I am in need of some anonymous reassurance and probably a reality check.
Lately I have become obsessed with the life of my ex-boyfriend (let’s call
him “J”).I am in a wonderful relationship with someone else.I have become
obsessed with J because he is the second ex-boyfriend that has found the
“love of his life” while dating me.

Things with J were always complicated.
We dated for three years, were back and forth for another two-three years.
He was my first love, and we both thought that at the end of graduate school
and our long-distance separation, we would marry.We always thought that
things didn’t work out because of the distance.The last time we dated, J
begged for me to give him another chance — promising marriage and going all-out in the wooing department.I was upset when J abruptly dropped me for
another.I felt that I was a pawn in his love game.

I didn’t talk to J for about six months after the last break-up, and for the
past year J and I have been exchanging short, “what are you doing these days”
kind of emails.I am torn, because I feel this desire to be friends with J; he played such an important role in my life and was my best friend
for years — but on the other hand, I am upset because I feel that we can’t
have a normal friendship.I am uncomfortable about the fact that he goes
out of his way to not mention his fiancée.What are your thoughts on
friends with an ex when there was a long, tumultuous history?Is it
possible?Am I normal to want this?

Seeking normalcy reassurance

Hi Sars —

Here’s the short form: My boss is a bastard.It’s not
just me that thinks so — of the seven people who were here
when I joined, only myself and one other are still
here (besides “el pendejo“). Of course, both of us are
looking for employment elsewhere.

Here’s the problem.Inevitably, when you are
interviewing for a new job, you get the question: “Why
do you want to leave your current position?”
Obviously, I can’t launch into a 30-minute rant about
how some people can’t be respectful or keep their
mistresses out of the office or learn how to run a
business after seven years or flush after taking a crap.
Somehow, I don’t think that would help my chances of
being considered a stellar employee.

I don’t want to come off negatively in an interview,
but I don’t want to lie, either.Everything I have
thought of saying has been either contrived or weak.
Any thoughts?

Thanks,
A Geeky Chick

Dear Sars,

Pardon the huge amount of exposition, but it’s kind of important. I know
this girl who I suppose is my friend, but a more accurate term would be
intellectual sparring partner, “J.” We’re not close, but we enjoy getting
together every so often to just talk about various matters. She’s
brilliantly intelligent, and fascinating to talk to, even if we’re not
compatible enough to be real friends. One topic that’s come up a lot is
religion. I am a Catholic — I’m no Bible-thumper or fundamentalist, nor do I
even subscribe to all the beliefs of Catholicism, but I like and am proud of
my faith. J doesn’t have much love for Catholicism, and though she’s never
mistreated me because I believe in it, she makes no secret of the fact that she
doesn’t like the faith. She also refuses to believe a Cath might not think
that it’s the supreme, dominant religion.

I always felt that was quite silly, kind of bigoted even, but she wasn’t
hurting me so I let it slide — I am an easygoing person. When I date, I
never confuse crushes with anything real, so I’m never really bothered when
we break up. I don’t see any connection between love and sex. I never said
“I love you” because I knew I wasn’t in love. Then I met “R,” a man who is
overwhelmingly good. What I have with R is so much stronger, entirely
different from any other relationship I’ve had. I feel that I love him, and
think that he could be the one for me. He happens to be Catholic as well.

That age-old debate “What is Love?” had come up a number of times in my
disccusions with J, and we had used the relationships we were currently in
to illustrate our points. When it lately occurred, I mentioned R. I said
that I actually felt in love, and when sex was brought up, offhandedly I
mentioned that he too is a Cath — while I have no problems with premarital
sex, R says he’s not comfortable with it, so we’ve never slept together. I
casually said, “In some ways, he’s a pretty traditional Catholic.”

J, not only unable to believe that I was unbothered by the lack of sex, was
amused to no end by this, and her reaction basically amounted to her
thinking that I’d only let myself get close to R because he’s Catholic too.
Just because I’d never got at all emotionally invested until I fell in love,
she thinks I would only get serious with another Cath. I’ve never gotten
worked up over anything J said before, especially something that wasn’t
true, but her contempt for me was not only great but completely unfounded.

I don’t know if I should keep in contact with this person. I enjoy
talking to her, but I don’t know if it’s worth keeping the company with
someone who has shown herself to be so prejudiced, not to mention deeply
disdainful of me. So, oh wise Sars, should I forget this girl?

Thanks,
The Cath

Hi Sars,

The problem is what to do with my aging mother, who now lives alone but for her evil cat, Tatiana, who loves only her (feel my pain, please). My father died last year. He was 63 and she’s 66 and they were married for 31 years, so you can imagine how difficult it is for her to be on her own. I am their only child, and am married almost ten years now, with no children. I came home (to FL, from WA — not such a hop, skip, and jump) to take care of my father for four months before he died, and stayed on for another year afterward to keep my mother company and help her get her affairs in order. My husband is in the military and is away on business often, and so my absence put no more than the usual amount of strain on our marriage. The thing is, I am back in WA now with my husband and oozing guilt from every pore.

