The Vine: February 1, 2006
Hi Sarah,
I’m currently trying to save some cash by bringing my lunch to work.
For about a month, I relied on PB&J, but it’s getting a little old.
I’d really like some suggestions for vegetarian lunch brown-bagging.
Any thoughts?
Thanks so much!
Please Hold the Peanut Butter
Dear I Will Also Hold A Spoon,
I’m sure the readers will have some suggestions, but the key is probably to get out of the sandwich-and-carrot-sticks-in-a-Baggie rut. That’s fine once a week or so, but if you’re really bored and want to change things up, you’ll need to do some prep at home. PB&J alternatives:
Wraps. You can buy the wrap bread at the grocery store, and you can fill it with whatever you want — seitan and ginger sauce, shredded veggies, cheese and salsa, tofu and pesto. On Sunday night, roll a whole bunch at the same time and stick them in the freezer; then throw one in your bag in the morning, keep it in the fridge, and nuke it at lunchtime.
Pre-cooked meals. Cook a big tray of veggie lasagna over the weekend, or a big wok-ful of stir-fry, or make up single-serving salads (without dressing…you can keep a bottle in the fridge at work); dole them out into those Gladware reusable Tupperware-oid things, and stack them in the fridge or freezer. Again, grab one off the stack every morning and you’re set. If you want, cook a few meals over the weekend so you can alternate them, or change things up by bringing sesame noodles to eat on the side one day, bread the next, soybeans the next — whatever suits your fancy.
Whether you do prep or not, think outside the sandwich.
Dear Sars,
I doubt that this will be much different from your typical “my best friend met a new guy and is suddenly a different person” sort of email but I thought writing this out might be cathartic.
I’ve lived with my roommate K since college graduation — almost three years now. We have the sort of roommate situation most people would kill for: we share well, we have similar attitudes towards cleanliness, and we have a lot of fun together. The fly in the ointment? K recently met P through eHarmony. P is a great guy, truly. It’s the just the combination of K and P that makes the dependency alarms ring loudly in my head.
I’ve dealt with conversations suddenly stopping when I walk into the front room, K’s sudden abandonment of our plans, K cooking P dinner with my groceries, even with feeling like a interloper in my own apartment…all that, I can put up with. After all, I’m heading off to grad school in the fall. BUT, my father (possibly the greatest guy in the world) used his frequent flyer miles to buy K and me tickets to Las Vegas this coming weekend. (In exchange for which I am attending a convention and doing some business for him. I’m not completely spoiled.)
Three months ago, K and I were both incredibly excited about this trip. We made plans to go shopping for new clothes, we talked about what we wanted to see and do — and then P showed up in our lives. Since then, K has blown me off whenever I suggest a shopping trip and hasn’t shown any interest in Vegas. I talked with my mom a bit and she suggested that I ask K point-blank if she even wants to go anymore. I followed Mom’s advice, and even offered K an out: I’d try to find another friend to take her place, IF the airline would allow a change to the tickets.
K said that she still wanted to go, and then accused me of not talking to her anymore and not being around so that we can hang out. Sars, I’m at a loss! She spends every weekend with P and most weeknights, too. She implied that because I’m not dating anyone seriously that I should drop everything when she deigns to be available.
How is it that someone who was such a good friend could turn into such a selfish, unsympathetic person? I knew before that she had some issues with wanting to be married (some spectacular drunken meltdowns revealed that) but I never anticipated her inability to carry on a normal life once she had someone. Since our conversation last night, I found out that we can’t change the tickets. Sars, please slap me upside the head with some no-nonsense advice. Do I just pretend that everything’s fabulous and hope that the trip doesn’t suck? Should I confiscate her phone in Vegas if the constant text-messaging doesn’t stop? Am I the selfish idiot here?
Thanks,
Probably expecting too much from my friends
Dear From This Friend, Anyway,
I assume you told her all this when you discussed changing the tickets — that you think she’s no longer interested in you or in spending time with you, that you don’t seem to exist for her when P is around? Not that it’ll make much difference, necessarily, because it sounds to me like you’ve just been putting up with her shit until you leave for grad school — which, okay, but if you’re letting her take your food and not saying anything, you’ve trained her to treat you like crap, kind of. So, if you want that to stop, you need to draw her attention to it and stop tolerating it.
As far as the trip goes? Get on the plane and hope for the best, but if the texting gets out of control, point out to her that the two of you are supposed to be on vacation together, and if it still doesn’t stop, leave. Go see a show. Take a gondola ride at the Venetian. But if it’s not behavior you want to deal with, don’t deal with it. Enough already.
Once you move out, that’s probably it with this girl. She’s one of those women that thinks other women are the Plan B. So, minimize your contact with the more annoying stuff — and for God’s sake, label your food and bitch them out when they use it without asking; that’s horseshit — but if you’re expecting things to change or to get through this bad patch? Probably won’t happen. Deal with it as best you can until it’s time for you to move on.
