The Vine: February 2, 2006
Dear Sars,
It seems to me that I am most attracted to guys that are not attracted to me. There are a couple of guys who have expressed interest in me that I just do not want to date. However, every guy I have ever asked out has turned me down with the whole “I’m not attracted to you” response. I am just worried that its a matter of I want what I cannot have. I am not attracted to many guys without knowing them first. I need much more than a pretty face and six pack abs. I need to want to be friends with any guy I am seeing. Could that be the source of my problem?
Sincerely,
Can’t get a date
Dear Can’t,
I don’t think the wanting-to-be-friends thing is “your problem.” That sounds like a normal, insightful thing to want from a prospective partner.
Trouble is, I don’t know what else to tell you; you haven’t given me much to go on. I imagine you should take a look at the guys you are attracted to and see if there’s a pattern there, and maybe also think about whether you’re also deliberately selecting guys who won’t return your feelings — you don’t do it on purpose, it’s unconscious, but it’s worth thinking about.
Beyond that…I don’t know anything about the guys in question, on either side, so…that’s really all I’ve got, I’m afraid.
Hi Sars,
I’m hoping you can give me a little advice on how to handle a brewing family situation. My paternal grandmother, after losing her husband in 1998, is mentally going downhill. This is manifesting in paranoia, hypochondria, and general stubbornness, which hurts no one but herself, but is also causing her to pick extreme favorites among her children and grandchildren. My father, and, by extension, me, are not among said favorites. She lies to him, avoids his calls, makes drama and trouble wherever she can, and maligns him to all and sundry, including to non-family members. He’s never been a favored child — I know she used to take out the frustrations of her day on his backside, when he was a kid.
While my father and I are not the only ones to whom she serves up this behavior, he gets the brunt of it, and it really makes me sick. He tries to temper the story when we talk on the phone, by reminding me that she’s really mentally failing, which I believe, but it’s really hard to remember when she says and does such appalling things. Our Christmas after-lunch treat was in the form of a story mocking my father for crying at his own grandfather’s funeral several years previous, then I was given a discourse on how I have always hated her. I haven’t always, I know, but I’m seriously starting to!
There’s more to the story, in that I believe my father’s brother has been mooching off of her for years. He is in severe depression after the death of his wife last year and is in his third or fourth year of unemployment, some of which was spent caring for the wife. I couldn’t care less about what Grandmother does with her money. I just wish she wouldn’t be so hateful to people who are honestly trying to help her, and favor people who seriously do nothing beneficial to her. Incidentally, my father has tried to help my uncle get a job more than once. My uncle has refused to return his calls for several months now, to the point where my father has asked me, and others, for advice. Mine was to let my uncle dig his own hole, but Dad didn’t like that idea very much.
I live several hours away in another part of the country and see her once or twice a year. I am in the minority of not having had a baby as a teenager or having had a couple of divorces. I am 30, unmarried, and living with my boyfriend. I am generally tolerant of bad behavior in people, accepting that lots of people have their idiosyncracies, including myself. I rarely give up on friendships, but I usually put my foot down if anyone pushes me hard enough to make me cry. She has.
The way I feel right now is that I would be content to never see her again. My mother says that I will regret this decision when I get older and have more perspective. I’m willing to give my mother the benefit of the doubt for knowing me pretty well.
My question, after all this rambling — what should I do, given that I see her once or twice a year, and do not call because speaking to her on the phone pushes me over the limit. I don’t expect to be the favorite grandchild, I just expect civility and don’t get it. And if your call is that I should continue to put up with her on the couple days of the year that I already do, how do I make myself stop being so angry at her? Christmas this year was a misery and I felt guilty including a non-family member in the drama that happened there.
Shut UP, Grandma!
Dear Shut,
I hope she’ll forgive me for saying this, but at the end of her life, my own grandmother was pretty difficult to deal with — and I think she knew that, but she was on a huge slate of medications that made her weird, just for starters, plus she was enormously frustrated by the fact that her body was failing her and she wasn’t independent anymore, and I was sympathetic to all of that, plus Grandma and I had always been very close, so I could let a lot of it go.
Some of the stuff she said was still upsetting, but it didn’t really affect my overall feelings for her; it was a product of the situation. I don’t get the sense from your letter that you’ve been all that close with your grandmother historically — maybe I’m wrong about that — but I think you have to look back at the history of the relationship, and use that to gauge how much you’re willing to tolerate. I put up with some unpleasantness because I felt I had to play out the string, but if you had more of a just-at-the-holidays relationship with your grandmother, maybe the verbal abuse isn’t worth it to you.
So, I can’t really say, but I agree with your mother that you might regret it later if you don’t try to stick it out. I know it’s very difficult to put aside your feelings of rage and protectiveness for the people your grandmother is ripping on, but a lot of it really has nothing to do with other people; it’s about her struggling to maintain control over the end game. In a graceless way, true, but if you can find a way not to take it personally, and just absent yourself when she’s getting really harsh, you’ll probably feel better about it later.
