The Vine: December 16, 2009
Hey Sars,
So, I’m not going to bore you with the same “my cat pees out of the litterbox” question.He had urinary stones, they’ve been dealt with, he still pees inappropriately.I deal with it.Here’s my question for you: do you know of any way to “cleanse the palate” of your nose, to be able to smell what you’re used to?
Even though I clean the spots rigorously, I worry that my house has the patented “Cat Stench.”I ask friends to be honest with me, but…that has not turned out well for me in the past.(Really, I know I’m a nice person, but when I ask for an honest assessment, don’t tell me my house smells of roses when it’s more like rose fertilizer!)
I’ve tried the perfumer’s trick of inhaling coffee beans and then sniffing, but I still can’t tell if we’re “normal cat” level or “crazy cat lady” level. Any other hints?
I get all my exercise from scrubbing pee-spots
Dear Ex,
I also have a horror of The Cat Stench — or, really, that my apartment features The Cat Stench and I’ve stopped noticing.My cats, knock wood, confine their peeing to the box, but my apartment isn’t very big, and certainly a piquant Hobey poo fills the joint in no time flat.
My best gauge of the relative levels of TCS is to go out for the day.I get accustomed to other smells, or no smells, and when I get back home, I smell everything anew — whether the trash needs to go out, whether I left the coffee on the hot plate too long, whether the litter is getting ripe.
It’s still probably more noticeable to people who don’t live there, but I think you do get almost the full effect just by spending time elsewhere for a day or two.
Dear Sars,
I’m so embarrassed to be 26 and somehow have missed out on developing the skill of dealing with this, but here goes. I’m a woman with a long-term, long-distance boyfriend. Every so often, I meet new people who don’t know about said boyfriend. Occasionally, they ask me out. Or, more confusingly for me, they ask me if I want to get dinner or coffee or hang out sometime, and I think they’re asking me out, but I’m not completely sure, because those are all things I do with my friends of either sex.
I want a good standard response that will not lead them on, not be rude, invite friendship if that’s what we’re both after, and minimize the awkwardness for all parties. I don’t have the greatest social skills in general, but I believe I can learn! (Actually, there’s a lot of autism in my family, which may explain why I need more explicit instruction in handling interactions than do most people.)
In case this context helps: yesterday I got an email from a classmate asking me to dinner. I thought it was pretty unambiguously a date request. My impulse was to write something pretty straightforward, along the lines of: “Hanging out sometime would be great. Now here’s the awkward part: I wasn’t sure how to interpret your email. I’ve got a boyfriend. But if you mean friendly dinner, sounds great.”
My roommate and best friend both convinced me this was a horrible idea, and I wound up sending something more like, “Hanging out would be great! My availability is limited, because I often visit my boyfriend, who lives in another city, on weekends. But let’s find a time when we can.” I sent it, but I felt very awkward and fake. It seemed so transparent that I’m not sure it was actually more kind. Like, if you ask someone out like that, you know the answer might be no; is it just patronizing if they pretend they misunderstood?
Later that same day, I ran into a former classmate I’d always enjoyed chatting with, and we talked for a while. He asked if I’d want to get coffee sometime, and I said sure and gave him my phone number. Then it occurred to me that maybe that was an invitation to a date as well, and I felt like a jerk for leading him on. This has happened before and I always vow to avoid it next time around, but I don’t know how because I don’t know what to say instead. Please help!
I know it’s not a big deal to say no, so why can’t I figure out how to say it?
Dear No,
Is it “no” you want to say?Because in that case, yes, you should just say it.”I’m sorry, I won’t be able to.””That sounds great, but I’m afraid I can’t.”
But if what you actually want to say is, “I’d like to hang out with you platonically, but if this is a date, I can’t go because I have a boyfriend,” you…could just say that, too, but it’s a bit presumptuous for every situation.Maybe it’s part of your social-skills issue that you can’t tell when it’s a date request and when it’s a hang-out request, and I don’t have the best radar for that either, but it’s generally not all that ambiguous; you can usually suss out when you should mention the boyfriend and when you needn’t bother.
But if you want a default, you could go with something like, “Sounds fun — but I think my boyfriend and I might have plans that day/night, so let me check my schedule to make sure.”
As a sidebar, I’ve seldom encountered this on either side, because I feel like people in relationships tend to mention the other person fairly frequently — not as an out-of-context announcement, but the “my girlfriend likes that show” or “my fiancé was just saying” type of thing.I’d extend that to relationships generally, not just romantic ones; you talk to someone for 10-15 minutes, you can get a general layout of their circle based on who’s mentioned and who’s not.(And it goes the other way as well.On occasion, a wife is noticeably not brought up and you have to think there’s a reason.)I’ll have to listen for that the next time I meet someone and get into conversation with him/her, because I don’t know if I’m right about that, but I think I am.
Not that you should go around randomly inserting your boyfriend into conversations on my say-so, but that these prospective suitors talk to you long enough to want to ask you out again, and yet the boyfriend doesn’t come up during that time, is interesting.Again, not a judgment.
Hiya, Sars.
