The Vine: February 19, 2004
Hi Sars,
The letter about Latin plurals reminded me of an excellent article posted
recently on the website The Straight Dope. It gives a detailed
overview of English words that have been borrowed from Latin and how to
make them plural (or in some cases, singular). It’s not so detailed that
it can give a guide to every word you may have a doubt about, but it
could solve your questions for some of the more common Latinate words,
plus it’s just an interesting language lesson.
Regards,
Language Lover
Dear LL,
Thanks so much for this — a far more succinct explanation of declensions than I could have offered, and very handy.
Hey Sars, I really respect your sense and I’m hoping you might be able to help me out.
I’m 27 and dating a 20-year-old girl. I love my girlfriend with all my heart; she’s sweet, smart, funny, everything I’ve always wanted in a girl. The problem — of course, there’s always a problem. The problem is her family.
Her parents are overprotective, to the point that I consider it, well, insane, and she’s still very much under their thumb, financially and emotionally. She’s in college, doesn’t have a job, they’re paying her tuition and other bills, and she lives at home during the summers.
Her parents are very, very possessive of her — she has to call them every day, or they freak out and call her, and if she’s out or, God forbid, at my place when they call, her mother cries and says she doesn’t know where she went wrong as a parent. They don’t approve of me as a boyfriend for her (since I’m not the rich, fundamentalist Christian, young law student they had apparently planned on her catching when they agree to pay for her small, expensive private college), and they are on her constantly about me; she gets grief every time I come to visit, and rather than bitching them out in return (as I would) she attempts to conciliate. She still wants them and me to be friends. I don’t think this is going to happen, especially since it really ticks me off that they judge me based on my financial situation (which is stable if not luxurious) and my age, rather than the person I am. I have made effort after effort for her sake and nothing has helped, and I’m ready to say “fuck you” and move on with our relationship.
Thing is, she can’t just say “fuck you” to her parents because, like I said, she’s dependent on them financially as well as attached emotionally. But the situation is wearing us both down. I know she’s a lot younger than me and it’s not really realistic to expect her to be at my level of independence, and I also know that considering the way she was raised, just by continuing to date me and see me regularly (we’ve been together a year and three months) she’s being more rebellious and insisting more on living her own life than she ever has. I appreciate that…it’s just that it’s another year before she graduates from college, and I don’t know if either of us can take another year of this.
Any suggestions to make things more livable? Any at all? Don’t say kill the mom…I’ve thought about it, but I just don’t see jail time in the picture.
Dating Jessica Shylock
Dear DJ,
It probably isn’t what you want to hear, but if she isn’t going to declare her independence from them, she isn’t, and you can either learn to blow off the static caused by her parents, or you can break up with her.
Of course, you don’t want to break up with her, but I think you need to make it clear to her that, while you love her and support her, you don’t really want to deal with her parents anymore — they don’t like you, period, and her refusal to work with that is only aggravating the situation.
Whether that means you stop visiting her at her parents’ house or you lay down the law in some other way, I don’t know — but you have to tell her what you just told me, namely that you know she wants a relationship with her parents, but you don’t, and the two of you have to figure out a solution that works a little better for both of you.
Dear Sars:
I’ve got a problem I can’t solve. I have been living by myself in a privately owned dorm for two years and have signed a lease to live here next year. The first year was fantastic, and the second year was even better since my best friend moved in on another floor. The problem we’ve encountered is Lyle. Lyle is a creepy guy who lives on Best Friend’s floor. He repeatedly asks us out despite being turned down every time. I’ve even told him several times, “I am not interested in dating you. EVER.”
In the past year, I’d see Lyle on the elevator, in the study lounge, or around campus. He’d make small talk, he’d ask me out or make inappropriate comments, and then I wouldn’t see him for a few weeks. This summer, however, things have escalated from annoying to obscene. One day we were in the elevator together. When we got to my floor, I got off, and he followed me to my front door. He continued talking to me and acted like he expected an invite inside. I told him I was busy, my room was a mess, and he was NOT coming in my room. After about five minutes of telling him to go away, he walked off. I unlocked the door to go in, when he came running back and tried to see into my room.
