The Vine: February 3, 2006
Dear Sars,
I have a problem, and you’re the most level-headed person I can think of to
help me with it.
I have a boyfriend. I love him, he loves me, and it’s like no relationship
I’ve ever had before. Boyfriend is 100% open with me. I value and adore
his honest nature, and do my very best to reciprocate. However, there is
one thing he does not know about me, and I don’t know whether to tell him.
I used to have an eating disorder. I use the past tense, although, like
alcoholics, anorexics and bulimics never totally are free of their
disorders. I still have bad days when I get blue about myself, and
Boyfriend notices and wants to help. I tell him it’s a bad day. I think
even now he twigs that there’s more to my bad days than I’m letting on.
I feel that I should tell Boyfriend because he’s been nothing but
soul-baring to me (which, as I said, I adore), and it would feel deceptive
for me not to be equally soul-baring. I want to tell him rather than have
him figure it out on his own, or even wait a longer time to tell him and
have him feel hurt. We both really feel like this relationship is a keeper,
so it really matters. If it was just a sex thing or a fling I obviously
wouldn’t care.
However, Boyfriend has enough stress of his own. He cares a lot about me,
and I know if I tell him about my past with this problem then he’ll get all
overly worried for me and want to take care of me and so on. Even worse, if
I tell him I imagine that every time we go out to dinner he’ll be thinking
about my motives — if she gets a salad, is she restricting again? I think
about my body enough. I don’t want him to be watching it. I think about
food enough. I don’t want him to be thinking about it. Yes, it’s a little
shameful to me. I don’t want to look weak to him, and I don’t want to
burden him with this. I am healing and recovering by myself, and there’s
really not anything that anyone else can do for me.
I don’t want to be that needy girlfriend, but on the other hand I feel like
I’ve been lying to the man I love. Please help!
Sign me,
Guilty Girl
Dear Guilty,
I certainly don’t need to tell you, but an eating disorder isn’t about food, entirely; it’s about control. I suspect that, yes, you keep this from Boyfriend because it embarrasses you and you don’t want to worry him, but also partly because it’s yours and you want it to stay yours — to exert control by having that.
It doesn’t make you a bad person; it doesn’t mean you have to tell him. But part of trusting another person in a relationship is letting them worry about you, letting their feelings about you count. It does mean giving up a measure of control, that decision to trust him, but generally speaking, it’s worth it.
It’s never easy to let another person really see you, the things you think of as your imperfections. I’m sure Boyfriend will sympathize with your reasons for not saying something sooner. But if you want the relationship to go the distance, yes, you should probably take a deep breath and tell him.
Hi Sars,
I have been a big fan of your writing for a long time
and think you may be the person to help my measly
problem.
First, I’m 24 years old and am finishing my second
B.A. in the spring. This degree will be in English and
my first was in Education (the reasons behind this are
for another letter!). The problem I have is my word
use, or choice, or lack of.
As I’m trying to finish
various papers and prepare for exams, I cannot stop
using “is” in what seems like all of my sentences.
When I try to think of another verb, or even pull out
the thesaurus or dictionary for assistance, my mind
blanks. I am a successful student with a 3.8 GPA. I
can’t remember receiving less than an A-minus on any of
my papers. However, that will no longer be the case if
I turn in these muddy generically written papers.
Do you have any advice about this? I feel like the
pride I had when I wrote diminishing as I now read
papers that sound like a middle school student wrote
them.
Thank you,
Stuck in the Seventh Grade
Dear Seven,
I don’t have much to offer vis-a-vis the verbs themselves, given that I don’t know what you’re writing about, exactly, but I can tell you that I cherished a similar horror of the verb “to be” for many years — all my papers were “portray” this and “denote” that and “acts as” the other thing.
But direct, clear writing will generally get you grades just as good as writing that’s tricked up with fancier ways of saying the same thing; when you talk about how Pearl is a metaphor in The Scarlet Letter, you can just say, “Pearl is a metaphor in The Scarlet Letter.” You don’t have to use the verb phrase “functions as” instead.
