The Vine: January 26, 2006
Thanks to everyone who wrote in with the obvious solution to Mic’s kids-at-the-wedding problem that I didn’t even think of: getting a babysitter or designating a “kids’ room” for the duration of the ceremony.
Dear Sars,
I have a problem that involves a boy, but not really. It pretty much came out that my friend is interested in men as well as women. Which, great, except this is my best friend and I’ve struggled with dealing with my more-than-platonic feelings for him for years. I do have a handle on it, but it was a surprise, especially since I explicitly asked my friend about this before and he pretty much just denied it.
I know these are things I have to figure out for myself and I really do believe it will be fine in the long-term. The real problem is that honestly, when I found out I just can’t handle food. Today I ate a fruit cup and a handful of Cheerios. I finally forced down some pasta, but I feel awful and it feels like the food is stuck in my throat. Which, yeah, this is proof I’m not handling this as well as I thought.
The thing is, I have tests and papers and all the other stuff that goes along with being a college student. And I’m trying to think this through, but I have to still deal with my real life. And most importantly, I need food. This has never happened to me before. I’m a huge over-eater and this is really freaking me out. Do you have any advice in dealing with this in the short-term? At least long enough for me to not cringe at the thought of anything remotely nourishing.
Thanks,
I really miss cheeseburgers
Dear Cheese,
Okay, first off, take a deep breath and try not to get too wound up about this part of it. Not wanting to eat/inability to swallow is a fairly typical symptom of anxiety, it’s not going to last forever, you’re not going to starve. Just lay in a supply of multivitamins, vitamin water, yogurt drinks — whatever is a meal, sort of, but in liquid form, so you can just chug it and not get all het up about giving yourself scurvy.
The second step is to see a counselor at the campus health center, for both the short-term anxiousness and the longer-term problem you might have in managing it productively. There’s nothing wrong with freaking out every now and then, but if you’re internalizing your emotions to the point where you can’t eat, it’s probably time to talk to a pro and get a hand with that.
The third thing is an old familiar song around here, “The Ballad of It’s Not Friendship Anymore When One of You Has ‘More Than Friends’ Feelings.” Sad little ditty, but true all the same. You need to start spending less time with your best friend. “But –” I know, but you have feelings for him and he doesn’t return them, so it’s not so much best friends now, and you need to mourn that and move on. Disentangling yourself from him a bit is appropriate and healthy, and you should start.
But you’ll be okay. Just trust in yourself to get it figured out, and try to focus on classes instead of how crazy you are, because comparatively, you’re just really not that crazy. You’re fine. Take care of yourself.
Sars,
I have a family/etiquette/politics question. Some background: My paternal grandmother is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, and when I was a kid, would give me as a “gift” a membership to the Louisiana Republican Women’s Assocation (she’s a past president). This person has a pencil drawing of W with the caption “George W. Bush: Man of Prayer” in her home. Needless to say, we don’t share the same politics. She emails me Republican diatribes, sometimes I delete them, sometimes I respond in kind with something from Move On or the like, sometimes I actually try to engage her in a meaningful discussion (she wrote me recently and chided me that “all Republicans are not necessarily evil, and all Democrats are not necessarily good.” I told her that I knew that was true, and cited Colin Powell as a Republican I respected).
But on the whole, I try not to engage her, because I know there’s no point. All good and well. I’m not particularly close to my extended family, and it doesn’t really get to me in any emotional way. Until. I got the annual Christmas card from her, and with it was a little card, that said “Thanks for the donation you already made [your membership dues]! Feel free to contribute more to the Louisiana Republican Women’s PAC!”
I don’t know if she got me a membership in this thing, or if it’s her membership and she’s just giving me the “opportunity” to donate to them. I would be pretty upset if it’s the former — if it’s the latter, well…it’s awfully disrespectful and un-holiday-season-y. So, my questions are, 1) do I confront her about it? I KNOW she’s fully aware that I don’t share her political views. Or do I just ignore it the way I ignore most of her political needlings? 2) If I don’t confront her about it, is there any way to find out if she’s contributing money to Republicans in my name? The idea makes me sick, although I guess it’s her money and she can do what she wants (wasn’t there an organization called NotInMyName.org?)?
I feel like confronting her about it won’t do any good, and will just create needless aggro for me — and even though she’s being insensitive, it feels wrong to me to write her all “How dare you give me this gift!” At the same time, I really don’t want her to make a habit of this.
