For over a decade, I had a really bad relationship with my sister. She struggled with addiction and suicide ideation and, often, was just plain mean. I enabled her by making sure I was always available to her during her emotional crises and never saying no to anything she wanted. I got a weird sense of superiority from taking care of her, which I realize now, was a really sick source of self-esteem.
Fortunately, our relationship is a lot better now! She’s been sober for nearly two years and has apologized for many of the things she did when she was using. For my part, I apologized for being a condescending goody-good.
I thought things were fine as they were.
Recently, though, she called off her engagement and has started calling and texting me a lot. This is a common pattern. When she’s happy and busy, I don’t hear from her much. That’s fine by me. But, when she’s sad, lonely, or upset, the intensity of her communication ramps way up.
The other day, I asked her if everything was ok – noting that she’s been calling a lot lately. She said everything was fine, she just wants us to be closer. But, this is exactly what I don’t want! I want to enjoy her company when we see each other a few times a year. I want to talk to her maybe once a week. I don’t want to be her best friend or confidante. I’m just not ready for that.
The guilt I feel at not wanting to be close to someone who wants to be close to me is eating me up inside. Does forgiving her mean we have to be good friends? Is it ok to want the best for my sister, admire her good qualities, and still want her to kind of…stay in her own world? Is there any way I can convey this to her without seeming like a monster? Especially, since she’s going through a tough time?
Sister, Not Friend (#1182)
Hi Sister, Not Friend, your letter came in at the same time as some others, I hope nobody minds if we tackle these all together.
Dear Captain Awkward,
I have a sister who has been bothering me a lot lately. She has depression and a few other minor health issues, she is divorced, on disability. She is very negative and usually only wants to get together to complain about her health, my parents, her kids, or ex husband. She doesn’t have a lot of friends and constantly texts me all day. I would like to put some distance between us because all her issues are stressing me out which is leading to my own adverse health affects and I just don’t have time for them. I have tried to say things in the past but she always says “this is the straw that broke the camels back” or she feels “attacked”. She has always been like this and it’s really starting to bother me. I feel bad saying I need space when she doesn’t have any one else but I’m tired of her drama. I don’t want to cut her out of my life just limit our interactions to once or twice a week. Do you have any advice on how I can achieve this?
Sally (#1183)
Hi Sally, your letter came in at the same time as several others. We’re going to have a group discussion. Read on.
Dear Captain Awkward,
Thank you for the existence of your blog! I love reading your advice and have been slowly trying to implement this into my own relationships.
The problem I have is that I am a very passive, live and let live kind of person, living in a family of opinionated people. My dad loves to rage on about articles he’s read and refuses to acknowledge alternative theories. My mother has an uncanny ability of seeing the world through everyone else’s eyes, and therefore believing she has the authority to cast judgement on their decisions. Loudly.
My sister combines the two and adds another ingredient. Selfishness. When her friend’s parents were getting divorced, she worried that her friendship with friend would suffer. When her university frienemy announced she was moving in with her boyfriend, to the same county as my sister after graduating, my sister worried that she would be obligated to spend all free time with frienemy, despite living 30 miles apart. My dad once complimented me on my jumper as I sat down to dinner with them. Her immediate response was to cry out: ‘But what about my jumper, dad?’ I bit my tongue so hard it metaphorically started bleeding. Call her out on any of the above, though, she calls me rude and gets angry.
Captain, your scripts and advice have been invaluable in building up my confidence to confront the aspects of our relationship that I’m not happy about, in addition to making everything about her, the way she has targeted me in the past has led to many of my insecurities.
I have put her on an information diet and refuse to engage in arguments. We have barely interacted for a number of months now.
We have recently had some bad news in the family which, I hoped, would start to bring us closer together in a positive way. It has had the effect of her calling me frequently to spill her emotional guts.
I’m dealing with my own fair share of emotions in reaction to the bad news. I don’t feel comfortable enough to share them with my sister whenever she calls, and I’m certainly not about to tell her that my eating disorder has started to resurface, because she will make it into a competition about who is having a worse time. This is one of her patterns and an easy way for her to avoid acknowledging that I have feelings.
I know my own strength and while I know that I can talk to her about family news, I don’t know how to increase the time and energy spent with her knowing that she won’t acknowledge any boundaries I’ve set up. Keeping her on an information diet has helped, but I worry that she’ll try to break past that as our relationship progresses.
I know you can’t choose family, and I want to have a good relationship with my sister, I just don’t know how.
Sincerely,
Struggling Sister (#1184)
Greetings, Struggling Sister! Something’s in the air, right? I hope it helps to know you’re not alone. You’re not alone.
Now that we’re all gathered here together, I think that if improvement is possible in these sibling relationships, there is a common approach that gives all of you the best chance of making that happen.
I’m graduating from college very soon, and I’ll be the first in my immediate family to do so. This road has been a long one, and I am so happy to finally be done. I’ve had amazing support from key people in my life, aka: My Home Team– a mix of family and chosen family.
In an ideal world, my Home Team would have an exclusive invite to the graduation ceremony/dinner. I have a hard time with Big Life Events, and my last graduation ceremony did not go well, so this is bringing up *things* for me. Having only the people there who make me feel comfortable would help a lot.
There are people not on the Home Team who are expecting to be invited. Here are the problems:
– My mom is currently housing a family member who has some serious mental health/addiction issues. This person would expect to come to any graduation events. I do not want this as this person takes up a fair amount of emotional space and makes me/others feel awkward.
– My in-laws also wish to attend from out-of-state. This would mean they would have to stay at our house, for at least 3-4 days (hotel is not really an option). My in-laws are nice people (and they are very excited for me), but I have difficulty spending time with them, let alone hosting them in my house. They often make me feel uncomfortable with the way they talk to/about me. There are more detailed issues here surrounding money, religion, and general boundaries (in-laws, go figure). Also, they have sort of already invited themselves. My husband would be a buffer for some of this but he can’t mitigate everything.
– I have packaged group of cousins who I’m not close with but who have invited me to their events, and I feel obligated to reciprocate. Some of them are very nice, but some of them are awful (like blatantly racist/homophobic/sexist) and their presence would mean that the other people listed above would definitely have to be invited. It would be an obvious slight if they weren’t.
I feel like I only have a few choices here: 1) Lie and tell everyone that I only have limited graduation tickets so as to only invite the Home Team. This would be a very obvious lie. These things can be Googled. 2) Try as delicately as possible to not invite the people listed above. Deal with the emotional fallout, not just for myself, but for my husband and mom, for whom this would be awkward as well. 3) Suck it up and invite everyone and deal with my feelings on my own.
I have a hard time telling others what I want (even/especially with my Home Team), so the “do nothing and internalize” option feels easiest. In theory, this should be simple. You invite everyone and they show up and stay in their emotional lanes. Instead of focusing on this exciting thing, I feel like I’m playing Emotional Traffic Director when I want to be playing Happy College Graduate.
Are there options I’m not seeing? Am I an immature person for even wanting to not invite people I don’t like? I am being a spoiled ass who needs to grow up and not make this about me?
1 “I can’t stand going to my friend’s house because she smokes inside.”