My dear miss Sars,
So, I’m 22 years old, and my half brother is 16 years old than I (he just turned 38). I just got out of school, moved out, got a real job, blah blah financial-independence-cakes. My brother lives at home, with my parents. He has a pretty low-key job, doesn’t have a driver’s licence (not that that prevents him from driving), and generally is a bum. The one thing that keeps us from completely writing him off is that he’s clinically depressed, and clearly miserable.
Now, there’s a case to be made for just writing him off anyway, because he treats the people around him like crap, and after some point, reasons stop being excuses. I was depressed for a while, as well, but I did the right things (psychiatrist, medication) and I’m all right now. I have only so much sympathy for someone who keeps staying in such a sucky situation. But, he’s my older brother. I spent a lot of years looking up to him. The fact that he pisses me off whenever I talk to him doesn’t change the fact that I still love him, and I don’t want him to be miserable.
So what do I do, Sars? We all love him, and my mom has told me that if he wants to get into therapy, or get medication, she would happily pay for it, because the situation right now sucks for everyone. I sometimes wonder if I should just rip a strip off of him, and remind him that his baby sister moved out and has a job, and his depression is fixable if he decides to put in the effort. However, it’s just as likely that snapping at him would just put him further into the hole. I just want to help him get out of his rut, and get to a place where he can allow himself to get some help, for once. What to do, Sars, what to do?
Baby Sister
Dear Babe,
Well, that depends. Why exactly does he piss you off every time you talk to him — because he’s a dick to you? Or because he’s still on your parents’ dole, living the good life, when you did the hard work of declaring your independence? Because that’s two very different issues, and if it’s the first, you tell him straight out that you sympathize with his problems, up to a point, but if he’s going to act a fool every time you speak, you won’t be speaking much from now on.
If it’s the second, well, I can understand your resentment, but slinging a bunch of sibling-rivalry stuff at him isn’t going to do anything. He’s depressed. He’s 38 years old and his mommy and daddy still take care of him. Just because he doesn’t do anything about it — or, more to the point, that your parents don’t compel him to — doesn’t mean he doesn’t know he’s drowning.
The only person’s behavior any of us can control is our own. If your brother is a dick, take steps to make that less of a presence in your life. But if the problem as you see it is that your parents are “letting him get away with” something? You need to find a way to deal with that, because, you know, I hear you, but…that’s about you, not him.
Hi Sars,
My boyfriend/ex-boyfriend and I met when we were juniors in high school. We
immediately hit it off and have built what I have always considered a very
strong relationship. Two and a half years later, we are both sophomores in
college at schools that are about 400 miles apart.
Our freshman year of college was a little trying, but we managed to get
through it with a minimum of fighting, lots of visits and letters back and
forth. This year, however, everything has changed. We started fighting
quite a bit and decided to take a break. During the break, he decided to
pursue a girl who had been after him the entire first half of the year.
I’ve met this girl, and although she is nice, she’s also incredibly naive,
immature, and just plain childish.
After our break (of two weeks) we reconnected and he regaled me with stories
of how much he missed me, how he loves me so much, wants to marry me and
have a family with me. I figured that he had just needed a little time for
himself to get things in order and that now everything was okay. After
Christmas break he came back up to school with me for a week and we had a
wonderful time. When he left he told me not to worry, that he loves me and
no matter what happens, he knows that we’ll end up together.
Two days after he got home, he decided that it was too much. He went back
to his school and back to the other girl. In the past few weeks he has been
waffling between “I am so done with you” and “I want to marry you” and I am
just so confused at this point. He said he needs more time to figure
himself out, which I think means that he needs time to be with this other
girl and test out the waters. The other night he told me that there was
just “something special about her.” I think that this something special is
most likely the fact that she’s inexperienced, he doesn’t know her very
well, and she lives only four floors above him.
After that long backstory, my questions. I really love him and he thinks
that once we’re out of college it could all work. Should I attribute his
waffling desires to the fact that he’s a confused college student who isn’t
sure what he wants to do with his life? Or should I get out of here as fast
as I can? How do you get over someone who’s been a really big part of your
life for all the important parts of it? Is there anything I can do to make
him understand what he’s doing?
If you think all I need is a sharp backhand (of words of course) then please
deliver. I need some advice that doesn’t consist of my friends saying that
I’ve done nothing wrong.
Signed,
Earning a lot of Frequent Fighter Miles
Dear Fight,
Well, I’m with your friends — you haven’t done anything wrong, not really, at least not in terms of, like, “deserving” this treatment. But you do need to stop putting up with it. It’s making you miserable and it’s not going to get any better. Call him, tell him you can’t do this anymore, and cut off contact with him for three months, no exceptions.
“But –” Yeah, I know. He’s “been a really big part of your life for all the important parts of it” — so far. You’re, what, nineteen? I know exactly how you feel, but you have no perspective right now, really, because this guy is the bulk of your romantic history, if not the whole thing. But that “big part of your life” is an active problem right now. You know what I mean? He makes you unhappy.