What Would Sars Do?
She’s My Grandma, Why Do I Have To Be The Grownup?
Dear Grown,
It depends on why you don’t want her making a habit of it. I mean, duh, but what bothers you more — that you think she’s trying to needle you? Or that donations are being given to causes you don’t agree with, and you might wind up on their membership rolls?
If it’s the former, I think you just have to ignore it — or just decline to take the bait. Send her a note that leads with a neutral “thanks for thinking of me,” add a few sentences about another topic, sign, mail, don’t get into it.
If it’s the “ew, Republicans think I like them” aspect, do a little counter-donating of your own to causes you do support. You don’t need to tell her about it; just give a few bucks to the campaign of a local Democrat, or any other local charity you like the looks of.
Not In My Name.org is devoted to another cause entirely, and Googling various phrases regarding unwanted donations didn’t turn up anything relevant, but if the readers come up with any way for you to find out whether the GOP thinks you’re a contributor (or contributee), I’ll let you know.
Meantime, I’d just leave it. She’s not trying to hear that you don’t want to be a conservative; fight back privately by putting a little cash in a progressive direction, and let it go.
Dear Sars:
In the last several months, several of my girlfriends
have told me stories of how guys they’ve been seeing
(short-term, but not necessarily casual dating) have
simply quit calling. My advice to my friends is that
the guys’ behavior is immature and thoughtless, but
that they should just move on because over-thinking it
isn’t going to get them anywhere.
Sounds like good advice, but then the same thing
happened to me. I’d been seeing Boy for about two
months, at least a couple times a week. There had
been sleepovers, talk of what we might do “when the
weather was better,” et cetera. I was out of town for a
week, during which time we had a couple of phone
conversations. When I got back? Nothing. I left him
a couple of messages, and an email or two, but after
several days I figured I was approaching the point of
being stalker-ish. That was two weeks ago and still
radio silence.
So, I’m taking my own advice and moving on. But the
thing is, I don’t get it. Since when did simply not
returning a phone call become an acceptable way to end
a relationship? Oh, I’d be the first to admit that I
might not return a phone call from someone I met at a
bar on Friday, but someone that I’d been seeing (and
intimate with) for a couple of months? Am I wrong to
consider this unacceptable? Is this a growing trend?
Should I accept it as normal?
Sincerely,
Can I get a little common courtesy over here?
Dear Court,
You’re not wrong, but…”growing” trend, I don’t know. I think it’s more common than you seem to, but it certainly doesn’t make it any less lame and rude.
I don’t understand why people do this, in the end. Well, okay — I understand that it’s because they dislike confrontation, and they would rather not say to your face that they don’t want to see you anymore or they met someone else. Nobody enjoys that conversation, obviously. But it just seems easier to me, in the end, to sit the other person down and say, “This isn’t working for me, I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings, take care,” than to be ducking phone calls or hoping you don’t run into them somewhere…it’s not fun, but at least it’s over with.
I feel that, once you’ve started having sex, this conversation requires a face-to-face, but at the very least, have the conversation — by voice, not email or IM and not during the workday. Even if you don’t like a person enough to keep dating them, understand that she has feelings, damn.
Point is, you’re right; he’s a dink; there’s really nothing you can do when someone decides to lam it instead of speaking to you frankly. You’re better off.
Dear Sars,
I’m 23 and I graduated from college a year and a half ago. Since then,
I’ve managed to achieve virtual financial and social independence with
my mom an unthreatening two towns over. I make enough each month to
cover rent, utilities, groceries, gas, insurance payments and
medications usually with a couple of bucks leftover.
In the middle of my junior year in college, my dad wigged out, left my
mom (after 30 years of marriage) and moved in with a woman twenty
years his junior a couple of states away. He and I were never really
that close to begin with, but I still send him the occasional email
and cookies at Christmas. Basically, I’m not holding a grudge. I
understand that what happened is between my mom and him and that’s
fine. As long as they both remain diplomatic about one another in
front of me, I won’t have a problem with either one of them.
My dad is quite wealthy. He lives in an elaborate high-rise apartment
filled with flatscreen TVs in the middle of a big city. He jet-sets
off to Europe with his wife on a whim. When he left the family he took
his money with him. And he made it quite clear to me that after I left
school I was on my own financially because that’s how it was with his
parents and that’s how he learned to be successful.
