I was hoping you could help me with a situation I’ve
gotten myself into.

For several years I was very good friends with a girl
we’ll call “A.” We met at school, and quickly became
good friends because of the many things we had in
common. After she transferred to another school we
could only see each other occasionally due to living
in separate states, but we kept up our friendship
mostly on the internet.

However, our relationship
outside of our shared interests consisted of her
feeling sorry for herself over problems she had
caused, and expecting my support. I knew she had
problems with her parents, school, and what I guess
was depression, and I was the main person she was
relying on for dealing with these things. However, she
managed to remain unhappy no matter how I tried to
help her, while remaining blissfully self-centered and
ignoring my feelings.

After several unsuccessful
attempts to distance myself from her, several months
ago I told her that although I cared about her, I
couldn’t handle being friends with her anymore, since
all I did was support her emotionally without
receiving anything in return. I’ll be the first to
admit I didn’t manage this very well; this all occurred
online and I attempted to justify my standpoint to her
long after I should have left her alone. I also never
brought up the fact that I was unhappy with our
friendship or gave her a chance to explain after I
told her, since I have a tendency to cave and forgive
people instead of risking the loss of their
friendship. But for the most part she is a non-factor
in my life, since our few mutual friends are
understanding of what happened and for the most part,
no chance of my running into A.

However, I was recently invited to the birthday party
of “B,” a mutual friend. I intend to go, and I assume
A will also attend since B has been her close friend
for many years. I’m a bit nervous about seeing A
again. I haven’t seen her since before cutting off
contact with her, and I’m not sure how she’d feel
about seeing me again. After all, she was
understandably upset and betrayed.

What should I say
to someone who was my best friend before I forced her
out of my life? Should I try to make polite
conversation, or avoid her? Or am I worrying
needlessly?

Thanks,
Not The Best Of Best Friends

I’m in the middle of kind of a sticky situation, and I was wondering if you could help me out. It takes a bit of backstory, so stay with me here…

I have a friend named “Cathy.” Last year, this guy named “Jack” asked her out. She had liked him for a while, and said yes. At about the same time, she met a guy named “Steve” and started to kind of fall for him. Steve had a very serious crush (by the way, did I mention we are very obviously in high school?) on a girl named “Linda.”

A few months later, Steve told Cathy that he was getting over Linda and actually liked this other girl, but she was “taken.” Cathy assumed it was her, but was too shy to say anything (I know that sounds lame, but she’s a very shy person). Shortly after that, Cathy broke up with Jack. Two days later, Steve asked out another girl, named “Mary.”

Cathy was destroyed, but didn’t say anything. At this point, I was the only person who knew how much she really liked Steve. Cathy and Steve stayed close friends all through the semester. Two weeks before the semester ended, Steve told Cathy how much he liked her. He then dumped Mary on the last day, and asked Cathy out.

They dated for several months without anyone (besides Cathy’s mom and myself) knowing. Both said they didn’t want their respective exes to know (I think they were more worried about Mary than Jack). Cathy has asked me repeatedly to just “not say anything” about them going out, while she actively lies to our other friends when they ask her if she and Steve are dating. She says that she wants to tell, but Steve wants to keep it secret. Meanwhile, they’re going out twice a week and doing God knows what in his car.

I know I sound like an overprotective mother, but I’m worried. Steve still goes to parties with his ex, since everyone thinks he’s single, and he hangs out at her house. I’ve brought up my concerns with Cathy (he cheated on his last girlfriend, he still sees her pretty often, he’s keeping Cathy a secret) and she’s blown me off. Her mom is also worried, and has spoken to me about it.

Should I keep my mouth shut? If so, tell me and I will. I just want to keep Cathy from getting hurt, and I know that’s not something I can do forever, but Steve is only her second boyfriend and I think he’s taking advantage of her. How can I handle this?

Worried friend

I’m writing to you knowing full well that I risk
coming off as a complete and utter bridezilla.

I asked my cousin, M, to be one of my bridesmaids. She
more or less campaigned to be a bridesmaid — telling
everyone, knowing that they’d tell me, about how hurt
her feelings would be if she wasn’t my bridesmaid,
et cetera. I decided to include her regardless of the guilt
trip/campaigning. She’s completely flaked on different
things that all of the bridesmaids have gotten
together to do (favors, shoe shopping, et cetera), saying
that she had to work. I know you’re like well,
assfucker, people do have to work — I’m very
understanding of that. However, she works at a
daycare. Operative word being DAY. All of these
meetings, activities, whatever you want to call them
have occurred in the evening. Irritating, yes, but not
the real heart of my problem.