Legit! I have a very hard time with smoke (asthma trigger), the same way cat-allergic friends have a hard time hanging out in the kitten palace. Sometimes it’s possible to hang out for a little while at my lovely smoker-friends’ places with the aid of my inhaler (used both pre-emptively and refreshed periodically), sometimes it’s not. Sometimes my friends can hang out at my place for a little while with the help of Zyrtec, sometimes they can’t, and/or we need to cut the visit short. Nobody holds it against anyone (we all get to set our own risk tolerance, especially when it comes to breathing, and we all get to make our homes primarily serve ourselves). It’s okay to invite the friend out and generally try to meet in places other than her home.
2 “My sister has changed so much I don’t even know her anymore.”
What if you could let go of who she used to be, or how you imagined she was?
Pretend you just met her. Look at her like a friendly stranger might, someone without any baggage or history where she’s concerned. Try to spend some enjoyable time with her, find out what she’s interested in now, find out what you might have in common now.
Look for reasons to enjoy her company, be proud of her, look for things to be curious about and praise. If she’s unkind to you, or just an asshole, that’s different, obviously, but what if you started from a place of kindness and curiosity?
Sometimes I wish we could all do this with all of our family members.
3 “Tidying Up hard to understand her accent .”
As someone who has studied multiple languages and taught ESL to kids and adults, I have recommendations, though I should say up front that these suggestions require the ability to see the screen and read and I’m not sure what to recommend for people with visual impairments.
If you want to watch a TV show and you have trouble parsing the performer’s accent, try this:
Turn on the captions/subtitles.
Remove other distractions (don’t try to watch it in the background while you keep one eye on your phone or sorting your mail or whatever). You’re going to have to pay closer attention.
Get used to the idea that you might not catch absolutely every nuance the first time. You can rewind if necessary, rewatch if necessary.
Stick with it for a few episodes. It’s very likely that it will get easier the more you listen and watch. You’ll pick up the cadences of speech better, and you’ll have more context clues, you’ll get to know the performers/presenters body language/facial expressions over time.
If you try that and it doesn’t get easier, maybe the show is not for you. Try the book instead, or find something else to watch.
Moderation Note: Kindly refrain from cluttering the comments section with complaints/criticisms/feelings/arguments/jokes/incl. compliments! about Marie Kondo, her show, her book, her approach, literally anything about her. I find the intense discourse around her exhausting at best and racist at worst, and I will delete all of it (even nice things)(even jokes that are clever variations about whether something sparks joy). I like you an awful lot, let’s keep it that way.
4 “Can’t wear anything too “fancy” or my boyfriend gets mad .”
I have an idea, let’s look at pretty outfits and imagine what we might wear to a “I dumped that controlling jerkass” party.
Visit each other’s living spaces – after you feel safe/comfortable being alone with someone before you commit to an ongoing relationship. Are you comfortable there? Do you feel welcome? Can you relax? Is what you see (smell/feel) congruent with the person you’re getting to know and what you want?
Back in grad school I made a short film about a laundry pile achieving sentience. It wasn’t a documentary due to biological impossibility…for now…but let’s just say my real-life hamper did all its own stunts. By contrast, my dad, the world’s tidiest man, can sense when you are close to finishing a soda. He hovers while you take your last swallow, pounces before you can put the can down on any surface, rinses it to restore factory settings, and ferries it gently to its rightful place in the garage, where his complex recycling system made up of 12 distinct bins and barrels awaits. He is an extremely good match for my mom, who prefers to maintain all surfaces in a state of surgical sterility.
A date who preferred my parents’ “we keep the correct vacuum cleaner for each room in a closet in that room” lifestyle would have looked at my MFA in chore avoidance and thought: “Nope! We would make each other miserable!” This is fine! We would! I would gross him out, he would remind me of my dad and send my shoulders up around my ears!
Maybe the boyfriend in the search string will clean his kitchen. Maybe he’ll get dumped ’cause he won’t. Maybe he’ll be the one who breaks up because the querent made him feel judged and uncomfortable. Maybe they’ll decide to live happily ever after on takeout and prepackaged things. Fine! This is all fine!
In no universe will I ever recommend anything resembling “Since some people struggle with housekeeping, love probably means swallowing your discomfort along with whatever they cooked, no matter how unsanitary you find it.” Serious incompatibility around housekeeping stuff is a recipe for intense stress and conflict, you’re allowed to have preferences, needs, and choose a lower difficulty setting for yourself and your relationships.
8 “Why does my boyfriend treats his daughter like his wife.”
He creepy?
9 “Niece hates me for no reason.”
She has a reason. It may not be a good reason, it may not be a reason you’ll ever get to the bottom of, but it exists even if it’s only her opinion.
When I sense someone doesn’t like me, and I can’t think of a plausible reason for the conflict, and “Hey, have I done something to upset you?” doesn’t work (either b/c I asked and didn’t get a good answer or I don’t feel comfortable enough to even ask), I try to give the person a lot of space, be polite and keep it light when I do have to interact, and see if time either mellows the situation or gives me more information.
10 “BF’s ex-girlfriend warns me about him how do I respond .”
Do you actually need to respond? Do you need to respond to her?
In your shoes, I might say something very non-committal to her, like, “thanks for telling me, I’ll think about it.” It’s such an unusual thing to do that (in my opinion) it’s probably worth thinking about for a few days before you either act on it or disregard it.
What’s the worst thing that could happen if you do nothing about what she said? (Don’t respond, don’t address it with your boyfriend, brush it off).
What’s the substance of the warning? Is she trying to warn you about abuse? Have you noticed any red flags?
What’s in this for her? What reason would she have to lie? Like, is she trying to get you to break up with the boyfriend so she can be with him again, or to create trouble for him? Or is she trying to warn you to GTFO for your own safety?
Your answers to those questions will most likely point you in the right direction.
11 “Housemate comments on everything I do.”
I’m sure I wrote some more emotionally mature and useful responses and you should probably go read those and try those suggestions.
12 “What does it mean when someone reacts to a minor little comment that bothers them with a barrage of made up hurtful things to hurt the other person? ”
Nothing good! Consider how much time you want to spend with someone who does this (if any).
13 “I feel like I am a burden on my therapist .”
This is probably worth mentioning to your therapist. Consider also that your therapist gets paid for the time they spend with you, most therapists have some choices about who they take on as a client, and you’re just one of many clients they see. It is unlikely they are thinking about you (as a burden or otherwise) as much as you think about them.
14 “How often to go to someones house.”
I love literally any excuse to make a chart.
A Venn Diagram that shows the intersection of being invited to someone’s house and actually wanting to go to their house. Maybe you’ll need Zyrtec.
Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate, happy “day before half price candy” for those who don’t. Be excellent to yourselves and each other.
It is time for the return of the feature where we answer things people typed into search engines to find this place as if they are questions. Obviously we are missing details and nuance and the larger story. (That’s what makes it fun).
First, as traditional: music with the month somewhere in the song.
Second, the “questions.”
1 Wife refuses to take birth control.
The opposite/other angle of this post! Everybody’s the boss of their own body and your wife doesn’t have to put anything in hers that she doesn’t want to. So, if you are a person who can have the possibly-results-in-babies brand of sex with said wife, and you don’t want to risk making babies, I recommend the following steps to control your controllables:
Talk to your wife honestly about what you want out of your life and your relationship. (Babies…never? Babies…but not yet?) and listen to her. Maybe she wants babies more than she wants you, and that’s sad, but giving her a chance to make an informed choice about that is the most loving thing you can do.
2 “Mistake of loving a man who does not love himself.”
