I’m hoping you can offer me some objective counsel on something
that’s creating a rift at work.

I work at a large (type of business) in a very tightly knit group. Our team
has been together for over three years. We’re extremely effective together,
so nobody’s ever tried to break up the dynamic. I’m sure we’re all much
more emotionally involved with each other than we should be, and of course
this leads to fuzzy boundaries, but this hasn’t caused any strife prior to
now. (Nobody’s boinked, as far as I’m aware.) But now I’m wondering if we
need to define a boundary — and can it be done without damaging the group
friendship?

Our group director, “N,” is a 60-ish gentleman from Ye Olde School of
Advertising. In spite of this, he’s a great guy that loves being around us
young folks. He and I have a particularly strong relationship because of
similar interests, as well as a reason that has bearing on my question.

Anyway, N is a very open sort, and has told us all about his father (or lack
thereof). He was a war baby, Army Dad left Mom single and pregnant, a sadly
typical story. That’s all he knew about the man, beyond the fact that he
was named after him for some odd reason. N’s mother ended up marrying a
great guy, and Bio-dad didn’t resurface until N was 10. When he called,
drunk and demanding to see “his son,” N’s stepfather made it clear to him
that since Bio-dad hadn’t seen fit to be part of N’s life when he was born,
he could keep steppin.’ No word since.

I can sort of relate to this part of his life, because I’m adopted. Much
like N, some useless prick impregnated my young mom and bailed. I was
fortunate enough to be adopted by a great family, and N and I both agree that
things couldn’t have worked out any better. While we speculated sometimes
about what we’d find if we hunted up our bio-dads, I get the impression that
both of us were pretty content not knowing one way or the other. (I’m an
adoptee that believes some doors should stay shut.) And I SWEAR there is a
reason I’m giving you all this back story.

He showed up at my cube one day with a printout of some small-town sports
champ’s obit. It took me a second to digest what he was saying because the
name at the top was identical to his, except that the champ in question had
died five years ago. Call me slow. When I asked him, “Where did you get
this?” he told me that he’d been discussing his paternity with a woman who
works indirectly with our team. He’d mentioned the fact that his bio-dad has
a distinctive name, the same as his. Well, this woman, M, went back to her
office, hopped on the Net, and punched his name into a search engine. The
obit, with all his pertinent info, including his surviving kids (one named
the EXACT SAME THING AS N — how sick is that?) was the first thing that came
up. She printed it out and gave it to him. N called his mom to confirm
that it was unquestionably his bio-dad, dead for five years.

I was shocked, and hurt for him. It’s one thing to tell yourself, “Well,
maybe one day…I’ll resolve this later.” It’s another to find out from an
uninvolved party that it’s over, there’s no more “later,” and you’ll never
know what could have been. Why us adopted kids even care, I’m not sure, but
we do.

The first thing that came out of my mouth was a total brain fart. “Well, I
HOPE my father’s dead so he can’t show up on my doorstep one day, destitute
and whining that I’m his long-lost daughter and I have to take care of him
now because he happened to contribute some sperm.” I’m sure this wasn’t the
most sensitive thing to say, but like I said, I have a hard time being
objective about this situation. And we have the kind of relationship that
allows for painful bluntess. He seemed to understand why I would say it,
but left to go brood some more.

Here’s the thing — I feel that M violated his privacy and, even if he seemed
forthcoming when he told her about his father, it was not M’s place to try
to dig up something personal without his direct consent. But since she did
dig up this info, she should have realized the potential damage of such a
disclosure, and used common sense to keep it to herself. My direct
coworkers agree with me.

However, M’s direct coworkers have taken the attitude that, since N has
always been open about his family situation, M had implicit consent to
search…and that it wasn’t terribly harmful for N to get some closure
anyway. (Did he even WANT the closure? Who decides that? Don’t get me
started. Ergh.) Even more infuriating, M got word of what I said to N and
suggested that I had been unforgivably insensitive. Again, I grant
that…it was a gut reaction, and I feel terrible that I wasn’t more
thoughtful. But N is a friend and mentor as well as a supervisor, and I
think he knew I was trying to comfort him in my own weird way. He didn’t
seem hurt or angry. Besides, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle obtuse?
I talked to him the evening after M’s revelation and he was really shaken,
trying to figure out how to mourn a man he didn’t even know.

Am I being hypersensitive about this topic? Or does M owe N an apology?
If so, should somebody suggest this to M? Do I owe him one? Should I just
leave bad enough alone? (We were all showed the article, so it’s not a
question of violating confidentiality.) And is the central issue here
coworkers with bad boundaries, or one particular coworker who doesn’t
understand the fine lines of human interaction?

