When fear of over-committing meets terror of letting other people down, that's where you'll find me and way more than one of you, if my inbox is any indication.
Category: Reader Questions
#1334: “If someone keeps RSVP-ing “yes” but never attending, do I have to keep inviting them to stuff?”
Here is blanket permission to not worry very much about offending people who neither show up to your parties nor ever explain why.
#1333: Multi-Level Marketing Cults & Performative Friendship
How to plot the accumulated costs of "useless objects" vs. "pointless arguments" over time?
#1331 and #1332: Awkward Neighbor Stuff!
Good fences continue to make good neighbors, metaphorically and literally.
#1330: “I don’t want this friend as a roommate or a summer houseguest, but my sibling and I sort of already agreed.”
People who won't take 'no' for an answer often present the risk as you being seen as mean or selfish when you don't do what they want, when really, it's that if you don't say 'no' you have to put up with them in your personal space. Re-balance your risk assessments, friend!
#1329: “Is this ever going to work out in my favor?”
When someone says "I don't have romantic feelings for you," take them at their word.
#1327: “My best friend’s other best friend is The Worst. How do I free myself without losing my friend?”
Sometimes when you stop trying to make yourself like someone, it's easier to keep the peace at parties.
#1325-26: Confidential To The Married Couple Who Both Wrote To Me About Your Disintegrating Marriage
Two spouses wrote to me and I don't want to post the letters full of painful details but I also could not leave it alone.
#1324: “I moved out of a terrible roommate situation two years ago, but our mutuals won’t stop trying to ‘make peace.'”
"I hated living with them so I moved the hell out. What is there to 'mediate?'"
#1323: “People keep using a filler-word that bugs me and I want to not care.”
"This bugs me" doesn't equal "This is wrong," and this Letter Writer gets that. 🙂