“How can you love anybody else if you don’t love yourself?” is the axiom, right? It’s one of those things that seems logically sound, but I’m not sure it is. I think it’s possible to love other people even when it’s hard to love yourself, I think sometimes that loving other people is how you teach yourself to love yourself (Like, “wait, would I let someone treat [person I love] the way I’m treating me?”), so I’m not always one to make “love yourself, then others” the absolute order of operations.
Given that, how does this man treat YOU. How are his behaviors toward YOU. What kind of care does he take of YOU. Is he good and kind to the people in his life? If he doesn’t love himself but he’s good to you, maybe you can work with that (though it’s up to him to figure out how to be better to himself, not you to make that happen).
3 “My best friend had a baby and I can’t stand little kids.”
Here are your choices:
Learn to “stand” your friend’s kids, at least a little, the way someone had to learn how to “stand” you when you were a tiny human.
Don’t, knowing that you and your friend will grow apart.
If you Just Can’t with kids and babies, I believe you and I don’t want to fight with you. You can’t. So, don’t! Just, I strongly believe that decision will have consequences for your friendship and you should know what they are. The kids won’t always be little, but your friend will probably always remember if you disappear from her life when she has a child or treat her child like it’s something she inflicted on you. Friendships can grow and outlast big changes, and it’s possible to balance time with small kids with solo friend time, so I hope the people looking for this can realize kids are just humans and they live here, too.
4 “My friend never wants to go out anymore now that she has small kids.”
Good timing! A common problem! Small kids can’t be left alone, “cool” venues and outings are wasted on them, and babysitters are expensive (like, mentally add $40-80 to every planned outing you want your friend to do and see if you still expect them to cheerfully do it). For years, Mr. Awkward and I have followed this program for brand new parent-friends:
Set a day and time. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight before naptime can be the best time (maximum quiet) or the worst time (the longer they sleep, the worse the diaper situation when they wake).
Show up to friend-parents house with food or makings of something hearty and large, a casserole or stew with strong leftover potential.
Parents leave house, go see matinee.
Awkwards keep baby alive and prepare large food thing.
Parents come home, we all eat.
Baby goes to bed.
Parents & Awkwards stay up, watch stabby television that needs parental guidance warnings, drink booze, play games with complicated rules and swears!
Awkwards go home, leaving a clean kitchen, alive baby & parents, and a fridge full of leftover stew behind.
EVERYBODY STILL HAS FRIENDZZZZ.
Alternately, parent-friends like to go out sometimes without their small kids, but sometimes you gotta alternate which parent you’re gonna entice out of the house because someone’s gotta stay behind (or spend $40-$80).
I’m still sticking with “It hurts when people who usually acknowledge your birthday forget” and “If you are an adult who wants something in particular to happen on your birthday, please tell people! Please help them give you what would make you happy.”
6 “Getting husband to buy flowers”
Look, it’s the old “I don’t just want flowers, I want my spouse to want to buy me flowers ‘just because’ without being asked” problem, like, I know, we all want small acts of romance and kindness, but you married that person, the one who could clearly use some verbal reminding about flowers, so:
Do you want flowers, or, do you want to be married to someone else?
Legit either way, I guess? If asking “Would you surprise me with flowers once a month or so? It would make me so happy if you did that sometimes, even a really inexpensive grocery store bunch!” seems more difficult than divorce, you know your own life best. For example, I’m not gonna tell you you have to stay with the person who sees a direct request for a small happy-making thing as an opportunity to argue with you, so if you tell them they are like “it’s not really a surprise, now, is it,” and therefore “there’s no point” to doing a tiny thing that you told them would make you happy, leaving you both “without flowers” and “vaguely wrong for even mentioning them.” If you’re married to WELL, ACTUALLY, THEY’RE JUST WASTEFUL USELESS DEAD PLANTS, AND ALSO, I WAS PLANNING TO ‘SURPRISE’ YOU SOMEDAY BUT YOU RUINED IT FOREVER BY ASKING Guy, here you go. Be happy and free!
But I don’t think it’s a happy path to expect love to involve a lot of mind reading and then setting up little tests for each other to (probably) fail. There probably are some “I simply love to surprise people with flowers out of the blue!” people on earth, but there are way more of the “Yay, I am happy to buy some flowers sometimes, I knew that was a thing Some People liked but not that My Person liked it so much, this will be fun, I’m glad they asked!” people. And we will bring you flowers sometimes, if you ask.
7 “How to ask for financial assistance from my uncle.”
Weirdly, this search term comes up EVERY SINGLE TIME I look at my search terms, but I have never (as far as I know) answered it.
:DRAMATIC SOUND EFFECT:
Until now.
My suggestion would be be very direct, specific, and get to the point. A mad lib:
Dear Uncle,
I hope you are well.
Would you be willing and able to help me out with finances for [Reason you need the money]. The estimated amount I would need from you is [$$$$.$$. And yes, name the exact number, and name the maximum/most you would actually need right here, don’t underplay it to get someone to say yes with the expectation you can go back for more later], and I would ideally need it [when and how you need it paid, all at once, over time, once a year for x number of years, etc. Lay it all out clearly.].
[At this point, clarify whether you intend this to be a gift or a loan, and if it’s a loan, when and how you realistically expect to pay it back. Also offer to put any loan terms in writing].
Please let me know if you can help, I appreciate it so much.
Love,
[name]”
In my experience, people can tell when you’re about to ask them for a favor, the more time you spend psyching yourself up to ask or pretending you contacted them for some other reason or overselling the thing, the less respectful it actually is in the end and the more the person will want you to get to the point. If it’s worth asking, ASK. Make it very easy for the person to know what they are saying yes or no to.
Good luck, Niblings of Earth!
8 “Calling sister a slut.”
Don’t. I frown upon this. I don’t think it’s a word you get to apply to other people, or use as an insult.
9 “Why does your fiancé keep his toxic father in his life?”
I don’t know. Lots of reasons: Loyalty, nostalgia, they think they have to, hope for a different ending, a little bit of a relationship feels better than none, having a toxic parent feels better than having no parents, not ready to let go/give up.
I’m a big fan of letting people make their choices about their own relationships while also setting boundaries about how much a toxic person is allowed to annoy/inconvenience/hurt/alarm YOU. Abusive people tell their victims what to do and how to feel, who they can and can’t have in their lives, and they are generally terrible at boundaries, so one way to counteract (not undo, unfortunately, but thwart) their abuse is to say “Babe, you can have whatever relationship with your dad you think is right for you, you’re the boss of all that! If you want to take a break from seeing him, I support you – I don’t think you have to let him into your life just ’cause he’s family if he doesn’t treat you right, and I also know that I don’t feel comfortable around him, so I’d prefer to not spend much time with him, if any. But it’s really up to you, if you want to see him, please do. This is where my boundary is, so you know.”
10 “How to tell my step dad my biological dad is walking me down the aisle.”
Obviously this is a glimpse of a longer, more complicated tale. Without knowing that tale, I’d say some guiding principles are 1) Assume nothing about who is ‘supposed to’ do what at a wedding and assume nothing about your stepdad’s likely expectations around that, ’cause he may not have any? and 2) When you talk to him about it, do it in terms of asking what you WOULD like him to do at your wedding.
Stepdad…knows…you have another dad? So, if it’s overall a good relationship, maybe instead of treating this like bad news that you’re breaking, you could say to Stepdad, “StepDad, I’m gonna have BioDad walk with me down the aisle, will you escort Mom, and then all three of you can stand there with me for the ‘who presents this person to be married?’ part?” (The truth of your relationships/relative affection for all/any of these people will be what they are even if they all stand with you for that moment).