Thanks for your time —
Perhaps a re-org is overdue

How do I divorce someone I like? I have been together with the same man for six years and married for four of them. Mr. C and I have never, and I mean absolutely never, achieved any comfortable level of intimacy with each other, and yet we operate fine on a friendly level (albeit quite passively). We are both apathetic types bred from under-achieving middle-class mores who carry a combined load of emotional baggage too burdensome to deal with — we have a keen sense of ownership to our self-loathing (“No one is to blame,” as Howard Jones once sang). Prior to the big wedding date, I don’t think we seriously considered that emotional maturity was something to be developed on our own rather than through the angst of coupleship. We’ve let our insecurities dominate the direction (and lack thereof) of this relationship. He is 31 and I am 29, and neither of us ever “peaked” in our formulative years, alone or together. We both agree to the facts existing in this marriage: no sex, shitty outlook on life, and broken promises to “make it” somehow, some way.

I lust after men other than my husband for want of something passionate and “safe.” The reason why I want a divorce is because I want to take a risk on a decision for once in my life. I tell myself that my constant confusion on the marriage issue and back-and-forth about what to commit myself to is grounds for a divorce — sufficient rationale, or complete avoidance of the issue? I just don’t know anymore.

We don’t abuse each other, and we give each person a say in what they feel and want. There have been countless arguments, constructive forums of discussion about our problems, a trip to a sex shop, half-read relationship help books (puke), taking short trips alone, patient understandings and dashed hopes…EVERYTHING real about being married has been on our plates.

But — and kill me lord for being so fucking clichéd — I can’t leave him!

Mr. C is a decent and good guy. He is fluent in logical and literary manners, and offers any willing soul the gift of generosity with his time and knowledge. My problem is that I can appreciate him as a smart man and not as a lover. I don’t know if my problem centers around woman’s need for romantic love. Our relationship doesn’t need a shot in the arm because it wasn’t fireworks in the beginning. We’ve grown to like each other and make it seem like there is a marriage at work. I’m confused whether the slow death of a relationship that was fragile from the beginning is sane grounds for a divorce. It pisses me off that it takes this many years together to have accumulated “evidence” towards a drastic conclusion. The lingering of such sentiments only compounds/complicates the issue. Is it some fault in my personality makeup that I let the years go on as I did and try marriage with Mr. C as long as I did?

Perhaps all you can tell me is to gather up the courage to take the risk and stop all this mental anguish and petty game of apathy. I dunno, tell me.

Signed,
Wanting it all but not knowing what I want

I am living with a man that I absolutely adore. He is kind, loving, fun in
the sack, a hell of a cook, and a great conversationalist. We met online
five or six years ago, then six months ago he moved from his home in Texas
to be with me in San Francisco so I could keep my high-level job with a
software company and we could save some money together for our June wedding.
He had a flexible, work-from-home job that was easily transportable.

So
what’s the problem? Well, HAD was the operative word there. Four months
ago, he lost his work-from-home job, and I am faced today with a savings
that has dwindled to nothing, maxed-out credit card debt, looming wedding
expenses, and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

I broke down two weeks ago and told him that we can’t survive if he doesn’t
find something, anything, to bring more money in. Still no job. It’s not
that he isn’t TRYING; he’s not one of those guys who sits at home watching
TV all day, but I can’t help feeling like he’s not trying enough. Though I
try to make it clear that I would love him just as much if he was working as
a baristo at Starbucks, he is still only applying for jobs that he thinks
are “worthy” of me, whatever that means. Also, I’m in the buzzkill position
of cutting back on the fun stuff we used to do, like going out to movies and
eating out because I can’t afford to pay our phone bill.

He has been very depressed by all this, and up till now I have been more
than supportive, because the job market here in the Bay Area is really
terrible. But now I am freaking out and falling apart, and I need his help
desperately. Attempting to talk about money or jobs or anything remotely
related with him sends him into the “I’m so worthless” spiral, and I end up
patting him on the head and soothing him when what I want to do is scream,
“Goddammit, STOP feeling sorry for yourself and just DO something about
it!!” If something doesn’t change soon, I will just end up resenting him
more and more, and worse, losing respect for him, and it makes me feel
totally miserable. What should I do?

Signed,
The Big Bad Girlfriend

Love your site, it always gives me my much needed dose of humor for the day. (I have two cats, so any time I read about yours there’s sure to be soda all over the screen.) I was reading the Cherry Tomatoes recently and laughed out loud at your comments on Bust, which couldn’t be more true. [I believe I’d said that they needed to knock it off with the evangelizing about the Hitachi Magic Wand. — Sars] Which leads to my problem. (It’s not about vibrators, I swear.)

I consider myself a feminist and try to absorb as much information about female issues through whatever outlet I can, Bust being one of the many. After reading or watching or listening to all this stuff, I get the feeling that I’m not being a “good” feminist. The problem? I have practically no female friends. All these magazines and such talk about how important it is to have some kind of unbroken bond with your sisters in arms, and I feel like I’m not living up to some standard of feminism by not having a lot of female friends.

