The Vine: August 25, 2004
O Sars, answerer of questions grammar, cat, and relationship:
There’s this boy. But, surprise! The problem isn’t with the boy, or any boy, for that matter. The issue is with my roommate. I’m in college and I share an apartment with five other girls, most of whom I’ve lived with since my freshman year. Most of the girls have been in and out of relationships and so can tell when people might like some privacy.
However, one of my roommates, Emily, just can’t pick up signals of when people would like to be alone. At first, she’d just hang out with a boy and me in the living room, which is fine since it’s her apartment too and she has a right to be there. But no matter how late we stay up, she stays with us. No matter what we watch on TV, she watches with us. No matter what we talk about, she listens.
I’ve tried taking boys into other rooms where Emily is not, but she follows us, even into places like my bedroom. Sometimes she’ll even follow me to other buildings on campus. I don’t want to out-and-out tell her to go away and I don’t want to be the kind of friend that blows off her girls for a guy, but I also don’t want to be the kind of girl who’s always submitting dates to every nuance of her roommates’ lives.
I already spend a great deal of time with Emily, but sometimes I need a change of pace, and frankly, a chance at some action. I’m a very private person, so I don’t feel good getting too cozy with boys in front of friends, but it’s getting to the point where to get time alone with a guy, I pretty much have to leave the apartment.
Exiled from the living room (and the kitchen and the bedroom and the…)
Dear Exiled,
Well, it’s one thing if she’s chilling in the living room; that’s a common area. But if she’s following you into the bedroom? Come on. Tell her you’d like to be alone, close the door, and live with it.
You don’t have to make a big deal out of it; this isn’t about putting guys ahead of your girlfriends. This is about Emily not picking up the vibe, and from now on, you’ll have to tell her — politely, of course — when you’d like to have some alone time with a guy. In so many words.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — when people aren’t getting hints, it’s time to stop using hints as a strategy and start asking directly for what you need.
Dear Sars,
Long-time reader, first time in need of advice.
To make a tremendously long story short, my mother is awful. Her awfulness over the years includes, reading my journal cover-to-cover without my permission when I came home from college at 19, telling me during a fight (I was 12 at the time) that my biological father and my grandmother wanted her to abort me when they found out she was pregnant with me, and letting (not just letting but going out of her way and buying) my baby brother watch all the Freddy Krueger movies before he turned five.
I’ve been in therapy and I’m over my issues with her. However, my little half-brother, Munch, is 12 years younger than I am and is still living at home. Munch is dyslexic. He was held back a grade, is a freshman in high school and largely does okay. He gets Cs, sometimes Ds. He’s flunking pre-algebra right now but he’s trying. He’s told me flat-out that school is hard for him. He can study all day, every day and still only pull Bs. The problem is that a) he tests well — higher than most dyslexics; b) I was on the Honor Roll in high school. My mother has gotten it into her head that he should be doing better and that he’s not living up to his potential. She has been forcing him to go to bed at 9:30 every night, and enforcing all sorts of curfews.
Added to all this, Munch has been in trouble lately. He’s been caught smoking. He’s come home drunk several times, he’s been hanging out with less than desirable kids and he’s been sneaking out. The problem here is that my family lives in North Dakota. I live in California now. There is, quite literally, almost nothing for kids in ND to do except go out to some country road and get wasted. Plus, Munch has been teased by so many kids in his school that the “less than desirables” are the only kids he feels safe and comfortable around. I’ve talked to him about drinking, drugs and the kids he’s hanging out around. I was honest with him. I told him that I was wild in high school and college but I didn’t cross the line because I knew there was no coming back from it. He’s been stupid a couple times in his drinking habits, but in talking to me about them he sounds pretty responsible compared to most kids his age. He doesn’t do drugs. He has stopped getting totally, falling-down drunk because he thinks it’s stupid, also he’s called for designated drivers or been a DD for someone else.
Munch called me recently and just went off about our mom. She’s making life hell for him. She has this way of freaking out, and just not letting go. She has this idea in her head that he’s doing poorly because of his friends, his drinking and she won’t let go. She has no coping mechanisms. Basically, she’s a little depressed, very agoraphobic and has a lot of social anxiety. Munch and I both think she needs therapy. We’ve both come home to see her sitting in the dark living room staring at the walls. He asked me to talk to her on his behalf. I got twenty minutes into, “Do you think maybe you should just let him hang out with his friends? And he’s not a child he’s almost an adult,” before she started yelling and hung up on me.