Since that day, he’s apparently decided it’s okay to stop by my room randomly. The first time he asked me to star in a movie he was making. He pushed himself into the doorway so I couldn’t slam the door on him. He did the same thing a few weeks ago late one night. He also has started hugging me, especially when we’re together on the elevator. I try to sidestep it if I see it coming, but there’s not a lot of room to avoid someone on the elevator. Every time he sees me, he follows me. When we pass in the hall, he stands in the center so I can’t get by him without physically pushing him out of the way. He does the same things to Best Friend, except he doesn’t try to hug her.
I told my sister about Lyle, and she told me straight up, “That is sexual harassment, and you need to do something to stop it.” Until that moment, I’d never even thought of what he was doing as sexual harassment, but it really is. The hugging, the behavior, the comments, the visits…all of it is making me miserable. I take the stairs to avoid the elevator, I don’t answer my door (Best Friend always calls in advance now to let me know that she’s coming), and when I’m in the lounge I hide if I hear him walking by.
Now for the question: How do I report him, and what will happen? It’s a small dorm, and there’s a lot of gossiping. If I report Lyle and he gets a warning or fine, I’m worried he’ll find out I was the one who complained. If that happens, I’m afraid as to how he’ll retaliate. Also, Lyle and I have the same major and he goes to activities organized by a club that I’m a member of. Even if he gets evicted, he’ll still be around. I just want him to leave me alone, but I’m so scared that the situation will only get worse if I say something. I’m also afraid that if I do tell the dorm manager, he’ll say, “That’s just Lyle,” and give him a light warning that won’t do any good. Any advice (even a thwap to knock the fear out of me) would be greatly appreciated. I’ve never had to deal with something like this before and I don’t know what to do.
Tired of Walking up the Stairs
Dear Tired,
Report him. Lyle is not right in the head, and he needs a course correction, pronto — and the best thing you can do is to report him, and to get Best Friend to report him also. If people want to gossip, let them; I can’t imagine the two of you are the only ones who have had problems with the guy.
Document all the inappropriate incidents, as you’ve done here; ask Best Friend to do the same; take the list to the dorm manager, and tell him — both of you — that you want Lyle reprimanded and told to stay away from you at all times, from now on. If the dorm manager doesn’t do it, you’ll go over his head to campus security or the dean or whoever handles complaints of this nature.
You and Best Friend should probably travel together for a while — “witness protection” — and let other people know what’s going on, like your sister or your other friends, in case Lyle crosses yet another line.
And do not back down. Tell Lyle his behavior is obnoxious and makes you uncomfortable, and you want him to leave you alone — completely alone. Then shut him down. Ignore him. Do not engage. Do what you have to do to avoid him until either he fucks off on his own or an authority figure makes him fuck off — and if that doesn’t happen, move. Do what you have to do to get away from the guy. He’s not well.
It’s possible that a talking-to from the dorm manager will do the trick — that, for whatever reason, Lyle hasn’t gotten the hint before now that the grabby-pushy routine is creepy. But if it doesn’t, take the necessary steps to get him out of your face.
Okay, Sars, dispenser of much needed kicks in the ass — help…
First of all, the background — I’m the only female roommate in an all-guy
college apartment. The situation has always worked amazingly well in the
past, as I acted more stereotypically male than a good number of my male
roommates. However, complications of course eventually arose. How did I
not see this coming? Well, actually I did see it coming, but only in the
last month when I started developing feelings for one of my roommates,
J.
He is easily the smartest, funniest guy I’ve ever met and the person
who I am more compatible with than anyone else ever. In the past this
always just made us great friends, because I was in no way whatsoever
attracted to him. He is not conventionally attractive but he isn’t in any
way conventionally repulsive. He’s basically just an average guy
physically, with a perfect (to me) personality. Enter the problem.