I would also think about when/how you decide to communicate this depending on the relationship and how far away your wedding is. Depending on your aisle, the “walk down the aisle” is literally a few seconds and a photo-op, does the question of it need to hang over y’all for months at a time or is it something that can be sorted at the rehearsal, with a breezy, “Okay, you’re over here with me, you’re with Mom, glad all my Dads can be here, let’s do this thing, yaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy, so happyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!! (+ i.e. I’m getting married tomorrow and I goddamn dare someone to pick a fight with me about this)!” attitude. The benefit of delaying this decision (or at least delaying communicating it): If a grown-ass man/dad figure is likely to get angry/punish you/act super weird and possessive about who is walking you down the aisle at your wedding, you always have the option to walk yourself down.
11 (plus) “How to say you want a relationship on dating apps?”
“I’m interested in finding a long-term partner and I’m interested in meeting other people who are looking for the same thing.”
“I’m on this app because I’m looking to meet people who might be a good match for me for a long-term committed relationship. That doesn’t mean you have to fill out an application and have an audition tape before we can meet for a drink, but if you’re looking for something more casual we’re probably not a great fit right now!”
“I’d like to date people who are cool with at least the notion of getting married and having kids, ideally within the next decade. As fun as it is to bait and trap a series of reluctant, relentlessly single people into a lifetime of domestic partnership they never wanted, why not work less hard at this and just admit from the get go that we’d really like to fall in love someday, with someone?
I want the people like the determined child-free guy in this letter to find the child-free woman he’s looking for, without apology! And without wasting the time of people who want different things from life!
Looking over my inbox, there are lots of brave folks who want to meet new people to smooch (or emphatically Not Smooch) in 2019, so I adapted some of them into personal ads below. If you see your letter sort of adapted here (there are definitely composites), please know: I SEE YOU and I LOVE YOU and I WANT WHAT YOU WANT FOR YOU and I hope you will a) laugh b) feel seen and less alone c) feel like you can ask for whatever you really and truly want from your precious beautiful life, for real, just please say the thing you need even if it’s oddly specific or seems hopeless. Someone else is gonna see themselves here in what you wrote to me, and they may not be exactly your type/single/geographically feasible/into you, but you are not the only one who feels the way you do, I promise you.
Please enjoy (and freely copy/adapt) Some Highly Specific Dating Profiles I’d Like To See In 2019:
FRIENDS FIRST FER SURE: “I think I’m a demisexual,which means I like to get to know people for a very long time before the idea of any sex is on the table. I’d love to fall in love and have sex and all of it someday, but I need to take all of that verrrrrrrrry slow, which can make being on sites like this pretty frustrating: Frustrating for you as you wait to see if I’ll bang you someday and frustrating for me (as I wait to see if I’ll bang you someday, as meanwhile I fall in love with my friends one by one). Any fellow sexual snails/turtles/other slow-moving-but-completely-adorable creatures out there want to go on some dates with me? As friends?”
ACES IN (MEAT)SPACE: “I am asexual and looking for fellow local asexual people to meet and maybe snuggle with sometimes without pressure to do anything else about that. There has to be someone else on this app who is like ‘I think I want a romantic partner someday but not exactly in the way that most people mean that, so how do I even do this without it being soooooooooooooooo exhausting’, right? Everyone I know who identifies as ace is online and farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr away. They are wonderful, but a girl can’t live by Tumblr alone, so follow the ACE-beacon I’m flashing in the sky. I’ll buy the first bubble tea.”
I AM YOUR WILLING SEXUAL HOUSEPLANT: “I’m an extremely horny, mildly kinky, bisexual polyamorous graduate student with a long-distance fiancé and almost no free time, looking for someone who wants to have a really fun sexy date ideally once a month, preferably every third Thursday between 3pm and 12 am (no sleepovers, I have an early class the next day) as well as a standing invite to the regular 2nd Sunday metamour community potluck and D&D game. Who else has a totally crap schedule and would like the occasional hot make-out session with someone smart and nice and low-maintenance, especially someone who will not give you sad puppy eyes when you return to your research for weeks at a time? P.S. HARD NO ‘people who just love debating.'”
LET’S FIGURE THIS WHOLE DEAL OUT: “I’ve never dated anyone before, and at 28 I wanna go on some first dates but I don’t really know what I’m doing. What if we figured this out together? Let’s go dutch, do inexpensive fun things in the city, and not have too many expectations or preconceptions. Who’s with me? Maybe we’ll fall in love, maybe we’ll just help each other feel less weird about being alone and not really knowing ‘how’ to do this awkward thing everybody but me seems to already know how to do.”
MILD AGORAPHOBIA AND EXTREMELY CUTE CATS: “Listen, it’s winter. It’s cold outside. I want to meet you! But I have a low-level anxiety disorder that makes it so that don’t want to leave my house more than I have to. What if we met up in public/with other friends around for safety reasons and after that we could skip right to “friends/dating for 1 year mode” where everybody wears very comfy clothes, you bring over books and craft projects or whatever you like doing, I make us soup or order delivery, we sit under warm blankets and watch good (or bad) television together? If sex & love follow, great? I’d probably be up for that? And I could come to your house sometimes, I guess? I just…I don’t want to go ‘on dates.’ I like to be at home, which I promise you, is as cozy and welcoming as it can possibly be.”
NOT YOUR ______- 101 TUTOR. “I need to meet some fellow Gen-X queer and transgender POC lovelies who have figured at least some of their personal bullshit OUT. No disrespect to the newbies (I love y’all so much, but I just can’t right now), I need the people who ‘came out’ at least a decade ago, the ones who either figured out how to have a relationship with family or who wrote those jerks off. (I’m not playing the ‘No, where are you *really* from?‘ game with your Grandma ever again. I’m from Maryland.) Please also be… not a white person (I love…some…of you…so much, but I can’t right now), and please have a political agenda beyond making sure rich white Republican men who don’t give a single shit about the rest of us can claim each other on their taxes. If you have a therapist, great, if you’re on your 10th therapist, EVEN BETTER. I know I sound like a buzzkill but I promise I am a creature of joy and light (and really great shoes) and I swear we will have the BEST TIME. I’m just very tired of teaching unpaid impromptu Intro To The Local Scene workshops to the beautiful children and hungry to meet some grown folks. Let’s go to concerts and sit down in actual seats like God and my aching knees intended!”
EQUAL PARTS HOPE AND RESENTMENT ABOUT HAVING TO BE HERE: “I’m divorced. You’re divorced. We both have kids. We did not think we’d ever be doing this dating thing again, we’re not sure we want to, but we’re starting to think that sometimes it would be nice to have someone smile at us, laugh at a joke we told, do a small nice thing for us again (and appreciate the reverse), or have an adult conversation. Does any of this sound good? Happy to schedule around custody stuff, I’ll save my ‘terrible ex’ stories for ‘not the first date’ if you will!”
GRANDMA. SCHOOLTEACHER (RETIRED). BASS PLAYER (NOT RETIRED). “I may be old but I’m not dead. Swipe left if you think what’s playing on ‘the oldies’ station sounds like ‘that racket’ your adult kids used to play before they all moved out. Swipe right if you want to go to shows and confuse the young.”