Oh, the holidays. This letter is such a cliché (zomg holiday family dramz? NO WAY) but honestly, I could use a reality check.
The situation: My sister is married and has two kids. Her husband has a large extended family and they all live in the same area, while my parents live about three hours from them. I, on the other hand, live about 15 hours away, and am single. Now, it has come to pass that, now that my sister has kids, my parents and I all make the trek to her house for Xmas, because it’s easier for them not to travel with the kids, and because that way, her kids get to see both their sets of grandparents.
But here’s the thing: I really don’t like it. As nice as her in-laws are, they’re not my family, and everything always seems to end up being really stressy, because the kids (my niece and nephew and their cousins — and little kids are seriously like my kryptonite) are all hopped up on sugar and toys, and because the in-laws are yellers (affectionate yellers, but still) and because all of that is on top of the stress of dealing with my own parents.
Here’s the immediate crisis: This year, my sister and BIL moved into a new, much larger house. In previous years, it was agreed that my (medium-sized) dog would not come to Christmas, because their old house was just too small. So this year, I called and said, “Hey, now that the house is so much bigger and has a fenced yard, can Dog come?” Sister said she would check with her husband and call me back, and when she did, she announced that yes, Dog could come — IF Dog stayed locked up in their basement, “and you can sleep down there with her!” Gee, can I? Thanks. (I should point out that there are two perfectly good guest bedrooms upstairs, one of which would not be occupied if I slept in the basement.)
So, I get that they are trying to compromise there, but at the same time, I’m getting a pretty clear message that Dog is actually not welcome, and I’m not particularly down with keeping my dog locked in a basement (or sleeping in one myself).
Because I am going to be a guest in their home, and I think it is courteous to try to be respectful of my hosts’ wishes, I make arrangements for Dog to stay at a kennel in my parents’ town. I will drop her off Christmas Eve, drive to my sister’s, do the Christmas morning thing, then drive back on Christmas afternoon to pick up Dog. I will do this because A) I am kind of poor, and can’t afford to board her for a bunch of nights and B) because, hi, I love my dog and would actually rather not stick her in a kennel for longer than I have to. I think I’ve got it worked out pretty well.
BUT NO. Because when my sister finds out I am leaving Christmas afternoon, there are tears and recriminations. Apparently I am ruining Christmas by doing this. Whereas I think I am actually doing my bit by making arrangements to show up sans dog for Christmas Eve, kid present extravaganza, and enormous family brunch (despite really not wanting to go at all in the first place) and not just to show up, but to show up cheerfully, with lots of presents and Christmas spirit. I am, furthermore, going to be spending New Year’s and several days before that with them, so it’s not like this is our only chance to see each other over the holidays.
So here are the things that are in play as I see it:
A) The immediate problem: I am resentful that, because I am trying to be a good guest by boarding Dog — who, rightly or wrongly, I consider my family — I am being guilt-tripped about leaving Christmas afternoon.
B) The larger problem: I love my sister and want to spend time with her, but am resentful that my needs always seem to come second to her needs around the holidays, and that every member of both families seems to think that this is the natural course of things, since I am a childless spinster who should be happy to join someone else’s family. (I, it should be said, would be more than happy to tuck up alone with a pizza and a bottle of champers on any given holiday. I guess the thing that really gets my goat here is that I know that if I were married, no one would even give it a second thought that I wasn’t around every other Christmas, but because I’m not, that’s not an option.)
And, finally, the question(s):
Per Problem A: Am I being ridiculously selfish for leaving Christmas afternoon? I am genuinely trying to be a good team player here, but am I just delusional? Should I leave the 26th instead?
Per Problem B: If I am being selfish, isn’t that okay sometimes? Shouldn’t we get to take turns about it? Or am I condemned to a lifetime of putting on my game face and being the 153rd wheel at my sister’s in-laws’ family gatherings, because that is the generous thing to do?
The Grinch, Who Lives Just North of Whoville
Dear Grinch,
A) No.B) In theory, yes, but you have to live in reality.
In order to deal with this situation, which is really two situations, I think you have to set aside temporarilty the fact that you don’t really want to be there.You have chosen to go this year; deal with the particulars of that first.
Tell your sister, nicely, what you just told me about Dog.Dog is your family too; it’s unpleasant for her and expensive for you to kennel her for an extended period, and the alternative (the two of you spend the holiday in the basement) is, while you appreciate your sister’s position on it, frankly not appealing to you either.This is the solution you have come up with.You didn’t intend to upset your sister, but: this is the solution you’ve come up with.
I wouldn’t mention that the herd of overexcited kids and yelly adults is not your jam; I wouldn’t mention that you’d prefer a little more equity in the holiday arrangements.Deal with this issue, which is about Dog, and do it by explaining your reasoning, reassuring her that you look forward to spending time with her at New Year’s, and not bargaining.Dog is important to you; you have to leave Christmas Day to deal with her; you’re sorry Sister feels that way.But that’s her choice.
As to the larger point, I feel like I’ve addressed this before from a different angle, but everyone in these situations at these times has to make and remember the distinction between “more convenient” and “more important.”For themselves, for their sanity, for the sake of others’ feelings: there is “more convenient,” and there is “more important.”