She dyed her hair the absolute nastiest shade of
orangy yellow. Do you remember that one year in high
school when all the brunettes came back from summer
vacation with Sun-In orange hair? It’s that color. I
don’t really have much room to talk, as I had hot pink
hair for my brother’s wedding (I think busted-ass hair
dying was a freshman requirement at my little art
school). He asked me to dye it back, and since it was his
wedding, I complied.

I think karma has just bit me in
the ass. I emailed her (I know it’s kind of a cop-out,
but come on. I’m writing to someone I don’t know for
advice. I’m not exactly confrontational) and asked
her if she could please dye her hair just for the
wedding. I was very honest/blunt, and told her that
while I didn’t like it and would prefer that she dye
it, it was ultimately her decision. She hasn’t
responded in any way, and it’s been roughly three weeks. I
would at least have liked her to say “go fuck yourself,”
and be done with it. I think the time for damage
control has passed, and both she and I carry the
non-confrontational gene so I don’t foresee either of
us making the first move.

So here’s my question. 1) Was it even appropriate to
ask for something like that? 2) What the hell do I do
now?

Bridezilla who doesn’t want to look back at wedding
pictures and wince

I’m currently in my senior year at high school, which is supposed to be
the year when everybody bonds, and forgets about their little cliques and is
just friends with everybody. I’m really digging that idea, and it seems to
be pretty good. I like almost everybody in the year.

Almost everybody.

There’s this girl, “Marie,” who I absolutely detest. When Marie and I were
around 13, we were best friends. We were both whiny, angsty idiots —
something that comes with the territory of being 13. I was sullen and
withdrawn, she was argumentative and complained about everything, but we got
along fine.

I know my mother never liked Marie — she’d tell me that she wasn’t the sort
of person I should be friends with. At the time, I figured that was just
Mum, trying to ruin my life because she sucked. Fortunately, when I grew up,
I realized how much Mum rocked, and that she was most definitely right all
along.

Marie argued about everything. And I mean everything. I remember one time
when Marie came over to my house to watch a video Mum had rented especially
for us to watch. When Mum was giving her a ride back to her house, she asked
if Marie had enjoyed the film. Instead of being polite and saying, “Yes, it
was great, thanks,” she went on and on and ON about how awful it was, how it
was so unrealistic and how anybody who voluntarily watched it was just plain
stupid.

Another time, she screamed and yelled at my older sister because she was
wearing a t-shirt with the British flag on it. (I should mention that we
live in Scotland — a part of Britain.) According to Marie, the flag
represented a false country, and she should really wear a Scottish flag on
her shirt, because apparently, anybody who’s truly Scottish hates those
“English scum” who are trying to take over our country and kill puppies or
something. Yeah, she really does hate English people, because she blames
them for everything that’s wrong with Scotland. England and Scotland were
last at war in the 1600s. We’ve been the SAME DAMN COUNTRY SINCE 1707! Get
over it already!

Not only that, but she would bitch incessantly about how the Harry Potter
books were so awful, how there was no literary merit to them, how anybody
who read them must be stupid. Of course, she’d never read the books, or even
seen the movie. She was a book snob, surprising really, since she (still)
reads nothing but children’s books, with the exception of Lord of the Rings.

Things started to change when I got a little older. I stopped acting like an
idiot. I grew up and started to make more friends, started to actually have
a life.

I was growing out of Marie and so we started to have arguments all the time.
I used to just nod and agree with whatever she said, but I started telling
her exactly what I thought. We were most definitely growing apart, but
despite it all, she was still my best friend, and I thought I could confide
in her. I told her I was bisexual, and she promptly stopped speaking to me
and refused to be my friend.

She talked about me behind my back, but thanks to the fact that I actually
had a lot of friends at school, I got to hear what she was saying about me.
Mostly, that I’d just told her I thought I was bi to get attention, that I
was a slut, et cetera.