Knowing
my own shallowness and love of way-too-attractive guys, which has led to a
series of really fantastically bad choices in boys before, I decide that I
am falling for J despite my real lack of physical attraction. We end up
hooking up and he now considers me a long-term girlfriend.
Yah, so this is a problem for quite a few reasons. Basically, I do feel a
bit of an attraction towards him at this point, but not enough that I am
nearly satisfied physically. Emotionally, comfort-wise, personality-wise,
however, I don’t think I could ever find a better guy. I’ve known him for
a long time and I already loved him as a friend. Now I feel like I am
starting to simply love him. There is nothing in his personality or in any
word he has ever said to me that could ever be improved or likely ever
found again. We are both ridiculously quirky but somehow our quirks
compliment each other perfectly.
He’s gone on a week vacation to see his family and so now I’m spending the
time contemplating how to deal with all of this. We’ve been together about
two weeks, and in some ways, I’ve never been happier and am missing him
constantly. In other ways, this time apart has felt like a huge relief. I
don’t know where to go from here. I tried to talk to him before he left
about ways to make things better physically, but he is really inexperienced
and is not improving much, nor are there any more inherent sparks between us
than before.
I need some brutal advice here. I don’t want to destroy a fantastic
friendship or what could be a fantastic and very long-term relationship, nor
do I want to create a schism in the apartment, but at the same time, I am
young enough that I still want a good physical aspect to my
relationships. I like feeling sparks and butterflies and am not ready to
settle down into a relationship that is, while stable, a little
boring. Beyond anything I don’t want to hurt J, but I don’t know whether I
am risking hurting him more by staying in a relationship that I am still
tepid about. A month from now things could be better once we figure each
other out a bit better physically, but if it isn’t, it will just hurt more
to break it off. I’ve been blinded by lust before, but I’ve never been
blinded by love of a personality. I guess that is the real problem; I am
truly in love with his personality and everything that he is, but I still
want to feel sparks.
Am I being an asshole for wanting more than a truly
fantastic guy that treats me like a goddess? Is there any way to salvage
the physical aspect to the relationship? Does it matter if there
isn’t? Aargh! Help!
Thanks,
Love J, Need Sparks
Dear Love J,
I hesitate to make generalizations about this kind of thing, but in my experience, if you’ve given the physical attraction a chance to grow, and it hasn’t, it isn’t going to. I mean, yeah, it can, and it might…but it probably won’t. And it’s going to continue to cause problems.
The situation is going to get messy no matter how you handle it, because you have to live together, so I would advise sitting J down when he gets back and telling him, honestly but as gently as you can manage, what’s going on with you in that regard. He’s your friend and you love him, and you should give things a chance to improve, but he needs to know that this is a real issue.
And if things don’t improve, you’ll have to end the relationship, and you’ll probably have to move out. I really would not recommend continuing to live with a guy you broke up with at all, but certainly not when the break-up proceeded from a lack of attraction; it’s just too sticky to contemplate.
I don’t envy you what’s ahead, but I don’t think you should pretend everything’s fine or settle for an incomplete relationship, so…good luck.
Hi.
I was looking on the net for feline neurosis and I came upon your site. I have a question for you. I have a cat that seems to be licking all the fur off of her body. I thought that she was lonely, so I got her a kitten. She loves him to death, but hasn’t stopped the licking. Now my vet is talking about drugs.
Do you have any remedies to cure crazy cats? Or a website that you could direct me to? I need help.
Thanks,
Linsay
Dear Linsay,
If I had a remedy to cure crazy cats, I would be richer than God, my dear. In other words: no. [sob]
Your vet is probably onto something with the drugs, just to break your cat’s compulsive pattern of licking her fur off; she might also suggest one of those cone thingies for your cat to wear for a while to let the fur grow back and distract the cat. Keep working with the vet until you find a solution.
Tags: boys (and girls) cats etiquette grammar roommates the fam
