Dear Sars,

I have a suggestion for BHL, who was asking for ways to help her favorite
causes.The Cancer Council of Australia had “Night In” week last week, the
idea being that you get a group of people together for a cheap night in
(videos, board games, potluck, et cetera), and everyone donates the money they
would normally spend going out to a particular cause.Here it was for
breast cancer research — PSA: one in 11 women will be diagnosed with breast
cancer in their lifetimes; please get to know your body, it could save your
life — but you could do it for any cause or organization.

I hosted one last
weekend, and it was fantastic.Even though most people only gave $10-20, we
raised almost $200 in total.And the thing that’s awesome is that it
overcame that thing of, “well, $10 isn’t enough to matter, and I can’t give
any more than that, so what’s the point?” because while one person’s $10
may not make a huge difference, 10 people giving $10 makes $100, and that’s
a lot of money.Friends who don’t hook up that often got to see each other,
we all felt great for having been able to donate, and people who couldn’t
make it are already asking when the next one will be.

I also have a quick baseball question.As a Sox (woo!) fan living in Sydney
and making a big ol’ deal about recent events, I keep being asked why it’s
called the World Series when only teams from the U.S. and a couple of stray
Canadians are allowed to play.I don’t really have an answer, and I’m
wondering if you could shed any light.I’m also wondering why the Fox
commentators saw fit to point out that Curt Schilling had bled into his sock
“in the exact shape of the state of Oklahoma,” but I doubt anyone could
really explain that one away.

Thanks, and great idea with the new contest!

Steven Tyler?Was that really the best they could do?

Dear Amy Grant?Not A Huge Improvement,

Excellent idea — you can also carry the “Night In” through to organizing a swap; everyone brings their old stuff over to someone’s house, you “shop,” and whatever’s left at the end of the night goes to the Goodwill.And if you’ve been watching the TN contest for the last few days, you know how much you can get done if everyone’s in the yoke and pulling together.

The World Series is probably called that because, when it was first played, the U.S. was really the only place in the world that cared about baseball.It’s huge in Japan now — and the story of the game’s development there is fascinating, particularly after the war — but that didn’t really gather any steam until the ’30s, and the Caribbean wasn’t nearly the force it is in the game now.And obviously, when the American game was segregated, it was something of a misnomer, but the owners probably dubbed it that to make the entire sport sound like a force to be reckoned with.

Rumor occasionally has it that the Fall Classic was named “the World Series” because the first one was played in New York and the then-extant New York World sponsored it, but the first World Series was actually played between the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates, so that explanation is out.

Short answer?It was just marketing.I think it would be rad if there were a true International Series — preferably played during the winter, so we would never have to go without baseball — so we could see the other stars from around the world, as I believe they do for the Little League World Series.

I’m a reasonably educated 30-year-old, but I have to admit I don’t really
understand the Electoral College.Does my vote go towards my state’s
Electoral vote?Or are they separate?I remember my government-major
college roommate explaining something about how the masses were not to be
trusted with electing officials, hence the formation of the College, but I
would like to understand it a bit more.

Thanks —

Your Fellow Ovarian-American

Dear Fellow,

I found a handy page that explains how it works, more or less, but yes, your vote goes towards your state’s electoral vote — if your vote is in the popular majority in your state, because the popular vote in your state determines which electors “count.”

The electoral system is really more of a reporting system which dates from a time when the country was much smaller and the information superhighway was a fast horse on a dirt road; it was supposed to funnel information upwards into the system and streamline the process.But we’ve seen how it can backfire, and it’s one thing when the race isn’t close, but when it is, and the electors don’t accurately represent the outcome of the popular vote, I think the system needs to take the electors out of play.

Take, for example, New Jersey and North Carolina.Each state has 15 electoral votes.Let’s say for the sake of argument that each state has a hundred voters.Now let’s say that Kerry wins New Jersey and Bush wins North Carolina — but Kerry takes Jersey handily with 80 votes, while Bush sort squeaks by in NC with 55.Now, according to the electoral college, they’re even, 15 electoral votes apiece — but Kerry got 125 popular votes, and Bush got 75.

