The Vine: May 17, 2006
Dear Sars,
I’ve been really good friends with “Carl” for about the past six years. When we first met through mutual friends, we had about two or three days of garbled, grapvine-type communication and he-said/she-said — a build up which would most likely have culminated in his asking me on a date had we not eventually spoken face-to-face and agreed that the entire situation was blown out of proportion and stupid and we’d do much better just getting to know each other as friends.
Time warp to now. Still much in the same group of friends, Carl and I are closer than ever. He’s dated one or two of my girlfriends in the same group, and the breakups have always been more or less amicable on both sides.As far as I know, he’s single at the moment.
For personal reasons, I’ve never dated anyone before. Mostly just because I didn’t feel mature enough to handle a romantic relationship well, and I was having fun getting to know myself and making friends in the meantime.
About two years ago, Carl went to live abroad for over a year. We kept in touch through email. I saw him shortly before he left, and, realizing how much I would miss him, I came perilously close to asking him if he wanted to try a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. He was leaving in a few days, however, and I realized at the time that it was probably just misplaced sentiment and it would not be wise to start a relationship like that as a long-distance one right off the bat.
Carl has been home for a while now, and we’ve seen each other tolerably often and had a great time together, even though our different schedules can make it hard to spend time together as friends.But my mind keeps going back to right before he left, and although I’m not jealous when he tells stories about the girls he hooked up with while abroad, I don’t know if I can be entirely comfortable with the idea of him in a committed relationship with someone else.
For so many years we were just good friends, now it’s hard for me to see him as a romantic prospect for anyone…except maybe for me.
Again, I have absolutely no experience with dating, and lately I’ve begun to think that this might socially stunt me somehow in the future. I’d like to try dating, but I don’t feel comfortable flinging myself out onto the market and taking up with the first guy who buys me a shot.
I’ve considered asking Carl on a date, knowing that if it didn’t work out, we could laugh over a failed attempt and go on being awesome friends. Carl seems “safe” in this respect. But I don’t want to date him if I’m only doing it for practice. I honestly do have some feelings for Carl that go beyond the buddy-buddy, and it would take little encouragement, I think, for these feelings to grow.
Can starting on something like this for practical reasons (like social acclimatization) make it wrong to continue, even if feelings have changed to something more? Carl may not even be interested in me, mad friendly flirting aside, and the idea of being turned down by him doesn’t bother me that much — should I feel more despondent over the idea of a refusal from a guy I honestly like more than anyone?I’ve combed through Sense and Sensibility a few times, and am still at a loss here as to how I should feel and how I should act.
Signed,
The Betty to his Archie
Dear Betty,
I think you’re taking too clinical, too rigid a view of dating and falling in love.No, maybe “taking up with the first guy who buys you a shot” isn’t the best plan, but that’s kind of the point — we plan, Cupid laughs.Sometimes that’s how it happens.The thing is, you’re not really willing to just let it happen — to date, to like like various guys, to see how it goes.You want a controlled environment, and I sympathize, but…you won’t get one.It’s just not how these things work.
If you really like Carl That Way, you should maneuver that — ask him out, try to spend more time with him, however you see fit to do it.But you should do it because you really like Carl That Way and you want to see something come of it, not because you need laboratory conditions to figure out how dating is supposed to feel.
You’ve known him six years, and the two of you have never gotten it together in a more-than-friends way.That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but it could mean that Carl is more of a fallback for you, the “break glass in case of emergency” guy that lets you not try with other guys.So, if you’re going to ask Carl out, do it; if you’re not, move on from thinking of him that way.
Hi Sars,
My question is about writing.
I’m reading The Elements of Style and trying to apply its advice and
rules. One huge one is “omit needless words.” The thing is that I work
in the marketing department at a book publisher, and often have to try
to “spin” the facts. It seems like the best way to do this is to use
lots of words…can this be true? Any advice is welcome — I want to
become a better writer and be able to bullshit without it reading like
bullshit.
Signed,
Hoping to find a new job soon but still need to know this
Dear Hoping,
The best way to spin or to bullshit is to use the right words, which is not necessarily the same as “a lot.””A lot” is not a bad thing per se, but among other things, if you’re bullshitting, “a lot” is blatant, and often counter to your purpose, because The Elements of Style is about two things: figuring out what you’re trying to say; and saying it in the clearest, most accurate way possible.One of the reasons bullshit sometimes doesn’t work is because it doesn’t say anything.
The Gettysburg Address, which I think is referred to in The Elements of Style, is probably the best grand-scale example of what you’re talking about — of having to take unfortunate facts and make them sound a little more hopeful.And that shit is short.Abe got up, cleared his throat, talked about the war and the thousands of men that died where he was standing, made the case that it wasn’t in vain, and sat back down.Three hundred words.And out of the bazillion speeches made by presidents over the years, that’s one of the few to survive, because it got the job done, and fast.
Hi Sars,
I have a question that I hope you can help me with. I joined/started a book
club with some friends, and we are having trouble picking out books to read
that we like. We don’t really have any guidelines, except that we want to
read primarily fiction.It doesn’t have to be newer books, in fact we plan
to read some classics we never got to when we were younger. We also want to
read some books we wouldn’t normally read, to broaden our horizons.
We’ve read a couple of recent award winning books, by authors such as Ian
McEwan, and even though they were very well written, we were so bored it was
a struggle to finish the book. So our last book was some historical fiction,
and it was a little more interesting, but was pretty badly written.The
only book we all liked was Maus, which was fantastic, but there’s only so
many memoir-style graphic novels we can read.
Do you have any ideas, Sars? I’m worried if we don’t read a good book soon
people will start dropping out. We’re open to pretty much anything. Oh we’re
all female, if that helps.
Thanks!
Booky McReadsalot
Dear Booky,
You might try having everyone in the group write out a list of five or ten books they’ve really enjoyed, trying to put down a variety of things from classics to bestsellers to lesser-known short-story collections.Then go onto Amazon and look up those books and see what Amazon says people who looked at those books also looked at or bought.People who bought Devil in the White City, for example, which I just finished, also bought The Kite Runner and Middlesex and books by Eric Larson.
So, you could compile a list of candidates based on that, or have each member do it on her own, and see what you come up with.
But not everyone is going to like every book; some books everyone’s going to hate.Book club is like that…and a lot of the time, book club is not even about books.It’s about socializing with other people who happen to like reading.Don’t worry too much if the books themselves aren’t working out.
Tags: boys (and girls) grammar popcult workplace