We didn’t talk for about a year. I wasn’t exactly the most popular girl in
school, but I had a lot of good friends, and the only people who weren’t my
friends (aside from Marie) were just people I didn’t know that well. Marie
was all on her own. Call me an idiot, but I felt sorry for her. I started to
nod hello to her when we passed in the corridor, and it progressed to saying
“hi, how are you,” and eventually to making small talk. We weren’t friends,
far from it, but we weren’t enemies any more. I thought maybe she’d grown up
a bit, and realized how stupid she was.

This year, she’s started hanging around my friends and I, like a leech.

You see, whilst we’re all 16 and 17 years old, and pretty much acting like
you’d expect people our age to — boyfriends, make-up, going to rock
concerts, going to bars (the legal drinking age in Scotland is 18),
developing our own lives outside of our families, reading new things, and so on — Marie hasn’t grown up at all. She still acts like that idiot
13-year-old girl. We don’t want to tell her to bugger off in so many words,
because it’s a small year group, a small common-room, and we’d still have to
see her every day. Plus, we don’t exactly want to disrupt the unity of the
year. But it’s just getting to the point where she’s driving us all FUCKING
INSANE. I know it’s more me than anybody else. My best friend (Robyn) and I
were talking about this, and I know that although she doesn’t like Marie,
she doesn’t hate her as much as I do. I suppose that’s because of all the
history between me and Marie.

I ran into Marie in town on my way to meet Robyn in the local bar, and she
walked with me to the bar, and was simply shocked because I was going in.
She said I’d be thrown out, that I’d never get served, I wouldn’t even be
allowed through the door. I’m 17, and sure, the legal drinking age is 18,
and yeah, if I was going into the bar to get absolutely hammered, I could
understand having a problem with it. Meeting your best friend for a glass of
wine when you’re SIX MONTHS away from being allowed to drink legally? I just
don’t see the problem. And of course, she’s been bitching about it ever
since — how I’m turning into an alcoholic drug addict.

She’s been even worse ever since she found out (by listening in on a private
conversation with Robyn) that I’m not a virgin anymore. She’s been spreading
it around and telling everybody that I’m a whore who sleeps around.
Personally, I’m not bothered if people know I’m not a virgin — I’m not
ashamed of loving my boyfriend — most people would have figured that we’d at
least done something since we’ve been together for over two years. It does
piss me the hell off that because I’m sleeping with the guy I’ve been dating
for two years, she tells everybody that I’m a slut, that I’ll end up a
prostitute and that I’m stupid for doing it. We’ve not been stupid. I could
understand maybe if I was sleeping around. Not that it’d be any of her
business, but at least she’d have a point. My boyfriend and I have been
together for a long time, we’re both mature and comfortable enough to talk
about sex and sex-related issues — protection, pregnancy — and we love
each other. That does not make me stupid. And it does not make me a slut,
despite what Marie thinks. Fortunately, everybody else seems to realize this
too, but it hasn’t stopped Marie from attempting to spread the rumor.

I just seriously need to get her out of my life. What can I do to get rid of
her, without telling her to fuck off? I know I’d feel guilty about it, and I
just can’t be bothered with all the hassle and the drama she’ll bring into
my life. What should I do?

Thanks for the help,
Stressed in Scotland

Without making things
too complicated, let’s just say that my husband has an
anger problem. As in, too much of it, too loud, too
often. Now I’m done cursing myself for marrying him,
and am thinking of how to get out of the marriage. But
there’s a snag, see.

He’s unemployed. Has been for over a year. He’s had
little temp jaunts here and there, but those have been
short-term — and he’s been canned from the longer ones.
Abrasive personality, you see. Doesn’t play well with
others. So he’s basically unemployable at this point,
it seems. He has no money, no friends really (see
above re: personality), and his family doesn’t want
him, which they have made abundantly clear. So he has
nowhere to go and no money with which to get there. So
even if my kicking him out provides the incentive he
needs to get a damn job already, in the meantime, he’s
going to do what? Live in a box?

I can’t afford to give him any cash — supporting him
all this time has been a real financial drain, as I
didn’t make much to begin with. So what the hell do I
do? I try to imagine a future in which he’s still
having apoplectic fits because his favorite drinking
glass is dirty, and not working, and me wasting my
life away not getting what I want out of life
because I’m on babysitting detail, and it’s so very
depressing. I don’t want that. But for right here,
right now, how do I leave with a clear conscience?

Too Desperate to Come Up With A Cute Nickname