This is exactly why your vote matters — it matters in terms of choosing the electors, but even if that doesn’t work where you are because you’re red in a blue state or whatever, it matters because, later, we can point to the popular vote and say, “It wasn’t that simple, these should have been counted.”And I could still kick Al Gore in the shins for not insisting that that be done four years ago, but anyway.Point is, vote.

Sars,

There’s this man.Isn’t there always?Let’s call him
“Marc,” just for the sake of argument.I met Marc
about a month ago when he was visiting from out of
town.We really seemed to hit it off, and I tracked
down his email address.I got this response that
began with “Eric [a friend I was with when Marc and I
met] is a lucky guy to have you as a girlfriend.”So
I write back, “Wow — he’s not my bf, and I was
flirting with you.”So I get a response that says,
“We should go out next time I’m in town.”So this
goes on for a few weeks — chatty emails, nothing
major.We make plans to hang out this coming weekend.

Last week I get an email that he wants to be all
up-front with me about the fact that is basically
hooking up with two of his female friends, and because
he’s attracted me, he wants to make sure he tells me
this before we hang out.

So here’s my question — I’m all about the honesty, and
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about the
possibility of our hooking up.But I would never
have said anything over email — I wanted to wait to
see how our second hanging-out went.So now I have
this information, but I don’t have a context for it.
He’s “attracted” to me, but I don’t know what that
means.Does he want another casual relationship with
me?Does he see a future with me, and that’s why he
wanted to be honest about his recent sexual history?

I guess I was feeling okay about things until now, when
I still haven’t heard back from him.I responded to
his email disclosure by saying that I appreciated
honesty, and I wanted to get to know him better, but I
didn’t want to have any other discussion over email.
And it’s been almost a week, with no response.We’re
supposed to hang out this weekend, but it’s an
amorphous “I’ll see you on Saturday night” sort of
plan, and I feel like there needs to be another email,
some sort of “I got your email and we can talk when we
see each other — how does x o’clock sound?”Should I
email him again and be like, “Hey, I just wanted to
confirm with you our plans?”

Is this guy, as one of
my friends has said, a slut?I’m pretty open-minded,
and don’t have a problem with the casual hook-ups,
even though I don’t, myself, tend to have
relationships like that.It’s rare that I feel so
comfortable around people I’ve just met, and I really
feel like there was a spark between Marc and myself.
I’m also generally a pretty good judge of character,
and I got a good feeling about this guy.I think he
jumped the gun with his last email, but I understand
the impulse — it’s something I would have, in his
position, at least considered doing, if I didn’t
actually do it.

What’s your take?

No snappy pseudonym

Dear Snap,

You told him you didn’t want to discuss it over email; he hasn’t emailed you.Cause, meet effect.If you want to set up a time to meet, email him to that effect, say you’re looking forward to it, end of story, but don’t overthink that aspect of it.

I would caution you that, when people dump that kind of information on you early on, you need to heed it.Any kind of disclaimer about behavior, you need to listen to, because a lot of people view that kind of “well, I warned her” announcement as an excuse not to change their behavior or pay attention to other people’s feelings.I think Marc is probably just trying to keep his options open without hiding anything, which is fine — but to immediately get all “don’t expect anything from me” right up front, when you haven’t even kissed?He’s setting a boundary and putting you on the far side of it, whether he’s aware of it or not.

Again, I’m not saying he’s a slut or a bad person or whatever, but the “I told you how things are in the beginning, so you have no right to want to make changes” line has a plaque in the Oh Grow Up Hall Of Fame for a reason.Proceed slowly.

Hi Sars —

I’m not so much looking for advice about what to do as a neutral
opinion on a relationship that I think is unusual.You’ve said before
that these things have a way of working themselves out, and I agree
with you.At the same time, I am impatient and curious and would love
your expert opinion about what that “working out” might include in my
case.