And I don’t love that he can’t shit or get off the pot, frankly, but…you know, this other girl is there, and you aren’t. And you’re 400 miles apart. And it’s college, and people change a lot during that time. This is the rule, not the exception, I’m afraid, and he’s a shitheel for keeping you on the hook, but you can let yourself off said hook, and you should, today. Stop putting your emotional life on hold until after college; that, I’m sad to say, isn’t happening. Stop waiting for him to choose you; he’s already declined to do that, several times. Stop relying on him to approve of you; he does — as a Plan B. Not good enough. Say so, dump him, grieve, and find a boy who goes to college with you and who doesn’t expect you to let him date other girls for the next three years, and move on.
O Mighty Sars,
I was looking through a bunch of old Vines the other
day as a delaying tactic to avoid having to do some
actual work towards my degree, and decided that I
could use some of your patented wisdom wrt a
particularly irritating problem.
Who I’m going to call D.
Basically there’s a whole group of us who’ve been
friends pretty much constantly from the age of 14
until now (we’re all pretty much in our last year of
university and hang out occasionally during the
holidays, send one another emails, visit each other on
birthdays and when a cool band is playing in someone’s
town et cetera). And I’ve always found D pretty irritating
and boorish. He’s a complete culture snob, moody in a
very poseurish way, makes tasteless jokes about rape,
and whenever we had sleepovers we had to set up a five-yard exclusion zone around him to stop him grabbing at
everyone’s goodies. But I’ve always put up with him
because everyone else has known him for ages and put
up with him. And I’ve been pretty much fine with that
up until this last holiday.
We all (about eight or nine of us) got together at Q’s house
just to drink and shoot the breeze and watch some
crappy late-night television. We all got very drunk
and a bit emotional and for some reason I decided to
both come out to everyone (and really it’s been past
time, considering I never bothered to disguise it at
university) and that my mother had tried to commit
suicide about a year and a half ago. (And not in a way
that I just found out about it either. I walked in on
her collapsed in the kitchen having taken an overdose.
And I had to ring an ambulance and take her to the
hospital and so on. I’ve got therapy for it since but
yeah, not fun.) And yes, I know I should have decided
to share all of this with everyone whilst I was sober
and not five minutes after someone else had decided to
tell everyone she was a lesbian, but everyone was
all right with it and very supportive and so on.
Except D. Who decided to tell me that it was all my
fault because I was a “mistake” and therefore had
ruined my mother’s life. And then he decided to tell
me it was all my fault because I’d raped her (me being
a mistake is true enough. Me having raped her? Yeah.
Not so much. And again with the inappropriate rape
jokes). And I know he was drunk, but that is so far
beyond the level of bullshit that I am prepared to put
up with from anyone. And I’ve spoken to him precisely
once since, when he apologised, and started to cry,
and said he didn’t even remember what he was saying,
and honestly I didn’t care because it’s was frankly
way beyond the line.
But that’s not the problem. The problem is that, after
an initial period of being appropriately shocked and
calling him a douchebag and so on, people have started
inviting him to evenings out and parties and stuff
again. Which I’m not happy with. I’ve told them that
I’d rather he not be invited to things, and that I’m
certainly not going to be asking him to anything I’ve
organised again, but if people still wanted to be
friends with him I’m by no means stopping them.
Sars, am I wrong to be pissed off that other people
still want to be friends with him? Even though they
were there and heard everything he said? I know you
can’t sensibly offer people a choice and then be
offended when they pick the option you’d rather they
didn’t, but seriously, the guy said I was responsible
for my mum trying to off herself and then cracked wise
about the hilarious topic of rape. Whilst I was all
red-faced and puffy and emotional about it. Is it
overreacting to expect people who profess to be my
friends not to invite us to the same gatherings
anymore?
Guess I Can Start That Actual Work Now
Dear Guess,
Well…you said it yourself. You offered your friends a choice; they chose to continue spending time with D. End of story.
D is…well, I would call him a dick, but it’s beyond that; I think he must suffer from some kind of disorder, because I don’t think I see how you talk to people that way and think it’s okay. And I don’t think I see why your friends want to spend time with him themselves, either; probably it’s just easier for them to slide back into the way things always were.
But it is what it is. Again, you told them to do as they pleased, and they did, and I’d feel offended and abandoned by that too, somewhat, but it’s a risk you took and it didn’t pay off. So, maybe it’s time to distance yourself from this entire group of people — to draw your line in the dirt and tell them, “Look, I’m not prepared to be around D, so if he’s invited, I’m out,” and to deal with the consequences of that if they choose to invite him over you. But…you know, these are people who heard the guy tell you your mother’s suicide attempt is your fault, and who continue to associate with him anyway. Do you want friends like that?
Putting it another way: No, I don’t think you’re wrong to be pissed off, but I think the real question here is what you want to do about that. They chose not to side with you in an active way, and yes, you offered them that choice, but you in turn can always make the choice to remove yourself from that circle as a result.
Tags: Ask The Readers boys (and girls) friendships the fam