This is my first holiday season in a position like yours, and it’s not really the same — I get along with my parents, my brother’s in-laws yell a lot but have excellent comic timing about it, we all live close to one another, and most importantly, nobody involved reads “no kids” as “no life.””Different,” yes.”Better able to move about unfettered,” oh yes.But Mr. S has a baby, and everyone kind of goes where the baby is because…that’s how that goes.If the S family moves to a big old house in western PA, that’s where the baby is, so…that’s where we’ll go, because traveling with a child or children and all their bottles and binkies and blankies and board books, and amusing them on flights, and trying to change them in the airport lounge, and keeping them from getting carsick (or…not) — if you don’t have to do it, you don’t do it.I wouldn’t.So I’ll go to the baby — unless I have other plans, which Mr. S will respect, because he doesn’t think that just because I can make the trip more easily than he can means that I have to, or that I have nothing better to do.
It’s easy to feel taken for granted with that stuff, and to a certain extent, you will be no matter what, because it is in fact more convenient, net, for you to come to them.
The thing is, you can’t change the part where the sibling or siblings with small children dominate the holiday-venue discussion most of the time.But if it’s not actually less inconvenient for you?Don’t go.Make yourself important.If you just don’t want to go next year, then just…don’t go.Make other plans, send your regrets, and feel good about it, and if your family questions the choice, you can tell them, look, I love you guys, but the trip is exhausting, and I have to do it every time — and I understand why that is, but I just can’t this year.And let them respect that, or not.
And they may not, but if you take yourself and your own time for granted, they’ll keep doing it too.You can’t do much about the difference between your sister’s travel needs and yours, but if you feel like nobody appreciates that you go to all this trouble to attend when you don’t even want to, then…give yourself a year off.Everyone wins.
Tags: boys (and girls) cats the fam
PS Cut the rebop!
Please don’t randomly insert a reference to your boyfriend into every conversation. It makes you sound dependent and uninformed. “I’ll need to check with my boyfriend first.” “My boyfriend says…”
Also, if you want to spend time with me, then spend time with me. If you don’t, then don’t. A dinner invitation is not an invitation to copulate. If you stop trying to read so much into a simple invitation, you might get to know some really great guys.
Oh, I hope this delves into everyone’s amazing holiday drama stories!! I love those.
I don’t yet have the closely-related-child issues with holidays, but my family is spread pretty far across the US. I haven’t been with my family on a major holiday since…gosh, 2005, I think? And I love my family! We get along swimmingly! But I have no money and hate traveling during the holidays, so a phone call does the trick.
I’ve been lucky enough to live with my best friend for several years now, though, and her family lives just a few hours from where we were living. I tagged along with her to their family events, even though her family is CRAZY, because 1) I like my best friend, and 2) she needed someone to drink with.
Now, this year for Christmas my best friend (with whom I just moved across the country, for fun) is out of the country for another month, so I’m doing NOTHING. No family visit (I also cannot afford to board my dogs), no BFF’s crazy family, nothing. I’m SO EXCITED. I whole-heartedly agree with Sars: make yourself important.
My only sadness about this holiday season is that Starbucks is not bringing back their Salted Caramel hot chocolate. When they told me this, I told the barista that Christmas was ruined!
That cat pee question bothers me too. I am always worried that the main room the cats pee in smells like pee and I’m just numb to it.
@(Not the) Grinch – You’re coming in from 15 hours away and boarding your dog so you can spend time with your sister and her in-laws. YOU are not the problem here.
Grinch (and Sarah), I appreciate that you at least get that it’s harder to travel with the kids. My family doesn’t. I live within easy driving distance of my sister and dad, and have visited them each- with kids in tow- a ton more than they have ever visited me. My sister and I live in the same city, only 35 minutes apart, and she managed to make it to my house exactly one time in a year and a half. It’s caused some serious trouble among my family and me. I actually tried the whole “not going” thing, as Sarah suggests, and basically I then didn’t see my family. It ultimately didn’t matter to them that I wasn’t there. That realization kind of sucked.
Oh, god, I have the cat lady smell paranoia too. And it’s worse now, because one of my little monsters had a urinary thing about a year ago and started peeing everywhere and I COULD NOT SMELL IT EVEN A LITTLE, so I am terrified that everything smells awful and everyone who comes to my house is like, “Holy shit, she’s really lost it now, hasn’t she.” I think part of the reason I couldn’t smell anything was that I lived with a smoker; when I moved out and started unpacking, not only could could I suddenly smell pee on things, I could also suddenly really smell the smoke. So I think Sars is right on about getting away from your house and smelling other things for a long time and then coming back.
The other thing you can try is closing off rooms in your house, and coming back to them after a day or two and seeing what your nose finds. Probably, though, if you are generally cleaning regularly, keeping after the box, and getting to accidents as soon as you find them, you’re fine.
@Krissa: bicoastal internet hugs!
@Ex: Since you know there is potential to have Stinky Crazy Cat Lady House and you are vigilant in preventing it, I think your house is probably fine – but I agree with Sars – spend a day or two away, and you’ll have your answer when you come home. Unless Darling Kitty peed on the floor while you were gone, and then you’ll get in a whole extra session of arm-toning.
