I’ve a family problem that is really nagging me. A
little history first.

I am an only child of elderly parents, and going to
school for the arts at the most prestigious college in
my state. Frankly, I’m good at what I do and have high
prospects upon graduation. I’ve battled my way up to
my junior year with a few slight financial problems;
mainly that I have no money, and my parents (well, my
mom and my stepdad actually, my dad died when I was
younger) have no credit. At all. In fact, they are
barely making ends meet due to my stepdad’s recent
hospitalization, and my mother’s perpetual
unhealthiness.

This year when my tuition balance was due, I was
freakin’ out because I couldn’t find a co-borrower and
I was told that I needed one. I was taught in
times of trouble, you could call on your family.
Therefore, when break came up recently I went to
my grandmother’s house. I asked her for her help and
she waffled on me. She took me with her to her local
bank and they explained to her that student loans are
a “sheep in wolf’s clothing” and one man even said,
“If my mother were to ask me to be her co-signer, I
would laugh in her face.” They followed that up with
an “I wish you all the best,” and “I’m sure the school
won’t want to let you go as a student. they’ll find a
way.”

On the way back to her house Grandma told me that she
would talk to her sons and see what they thought about
it. Now I honestly don’t know what my uncles’ problem
with me is, but they openly are hostile to me. I’ll
try and start up a conversation with them and they
will grumble in my general direction. It may sound a
bit trite, but I’ve been nothing but friendly and nice
to them as well as the rest of my rather large
extended family. Not that this is a pain or anything;
I get along with the rest of them pretty much without
incident. Minus two of my cousins that are the
children of one of the uncles in question, but I make
it a point not to make that known among any of the
“Fam.”

So to make an excessively long story short (sorry
about that by the way), Grandma called me back the next
morning and said some rather uncomplimentary things
about my chosen profession, my sensibility, and the
college that I am enrolled in. She followed it all up
with a second round of “I wish you the best” and a
lovely little heap of “now don’t think I don’t love
you” and said hell no.

Through quite a few tears, and wasted tissues, I found
a way to fund my education by myself. My question is:
What should I do about encounters with my family? I
would love to disown my grandmother and my uncles and
treat them the way they treated me. Right now, it’s
not about the money. Their unfounded lack of trust in
their own granddaughter/niece whom they watched grow
into a nice, smart, creative girl is the point. Do I
tell them to fuck off? Should I be nice and
forgiving, even if it kills me?

Desperately wishing to unleash my tongue

K is handsome, well-dressed, highly intelligent, has a
great sense of humor, and a generally sweet and caring
person. He and I have been friends for two years and a
couple for about five months.

Now, nobody is perfect, and K is no exception. His single
major fault is that he his table manners are, well,
unorthodox. He chews with his mouth open and slurps his
soup noisily, and he hangs over his plate when he eats. This
isn’t a posture thing, as he moves fairly gracefully when
walking and playing tennis, and it’s not a manual dexterity
thing, as part of his work involves taking apart
malfunctioning high-tech instruments to find out what is
wrong with them.

The view of partially masticated pizza in
his mouth bothered me at first, but I kind of figured that
I was only a friend, and if someone was going to keep his
table manners in check, it was going to be his family or
his girlfriend, and I didn’t have any business saying
anything. After a few months of hanging with him, I got
used to it, and I began to feel little more than a bit of
amused disbelief that someone so good-looking and well
groomed would noisily slurp spaghetti.

Sars, should I tell him I notice his strange table manners
sometimes, even though it doesn’t really bother me much
anymore? Does not saying anything make me a bad friend?
Does saying something make me a bad friend? Did I lose my
window during the first couple of months of our friendship,
or perhaps the first couple of months of our relationship?
This isn’t a life or death matter by any means, but if you
can provide input, that would be great. Thanks.

Sign me,
Missed Window

Here’s the problem: There’s this guy at my office; for the sake of convenience, let’s call him “Jackass.” I have only been at this job (which I really love) for a few months, so I’m still sort of feeling out office politics and the interpersonal protocol and such. Jackass made some slightly snarky comment to me during my first days in the office, which I ignored. As weeks went by, I sort of amended my opinion of him. He grew up in a very small farming town in the same state which I’m from, so we had something in common. I thought perhaps he’s just got a somewhat socially inept/farmboy thing going on. A few times he has gone out to get a soda and always offers to get one for me, and won’t take my dollar when I try to pay him. Long story short, I decide maybe he’s a decent guy, paid for my soda, whatever. I didn’t put much thought into it.

