Hi Sars:

I wanted to drop a very quick line about Broke’s question.I was the
first one of my friends to get married, and most of them were in
medical/law/graduate school.Emily Post dictates that (1) the mothers
or sisters are not supposed to throw the shower, and (2) you must give a
wedding gift if you go, but you can give it up to a year after the
wedding.

That said, I would have been delighted if my girlfriends who had
already committed to the wedding and being in the party had written me a
lovely letter, or given me a scrapbook with pictures from our
friendship, or something like that for a wedding gift.Believe me, it
would be more appreciated than a frame or vase (which is probably going
to get stuck in a box anyway).Similarly, I never wanted a stripper or
a Vegas trip for a bachelorette party — I would have loved even a simple
sleep-over or a girls’ movie night with popcorn and box wine.It sounds
cheesy, but ultimately it’s about the friendship, not the “stuff.”

I think Broke’s friends, if they are as cool as they say, not only
would understand that she is not giving them a big gift, but would be
thrilled with a thoughtful letter or handmade item (but yeah, not out of
the bridesmaid dress), or a real old fashioned girls’ night, much more so
than another vase.

Just my two cents.

Been There

Hi Sars,

I second the congrats to “Wants To Get Better, But Can’t.”
Admitting you have a problem really IS the first step. I
struggled with eating disorders for years, but I am 95 percent
better. After over a decade of waiting for death it feels
pretty great to be a part of the world again.

Anyway, I just want to say that recovery is possible,
backsliding is inevitable, and support is essential. I have
utilized professional help when I could afford it (always
out-patient), but primarily I educated myself and went
vampire slayer on my personal demons.

I am no expert, but I listed a few Things I Have Learned
that may help:

1. Nutritionists are great resources for eating disorder
recovery. I found reading up on nutrition (rather than
eating disorders per se), a non-threatening way to learn how
to eat. Once I started eating, my mental and emotional
health improved dramatically.

2. Seek dental care if possible to reduce the damage done to
your teeth. You can regenerate a lot of body parts, but
teeth are a challenge to fix.

3. Some universities have professional schools that offer
services to students at reduced rates. Often these include
counseling and basic medical care.

4. Imitate others. I know this sounds weird, but I have
friends and co-workers who are comfortable with their
bodies and eat normally. I watched them and practiced doing
what they did and yes, it helped.

5. Find supportive friends, but be wary of people who want
to either rehearse your life drama or wallow in victimhood
with you.

6. Plan to take baby steps. Tiny, consistent steps will
take you farther faster than overly ambitous goals will.

7. Try to stabilize your eating before you take on Big Life
Issues. When you are eating enough to think clearly,
whatever problems you are dealing with will become much
easier to manage.

These resources are also useful for information and
support:

www.something-fishy.org

ANAD — The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and
Associated Disorders (they have a hotline as well)

ANRED — Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders

anorexia.org

Getting better is messy and difficult, but it really is
worth the suckage to get your life back.Good luck and
best wishes.

Sorry for the rambling!

Ex-waif

Hey Sars,

I’ve got a bit of a sticky situation going on with a dear friend of mine; let’s call him “K.” I’ll fill you in on the back story…we met four years ago and became casual friends, hung out occasionally, blah dee blah. We didn’t become good friends until this last summer, when he went to Texas and we struck up an intense email/phone call relationship that quickly began bordering on flirtatiousness. We both realized we liked each other, and decided to wait for him to come back home before making any judgments on where our relationship was going.

So he gets home, we hang out a LOT, and he realizes he is not quite ready for a relationship yet (he’s had emotional intimacy problems for a long time due to a lot of close people in his life being killed or committing suicide — his mom, his sister, several of his close friends, et cetera — he wants to “get over” these intimacy/putting up walls issues before he dives into a relationship), and we decide to continue focusing on our awesome budding friendship and see where things go.

So fast forward a few months; we’re still hanging out all the time and subtly flirting a lot and whatnot, and one night we’re watching a movie and he puts his arm around me, his hand near my armpit. “I have insurance you won’t tickle me now,” he says (he’s very ticklish, and we’d been jabbing at each other all night). I go to tickle him, and he grabs my hand with his free one and kind of holds it, so we’re sitting there holding hands with his arm around me. He then looks at me…and moves slowly towards me…and kisses me, and says that he thinks a “you and me thing” would work.

So of course I was thrilled, and we parted that night very happily…but the next morning I awoke to find an email waiting for me from K, who basically was apologizing because he felt he’d made a mistake, that he wasn’t truly ready for a realtionship yet, and that he needed time to get himself together before he could see me again.

That was almost two weeks ago; I haven’t heard from him since. I wonder if perhaps he feels he let down his walls too much and is freaking out a bit as a result, or if maybe he just isn’t ready yet. My question — what do I do? Do I give him time? Do I call him up and say “dude, explain yourself!” Should I try to contact him or just let him go until he’s ready? We were really having a great time just hanging out together all the time before that Big Moment…and I miss his company. A lot. The total lack of contact stings quite a bit.

Thanks very much for listening to me ramble…

Stuck in the Middle

Sars,

Can you please give me some advice in a twisted stinky sitch?