I’ve tried talking to my stepdad (who is wonderful, but in total denial) about getting her therapy. He doesn’t see a problem with her. Although lately he’s been taking Munch’s side and telling her to back off. Mom has told me she thinks Munch needs therapy because of his behavior (he’s also been having panic attacks and is taking medication for it).
I think they all need therapy, personally, but I have no idea how to get them to go. I’ve brought it up to all of them and they all say the other needs therapy. They’re all too stubborn, German and North Dakotan to admit to needing help and I honestly don’t know what to do. Am I crazy to think my mother is being psycho and over-protective of my brother? Am I wrong to tell her to back off? Do I love my little brother so much that I’m blind to the fact that he’s in trouble and my mother might be right? Would it be awful of me to go behind my mother’s back and tell my dad some of the things she’s done over the years to try and get him to get her to seek professional help? Should I just tell my brother that the only way for her to get therapy is for him to give in and go with her? There are dozens of ways I could try to manipulate the situation for all of their benefit but I don’t want it to blow up in my face and I refuse to become my mother.
Too Much Crazy in California
Dear Too Much,
I know you don’t want to hear this, but the fact is, this is not your job. This is your stepfather’s job (I’m assuming he’s Munch’s natural father), and you can lean on him to do it — and probably should, from the sounds of it — but who gets therapy and when is not your bailiwick.
I think the best thing you can do is to continue to support Munch as best you can from a distance — let him know you’re always available if he wants to talk; continue to speak frankly to him about his future and about not getting into too much trouble; staying up to date on who he hangs out with and what his issues are. Your mom is flailing here, because she’s out of touch with what really needs to happen for this kid, but if you can keep reminding him that, eventually, he’ll get out of there — and, more importantly, get him to focus on how to make that happen instead of doing self-destructive stuff instead — that’s what he needs.
I mean, what he really needs is for one of his actual parents to get on the stick, take him to a learning-disability counselor, start following up with his teachers, and make sure his meds are calibrated correctly, but your mother is not the go-to person on that, and if your stepdad won’t do it…I know it’s maddening, but again, it’s not your job, and you’re too far away to have much effect in terms of “making” any of them go to therapy or do what they’re supposed to do.
Just be there for Munch. Leave your own dad out of it; don’t bother trying to tell your mother any shit, because she’s just going to get defensive and miss the point some more. Stay in touch with Munch, stay on top of what he’s up to, and make sure he knows you’re doing that. Any structure you can give him in that regard is going to help.
Bigger annoyance: Jim Mullen’s Hot Sheet or Dalton Ross’s Hit List? I’m having trouble deciding at this point, and I thought I would throw it to one of the creators/original players of Mullendash.
Thanks,
C
Dear C,
First: As much as I’d like to take credit for creating Mullendash, I can’t. I’ve played it many times, but I didn’t think it up.
I think the format of both the Hot Sheet and the Hit List make it extremely hard for even naturally funny people to do their best work — although it seems to me that Ross could still do better with it than he does. Yeah, they’ve got deadlines, but it seems like they don’t take the time to pick material that will let them pull off strong punchlines, or to make sure the punchlines they do go with actually work. Ross is improving, but I wouldn’t call that column a success.
With that said: Mullen is still worse. As limp as Ross’s material on the Hit List can be, it’s never going to approach the smugly folksy unfunniness of Mullen.
Dear Sars,
I’ve been living with the same few people for almost my whole life: my mother, my brother, my sister, and my stepfather. My stepdad’s been with us since I was three (I’m 15), and I consider him my real father. My family is happy, and I’d be pretty content if it wasn’t for one thing.
My “real” dad has been divorced from my mom since I was a baby. My mother was granted full custody. I’ve been seeing him in solely a courthouse environment ever since he physically attacked my stepfather, by smashing his head into a wall, when I was a kid. He was abusive to my mother, he was mentally unstable, he stalked another woman, he took a lot of drugs, he got into fistfights with all of my mother’s relatives, and he ran away and left my mom with two little babies repeatedly. Since I was a kid the most contact I’ve had with him is a one-hour-a-week visit, and even that was cut off two years ago. That was his choice, though I don’t really know why he did it. Maybe he thought that he’d be granted unsupervised visits rather than our not getting to see our “father” at all?