@ No- I used to feel the same way and didn’t think it had to do with social skills, I think it has to do with a long distance relationship. Always showing up at events and bars stag or with friends doesn’t send boyfriend signals.
I usually offer up something like “oh I would LOVE to go for coffee! It is really hard to make male friends when you have a boyfriend and I’m dying to talk baseball or whatever”. Some guys backpedal but at least then you’ll know.
Another Single Sibling here. Although I was married long ago and even have a granddaughter, I don’t go anywhere at the holidays by choice. I even have Boyfriend, who is traveling overseas with his own family, but I’m also kind of poor and don’t like their family dynamic either. So I’m housesitting for him, spent Thanksgiving alone with a book, his cat, a nice fire in the wood stove, and homemade espresso, and will spend Christmas the same way.
I used to visit my own family, on the Other Coast, at Christmas and/or Thanksgiving, and never got to really interact with anyone. By the time the children had finished having hysterics because they were so over-hyped, and people were finished trying to impress each other with the cool presents they had bought, it was exhausting and a waste of vacation time, not to mention the credit card bill that I really didn’t want either. After some hairy drives to and from the airport, I quit traveling from November through March.
The single sibling, whether divorced or never-married, often gets put in this situation. You have to figure out what you want to do, who you’d like to spend what kind of time with, and go from there.
Cut back to one major holiday first, then go from there. And don’t forget that the children will get older and they won’t want to be there either.
For the woman in the long-distance relationship: I was in one for two years myself (we are now living together, finally!), and the way I handled those situations was to turn it into a group thing. It doesn’t work for everything, of course, but if a coworker (or classmate, in your case) invites you to do go out for drinks after work, you can always say “Sure, let’s see if Mary and Jane want to go too!” — even if it ends up being just the two of you, you’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t view it as a date.
I agree, though…those “I’d-love-to-but-not-if-it’s-a-date” conversations can be pretty awkward.
As someone who has just navigated her way through WWIII with her husband concerning the “why are we made to feel like 2nd class citizens b/c we don’t have kids and your siblings do” holiday debate, I’d say Sars’ advice is spot on. Grin and bear it while you can, and when/if the time comes you’re no longer able to participate in this way, you say as much and you feel proud of yourself for doing so.
(such a joyous time, innit?)
To Pee-Spots: you’re not crazy, and you’re not alone. I’ve always been fascinated with how different people’s houses smell. When I was a kid I used to ask people who came over, “so what does *our* house smell like? Yours smells like my grandmother!” I was a charming child.
To the UnGrinch: I have the traveling issue, though it has nothing to do with small kids. My small nuclear family lives in one state, I live in another. It is always up to me to travel and see them. In the 10 years I have lived away from my home state, my parents have visited twice, and never for a major holiday. My mom has pulled out the “it’s more fun for you to come home”card and I have to grit my teeth because 12-14 hours roundtrip in the car? Not fun or convenient. Last year I stayed with my bf’s family for Christmas, and guess what? My mom was sad, but I called her on Xmas, talked to the whole family, opened presents the next time I visited, and everyone survived. If the inconvenience of going has regularly overwhelmed the joy of being there, then I think you are entitled to make your own schedule.
One of the best things I ever did was give myself permission to not go home for Christmas. The holidays, even with family you like, can be fraught. Getting home is a production; will the weather delay the flights? Can I afford the flights? Do I shop before I leave, or when I get there? How much family can I jam into 4 days that include the Christmas production? How can you call this a holiday?
So, after having increasing dread about the whole thing as the years went by, one year I just said ‘I’m not going’. To ease us all into the idea, I blamed work. “Sorry – they won’t give me the time off this year”. The fam was dissappointed, but got over it. Its not even a topic of discussion. And, I’ve built my own holiday traditions.
So, instead of visiting each year when its REALLY cold, and snowy, and we’re all stuck in the house on top of each other, I go in the spring or in the fall when airfare is cheaper, the weather is nicer, and there’s not the whole Christmas thing hanging over us. And, frankly, it is so much nicer! Everyone is relaxed, kids and dogs are running around outside, and we’re not all in a turkey coma and longjohns.
Oh – and I’m with Karissa with the whole Starbucks thing! The best beverage ever, and its gone!
What really cracks me up is Grinch’s sister probably isn’t even going to notice that Grinch leaves in the afternoon – not with all those other people around, seriously.
Boyfriend and I lucked out this year… we both just got over a nasty bout of post-Thanksgiving flu and just don’t have the energy to shop, wrap presents, attend parties and what-not, so we basically told the family that we’ll get gift cards for the kids and stuff, but no presents, no coming down for massive gift-opening extravaganza, nada. We’ll show up for a meal with family and conversation after that, but that’s it.