It’s 2019. New year! New plan! Stop trying to be open to every possible person, stop worrying about what’s “normal,” you don’t want every possible person, you aren’t for every possible person, you are who you are and you want what you want. Own. It. The good responses will be better, the crappy ones will have to try harder (and at least be more entertaining), and maybe some of the people who are just gonna bore you or waste your time will pass you by.
My quirky, genius, self-centered, deeply insecure, pathological boundary pushing mother took my 5 year old “out” without telling me while we were visiting over the holiday.
I didn’t know where he was, he was in his pajamas (it was 40 degrees out), she did not have a jacket for him. She did not have a *carseat* for him. I ran around her house and yard in a panic trying to find him before my sibling suggested she might have him. She wouldn’t answer my texts or calls but did answer when sibling called her, she said she would drive slowly on surface streets (so it’s totes fine!), and that she was coming right back. My dad worried I would over react and send her into a depressive episode.
When I asked my 5 year old about it he said he wanted to tell me before they left, but she seemed mad when he suggested it, so he thought he should just do what she said.
So husband and I decided she’s so fired she can’t ever be unsupervised with our kids, and probably we won’t stay at their house anymore. But setting this hard of a line puts awkwardness on my (mostly) rad dad, and some amount of awkwardness on the rest of the family who think I’m taking it too far.
I did tell her “Never Again” and “I Can’t Possibly Think Of Every Boundary That Needs Setting” and “I Don’t Know How To Feel Safe With You Around My Kids”. She says she’s very sorry and just that she didn’t want to deal with the logistics of taking kid out for an adventure. She says she didn’t realize my anxiety was that limiting (spoiler, I don’t have an anxiety disorder). When I said if something happened to my kid while with her that “would be the end of our relationship” she said she didn’t realize the stakes were so high. But Captain, the stakes are absolutely that high.
I don’t think I’m over reacting, but am I over reacting? Or is my mom the most fired? Can we just decide never to stay there again and let the chips fall? She does a many rad things but they don’t cancel frequent Super Bad Judgment Boundary Smashing. Can I still accept gifts from her that don’t smash boundaries? Why does my mom suck this hard?
My sister is 37 and I (also female) am 34. We share an apartment and consider ourselves best friends. We’ve both had bad luck with relationships, and I had quietly given up on either of us marrying. But in the past few months she has finally found love and is now engaged. And I’m having a very hard time dealing with it.
I can’t stand to be around her fiancé. I don’t have any actual objection to him — no red flags, he seems like a good person who really loves my sister. I know that I’m just projecting all of my fears and insecurities about the situation onto him. Maybe it would help if his personality meshed better with mine, but he’s boisterous and loud and irritatingly familiar, while I’m a quiet, reserved introvert. We have no interests in common and fairly different values. It breaks my heart because my sister and I have always been so close, and now the most important person in her life is going to be this man that I cannot imagine being friends with. He gets along great with the rest of the family; I’m the only one who seems to be struggling with the situation.
I know it hurts my sister that I haven’t been welcoming to him. I really am so glad that she’s happy, and I’m actually excited about the wedding because it’s her wedding! I just can’t get through a conversation with the groom without wanting to run away and cry. I have talked to my sister about my fear that she won’t have room for me in her life anymore, and she promises that isn’t true, but I’m still scared. And there are other things, too, that she can’t control — like whether I can support myself alone (I definitely can’t keep our apartment) and the likelihood that I’ll be the spinster aunt alone when I thought we would at least have each other. It’s all pretty upsetting for me and every bit of it is channeling into resentment of her fiancé. I don’t know how to change my feelings or deal with them. What can you advise?
You can submit short questions at Patreon or on Twitter (@CAwkward, #AwkwardFriday) until 11 am Chicago time today. I’ll answer as many as I can before 2pm.
Holiday and non-holiday related questions are okay, with following parameters:
I’m not answering questions about abuse in this short answer format.
I think we’ve covered just about every flavor of “How do I deal with my [politically difficult] relatives over the holidays?” in past posts & discussions.
Looking forward to your questions!
Q1 Hello! My job is pretty horrifying right now – they outsourced our team and we both therefore have new jobs but they haven’t actually hired anyone to do our old jobs yet. We hopefully (hopefully!) start training replacements soon after a series of delays and false starts including our entire role being forgotten when planning replacements. I’m doing OK but my friend/coworker is obviously burning out and she’s getting increasingly snippy and rude with me. How do I extend her grace when I’m fighting my own burnout too? Can I talk to her about this somehow?
A1: Oh yeah, time to talk to her! It might be as direct as “Look, I know you’re really stressed out, but do you realize how much you’re snapping at me? Are you okay?” or as general as “Hey friend, I know everything is so stressful at work right now, can we talk about how we’re going to get through our ridiculous workload for the rest of the year? Let’s make a plan.”
Q2: I’d love another list of what you’ve been reading recently!
A2: I finally read Gaudy Night and loved it. Trying to read some of the other Sayers, verdict so far is “Gaudy Night > Harriet Vane Books In General (will def read all of these, only one left) > Not Harriet Vane Books (eh, these probably aren’t my thing unless I happen across them in a B&B somewhere someday, they’re not bad but I only care about Harriet, Miss Murchison, Miss Climpson, and sometimes Bunter).
Additionally in the past month: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman by Theodora Goss, The Apple Tree Throne by Premee Mohamed, Hand To Mouth: Living In Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado, All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung, All of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart.
If you don’t know about Library Extension for Chrome, I’m here to tell you the Good News About Library Extension for Chrome. Search for a book on Amazon or Goodreads or other book searchy site and it will tell you if the book is available (+ how many copies and in what format – hardcover, audio, e-book, etc.) at your local library*. Since I have a Kindle, I click, click, click and then it’s like “free books reading all the time yay.”
Q3:I find a fellow volunteer somewhat difficult. We have the same goals, but they typically seem irritated with everyone and often complain about how people aren’t doing enough or doing it right. I’ve taken on more with our group partly because they needed a break, but it bothers me when they prod me to do things with the same speed and in the same way they would. (I have a job; they’re retired). I’d be fine stepping down and letting them be fully in charge, but there are policies about not having the same nominal leader for too long a stretch. I’d like advice for dealing with their conversations about who’s doing what wrong and with my own sense of being micromanaged.
A3: This is a difficult one. I suggest an informal, in-person conversation where you say some version of “I know you care so much about [cause] and I really respect your experience and hard work, but you stepped back from running things b/c you needed a break and I need some time to grow into the leadership role and fit it around my full-time schedule. Change is always awkward! Can we agree to check in with each other once a month to make sure we’re all on task, but skip these frequent reminders? It isn’t helping me get to things faster, and I’m feeling micromanaged.”
They’ll say some stuff, listen to it, don’t argue, thank them for the conversation, and then [this is key] do what you were going to do anyway, even if they do nudge you all the time. Like, it’s okay to filter their emails to a box you check once every week when you’re calm & caffeinated. It’s also okay to set that as a clear expectation, like, “Saturday mornings are when I go through my inbox and deal with [cause]-related stuff, if you don’t hear back from me right away I promise I’ll get to it on Saturdays.” And then follow-through with that schedule. If you’ve been responding right away to every little thing, you’re sort of training the person to expect that you will respond right away to every little thing.