I met a guy in college who I subsequently dated for over five years.
We lived together for the last two years of our relationship, which
contributed to our breakup.I was bitchy and hard to live with; he
didn’t consistently keep up his part of the household duties and was
generally flaky.To exacerbate things, I had given him an engagement
ultimatum — I had this strange idea that one should not date for more
than five years without some sort of resolution — and he not only did
not propose, he let me figure it out for myself that he wasn’t going
to propose.I was crushed, more than anything that he didn’t have the
balls to tell me he wasn’t interested in marriage.

So, we broke up, and a year has passed.At first we fought bitterly,
dividing our household and rehashing old hurts.In the last few
months, though, we have become close again and rediscovered a lot of
the joys of our relationship.We still get along incredibly well and
really enjoy each other’s company.This part of our relationship may
even be better because now we don’t have all of the domestic issues
coming up between us.

Now we’ve discussed possibly getting back together.We both agree
that breaking up was good for us as individuals and as a couple; we’ve
become more self-aware in so many ways.I’ve tried dating since we
broke up, and I’ve gotten a new (platonic) roommate, and I know that
in many ways, this guy makes me happy.I haven’t met anyone who I’ve
enjoyed nearly as much.The idea of reconnecting with him really
appeals to me, and I think I might just be able to be happy with him.
But I am worried that many of our old issues would simply resurface if
we were to get back together.For example, he’s still pretty flaky,
although he now works a lot harder not to be.I don’t want to open
myself up to more hurt in this relationship only to find that it won’t
work for the same old reasons.

I understand a lot more about how I made the relationship difficult
for him now (I am not an innocent party by any means).However, my
other big fear is that if we do get back together, I will have an
initial period of hypervigilance and then slip back into these old
behaviors, such as being passive-aggressive when I should be direct.

So, what do you think, Sars?Do old relationships have a fighting
chance?Can I overlook those maddening character flaws that drove me
nuts the first time?Perhaps more importantly, can I actually become
the better person I want to be for him the second time around?

Sign me,
Trying Again

Dear Again,

They can have a fighting chance, sure — but here’s what strikes me about your letter.You keep talking about the changes you’ve made and you becoming a better person.Which, okay, self-improvement is good and any move away from passive-aggressiveness is a positive for everyone involved.But why do you have to do all the changing and becoming?And…what’s with the phrase “maddening character flaws”?Because putting it in those words doesn’t give me high hopes for your overlooking them, if you see what I mean.

Look…I’ve said it before, you’ve heard it elsewhere, and it’s true: the only person you can change in this life is yourself.And as I said above, changing yourself is not a bad thing.But have you actually changed, is the question — have you relaxed your stance on the engagement thing?Like, really relaxed it, I mean, not “well, I still want to get engaged by such-and-such time but I’ll just grit my teeth this time instead of saying so”?Do you really not mind his “flakiness” anymore?Or do you feel like you “have to” put up with it, so you put up with it and you call that “not minding it”?

I don’t mean to sound overly discouraging here, although I probably do — but if he’s a flake, he’s a flake, and if you can’t live with it, you can’t, and that doesn’t imply fault or wrongdoing on either side.It just is, and I think you need to be honest with yourself about whether it’s a basic compatibility issue between you.Because if it is, no amount of personal growth on your part is really going to make a difference.

Hey Sars,

I read your response to the person who wanted to volunteer through blood donation. An even better thing to do, if one is able to do it, is apheresis. Apheresis is platelet donation and can be done once every three days on the average. The process takes a couple of hours at a time, but it is incredibly valuable to the recipients.

The upside of this is that if you donate blood, for which you must wait 56 days between donation, it doesn’t always disqualify you from still donating platelets while you wait. I recommend looking at the Red Cross’s apheresis website.

Sincerely,
Blood Donor Activist

Dear BDA,

Thanks for the reminder.Apheresis donation is very valuable — but it is time-consuming, and many parts of the country have a whole-blood shortage that urgently needs addressing.So, if you go to a local blood-services station to donate, ask when you make your appointment which type of donation they feel they need more, and consider doing whole-blood first and apheresis another time.

[10/27/04]

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