Well, then he starts throwing things at me. He has few friends at the office — everyone sort of steers clear of him — so I thought maybe he feels comfortable with me and is sort of joking around, in his misfit and pathetically immature way. The first time this happened he threw an empty plastic pop bottle which hit me in the leg. He claimed he was “aiming for the trash,” but the trash can is underneath my desk and I would need to remove myself bodily from the chair for him to have any access to it, and he knows that. After that he’d frequently aim papers toward my workspace, which would usually land right in front of me or somewhere on my desk (either his aim is really bad, or he doesn’t intend to hit me and just wants to annoy/startle me, which it usually does).

A few days ago he was across the room and wadded up a piece of heavy paper, maybe an envelope or cardstock. My hair was up and it hit me smack in the ear. I was really involved with the project I was working on and jumped in my chair. It stung, but more than that it really startled and pissed me off. I usually just try to ignore him, but I gave it to him this time (at least, “gave it to him” for me. I am pretty non-confrontational and have a hard time being firm with people). “Please don’t do that again, [Jackass]. I don’t like having things randomly thrown at my head.” He got all pissy — ANNOYED with ME, for telling him not to throw shit at me! He said, all surly-like, “What, don’t you have a little brother? You should be used to getting picked on!” I told him, “My little brother is seven, and he doesn’t throw things at me.”

He was quite rude about it, rather than being apologetic. He then headed back to his office. The girl who sits in the office adjacent to mine heard all of this and came out. She asked me if Jackass had thrown something at me. She dislikes him already, as he tries to pawn his work off on her, and she was so mad she was shaking. I told her yes, he just had and has thrown things at me in the past, and she said he did the same thing to the girl who had my job before me, but that Julia, my predecessor, would have none of it. She also mentioned that he had made “borderline sexually harassing comments” to yet another woman in the office. Long story short, my supervisor has talked to his supervisor about it (some time ago), and Jackass’s supervisor was astonished. Well, little wonder! He’d never do these things to his boss, or any man, for that matter.

I tried to forget about it, but over the weekend I got more and more indignant over it. It really feels like a gender and respect issue to me. He would never do this to one of the men. We work at a university, and I have seen him quasi-flirting with some of the female students (which is gross to begin with, and more gross because he’s old enough to be their father). I am young, and look younger than I am, but I am a professional and took this job to do my work, and to act professionally — not to feel demeaned and have shit chucked at me all day. This is only my second “real” job out of college, and I don’t want to begin a pattern of being treated this way by misogynistic men in the workplace.

And at the bottom of it all, I kind of just think this guy’s a clueless loser, not necessarily malicious. Which makes me feel torn, and kind of sorry for him (this is a characteristic problem of mine). Should I tell his supervisor/my supervisor/talk to him directly (though I explained his response at my immediate reaction), or just let it be? As I said, I haven’t been here too long and don’t want to rock the boat this early. Yet I also don’t want to establish that this sort of behavior from a grown man in a work environment is acceptable. Oh wise Sars, what should I do?

Ticked Off

I met this guy that we’ll call “J” when I was 17. At first I never even liked him. I thought he was arrogant and annoying. I ended up hanging around him a lot and really got to know him. I fell for him. We were together till early January of 2002. We split because we wanted different things. He wanted me to move across state to be with him and I felt like it was just moving too fast for me.

Well, I’m 21 now, turning 22 in a few months, and I have a new boyfriend. We’ll call him “M.” I met M while working at my last job and we were friends a year prior to dating each other. Which means we were friends during the last months of my relationship with J. Even though we have had a bumpy relationship I care for M. I’m troubled about something, though.

The problem, you ask? Well, about a month and a half ago J showed up out of the blue at my home. I never thought I would see him again to say the least. He said he was just dropping by to see how I was doing because he said he missed me a lot. He said he would like to be friends with me. He asked me out for drinks and I accepted. I told my boyfriend I was going. He wasn’t thrilled but he trusts my judgment. J expressed to me over drinks how much he missed me and ever since then has been instant messaging me online every now and then. Nothing serious at all. Not serious because I don’t know what to make of his bipolar behavior.

