The Vine: July 12, 2001
Dearest, all knowing Sars,
Okay, time for a really awkward question: a cousin of mine died about a week ago. I wasn’t greatly affected, because the last time I had seen him was 1985. But he was the first of my cousins to be born, so it really affects my mother. The complication: nobody wants to tell my grandmother. They don’t ever want to tell her. She’s really elderly and frail, and everyone’s convinced that it will be too much for her and she won’t be able to deal with it. I agree that it’s really my uncle’s call — it was his son that died, after all. But this makes it really awkward for us to interact with her. It’s hard not to talk about, and we have to be really circumspect about who we do tell because they might forget that she’s not supposed to know. It’s getting more and more complicated…so, being as wise as you are, how would you deal with this?
Erica
Dear Erica,
God, just tell her already. She’s old, not stupid, and unless she’s senile or otherwise altered because of her age, it’s patronizing and disrespectful to assume that she can’t handle it.
And she probably already knows anyway — if not the details, then that something happened involving your cousin, and that you all have decided to hide it from her. People can sense these things. We had a whole list of things that we weren’t supposed to tell our own grandmother, and whenever someone slipped and told her by mistake, as someone inevitably did, it always turned out that she’d known about it the whole time.
It’s her grandchild. She deserves to know, and to mourn him. Your uncle is way off-base here.
Hey Sars,
First, I wanted to let you know how much I love the site and how much I love MBTV. You make me laugh every single day.
Now on to my problem — I’m a 26-year-old single girl who’s never been a very good dater. The longest “relationship” I ever had lasted no more than two dates. I chalk it up to a lot of insecurity and shyness and the general self-defeating crap you go through in high school and college. Well, a lot has changed in the four years since college. I dealt with my problems, got some self-esteem, turned my life around and am genuinely happy with the person I’ve become.
So, fast forward to the present day. I met a guy, and we had one of the best first dates ever. We had a terrific time and wound up making out like teenagers. Here’s the rub: he’s about nine years older than me, and I’m worried about moving things along too fast. I always grew up thinking that if guys didn’t get what they wanted from you, they’d move on to someone who would give it to them. I don’t think this guy is necessarily like that, but my general lack of experience with such things makes me nervous. The self-assured me says, “If he can’t respect you for who you are, then he’s not good enough for you and doesn’t deserve you.” Fine, I’m cool with that.
But I’d still like to know how and when to broach the subject with him, because I get the definite sense he’s ready to move things along pretty quickly.
Signed,
Now What?
Dear Now,
What subject? You’ve used so many euphemisms and vague terms here that I don’t know what subject you mean.
Well, I do. You mean sex. But if you can’t come out and say the word in plain English, well, that’s part of your problem right there.
But an even bigger part is the fact that you feel you need to “broach the subject” at all. It’s possible that it won’t even become an issue. It’s possible that he wants to wait a little while himself. Of course, it’s also possible that he wants to have sex with you, but you can gauge that pretty easily when the time comes. So, wait until the time comes, and if you want to have sex with him, have sex with him, and if you don’t, tell him that you want to wait.
This isn’t nearly as complicated as you seem to think. You’ve only gone on one date with the guy; there’s no need to have a sit-down about sex yet.
[7/12/01]
Tags: boys (and girls) sex the fam