Maybe a little background info would help. I’m a 24-year-old college kid who is graduating this year. I’m going to school in my hometown after doing poorly in a giant state school earlier in my academic life. I was never really social in high school, but when I got to college I managed to make quite a few friends, female and male. Then after the first year of school I had to endure that whole ordeal of realizing the superficiality of dorm friendships. I had dropped out of school, but I was still in town, living off campus. I would try to hang out with my girlfriends from the dorms, but eventually the friendships just withered up. The story is lot more complex, but too long to go into. There was a lot of petty bullshit that really hurt, and I just gave up on them.

So I lived off campus with a girl friend of mine who I had known from high school. For two years we had a great time until she got a serious guy. And then it was “who are you again?” I never expected her to devote equal time to the both of us. Of course she wanted to be with the new guy a lot, and I was cool with that. I didn’t think she’d abandon everything we ever did together for him, but that’s what happened and it hurt. I had a serious boy at the time too, but I believe it is possible you can be away from your guy for awhile without the world ending. Anyway, that left me bitter and hurt. Put that on top of what I’d gone through with the dorm friends and I was getting pretty fed up with female behavior.

So since then, after moving back to my hometown once the thrill of attempting to live solely on chips and salsa wore off and knowing I had to go back to school, I haven’t really made many more female friends. I am an only child so I’ve never been real extroverted and social, but I do have a few guy friends (I live with three boys so how could I not) and girl friends, but I wouldn’t consider the girls really close chums. I’ve also never really been hardcore into the girly-girl thing, so I’ve found it hard to relate to a lot of the girls I do hang out with and I just find it easier to be around guys. I think my problem boils down to the fact that I’ve never found it easy to be friends with a lot of people (quality over quantity sort of thing, plus I’ve been screwed over by guy friends too), and I get so tired of the petty stuff that a lot of the girls I know do. I’m not trying to generalize every female in this whole town and I know there are probably a lot of smart, funny, vital women out and about; I just don’t know where.

Most of the time it doesn’t faze me that I don’t really have a strong connection with many non-related females. I have my mother, aunt, and grandmothers to be the kick-ass women in my life who help and influence me. But sometimes I get the nagging feeling that I should be out there making more female friends that are my age. I hope to be getting out of this city soon, so maybe that will help me find like-minded girls.

So after all that, what I’m wondering is, am I a “bad” feminist for not having that bond with other girls and sharing the joys of womanhood with my “sisters” across the globe (whatever the hell that means)? Will it happen eventually after getting through the bullshit of college and living somewhere besides this crap town? I read stuff like TWoP and TN and think, wow, those women seem so cool, maybe I’m just in the wrong place for meeting cool girls. So any feedback you have would be cool. I’d love to know what you think.

Thank you,
I Do Know What It Feels Like For A Girl, Thank You Very Much

I need some objective advice, and you always seem to
have just the answer (and you make it sound so simple —
although I know it’s not as clear when you are mired in
it). Anyway, I am a slightly overweight, voluptuous
woman. I have always been voluptuous, but when I was a
little thinner, I still felt good about myself (I never
found the starving-heroin-addict types particularly
feminine or attractive). Now, I try to be as self-
confident as I can, but in today’s society, it’s hard
not to have body issues. The problem is two of my thin
friends.

One friend is constantly going on and on about how fat
she is (she is SO not). I know that she is obviously
dealing with her own body image issues, but sometimes it
just grates on my nerves. I am always supportive,
because I know that fat/thin/ugly/beautiful is all
subjective and relative, but sometimes it hurts to hear
a size four says she’s fat. I can’t help but think, “If
you are fat, then what am I at a size 14-16?” Is there
anything I can say to her to let her know that I care
about how she feels, but sometimes it hurts my feelings?

I can actually deal with Friend One, mostly. Friend Two
is more of a problem. She is VERY body-conscious. She
works out constantly and watches everything that goes
into her mouth. Good for her, I say. However, she is
quite prejudiced towards fat people. If she sees a fat
person eating something, she will make comments
like “she really needs that,” and she stereotypes fat
people as lazy, stupid, et cetera (she often does this with
other groups of people, too, like smokers, uneducated
people, old people — she does not have any
race/religion types of issues). Anyway, I know when she
says these things, she doesn’t mean me, since she knows
and likes me, but it still hurts. I usually try to
respond with something to disprove her stereotype, but
it’s tiring.

I know I can’t do anything about her
opinion, but I would like her to think before she starts
insulting people. I would normally tell her off, but
she is also a coworker, and one I need to be close to,
since she is sort of a superior. She helps me out a lot
at work, and we work together. I really DO like her,
and we have fun together, but I am not sure how to
broach this subject with her. I hope you can help.

Thanks,
Full-Figured & Frustrated