One minute he wants me to dump M for him and the next minute he is a total jerk and no longer cares for me or needs me. He has a tendency to act like a name-calling ass when he’s upset I’m not seeing eye to eye with him or stroking his ego. Despite all this I have feelings for this arrogant ass of a man. I’m 21 and he’s 27. He sounds like a sweet talker, huh? For a man with a bachelor’s degree and everything going for him he acts kinda childish. He doesn’t see it that way, though.

My current boyfriend is 25. He has not always been there for me as I have for him. He has had problems the past year or so and I have stood by him trying to help him however I can. I think it is likely he has cheated on me. One morning about 8 AM I was going to visit a friend who was in the hospital and I drove by his street, which is in direct route to the hospital. I saw a white Ford Focus parked out front of his house. At about 11 AM I headed home and decided to drop by and see him. Well, the car was still there and when I knocked on the door there was no answer. I knocked then on his window which is near the front door and there was no response. I knew he was there so I went back to the door and knocked again. He finally came to the front door dressed in some shorts he likes to wear around the house. He said he had been sleeping and didn’t hear me knocking. I came inside and we chatted briefly and we hugged, kissed, said I love you and then I left. I got a bad feeling in my stomach and decided to go back.

I know you’re asking, why didn’t I ask him about the car? I don’t know. Maybe I forgot or was just afraid of what would happen then. As I came up the back way to his house I saw a blonde-haired woman leaving the driveway and get into this white Ford Focus and drive off. I was mortified. I cried uncontrollably. I got myself together and then went to confront him. I point-blank asked him if he was cheating on me. He looked shocked and then flipped it. He began to act hysterical. Mad at me for even asking that and for catching this girl leaving his home.

He swore she was a girlfriend of a buddy of his who was in jail and she was just there to get some information about it all. I found this odd. Why was she there for so long? He said he had her wait in the bedroom because he thought I would flip out if I caught some blonde girl in his room. Is this odd? Besides the obvious girl in the bedroom thing, there is this. As far as I know he doesn’t have any blonde female friends. Mostly guy friends. My boyfriend is black and prefers to date white women.

Well, this was six months or so ago and he said if I didn’t see him in bed with her how can I prove he cheated? Well, how can I? I don’t want to be the kind of girl who falsely accuses her man of things he didn’t do out of jealousy. I’m not a jealous girl, though. I can hold my own and you won’t see me look to the ground when I enter a room full of women. I’m not a woman-hater or a jealous twit. I just feel stupid. I feel betrayed. He makes me feel that feeling that way is unjustified.

So let me wrap this long email up and say I’m confused about what to do. I have old feelings for my ex and feelings for M. I know I sound like some pathetic twit. I don’t want to cheat on M and the thought has never crossed my mind. I’m not that kind of girl and if I decided to end my relationship with M he would be the first to know it and I would never do anything to disrespect him or myself.

When I hear girls tell stories like my own a smart-ass answer crosses my mind that I figure any smart girl would already have thought of already, but as it turns out it’s not so easy when you’re the one with the problem. You never think you’ll end up in a stupid situation such as this but I am. I don’t know what to do or who to turn to. My sister is the one who introduced me to your site and suggested that I write to you. I apologize for the length of my email or if the format of my email isn’t correct. I’m not the best writer. I know you must get a lot of emails for advice but if you happen to respond to my letter I want to say thank you for your advice in advance and thank you for reading it even if you don’t use it.

Thanks for your advice,
Feeling confused and stupid

I know I shouldn’t let a commercial for a mediocre sub chain annoy me, but it does. In the ad Subway is running for its “Atkins Friendly” salads, the voice-over guy uses the phrase “[E]ach bite more succulent than the next.” Call me crazy, but would they not be implying that the salad is going to taste really good at first, but then tumble rapidly toward tasting like ass? Is it truth in advertising, or should they have said, “Each bite is more succulent than the last” instead? Maybe I should just get out of the house more.

Thanks for clearing this up for me!

Sincerely,
Atkins-Unfriendly