Now, they’re all the massive presents tons of parties type people (completely the opposite of us). And honestly, it’s not like us being at the massive parties and such is really a necessary thing, so eh, we’re over it. And since we can play the “flu” card this year, they’re willing to not guilt us. We’re hoping it will go so well that we can just have this as our standard deal next year without the guilt, too…
If I’m the sister, and it’s really that important to me, I say “Would it help if I kicked in for the extra day at the kennel?” even if I think the most obvious solution is everyone stays in the basement. Compromise!
@Patricia: That is a really, really sucky thing to realize, when you discover that … it doesn’t matter if you don’t show up. ESPECIALLY when you’re the one with the kids. However, now that you know that? You don’t have to travel. Stay home, and create the holidays that YOU want for yourself and your family.
Which brings me to … NotGrinch. Two-people families are FAMILIES. One person-beloved pet(s) are FAMILIES. You’re allowed to make your own holidays, TOO. I’ve reached a point in my life where traveling a lot is NOT festive, NOT celebratory, and I need the rest. I call my family, tell them I love them, and I. STAY. HOME. You’re allowed to do that, even if other people start to flap and flutter, because YOUR FAMILY COUNTS, TOO. I do think it’s ridiculous for people to expect families with infants to travel (SIL’S PARENTS), and I think you’ve really stepped up to the plate, NotGrinch, but … 15 hours? Next year, if you’d rather stay home, STAY. HOME. It’s okay. Even if other people squeak, it’s OK. Other people need to respect YOUR family, too.
@Ex: plus, there’s the whole scrubbing-the-plastic-catbox-which-holds-odors, too. Which is on my festive list for the weekend!
Yeah, the “blah blah blah my boyfriend” is awkward, but it’s news everyone can use. “How are you today?” “I’m great, I just talked to my bf who lives in X, and he says he can come out in X!” It’s hard, especially if you’re not used to talking about your personal life, but people want to know.
All I have to do is leave my cat-laden house for a few hours, and when I walk back in I can tell if the litterbox is in need of scooping or not. That’s all the “palette cleansing” I need, and I think that’s probably true for most people.
I am the single woman who always has to travel to be with family on holidays, though fortunately it’s not a long journey. Is it a little irritating to be EXPECTED to come to them each year? Well, maybe a little…but I get why it makes the most sense, generally. And, I have to say, as a child, I was fortunate enough to spend holidays with both sets of grandparents in the same place and, often, additional grandparents of some of my cousins. Was it noisy and chaotic? Well, yeah. But, looking back…I wouldn’t have traded those big, noisy celebrations for anything. Does it make Grinch feel a little better to know that her nieces and nephews are being given such wonderful times to look back on?
I have it easy, because my sister’s a childless lesbian, I’m a childless spinster, and my parents are both orphans (and they both heartily recommend marrying an orphan)! That said, the parents live a day’s drive away in a part of the country with serious winter weather, and we decided some years back that the holidays were too big a pain in the ass to plan around. So we don’t. We have Christmas in February, when the roads are clear and the flights are cheap and it’s grey and depressing and it seems like fun to decorate a tree and open presents and overeat. It’s awesome. I recommend it to everyone, everywhere. After all, as we remind each other each year, nobody really has any idea when Jesus was actually born.
Ex, I echo the fears of cat-related odors. Two things that make me much more confident, just in case you haven’t tried them – an ultra-violet light and Nature’s Miracle. Untreated pet stains fluoresce under ultra-violet light, so you can be sure you’ve found all the spots that need cleaned. They even sell them as Stink-Finders.
piquant Hobey poo
is a sick designer’s dream
for naming perfume
Grinch here. Sars and commenters, seriously, thanks. I’ve been making myself kind of crazy about this (“I’m being mean!” “I’m taking care of myself!” “I’m being mean!” “I’m taking care of myself!”) so I really appreciate you all making me feel like I’m actually not being totally unreasonable about this. I’m prepping my seriously happy face for Eve/Morning and then not feeling guilty about getting out of there that afternoon.
I’m so glad other people have the cat pee worry! I used to work with a wonderful woman who reeked of cat pee (never visited her house, but the smell seemed to have soaked into all of her clothes, or maybe into her pores), so I know that some sort of odor-receptor burnout can happen. Can’t someone invent something that will detect pee molecules in the air, like the pee smell version of a smoke alarm?
@ Grinch: I feel for you. No one in either immediate family has kids, but somehow my husband and I always end up traveling on holidays. This Thanksgiving, citing the distance (we live on the west coast, families are in the midwest and south respectively) and the fact that my husband got no time off right before, we begged off Thanskgiving. I couldn’t really talk my way out of Christmas, so I caved and we get to spend it at my parents’ (my dad hates traveling, and my folks did come visit us in the fall, so I felt bad asking him to get on a plane again so soon), but we’re sort of reaching a point where, kids or no kids in our future, we may just want to stay home and visit some other time of the year (and save ourselves a substantial amount of money spent on hiring a catsitter for several days’ worth of wellness visits).
I also think @chisch has the right idea: if your sister is really that concerned about you only spending half a day visiting her at home, why can’t she kick in some money for boarding, or just amend her invite that the dog can be welcome to stay with you in her guest room? Unless you have people who are allergic to dogs staying in the home too, what’s the big deal about the dog spending time with the rest of the family (and even if she does, can’t the dog just stay in a guest room with you)?