Advanced diplomacy: After the initial conversation, I want you to make a list of things where you do actually need this person’s insight and also a list of things you can safely delegate to them. Every month, during your check in, make a point to ask their advice about something (even if you already know what to do, maybe you’ll get something useful and at worst you’ll make them feel useful). Also, feel free to delegate stuff to them! You have a full-time job, they don’t, they want to do the work, so it’s within bounds to say“I’m not going to be able to get to x as quickly as you’d like – can you take that on for me?”
Q4: I have a full week off work at the end of the year. How do I politely decline social invitations from people who know I have time off and no plans? I need that week to recharge, don’t want to fill it up with social plans.
A4: Invitations are not commands, so, try “Oh, thanks for thinking of me! I’m really trying to schedule nothing that week so I can rest and recharge. I’ll let you know if that changes and I can make it after all, but for now don’t count on me!”
It’s okay to be enthusiastic about having down time! If people try to insist on you joining them for whatever after being told something like that, they’re the ones being weird.
Advanced reciprocity and kindness around social plans making: Do keep track of who invited you to stuff and got turned down, and when you’re feeling more social, invite them to do something with you in the New Year. It’s your “turn,” and it will send the message that you really like them and that it was just about scheduling.
Q5:My dear friend is in the late stages of getting her undergrad degree at a primarily online (but not entirely) state university program (not-for-profit school) and has just now found out that some of her credits from a previous school didn’t transfer over into whole courses, so it sets back her graduation date. It sounds to me like her assigned advisor isn’t very helpful or knowledgeable. She is not in the same state as the school and it’s not possible for her to visit campus in person to try to get anything straightened out. What would you recommend as a path of escalation around an academic advisor?
A5: If your friend can pull together all the documentation she can about the courses she took (course descriptions, syllabi if possible) and the equivalent courses at her current institution – whatever she thinks will make the case that the courses should transfer – that’s a good starting point. It can take some time to pull this together, but it can’t hurt.
Then she can try the advisor once more, with questions like, “What is the process for appealing a decision about transfer credits? Can I have detailed feedback as to why certain classes didn’t transfer? What documentation does the school need? (’cause oh look, I have some!)“ and if the advisor can’t really help, try asking them directly: “Ok, thanks so much. If you can’t sort this out for me, who do you suggest I talk to?” Be very polite, ask questions, be persistent, follow up every conversation with an email outlining what y’all talked about. After that, it really depends on her program. A professor she gets along with very well might have ideas, the department’s admin (someone you should ALWAYS make friends with) might be able to sort it. When/if she does escalate it around the advisor, she’ll probably do better if she doesn’t complain about the advisor (that person is gonna work there lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng after your friend has graduated), phrase it more like “Advisor helped me as much as they could, but I still have some more questions and they suggested you might be able to help. Are you the right person to talk to?”
I’d also suggest that your friend prioritize her list of transferrable courses privately, like, know which ones are “these MUST transfer, I am not fucking taking that class again” and “Eh, if I had to go over some of this material again to get to the classes I really wanna take it wouldn’t kill me” so there can be some negotiation. Best of luck to her!
Q6: Very difficult question, only vaguely related to the holidays in that I want to read some more books between now and the end of the year. Where should I begin in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga? In chronological order of the events in the books? Or is there another book in the series that is an especially good entry point?
A6: I started with the “Young Miles” omnibus, (which starts with The Warrior’s Apprentice) shoved into my hands by my friend L. one New Year’s in Massachusetts and then shoved into other people’s hands by me, and it was fun as hell. Then I went back and read Cordelia’s Honor (two books about Miles’s parents and how they got together). I think if you swapped the order there – Cordelia’s Honor & then the Young Miles books – you’d love that, too, because CORDELIA IS THE FUCKEN BEST.
Q7: I’ve been having a hard time at work since the beginning of September, for various reasons. Right now I’m slammed at work, which is likely to be the case for a while (I expect/hope that things will settle down by the first full week in January, but probably not sooner). I already have a vacation planned and have been making an effort to be diligent about self-care, including paying attention to sleep, eating well, and exercising a little more than usual to help with stress. I love the short answer chats and am grateful for any advice or wisdom you have for how to get through an extra-busy time!
A7: You’re doing great with the self-care stuff, that’s good news!
This is what helps me, a person with ADHD who has a limited attention budget that must be respected because when it runs out it runs OUT: Rituals at the beginning and end of each work day. This list is definitely for office-y type stuff, I don’t really know what you do, but that’s where a lot of my experience is:
Beginning of the workday: DON’T LOOK AT YOUR WORK EMAIL YET IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY HELP IT. EMAIL IS A TRAP. (Social Media/Twitter/News etc. is also a trap. NO CLICKY.)
Instead, take 15 minutes and look at your to-do list/Make or remake your to-do list.
What’s the most important/biggest priority/takes most attention on that list? What are your deadlines?
What are a few small quick things that you could do and cross off quickly (to give a sense of momentum and accomplishment).
Are there a few things that, if you did them, you could call today a “win” and let everything else be extra credit?
Great, you’re doing great. Now, block out your day a bit and make specific time slots for reading/answering emails, any meetings or calls, when you want to work on big important thing vs. knock out a few small things, breaks. Over time, if you do this daily, you’ll hopefully start being able to match tasks for when you have the right energy for them. For example, I know I have the best zone of concentration between about 8 am and 2 pm, so whatever is most important to do that day should be done then.
Set a timer for 30 minute chunks (or whatever focused time interval is useful to you).
Cool, now you can look at your emails (in the time slot for “read emails”, right after your “review to-do list” time slot) and see if there’s anything else you need to consider. Sometimes emails will be really important, but for me, looking at them/answering them/reading them before I know how I want to use my day is a trap. I need to make a plan and then adjust as necessary.
Get your stuff done to the extent you can. Your plan will change. You will get interrupted. It’s okay. The plan is a safety net, not something to beat yourself up with.
20 minutes before the end of your workday, STOP.
Look at your to-do list. Cross things off it. Look at what you did!
If you have to track your time in some way, this is a great time to enter your timesheet. It can’t pile up, you’ve got your schedule and list right there.
Make your to-do list for tomorrow. Don’t think about it too much, just make note of what didn’t get done today and if there’s anything specific you need to prep for, like, “dress nice, client lunch” – You’ll do your thinking in the morning when you’re fresh.
Tidy up your work area. Make sure computer files are saved correctly (with descriptive names, in the right place on the server, so other people could find/use them if necessary), put loose paperwork in folders (you can label this shit with a post-it note, just, organize it and put it away if you can, you’ll be less stressed out if you don’t have a chaos pile when you come in tomorrow morning).
GO HOME, YOU DID WHAT YOU COULD, YOU CAN STOP THINKING ABOUT WORK NOW.
I hope that helps. I used to think I was “too busy” to stop working and organize myself and it was a lie.
Q8:I’m about to start a new job. I’m 28 and have had several jobs since college where it just wasn’t clear what i was supposed to be doing or where my boss was upset with me for something they never clearly articulated. I know the people I’ll be working with pretty well but i want to start on the right note. How do i ask for expectations to be clearly defined from day 1 and keep lines of communication open?
A8: First, check out the answer about daily rituals, above. I think it will ground you to have some kind of daily practice.
Second, presumably you’re going to have some kind of training period where people tell you what to work on and you observe and get the lay of the land. Keep the job description from when you applied handy. This training period is where you figure out which parts of the job description are real and what secret other work is part of your job.