In other words: Don’t worry about it. Or, worry about it later. Put the paper together; structure your argument in the outline and just write it as it comes with your supporting texts, blah blah, and then, if you need to, go back and make it sound more posh. But try not to get bogged down by your word choice until after the paper is mostly done; it’ll just slow you down, and honestly, if you’re making your arguments effectively otherwise, using “is” when that’s what you mean? Not a sin.
Well, okay, so here’s an etiquette question for you:
A few years ago, when I was in high school, I was in a Venture crew — basically co-ed Boy Scouts for older kids. Although I usually didn’t see other members outside of meetings and activities, we were all pretty close. The crew sort of disbanded around my junior year, but when I started college two years ago, I found out that an older member was at the same school. We emailed back and forth a little, talked on the phone, made half plans to hang out but never did. Last year I heard from her again, this time encouraging me to join campus Girl Scouts, but again, we never actually managed to synchronize our schedules so that I could get the forms and such (don’t ask me why I didn’t just go to a meeting and get them then…if there was a good reason, I don’t remember it). I feel like usually I was the one who dropped the ball on our getting together, but it’s not as if she was trying really hard and I ignored her, plans just…never fully materialized.
So, recently I got an email from the dad of a guy who was also in my crew, with an attached invitation to her graduation party next month. Her parents are throwing the party, and I haven’t heard from them or her about it, so I have this invitation sent to me by a person who is not actually hosting the party. I suppose it’s possible that he’s in charge of invitations, but that seems unlikely; not to mention the fact that he is a little odd and I can imagine he’d take it upon himself to forward it to me without making sure they wanted to invite me. And my thing is — would it be rude of me to show up? We’re not best-best friends but I have known her for a long time, and I’d like to go/see her/congratulate her et cetera. I guess I have a few options — calling her parents seems right out because I imagine if I do they’ll feel obligated to invite me, whether they wanted to or not. I could email the guy who sent it to me and see what he knows about it. Or I could just leave it alone until I hear from her, and if I don’t, just send her a nice card or something. I’m pretty unlikely to go if I’m not invited directly by one of the hosts, but would it really be just the biggest faux pas ever if I did?
Thanks,
Social Dilemmas Make Me Queasy
Dear Social,
The biggest faux pas ever, probably not, but if you think there’s some doubt as to whether you were actually invited by the relevant parties, you probably shouldn’t go. I mean, forget “not best-best friends” — you’re not really friends at all. You used to be friends, and you seem to think warmly of her, but you haven’t actually seen her in some years; the effort hasn’t been made.
Send a card congratulating her and, if you really want to get off the stick on the plans thing, suggest a specific activity and some times you could get together. Because yes, you could show up and play it like you “just assumed” it was kosher, but if you couldn’t get it together to hang out with her before now, I…don’t know why you would, really.
Dear Sars,
I’m having a bit of a moral quandary, and I could really use an outside opinion.
The background: my upbringing was pretty much less than ideal, largely due to my mother being a mentally ill alcoholic. She was physically abusive to the men in her life, emotionally abusive to all and, on occasion, sexually abusive to me. I chose a university clear across the country but it wasn’t far enough — she was arrested for assault against her boyfriend and his son my first Christmas home, and after I realised that not even that made her the least bit inclined to stop drinking and get back on her meds, I decided to cut ties with her.
It’s been hard. Despite her failings, we were really close when she was well, and for most of my life I was her caretaker. It broke my heart to do it, but I can’t say I regret it, not when I’ve discovered how great it feels to live without that stress and misery and fear in my life. Since then, contact between us has been scant. Holidays have gone unmarked, and she hasn’t tried to call or visit when she knows I’d be at my father’s. She’s written several emails, but none have made any mention of getting clean — in fact, she’s boasted about going off her medication for good — nor have they even mentioned the fact that she got married last year.
In summation, no reconciliation on the horizon.
However, in her last email she talked about wanting to contribute to my education, and when I checked the joint account we used to share, I found $200 recently deposited. I’m in my third year of university, hoping to continue post-grad, and already up to my ears in debt. I know it might not seem a huge sum to others, but that money could pretty much pay my grocery bill for the rest of the school year.