Ex, I’ll be honest with you if you’ll be honest with me! Or we should both just have Suz over!
No, I agree with GC. I assume it’s platonic until it proves itself otherwise. It’s just easier to assume no romantic interest. I’ve had very few “OMG, is this a DATE?” conversations.
Grinch – do what makes you & the poochie happy. We all romanticize the holidays. I think your sister has a big dream of a perfect dinner with all her family and friends gathered around the table laid with crystal & silver & linens & the perfect meal, all singing “Kumbaya” or something. It won’t go like that – ever. Someone will have spilled something, the rolls will burn, someone will start a spat, the TV will be too loud – it’s always something. By the time you leave that afternoon, your sister’s fantasy will be shot to shit already and she’ll unclench and be ready to let go of the dream. No one has a perfect holiday. Do what makes yours happiest.
When I was first married (to an only child whose mother also had no siblings), his mother got stupid about holidays. They are Canadian, so we were able to spend Thanksgiving with both families (since they are in different months). We announced we would alternate Christmases, and his mom pitched a FIT. “It’s not FAIR! If you go there, we have only ourselves, but if you come here, HER PARENTS still have her BROTHER! It’s not like they NEED her!”
We tried inviting both families to join us when we got a big enough house, and my family was game (no small children at the time), but his parents seemed to think that it was just another way to marginalize them.
What you have to do in these situations is to figure out what ground you want to defend and what ground you are willing to give up. Maybe you would feel better going to the big family to-do every other year. Or not at all. Or doing it the way you want to do it this year, where you balance your family and your dog and your budget, and make a plan. Then you just explain yourself and hold firm without attacking.
People get weird about holidays, and other people’s ideas often make no sense. Twenty years later, I still can’t figure out how my MIL seriously thought it would not matter to my parents never to see me on a holiday because my brother would be there, but she seriously did think that. Trying to make her “see reason” was out of the question, so all we could do was draw our own lines and deal with the fallout.
The trick is to recognize that the only person who gets to decide how you balance all the facts of your life is you, and allow yourself the freedom to make your choices. Then act with compassion and gentle firmness.
Hey Grinch I feel you on your situation and yeah, if you sister is going to be all “ruin Christmas” drama that’s her problem.
I also agree you are well within your rights to skip Christmas on occasion, what with the travel and the expense and so on. Especially since it sounds as if, even if you do take the dog, your sister is going to be all highly strung stresspants about where it can and can’t go, which is going to make you feel like you are on guard all day.
And yeah it would be nice if it wasn’t you who had to do it every time BUT it is easy to take for granted the single person’s situation. Even without the kid factor, Christmas logistics are often sooooo much easier when you are single (YMMV). Trying to please two sets of parents, more if there’s divorce as well, without offending anyone can be like brokering a peace accord. I refuse to do two meals in one day (and often distance makes it possible), alternating whose family gets boxing day and whose gets Christmas Eve dinner or Boxing Day each year.
That said, I think it gets to a point where you just have to decide what Christmas you want and start a new tradition. People may follow or don’t.
I’m really surprised at the number of times I heard on this site and others that the families with kids get to dictate Christmas/significant holidays. It’s just never been the case in my family growing up or now that I have a daughter. I understand that my single sister (if she’s in town) tends to go with what my folks are doing, but she’s certainly not required to spend it with my husband, daughter and I, if we’re doing something else. Also, given that all my siblings and I have spent several Christmases out of the country, my parents don’t expect anything.
As for when I was a kid, well, we have great memories of lots of different Christmases: sometimes at home or my Grandma’s or my aunt’s with my dad’s extended family; sometimes after we’d all been bundled in the car, driven for several hours, taken a ferry, driven another hour or so to my other grandparents’ house, to spend Christmas with whichever members of my mum’s family could make it.
Essentially, it’s unusual for a family to only have one branch of grandchildren, so at some point the babies are going to have to travel. And they cope.
Ah, yes – the traveling maiden aunt problem. In my case it was compounded by the Catholic/Christian/Baby Jeebus family and in-laws vs. the single little ol’ pagan who needs to come visit so they can be sure I’m not dancing naked under the moon. I decided several years ago, that I’m not going to be guilted into the holiday thing. It was uncomfortable the first year or so, but now they realize I actually WILL leave when I’m ready to go.
It isn’t easy the first time, but it was worth every tearful eye and booboo lip they threw at me.
“(And it goes the other way as well. On occasion, a wife is noticeably not brought up and you have to think there’s a reason.)”
—
“Not that you should go around randomly inserting your boyfriend into conversations on my say-so, but that these prospective suitors talk to you long enough to want to ask you out again, and yet the boyfriend doesn’t come up during that time, is interesting.”