Third, if possible, carry a notebook and a pen everywhere. If you go into your boss’s office or walk up to them to get instructions, bring the notebook. Your boss tells you to do something, or how to do something, or who to talk to, write it down. Someone gives you feedback about something you did, write it down. If you have questions, write them down. (Ask them, but also, write them down and the answers, too). You discuss something over the phone with a client or supplier? Make a note of what you agreed on. Write it down. It gives you something to do with your face and your hands and it helps you keep track of things. “Hold that thought, let me get my notebook.”
Fourth, consider a ritual for weekly check-ins with your boss. (This can also be useful for people who need to “manage up” or for bosses who have no freaking idea what you do). You’re new, so it’s expected that you’ll want to check in a lot.
One way it could work:
Mondays, make your to-do list (as you understand it) and share a short version of it with your boss, by email if possible, though it’s possible to do quick status meetings, too. “Hi Boss, hope you had a nice weekend. This week it looks like I’ve got x, y, and z on my plate. Anything else I should focus on?”
Thursdays, last thing before you leave for the day, send an update email, like:
“Hey boss, x is all set. For z I’m still waiting for approval. Whenever you have notes on the draft of y, I’ll knock out the edit! Anything else we need to knock out before the end of the week?
The Thursday email is also where you could say stuff like “So sorry, x took much more time than we initially budgeted, y and z will have to wait until next week. Is there one I should prioritize?”
IMPORTANT STUFF:
BE BRIEF. Detailed to-do lists are for you. Have mercy on your boss’s eyes, time, inbox.
Your boss might not say much about or even answer these emails. That’s okay! This isn’t like school where you get a grade & feedback on every single thing you do. You’re giving the boss a general sense of what’s getting done and the opportunity to course-correct if they have different priorities.
If your boss doesn’t get why you’re doing this or it feels a little needy to them, try saying “I don’t want to make more work for you – don’t need you to do anything or even respond, unless you want me to do something differently – This keeps ME organized.” If they really don’t like it, don’t do it obviously. Instead, use your detailed to-do lists as a record of what you’re up to for yourself, give them quick verbal status updates as necessary.
If you work different days of the week, extrapolate. Assuming a 5-day weekday workweek, I say do these check-ins on Thursdays (vs. Friday) for several reasons: 1) If there’s something urgent, you still have a workday to work on it. 2) Don’t set up the expectation or the habit or even the idea that you or others would be thinking about work over the weekend. Some companies and industries do expect you to be thinking about work all the time, but that doesn’t mean that impetus has to come from you!
Over time, this will create a written record of what you actually work on. You’ll be able to see how much and what you accomplished, what you spend the most time on, where the friction points are, when your boss alerted you to different priorities. Also, should something go wrong, like, it’s performance review time and your boss has a different idea of what you should be doing, you’ve created a structure and the documentation to say (way more politely than this), “LISTEN, BUDDY, I CHECKED IN WITH YOU EVERY WEEK FOR A YEAR, IF YOU WANTED SOMETHING DIFFERENT YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT AT LEAST 104 SEPARATE TIMES.”
The version you’d say out loud is more like “Are the weekly status check-ins not working for you? Is there some other system you’d like better?”
Good luck! People want you to do well and want to help you do well, mostly, I think.
Q9: My partner has to go on a work trip somewhere not very fun for Christmas – New Year’s. So I’m on my own. Don’t wanna see biological family because reasons. Do you have suggestions for how to spend solo holidays?
A9: Off the top of my head:
Is it possible for you to get a change of scene and travel somewhere, too?
Eat/drink/watch/do things you like but your partner doesn’t particularly like. I’m sure your partner is lovely, I’m also decently sure that sometimes you compromise about how you spend your time when another person is involved.
If you’re a “HOLIDAYS, YAAAAAAY!” person, check out all the free craft fairs, concerts, museum talks, plays, singalongs, etc. that tend to accumulate at this time of year.
If you have time off, and friends have some time off, can you catch up with them informally/not at peak HOLIDAY times, like, Boxing Day Brunch.
Find a ritual of kindness to do, like, write to your old teachers/mentors and thank them.
Q10:There’s a lot of family dysfunction behind this question, but for a short question…. my parents in general treat myself and my sister like they are still authority figures and sometimes literally says things like we are children (we are in our 40s and have professional jobs). When we visit they literally says things like “turn off the lights before you go to bed”, “don’t forget to lock the door”, “help your mom with the dishes” [which I always do], “do you know how to get yourself a snack? [mom mentions about 5 possible snack items]. I have tried sarcastic replies and saying things like “I am not 5 years old”. No help. Any other suggestions?
A10: They are not gonna change. They really aren’t. Like, sometimes it is worth having the “Hey, did you raise me to be a functional adult or not?” talk (in my case it’s the “I moved out in 1992, sorry, if your toilet handle needs a complicated set of jiggling motions after each flush for the last 20 years, maybe fix it instead of yelling at me for not having the knack?” talk) and sometimes it isn’t.
So what you need is, absolute eye-rolling solidarity with your sister, very clear boundaries about what they have authority about in your own life & decision-making when you’re not in their house (i.e. zero authority), and the words “Ok Mom” “Okay Dad” said with as much humor as you can manage when you can manage it and “I don’t know, I might literally die if you didn’t show me how to make snacks, Mommy!” when you can’t.
Finding something you do have in common with each parent as adults can’t hurt in the “making new memories and patterns to push the bad ones down” process, but yeah, they’re gonna remind you of this shit literally forever, sorry.
Q11:I work at a college library and it’s Stressing Time around here. Any tips from you or readers on how college staff can support students who are struggling? What do you wish your library had available (supplies, food, events) during finals season? Thanks!
A11: I think my institution brings in puppies for students to pet from some kind of shelter or volunteer organization, and it’s pretty popular.
What I think students could most USE during final students are 30 minute “Hey, buddy, you’ve procrastinated on that essay and now that you actually have to do it you have no idea where to start, it’s okay, grab a cookie and let’s take you through three basic ways to find sources” orientations, maybe in very small groups. Or “Ask A Librarian” office hours where they can get individual help. Like a safe, friendly, no-shame redux of that stuff they should have come to at the beginning of the semester but did not. Publicize it through professors – “Could your students use a quick research strategies refresher?” – Maybe even collaborate with profs in certain subject areas to help students walk through that section of the library.
IDK, I teach a lot of students who come from under-resourced high schools that have no library, no librarian, who don’t know what’s available or even where to start, and I’ve long ago learned not to assume about what they know. I’d LOVE to send them to something like “Ok, you found 10 books/articles about your paper topic and you don’t know which one to read first and you don’t have time to read all of them. That’s okay! Let’s look at the bibliographies real quick – Is there a book or article that all or many of the books mention? Great! Start there!”
I love libraries and librarians. You’ll do something great, I know.
Q12: I broke up with a dear friend over the summer who is a lovely person, but spent ~2 years ignoring/not responding/declining requests to hang out. I’m starting to do that thing where I wonder if it was the right decision. Logically, I think it was the right thing, but emotionally I’m still hurting, especially since she was a pillar of Team Me and I really need those pillars right about now (I’m going through the end of my degree program and dealing with marital problems; we’re not breaking up, but there’s a lot of work to do and it’s triggering all kinds of “well, I don’t really deserve love/affection/sexual attention anyway” self-talk). And I’m starting to worry that other dear friends will “abandon” me the way that she did. My question is: what are some scripts I can tell myself to re-write this story in my head? Right now I’ve got “everybody leaves” playing in an eternal loop, with the occasional “you’re not good/lovable enough” jumping in as accompaniment.