Here’s the problem. This month I’ve come up a little short due to a
couple of unexpected veterinary expenses. If I don’t borrow 45 bucks
from someone I have to choose between my Zyrtec (I have a wicked case
of dermographism. Annoying, but it won’t kill me if I don’t take my
meds) and gas to drive to work. My mom just left her job and I don’t
want to hit her up. All of my friends are just as broke or broker than
me. Should I ask my dad? I asked him for some money for apartment
furnishings about a year ago and he flatly refused and I haven’t
touched the issue since. I know I’ll be really pissed at him if he
turns me down again. Do have any right to feel like that? Shouldn’t he
be helping me out a little? Am I right to be expecting him to?
Thanks,
Broke and itchy
Dear Oh, Who Isn’t,
This is…a big can of worms to open over $45. Not that you shouldn’t do it; I’m just saying. Because if you do ask your dad, he’s probably going to say no, and if he does say no, then not only are you still out the $45, but you’re pissed at him to boot, and not necessarily about the money.
I mean, I don’t know if you “have the right to” get angry if he won’t lend you a few bucks — given the circumstances, I would feel a little abandoned, but on the other hand, he stated right up front that his days of helping you out are over. Now, to my mind, said statement makes him kind of an ass — I agree with him in theory, that you should learn to make your own way, but in practice, 1) it’s a few dollars here and there, and 2) his point would be a lot better if he were still married to his contemporarily-aged first wife. Yeah, yeah, maybe it’s a great love match between him and the new wife, but the whole situation reads to me like he feels he has to spend-a-lee-spend-dang-doo to keep her interested, which…is gross, on both their parts, and it’s one thing to leave your wife, but to sort of bail on your kids like that to be the money monkey for the new girl is…well, I don’t have to tell you. Let’s go with “irresponsible.”
But maybe you do have the same feelings I do about his behavior; you say you’re cool with it, and if that’s true, that’s great, but if you’re not, I wouldn’t blame you — and maybe it’s time to ask him for the money and kind of confront the emotions behind this decision of his to let you sink or swim. Because he’s not really doing it for your own good, I don’t think, and if I were you and I got that sense, I’d think he was a shitheel and I’d be mad and hurt.
If you have enough on your plate that you don’t feel like dealing with that, though, that’s okay. But if that’s the case, I wouldn’t ask him for the money; I’d phone a friend and try to get a loan there. Fewer emotional entanglements, plus you’re more likely to get the cash without having to sit through a lecture.
Short form: Figure out how much you want to think about your dad’s behavior just generally lately, and proceed accordingly.
If I am writing a lease and refer to a tenant, can I subsequently refer to the tenant as “it,” or should it be “her” if I know the tenant is a female or “he” if I know the tenant is male? For example, can I say, “the tenant is not responsible for repairs to the roof unless he/she/it caused the damage thereto.” What if in the context, the reader does not know the identity of the tenant and the tenant could be a corporation?
Can one ever refer to a Corporation or legal entity as “they” or is the proper reference always “it”?
Also, do you think is it inappropriate for an executive to write a letter on his company’s letterhead and refer to the company by name and then later as “we,” as in the following example: “Acme Company disagrees that it owes you money because we never used your products.” Can you switch references in the next sentence as long as the usage in the entire sentence is consistent?
I do not know anyone who can answer these questions but suspect that you might. Thanks.
D
Dear D,
On my lease, I am referred to as “Tenant” throughout — no pronoun. A somewhat clunky solution, but it obviates the need for a rewrite in the event the lease gets reassigned, I guess.
How you refer to a corporation vis-a-vis singular/plural depends on whether you’re working in American English or British. I believe BrE tends to refer to companies and nations as “they,” while AmE uses “it.” I don’t think it’s a huge deal which you choose, as long as it’s consistent throughout the document (you shouldn’t be changing referents from sentence to sentence).
Garner is, of course, my usage bible, but he’s also an attorney, and if I’m not mistaken, he got his start in books on legal writing specifically. Searching “Bryan Garner” on Amazon brings up half a dozen results, including A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (the analog to the one I use) and The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style, which also sounds useful for your purposes.
Tags: boys (and girls) etiquette friendships grammar the fam