Sars,
I need some straight advice from someone I have never met. I met a guy through a dating website a few weeks ago. We got together for coffee and immediately clicked. Two weeks of seeing each other about every other day followed: fun times, good conversation, increasingly heavy make-out sessions. We both kept reminding ourselves that we had only known each other for a short time, and seemed to have our heads on pretty straight despite being smitten with each other.
Anyway, we had the “I’m not going to see anyone else” talk and the “I don’t have any diseases” talk and then we had sex. The first time was great, everything was fine after — cuddly and sweet and all that. So, we start up again, and suddenly he says “ow” and leaves the room. I had no idea what had happened. He came back with his pants on and wouldn’t really talk to me. I asked if I should go, and he wouldn’t give me an answer. So, I put on my clothes and left. I asked if there was anything we should talk about before I left, and he mumbled something about my biting his lip and that he had a lot to think about. I left a brief phone message — something along the lines of “Call me if you want to talk,” and I haven’t heard from him in four days.
Sars, I am not a lip-biting masochistic freak. There was no visible wound; it’s not like his lip was hanging by a thread. What should I do? I would hate for something that had been going so well to be thrown out over this kind of misunderstanding. Maybe something else was wrong? I don’t want to be a stalker, but I am considering leaving a brief voicemail or sending an email apologizing and explaining hurting my partners isn’t one of my “moves.” If he has had any warm, fuzzy feelings for me at all in the last week, I would like to apologize in person.
His friends probably call me Vampira
Dear Vamp,
I have no idea what’s going on, but if it actually has anything to do with your biting his lip, I’ll eat my hat. I mean, seriously — he can’t just tell you he’d rather you didn’t do that, that he’s not into it? He’s so paralyzed with dread that he can’t return a phone call?
He freaked out, that much I can tell you, but if a little nip that didn’t draw blood was enough to turn him off you? All that shmoop, then nothing? You’re better off. Leave him another message telling him that you don’t appreciate being hung out to dry like this, then put your profile back up and move on. This guy is, I think, too immature and gun-shy to bother with.
Dear Sars,
I have a question for The Vine here, since I really feel the need for some unbiased, level-headed advice, and who better to ask than a total stranger?
I have a problem involving my cousins. We’ll call them Cousin A and Cousin B (Cousin A’s brother). I am fairly close to Cousin A, having babysat her two sons when they were little, and my mother was pretty much a surrogate mum to Cousin A and her brother. I always got along well with Cousin B, but didn’t really see that much of him growing up.
Anyway, Cousin A’s older son recently got married. I attended the wedding with Boy, who I have been seeing for two years now. Some back-story. My cousins have been fairly lukewarm to him, as we dated a few years back and broke up after about a month (Mum ran him off because she was convinced we would not work out. She was severely scolded for this, and did not interfere again in my love life after that) and they knew Mum didn’t think he was right for me. When we got back together, he and Mum got along great. She was ill with cancer at the time, and she was really impressed with how supportive he was, and how well suited we were for each other (she was right the first time around, however!).
So. Wedding. The wedding was lovely, and the reception pretty much was okay. We gave Cousin B a ride back to the hotel where we were staying, and decided to hang out a bit longer and chat. The wedding took place a year after Mum passed away, and Cousin B pretty much adored her, so he was getting fairly emotional, but we noticed he was going on a lot about how blood was important, and doing so in way that was fairly possessive of me. We shrugged it off.
Then he asked when Boy and I were getting married. We said after we bought our house (which we have just done), we were going to elope to Vegas. He immediately got upset, saying how could I shut the family out, we couldn’t do that, he insisted that Mum’s brother had to give us away, et cetera. We were both shocked, but we tried to explain that we both wanted to do it this way, but he insisted that we could not do this to them. I was horrified, for the simple fact that I had barely heard from any of my family since Mum’s funeral, and was pretty pissed that he would go on like that, since Boy had been there for me when they had not. He then tried to bring Mum into it, saying she would not have liked it (she did. We told her about our plans, and she was all, heh. That’s very you, have a blast!). Naturally Boy was getting pretty upset, but kept quiet because Cousin B was pretty volatile by this stage, and we didn’t want an all-out brawl starting. We just tried to placate him by saying we would think about it, but we would not make promises now, and we were in no state to decide anything at that point.
Then Cousin B starts haranguing Boy, saying he loved him (Boy is all, the hell?) but he would kill him if he took me to Vegas to get married. Boy did not allow himself to be provoked, merely stating we would talk about it. We then managed to coax him out of our room. Cousin B said goodnight and then stubbed his cigarette out on Boy’s hand. We were both furious, but kept calm since we just wanted him the hell out.