A12: It sounds like the friend broke up with you, not that you broke up with them, is that correct? Either way, it’s natural to miss people who were important in your life in a stressful time, even if the relationship has run its course. So first step is to stop beating yourself up for having feelings. You can’t outrun or outthink feelings, sometimes the most you can do is identify & name them, like, “Oh, I’m having anxiety that my other friends will ditch me the way ___ did” and then sort of triage them, like, “Do I have to do something about this feeling right now or can I just let it be.”
Other practical suggestions:
Can you vomit out some of the worry in a journal? Write letters to the absent friend of the things you would normally like her help with? Get as angry as you need to with work, spouse, absent friend in a private, low-risk way?
When the “I’m not good enough” thoughts intrude, could you try speaking to yourself and your feelings the way you would to a good friend, and try to be as gentle with yourself as you would with that person? It takes practice but this can really help.
Can you make some plans with the other dear friends in your life that are about pleasure (not necessarily about support/venting, though some of that will happen, more about relaxation and/or knocking out tasks with a buddy). Think low-key, low-commitment, treating yourself (“let’s grab breakfast and get some holiday shopping done, let’s get our nails done, I grabbed this massage Groupon, can I treat you? I want to see your face and I need to schedule some breaks from school/work”).
In combination, having the outlet for free form venting and feelings and shame and weirdness can reassure you that you’re not just, like, feelingsbarfing everything on your friends, and having the friend-dates to look forward to will give you some bright spots and rewards for doing the hard work. I hope things get better soon, and congrats on finishing your studies! Everything is hard, but you’re working hard and you deserve to be nice to yourself.
Q13:Doing the art/dayjob thing but it’s the dayjob part giving me grief. Working with a job coach but I’m still stuck. 29 with a thin resume. Graphic design is a dud but I have no other skills. Failed at teaching and STEM. How do I figure out my career and set myself up for success?
A13: Let me point you at three resources and once piece of wisdom:
It is okay if what you do for money does not match up with your deepest self – for the next little while, possibly forever. All your favorite artists had day jobs, most did not match their field of endeavor.
Q14: What toys and treats have your kitty kids, present and past, absolutely gone nuts for? I want to give mine a great “Kitmas!”
Henrietta lounging inside the Rainbow Tunnel. Daniel being all Coraline in the Rainbow Tunnel. (He was so tiny!)
Daniel loves all toys that can be carried in the mouth (crinkly balls, catnip mice, etc.), and sometimes he will push toys under the bedroom door when it is closed to try to entice us out. It is the best. Henrietta likes a wand toy with feathers at the end. They both love the Cat Dancer, which, you can’t beat that price! Beadie also loved any wand toy, any crinkle-ball, but her most-loved thing ever (like, it might be her actual soulmate) was a pet-safe heating pad.
Q15 Do Daniel Jason Mendoza Striped Tiger and Henrietta (Kim Wexler) Pussycat have any holiday-themed costumes and may we see pictures?
A15: No, they did their 60 seconds of costume duty for 2018 at Halloween. Halloween 2019 is another year! All the catnip and treats! Sixty seconds or whenever they figure out how to take off hats (which are tied very loosely).
Q16: How do I avoid the topic of my job hunt/being recently let go? I straight up don’t want to discuss anything about it (and I’m hoping I have something in place) but it’s tough.
A16: I’m so sorry. You don’t have to tell people about it at all, if you don’t want to and it’s not public knowledge. You can also say, straight up, “Oh, it’s still kinda raw, I don’t want to talk about it at all right now, especially since we’re celebrating!” + change the subject to something you do want to talk about. Non-assholes will follow your lead.
Q17: How do I handle being burned out on my chronically ill partner’s health talk? I know she doesn’t get a break but sometimes I just can’t handle getting hourly updates on organ functioning, and I feel talked over a lot of the time.
A17: This is so hard. Keeping in mind the principle of “comfort in, dump out,” does she have a counselor or other safe outlet where she can vent about health stuff at will? There’s a great site called Chronicbabe for young women with chronic illness, there might be other communities like that where she can find not only solace but solidarity.
Does she have all the support and help she needs to manage the condition, and is it time to revisit some of that (incl. perhaps involving professional carer), like, “Hey, the frequency and severity of these episodes seems to be escalating, is it time to revisit your care plan?” Can you make a structure where there are certain times of day that you both check in about health talk and give each other your full attention?
Having as much support in place as possible will make it easier (not easy, but easier) to say, “Hey, love, did you realize you’re talking over me right now? I want to support you, but I am tuning out from some of these real-time detailed updates. I don’t want to tune out from you, can you give me an idea of what you’d like me to say or do when you tell me x?” It’s possible that they don’t need you to do or say anything, but they do need to say whatever it is, if that makes sense.
Q18: What do you recommend for a family member whose need to be “helpful” turns “Thanks. I’ll think about that,” into “Go buy me the thing we were talking about, even though I don’t know if I want or need it yet”?
A18: Try “Oh, what a nice gesture, but I don’t need x – please don’t buy things without checking with me, I’d hate for you to spend money on something I can’t use.”
Advanced Halping Evasion: Consider an information diet around this person – it sounds like even mentioning or brainstorming about a problem you need solved sends them into Helper Mode, try not even mentioning stuff you’re thinking through in this vein to them for a while and change the subject to other topics.
Q19: My d&d group used to drink&play but 1 guy is now sober&requested dry games in May. Happily did. Last game someone asked, got his ok& brought wine. I wasn’t there, but I want to check in w him &support but we’re newer friends. And he did say it was ok? scriptplz?
A19: You weren’t at the game, so maybe how you go about checking in depends on how you know about the wine. I would assume he did say it’s okay unless you have reason to know otherwise, so maybe try saying “Hey, I saw that _____ asked if they could bring wine last time. I just wanted to check in with you again – I think the switch to sober games has been good for us and I’m happy to keep that in place forever. If you want us to keep that as an absolute rule going forward, it’s okay! You don’t ever have to say yes to wine if you’re not comfortable, and I’m happy to remind people not to mess with it.”
Just be kind and direct and treat him like the expert on his choices.
Q20: NaNoWriMo has happened, and it’s been great for me to iron out some problems with my WIP. But…I was way below my word count thanks to procrastination. Not so bad in itself, but I lied to my partner about it almost daily. What do?
A20: No one’s reading this WIP but you, right? At least not until it’s done, whatever that means. This was a fun thing you did to motivate yourself. So, examine why you felt the need to lie about a fun, optional thing that was between you and you, and then come clean!
Q21: Productive response for when ppl keep doing & apologising 4 smth w no behaviour change? This just pisses me off.
I guess my question is, what would happen if you showed how pissed off you are?
“You keep saying that, but the behavior doesn’t change, so, apology not accepted.”
My other question is, how much access do you want to keep giving this person to the part of your life they keep fucking up at? You can wipe the slate clean and still remember what was on it and act accordingly.
Ok, that’s all for this week! Comments are open, with the caveat:
BE KIND. If you can’t be kind, be quiet? We’ve had some real unpleasant ableist and victim-blaming bullshit lately and I don’t care for it. Site policies are here if you need a review.
I’m about to skive off for the rest of the afternoon and have lunch and see a movie with Mr. Awkward, so moderation will be haphazard. If your stuff gets trapped I will release it this evening.