My question is, do I have any right to it, knowing that I have no intention of letting her back into my life? One part of me tries to rationalise it with the argument that my mother sent my sister (who became estranged from her several years before I did) quite a few cheques that were cashed without a word from her, so taking it shouldn’t constitute an agreement. But the rest of me can’t help but feel that she’s putting up that money as a mother, and that I owe her what’s due to one should I take it.
What do you think?
Thanks in advance,
Delinquent Daughter
Dear Del,
I think it’s probably best if you view “cutting ties” as an across-the-board thing that includes finances, because…yeah, she’s putting up that money “as a mother,” but what that means in your case is different from what it might mean to other people. She might assume an obligation on your part to thank her, which would mean getting in touch with her, which would mean letting all that stress and toxicity back into your life.
I’m not saying that the $200 is entirely a manipulation on her part, but…you know. A more worthwhile “contribution” to your education might have been a commitment to get sober and treat you like a human being when you were a kid, and maybe there aren’t any strings attached to this, but…maybe there are. Maybe she expects this to make up for things that money can’t make up for.
I can’t really tell you what to do, because I’ve never faced this situation and I don’t know enough about how your mother would receive it should you use the money, but I think you should do whatever’s going to cause you the least upheaval in the long run. If you can take the money and feel good about continuing to keep your distance from your mother, sure, do that. If you’d rather not touch it because it’s going to open a can of worms, even if it’s harder fiscally, do that. But try to view it through a lens of what’s good for you emotionally, not what she’s expecting from you.
Dear Sars,
I have four cats. I love them dearly, they’re my sweet babies and I’ll be the first to admit that I am a “cat person.”
My problem is this, apparently that’s the only identity I have with family and friends when it comes to gift-giving. For Christmas I received a kitty afghan, kitty candle holders, a silver kitty pendant, a kitty tee-shirt (the one that shows the cat butts on the back) and a kitty mug. Everyone’s been to my house; they know I don’t decorate with cats. They see how I dress every day, I never wear novelty clothing or accessories.
It’s not so much that I don’t want to waste gifts on this stuff, it’s more the feeling that my family and friends don’t bother to know enough about me to know that I’m just not into the kitty shit (literally and figuratively). I’m probably overly sensitive, but I tend to see it as kind of a lazy attempt to grab some general item that “fits” me without taking the time to find out what I’d really like.
Maybe the problem is that I’m always polite when I open gifts, you have to act pleased when the whole family is beaming at you. You have cats; you must have faced this problem at some point. How do I suggest that they quit it with the cats when I’m sure that every time they see something cute and feline they get pleased as punch and think, “Oh, that’d be perfect for her birthday?” Or perhaps better, how do I get over being disappointed and a bit insulted every time I open something from Puddys R Us?
Thanks,
I have a kitty toilet brush
Dear Me Too,
I think everyone has this problem, to a certain extent — you express one interest or you have one particular trait, and people seize on it and won’t let go. But people have busy lives, and they try to get gifts that are personal, but if they aren’t up to date on your other interests, they just go with what they know. I know it’s a little disheartening when it’s everyone, every year, and you’re like, “Is this the sum total of my life to you people?” But on the other hand…you have four cats. It’s hard to argue with the assumption that you like felines, unfortunately.
You do it to other people, too, probably, without realizing it. I certainly do it. Not that my dad doesn’t want books about Lincoln and the Civil War, because they show up on his Christmas list every year, but…I’d probably get them for him anyway. So, just try to appreciate the thought — or, if you’re feeling up to the acting task, do a very regretful, but also somewhat pointed, “I have this one already [cough]” softshoe and ask if you can have the receipt.
You could also lay some groundwork with your family throughout the year — exclaim on outfits and earrings, mention the shows you watch or the books you’ve been reading, talk about other things you’re into, yoga, Italian cooking, whatever. Yeah, you might wind up with a yoga mat with pawprints on it (or cat earrings), but you can at least try to plant the seeds of your other likes and dislikes during the year.
Worse comes to worst, sell the lot of it on eBay and buy yourself something you’d really like.
Tags: boys (and girls) cats etiquette the fam