I recognize myself in this. I am sometimes guilty of talking to people and avoiding referring to my partner, and then I wonder why afterwords. Part of it is definitely that I don’t always feel comfortable being that personal, maybe because my partner is the same sex, and that can sometimes feel like Coming Out all the time – even if it isn’t that big a deal, principally. (In some conversations I on the other hand enjoy confusing people with referring to ex-boyfriend in one sentence and girlfriend in the next, the perks with being bi;-))
BUT the “not mentioning partner” is definitely a behaviour I’ve had in every relationship:-/ Some part of it is (shameful) that I enjoy the conversation/ flirting, and if I’m attracted to the person I’m talking to I tend to leave partner outside of the conversation, not really consciously, but just sort of avoiding it… “No” might or might not be guilty of the same thing? Or maybe I’m just hoping I’m not the only one, as I tend to feel really guilty :-o
What would happen if you went out on coffee with someone, and then mentioned your boyfriend when it comes naturally? I mean, if the other person likes you enough to want to go for a coffee, the fact that you are in a relationship shouldn’t matter so much, methinks?
A dinner invitation might not be an invitation to copulate, but a lot of the time it DOES have romantic connotations, especially in certain circles…and to those saying she’s raeding too much into it, well *maybe*, but I know in my experience, I have definitely had those ‘wait…is this a date?’ moments. I have dinner alone with my friends, male and female, all the time, but others in my social circle don’t really do that, so there is often that ‘…how do you mean it’ moment. In the past ‘asking out to dinner’ was definitely meant romantically, and some still have that association.
So I am thinking that questioning it isn’t necessarily out of line or being overly analytical. It’s a thin line as you don’t want to be the person who’s always mentioning their boyfriend…but on the other hand, never mentioning him will make people think you’re single, and a single man asking a single woman for dinner or coffee..the ‘is it a date’ question will happen!
On a similar note, how would one go about asking someone for dinner or coffee and make it obvious it IS romantic?
It won’t actually kill anyone to find out mid-outing that the thing they thought was a date actually isn’t. I was on the receiving end of that one – it was a little awkward, and I was kind of disappointed, but it wasn’t a big deal. I had asked him to have a drink, we went, and about 20 minutes in he said something about liquor laws in Norway “where my girlfriend is from, though now we live together here.” I processed this in the time it took me to take a long sip of my drink, listened to my inner voice shout HE DIDN’T THINK THIS WAS A DATE and went along on the platonic path by ordering another drink. It wasn’t the most comfortable moment, but it wasn’t horrible either. These things happen.
@Grinch – have you ever looked into having a petsitter? I’ve been using professional petsitters for years and have always been really happy with the arrangement. It’s worth a shot, though at this point they might be pretty well booked up for Christmas, but definitely something to consider for the future. Ask your vet’s office if they know of any good ones (and your vet techs might be in the biz themselves – my mom’s petsitter is a tech at her vet’s office). It can be much less expensive than boarding (though YMMV), and so many animals do better at home with a stranger than in a cage at the kennel.
@No: While name-dropping your boyfriend may seem awkward, finding out ON the date that it is, in fact, a date is even more awkward. You don’t have to become one of those annoying “my boyfriend” chicks, in fact I think Sars’ or BDanger’s responses are perfect. And outright asking “Is this a date? Because I have a boyfriend” can make you sound egotistical. Sometimes a tiny bit of fakery is necessary to smooth things over socially – it doesn’t make you a fake person.
I’m always so late in posting that it seems like most of the points I would’ve made have been covered. Here goes anyway:
@No: That’s a tough one. Based on my experience, 95% (or more) of guys asking you to dinner are asking for a date. Just coffee? It’s lower but still probably 75%. I can get that you don’t want to assume that they have romantic interest in you, but there’s a good chance it’s there, and the guy is NOT going to be happy when you drop the boyfriend bomb on what he thinks is a date. I like Sars’s idea to casually mention the bf in terms of checking your schedule. Lets the guy save face and you get to find out for sure if it’s platonic.
@Patricia: That sucks and I’m sorry your family behaved that way.
@Grinch: I think what you planned sounds completely reasonable and actually very unselfish. You have a life and a dog who needs you and you’re already doing a lot just to be there at all. I’ll take you for a sister — my older one won’t make a 35 minute drive from the city she lives in out to the burbs where our parents live to visit with us when we fly in (with one toddler and one big kid) to the midwest from the east coast, and my brother (with one toddler) flies in from the west coast. The last time I saw her or my teenaged nephew was two years ago, and that was for about an hour, and well after the littler kids were asleep, so she’s never even seen my younger kid. So yeah, you’re not only being fair; in my mind, you’re going above and beyond. Stand your ground on this.
By the way, in defense of my sister, I feel like I need to point out that she’s in no way a high-strung monster-quite the opposite, really. But she is caught a little bit in the middle, as I’m pretty sure it’s mostly her husband who doesn’t want the dog in the house. So I think part of what’s going on with her is that she wants me to be there, and to be happy to be there, but feels like she has to side with her husband on this, so she’s got tension from both sides.
I once found out during dinner that it was, in fact, a date. That was awkward. In my defense, I didn’t feel the need to clarify ahead of time that I wasn’t interested since he had a girlfriend, and he was good friends with my boyfriend, so I thought we were in the clear. Nope.