There is this boy that I have known for a while, first as a boyfriend
in junior high, fooling around occasionally in high school, we sorta
had this love-hate relationship. In high school we used to sneak over
each other’s houses in the middle of the night and go on little
midnight excursions with the car. We were always spontaneous and had
fun. He was in a band, and I started going out with the drummer, and
things got weird from then on.

And then we lost touch. The drummer and I broke up; I moved to the
city for school.Then we ran into each other one day and started
hanging out. I have always been physically attracted to him, but he
has a long-distance girlfriend. Sometimes when we hang out we would just be friends; other times we
would fool around (I’m not proud of saying) due to massive alcohol
intakes. I would try not to be attracted to him because I know he has
a girlfriend.

One night when we were hanging out, things started to
get hot and heavy, and he stopped everything and said he didn’t want to
do this and he was feeling anxiety and guilt. I apologised and told
him that that was fine and that I respect his descision, and I really
do.

So he told me that he wanted to remain friends, but I have called him
countless times since then and left messages and he hasn’t answered
any of them. The one time I called, he picked up and we chatted, and I
asked him to hang out the following day, and the following day, I
couldn’t get a hold of him.

I really miss hanging out with him becasue I liked the friendship
that we had; he really intrigues me, and although I’m physically
attracted to him, I wouldn’t step over that line ever again because
it’s really sleazy. I really miss having a friend that’s a boy. I don’t
really have any friends that are boys, or brothers for that matter. So
it would be cool. I also feel very close to him; I’ve known him for
so long, we know a lot about each other, so it really hurts that he’s
blowing me off.

Should I forget about him, or keep waiting and see if he comes around?

Thanks for your advice,
Hurting

Dear Sars,

I’ve got a Vine question and a copy-editing sort of inquiry. Vine first:

I’m a member of a listserv with over 1000 members, 25 or so of whom post on
a regular basis. I don’t want to be too specific about what our community
revolves around, because we talk about a couple of your sites on the list and
I don’t want him to make the connection, but that doesn’t matter too much
because there are no designated “off-topic” posts. We talk a lot about food,
music, sex, movies, TV, politics, books, anything that crosses our minds.
New members come and usually go within a few days when they see that we
generate 50-100 posts per day. Others join just because they think we’re a
porn list, because they’ve searched on some sexual term and happened to hit
upon a word in our rather lengthy list description.Still more join because
they found our page by searching on their favorite band’s name, and then
they’re disappointed when we don’t talk exclusively about said band.
Sometimes (rarely) some random new person is rude on purpose, and then some
of us yell at them until they unsubscribe.

The point is that, just like in any community, there are people that don’t
really fit in, and they know it, so they leave. No hard feelings. That sort
of thing is almost always mutual, once you’ve turned about twenty years old.
However, there’s a new member now (I’ll call him “DL”).Well,
actually, that was a bit Freudian. He’s not new at all. He’s been a member
for well over a year. He just doesn’t fit in at all, and we can’t get rid of
him.

What does he do? Crazy shit. He replies to almost every post, even if he has
nothing new to say. He often doesn’t get jokes, and makes ridiculous comments
about them that don’t make any sense. This would be more tolerable if he
didn’t send, like, forty messages a day. Plus, whenever one of us posts
about a song we loved or concert we attended, he seeks out that artist and
takes on the opinion of the original poster without discretion. And worst of
all, his job involves a lot of international travel, and he’s always
visiting the cities where group members live and trying to get us to hang
out with him in person.

Like I said, usually members sort of self-select. To put up with us, you
have to be able to handle a huge quantity of messages per day, know a decent
amount about pop music of the last forty years, and tolerate leftist
politics, particularly as they apply to sexual freedom.If you can’t handle
that, that’s cool; you leave, we still like you. maybe we’ll see you on
another list.

And then there’s just us…the core listserv members, and now, DL. He fits
the above criteria, but he’s still not One Of Us. He’s really the only one
that’s ever truly felt he belonged when he doesn’t. Our system, or lack
thereof, was infallible until he came along. And now we can’t get rid of
him. As I said, it’s been over a year, when the average member lasts less
than twenty
minutes (really). We don’t want to be mean to him, especially because he’s
always posting about how much he likes all of us and how he can’t make
friends anywhere else, but he’s driving everyone crazy. How can we get him
to develop a new interest in some sort of research-lab endeavor that sucks
up all the time he’d be spending online? Or the Peace Corps in a
technology-free area…how do you sell someone on that?

Well, Sars, I’ll move on to the grammar question now, if I may. I usually
type in all lowercase letters, but I wanted you to read my letter so I went
back to the conventional manner (it’s good practice, anyway; keeps me in
shape for typing term papers), but listen up. The reason I switched to
lowercase in the first place is that I have a repetitive-stress injury in
my right hand that developed from frequent computer use combined with my
poor typing/mouse-moving habits.I was a journalism major and then I
switched to linguistics, and I’m what Sassy described as a smitty. I’m
aware of the rules of capitalization, and I agree that everyone from book
publishers to lemonade-stand sign-inscribers should adhere to them. However,
I’ve abandoned them in casual communication so that I limit the number of
keystrokes I have to make and the number of times I have to use specific
muscles. On behalf of my fellow sufferers, I respectfully request that you
consider accepting non-capitalized Vine letters.

Also, how have you avoided repetitive stress injuries yourself? You must
spend even more time at the keyboard than I do.

Ivy