and decide if they want to be friends, too. You are not being mean when you do this, you are giving them true information that will help them make a good decision about what to do next. Friendship is not a consolation prize or a holding pen where we herd the people we don’t want to make out with, it’s its own valuable thing.
20 “What should I tell him I’m doing this weekend.”
A) Whatcha doing this weekend and B) Is it something you want him to know?
It’s the difference between “Oh, I’m busy with this and that, you know” and “I’ve got family coming into town, here is our detailed itinerary of fun!” and “I didn’t schedule anything in particular, why do you ask?” and “I’m going to the art museum on Friday, wanna join?” All are perfectly acceptable answers.
21 “Best response to ‘what are you looking for’ on Tinder.”
What are you looking for?
What if instead of trying to find something that would be widely & generally appealing, you just got really specific about what you would actually like to do with a couple of free hours in the company of a new person?
22 “Can you pay someone in blood?”
No. Ew.
Wait. What did you buy on Vampire eBay?
Hi Captain Awkward,
I (they/them) have just found out thirdhand that a straight cis guy I consider a casual friend has been banned from a community for harassing his ex-girlfriend. The second “hand” in this chain of information also has said that he is secretly a bigot who disliked everyone in the community anyway. Before I found all this out thirdhand, I had reached out to the guy in question to privately express concern over the sudden (and at the time, unexplained) ban.
The primary thing I wanted to ask your advice on is: what do I do now? My go-to M.O. for every difficult social situation thus far has been to just Leave Forever. But I can’t just Leave Forever. There is a started, unfinished conversation with a person in whom I have emotional stakes. I don’t want him to continue or escalate harassment of his ex-girlfriend (since I apparently can’t judge his propensity for such things at all), and I don’t want him to fall into a dangerous depressive episode (since he has been going through a bad enough time lately and we both have that going on), and I don’t want him to come away from this experience having learned the wrong lesson and treating other women badly in the future, and…?
I don’t know what to say, and I don’t know if not saying anything at all will also have bad consequences. I want to minimize harm. What do I do to achieve that?
(P.S. This literally just happened/is happening right now so I apologize for being unclear or rambling or nonsensical; I am still in shock and I don’t know where else to turn.)
Time for the monthly tradition where we answer the things people typed into search engines as if they are questions.
Before we get to it, it’s Pledge Drive Time! Twice a year, winter and summer, I interrupt our usual programming to remind folks that fun stuff like the Search Terms posts and the Friday short answers are funded by my kind and generous patrons and readers who support the site via PayPal and other ways. These donations allow me to keep the blog ad-free, invest substantial time in maintaining the community, reading the mailbox, and moderating comments, devote time to answering questions and writing new content, pay guest writers, and keep us functioning as an independent site. This year I’m trying to pull back on teaching and be a full-time writer, and your support is necessary and much appreciated for the care and feeding of me & my family. Please make a donation or become a patron if you can. Every little bit helps. (If you can’t afford to, don’t worry ’bout a thing, I’m glad you are here and reading.)
As is traditional, let’s begin with a song to set the mood. Lyrics here :