Sometimes being deliberately obtuse can be very helpful. Once upon a time a friend of mine started dropping hints to me about wanting to date. He was a nice guy, but I really wasn’t interested in him like that plus I was about to move several hundred miles away. I decided the kindest thing I could do was to pretend to be totally clueless. He got over it and we could still be friends.
@Bria, she has a truly excellent petsitter in my town for when I go away, but I haven’t been able to find one near my parents’ house-they live in an extremely rural area, so choices are limited, and she’s got some stranger-danger issues, so it really has to be the right person. We do have family friends that she has stayed with before but they’ll be away for Christmas this year, so kennel it is.
@Grinch – sorry for being obtuse (I may be missing something here) but if you have a good petsitter in your town, why can’t you leave her with the petsitter at your place and make the drive by yourself?
On the other side of the issue, how do you go about asking someone to do something platonically and NOT as a date? I am a single woman who just moved to a new area and I have met some really great guys through work that I would love to hang out with (I know literally no one here) but how do I ask them to do potentially datey things while being clear that it is not a date? Usually, I’d signal the whole “just friends” thing by asking a potential new guy friend to do things in a group, but here I have no group!
@Grinch, I am a childless dog owner as well, and although my family doesn’t have the small children problem, we are flung to the far corners of the country (and growing it seems). Money is always tight, and it always seems like anywhere from half to 3/4 of us have to travel. Oh and my parents are divorced and live in two different states. A few years ago I couldn’t afford the Christmas vacation, and my parents actually came to see me earlier in December. This year, again, no money so no petsitter/plane ticket/travel plans, and I just curled up at home for Thanksgiving with the dog and had a nice time. Do what you need to do for your own sake.
But people do get incredibly bizarre about the holidays. A friend of mine had this experience with her mother-in-law the first year they were married: “All I’m asking for is Christmas and Thanksgiving. Is that so much to ask?” Yeah, cause everyone fights over 4th of July and Veterans Day.
Grinch: I agree with others that you’re doing the best you can, and being more than reasonable. It does sound like your sister might be feeling a bit torn. I think spending a Christmas Eve-and-morning is a good compromise. We all carry so much angst-y, expectation-filled baggage around during the holidays. I’d say just do whatever you can to make sure your sister knows you’re happy to be with them when you’re there, but it sounds like you’re already doing that.
@dk: Wow. That does sound awkward. Although the question ought to have been not why didn’t you guess it was a date, but how in the world did he think it was? Yikes. Cut the rebop, fella.
~Two things that make me much more confident, just in case you haven’t tried them – an ultra-violet light and Nature’s Miracle.~
Ditto. The problem in my case is an Italian Greyhound who’s harder to potty-train than every other dog I’ve ever known COMBINED, and the blacklight is perfect for “No, there actually are no lingering pee-spots” or “Whoops, missed one, grab the Nature’s Miracle”.
Also, you could find one of those pet-odor candles, most of which smell nice whether there’s an odor problem in the first place or not.
(And yes, seconding the love for pet-sitters. We’ve got an amazing one who charges a flat rate to take care of however many dogs you have, which is a lifesaver compared with putting all five of ours in a kennel!)
Yikes. Cut the rebop, fella.
EXACTLY.
I’m dying to suggest that Grinch’s dog could hang out in the yard – so close and yet far enough away – but I forget that some places in this country have actual weather in the wintertime. Not where I live unfortunately (sigh).
Oh, and Margaret? I’ll have Kum-by-ya in my head for the rest of the night now, THANK you very much!
@Leah
Enlist them in forming the group. Say to one of these cool guys, “Hey, I’m getting a group together to go rock climbing on Saturday. Do you think you might want to go? What about (other cool guy or girl you work with)? anybody else you can think of?”
Etc. Works also to make sure anyone’s girlfriend is invited, so it’s clearly a mixed group without a date vibe.
@Grinch: Oh, very familiar scenario, except that my drive is only 5 hours. (Though that’s four hours and fifty minutes longer than anyone else in my extended family is required to drive.) The singlehood can be a major component, as well as the fact that four years of college and three years of graduate school have made me chronically available in the second half of December.
Recently I’ve been on a self-empowerment kick, and made these resolutions: I never stay longer than three days, ever. I visit on days that I set, based on what is convenient for me. (Just because I am not due somewhere on a given Monday morning doesn’t mean I don’t have work to do.) Anyone who invites me into their home knows that my dog accompanying me is a given, unless they give me adequate notice (weeks, not days) to make other arrangements.
I may be on an extended vacation from my chosen profession, I may not always have a significant other to return to, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a life to get back to, and I let everybody know that that’s what I’m doing. So far, they have understood. Not only has it kept them from minimizing the importance of my life in comparison with theirs, but it’s kept me from doing it to myself, as well.
@Clover: actually, for the people looking for a Personal Christmas Traveling Date, from what I’ve read, most of them could aim for sometime in April. People weren’t keeping their flocks outdoors at night in the winter – too cold!
Sars –
speaking of kids, my SIL sent an email with her first grandchild in a Santa hat, proclaiming her the most adorable Santa Baby Ever!!
I need a photo of Master S in seasonal garb to disabuse her of this notion.
@Peg: I’ll work on it. Hee.