This is not a person I know, really, or have any desire to have a connection with. Nevertheless, he still insists on having contact with my sister and I. When we don’t call him, he calls us, and talks about how we shouldn’t let our mother bully us into not calling him. Lately he’s started being more passive-aggressive, and saying how we should stand up to our parents. I think he knows that it’s my choice not to see him. Occasionally he shows up at our house and gets into shouting matches with my mother, who has told him not to come over. He can’t hold a job at 36, and wears clothes with holes in them and dreadlocks.
Basically, my problem is that I want to figure out how to cut this relationship off. I’m getting nothing more from it than a mountain of guilt when he calls, and a nagging worry in the back of my mind that he’ll show up at my house. Last time he did I cried hysterically beforehand. If I ignore the relationship, like I have been for my whole life, it’ll stay the same as it is now. I think he might just be waiting until I go to college to finally see me as much as he wants to. I’m almost worried that he would start stalking me. If I tell him all of this, then he’ll turn it on me, and manipulate my words, and say this is all my mom’s doing. He definitely won’t take it well, and he probably won’t accept it at all. When I used to try to hang up the phone when he called he wouldn’t let me.
He says he’s changed, but I really don’t think he has. There’s no sign that he’s had a girlfriend in ten years. He can’t deal with my mother. He can’t hold a job. He’s still manipulative. He used to plan with me and my sister how someday he would see us half the time and we would sleepover his house. Just…how do I end this? I’m sorry for writing so much, there’s just so much angst. I got his big head and his height. I just don’t want anything else. And I really want to emphasize that this isn’t a case of our turning against him because our mother manipulated us. I’m an intelligent person, and I can think for myself, and I know that he’s unstable.
Fed-up “Daughter” in New England
Dear Fed,
Wait, he “wouldn’t let you” hang up? Can’t you just…hang it up anyway? And who cares if he thinks your mom manipulated you? The guy is a puling stain. Cut him off. And get your mom to help you.
First, tell him that you don’t want any contact with him anymore. Do not give him a chance to respond; get the sentence out and hang up the phone. Tell your mom that you plan to do this, and ask her if there’s any legal way to keep him away from you, because I do think you should look into that, especially if he has a penchant for just showing up at the house and getting belligerent. Yeah, it’s kind of a pain, but I bet you and your mom can go to family court and get any remaining rights of his removed, plus an order of protection if need be.
He knows you can do that; he’s trying to guilt you into keeping him in your life, manipulating you by implying that you can’t think for yourself. But again, who gives a shit what that hosebag things? If he honestly believes that you don’t want to see him because you’re your mother’s stooge, well, as long as he stays away from you, let him think that. His opinion is worth nothing.
Talk to your mom and stepdad. Get them to back you up; see if there isn’t some court-ordered way to make your bio dad fuck off. And tell him to fuck off. He’s good at fucking off from what I can see.
Dear Sars,
I have a problem. I am in high school, and I am in love with my ex-best friend. Normally this would be like something out of a cheesy romantic comedy, except that we are both boys.
We were very close friends for several years, and earlier this year he told me he liked me, in a “more than friends” sort of way. At the time I told him that it wasn’t true, that he didn’t like me, and I didn’t like him. It was a mean and stupid thing to say, and he was hurt. We stopped hanging out, and I felt horrible. I realized that I had been lying to myself and him about my feelings.
It has been about six months now, in which he has had a string of relationships with girls that have all ended within weeks or sometimes days. When I got the nerve up to ask him if he had ever really liked me, he said that he had. Besides this, I can’t tell how he feels now at all. I know he is hurt, and he doesn’t consider me as his best friend any longer, but he is still friendly when we are together. He acts the way he did before I told him I didn’t like him.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t talk to my friends about this, and I definitely can’t talk to my parents. I know I need to talk to him, but it is so hard. Is it worth it to admit how I feel? Do we have any chance, or should I just try to forget him and kick myself for being too scared and closeted to do anything when I did have a chance?
Sincerely,
Internalized Homophobia is a Bitch
Dear Intern,
You should talk to him, but you should manage your expectations — on the one hand, I think it’s important for you to let him know how you really feel, and primarily that you regret hurting his feelings and losing his close friendship. But on the other hand, you probably shouldn’t cast it in your mind as something that’s necessarily going to lead to a relationship. In other words, do it because you want to clear the air and do right by the situation, not because you hope to get something out of it.
It’s difficult to go back to something like that and admit that you handled it badly, but it’s worth doing for exactly that reason. You’ll feel better once you’ve been honest, and he’ll appreciate the apology and clarification, I imagine, so take a deep breath, invite him out for a coffee, and speak frankly.
[8/25/04]
Tags: boys (and girls) popcult roommates the fam