Please don’t misunderstand about my mother. She still works full-time as a preschool teacher, is secretary for her condo board, goes to Weight Watchers meetings, sews round the clock, has a handful of close friends whom she sees pretty regularly, and is in excellent physical health. It’s hardly as if I’ve left her to the wolves.

It’s just that (1) I know that she’s sad about my father’s absence, and (2) she and I have always had sort of an odd relationship. My mother is very clingy, needy, and overprotective. She always has been. In fact, if you were to look up “codependent” in the dictionary, I dare say you’d find her picture (she can be pretty manipulative to that end, too). It’s gotten a lot worse since my father died, and it really skeeves me out. I’m a very outwardly unemotional person and I like to do my own thing, which makes me wonder if sometimes we might be getting our signals crossed, i.e. she thinks that I don’t care about what happens to her. I do LOTS of extra things for her, like make important phone calls and send her care packages, and I tell her that I love her when I think she needs it. She and I have had a DAILY phone call for the last ten years (since I left home) no matter where I may be, which has now escalated to two a day.

This is magnified by the fact that, as people, we have nothing to talk about. Seriously.
My mother was almost 40 when she had me — that’s nearly two generation gaps. She’s a pleasant person to be around, but I’ve never really been able to talk to her, if you know what I mean. I have attempted on several occasions to unburden myself about my “loyalty” dilemma, have offered her to live with my husband and me (although I don’t blame her for curtly turning us down, but it’s not necessary to go into that), and have even offered to stay with her indefinitely and risk losing my marriage. Unbelievably, she didn’t even bat an eyelash at that last one. Are you getting a feeling for how deep the layers of guilt run?

There’s another part to that “loyalty” dilemma: me. As I’ve said, my mother was nearly 40 when she had me. I’m only 27. I have a college degree and would like to get another one. I’d also like to have a career, something that hasn’t been at all possible because of our frequent moving, and to uninhabitable areas to boot. We’re planning to buy a house at our next duty station, and on top of that, I’m getting pressure from him to have a baby. Aaargh! Where do I fit into this enormous, garbled equation? Don’t I get to have at least a little bit of what I want?

I know it sounds whiny and selfish, but I’ve got a lot of resentment built up about my mom. She’s a highly capable person — why does she insist on making me treat her like an invalid? I’m trying to put it off for as long as possible so that I can get my own life in order, but at what point do I need to say, “Okay, it’s all about Mom, now. She really needs me”? I’d always figured that so long as she’s physically and mentally able, it wouldn’t be an issue (incidentally, her friends, family, and I have been trying to force her to take a vacation. We got our passports renewed together, and I told her that I would stay at her place and watch her cat while she’s gone. To no avail). My friends’ parents are all living and much younger than mine, so I don’t have any frame of reference. And for now I’m physically out here on the West Coast but mentally on the East Coast, which isn’t doing anybody any good (the hubby is unsympathetic and tired of hearing about it, so we’ve being having rounds).

What, if anything, should I do about this situation?

Very respectfully,
Jewish Mother Mayhem

I need an impartial opinion on my problem, so here goes.I’m graduating
high school in June and attending New York University in the fall.
It’s been my dream school for the last four years and I have worked my
ass off to get accepted.High school has really not been the best time
for me, and I’m so excited to go off on my own and start anew somewhere
that no one knows me.

However, after months of going back and forth between two schools, my
best friend M has also decided to go to NYU, and I’m not really happy
with her decision.While she was making her decision, I didn’t let on
that I didn’t want her to go to school with me because she needed to
make the decision for herself.Going to school with my best friend,
even at a school as large as NYU, makes me feel less independent and it might change my college experience from what I want it to be.
Whether or not this is true, it’s how I feel.

I also feel like M is encroaching on what’s mine.I’ve wanted this for
so long, and she didn’t even decide until two days before the deadline!
Now people keep asking us if we’re rooming together, and every time I
say I’m going to NYU someone at school will say, “Oh, with M, right?”I
feel like she’s copying me (for instance, I bought some NYU merchandise,
and when she saw it, she bought the same thing even though there was a
whole store full of different merchandise) and that she’s not ready to
move on, although I really really really am and she knows it.Although
this all might sound immature (“It’s mine and I don’t wanna share!”), I
feel like I’ve earned my own moment to shine and I’m not getting it.

M has been one of the few good things in my high school experience and
I value her friendship tremendously.But now she’s constantly excited
about school and always talking about all the things we can do together
at school.Resentment for all the above reasons wells up in me every
time she does.I know if I speak to her about how I feel, she’ll get
offended (as evidenced by me hinting at how I feel and her getting
offended).But if I don’t speak to her about how I feel, the resentment
will get in the way of our friendship.

So basically, here’s my problem.It’s not her fault that the decision
that makes her happy makes me unhappy.So how do I deal with
aforementioned feelings without making her feel bad or sacrificing my
desired college experience?

Can’t Think Of A Clever Code Name For Myself