I have not told Cousin A any of this, as she and her brother are close, and I don’t want to start any family shit or put her in the middle. However, Cousin A’s younger son is engaged, and we have been invited. I know Cousin B will be there, and I don’t want anything to do with him. I don’t want to disappoint Cousin A’s son, especially since I went to his brother’s engagement party and wedding. Boy will of course no longer go near my family, but he has no problem if I want to stay in touch with (some of) them. I am not sure how Cousin B is going to behave, and I really don’t feel that an engagement party is the right place for any sort of confrontation. Please help!
Sign me,
Wishing to Prune the Family Tree
Dear Prune,
Cousin B is a weirdo, no question — I mean, talk about over-involved — and he should have been taken to task about the cigarette thing right when it happened. With that said, I feel like you and Boy are overreacting a bit, maybe. Not in terms of Cousin B, who, again, is creepy, but in terms of Boy “no longer going near your family.” That seems a little melodramatic to me, given that 1) it’s only Cousin B who gave him a problem, and 2) Cousin B gave him said problem when it was just the three of you, alone, and not in a big group like at an engagement party.
Look, I get that the guy is a little crazy and makes you uncomfortable, but you can greet him coolly but civilly, and then just avoid him for the duration, right? Because it sounds to me like he was all maudlin drunk, and he took it way too far, but it’s probably not going to happen again.
So, I would show up, be civil, avoid him as much as possible without being too conspicuous about it, and if he starts in on the Vegas thing again, tell him he needn’t concern himself with that and extricate yourself from the conversation. And who knows, maybe he’ll apologize and you can try to move on from the incident, but I think a blanket “we’re not going to any events Cousin B is attending” policy is probably going to be more of a pain in your ass than it’s worth long-term.
Hey Sars,
I’ve got a boy problem. I’ve been with my boyfriend for the last six years;
in that time, I’ve finished one degree, worked, been miserable working, and
gone back to school for a second degree in a field I think I’ll be pretty
happy with. My boyfriend and I have been living together for about four years,
and because we had pretty much agreed we would get married when I was
finished school, he has been contributing financially towards this second
degree in a big way.
One of the ways he contributed was to take a job working nights. He’s
pushing 40 and doesn’t have a career, per se, so when he was given the
opportunity to make good money doing something fairly easy (says he), he
jumped at it. He seems happy there, but has said he wants to reconsider his
job when I graduate and cash isn’t so tight. Unfortunately, between his
night job and my gruelling course load, we rarely see each other, and we
never have sex. We had sex twice in 2005, and this celibacy thing is no fun.
Now I find I’m attracted to other guys, specifically people I see every day
at school. I have messed around a bit, which I regret, and which I have not
discussed with my boyfriend and do not intend to. I can’t see how it will
improve the situation and I don’t want to hurt him, but on the other hand,
no sex!
Now I’m torn. Six years is a long time to be together, and while we have
other problems, I think if we work hard, we can deal with them and come
through. I decided to take some time away from school and my boyfriend to
sort things out. I moved to a different city on a different coast early in
January and will go back to school in September. I just don’t know if I
should go back to my boyfriend as well. When I told him I wanted to go away
(to gain “cultural capital” for school as well as take a break in our
relationship), he said he understood I had to go away for a while, and also
said he realises there is a chance I might not be together when I get back.
We’re really good friends, and he’s a genuinely good person. I miss him now
that I’m away, and I call him every couple of days, but we never discuss the
fact we don’t have sex, and it makes me insane. What do you think is more
important? Would you choose to marry someone who is a good friend, or would
you screw over your friend for a chance to find passion?
Thanks,
Celibate
Dear Cel,
The friendship-vs.-passion question isn’t the central problem here — it’s why you’re so passive in the relationship that you can’t bring up to your boyfriend the fact that not having enough sex bothers you. You’ve been with the guy for six years; you’ve fooled around with other people to fill that lack; you say yourself that it “makes you insane.” And yet you…won’t mention it yourself. You won’t initiate the discussion. I mean, what? If it makes you that crazy, why haven’t you said something instead of cheating on him?
He took a job to help put you through school, and when that meant he was too busy to maintain a sex life regular enough for you, you repaid him by stepping out. I understand that these conversations are uncomfortable, and that it’s hard to get back in sync sometimes, but you had a number of things you could have done to confront the situation and improve it besides making out with other dudes and then, essentially, running away. Yeah, I’m oversimplifying, but…do you see what I’m saying? You can’t marry this guy, or be with him in any real way long-term, if you’re so unable to speak to him frankly about what’s wrong that you’d leave town.
If you want to save this relationship, if you want to see if you can get that passion back, you’re going to have to talk to him about the fact that you are having problems. I’m sorry if this is coming off bitchy, but I’m not seeing in your letter that you even think talking is an option. And it’s your only option, really. If you want to work this out, you will in fact have to do some work. You don’t have to confess to the messing around, necessarily, but you do have to be truthful about what you want and what you think is missing, so that both of you can assess things realistically and do what you need to do.
This isn’t about celibacy. It’s about paralysis. Stop acting like this relationship is a weather pattern and start doing something to fix it.
Tags: boys (and girls) sex the fam
