Dear Sars,

I have a friend problem.

Brief backstory: my friend Kim was one of my English professors in undergrad, and we currently live 12 hours apart. The problem: Kim is terrible about keeping in touch and I feel terrible trying to keep in touch with her. When I first graduated, she replied to emails pretty regularly, but during the past semester her returning my emails has all but ceased due to her being busy.

Because of this tendency, I have been calling her more often, something I do not really like. I’m not a phone person; she’s not a phone person. Plus, phone calls are murky territory given our relationship. Because she was my professor and then my friend, I’m not sure where I fit in her world: the friend sphere or the work sphere. Generally, I call her work number, even though I feel badly interrupting her. But when I say, “Oh, I feel like I’m bothering you when I call you at work,” she always replies that I’m not. Except that I am. She’s a professor –- she often has students in her office. When I call her, the second sentence out of my mouth is always, “Is this a bad time?” and I totally understand that sometimes it is a bad time.

The previous paragraph kind of paints me like a nascent stalker or someone who cannot take a hint. Really, I don’t believe that Kim minds my calling her from time to time to chat because she has said as much. When we do talk, we have nice, engaging conversations that usually last at least 20 minutes. If she really didn’t want to talk to me, I’d think that she would make an effort to hang up the phone more quickly. But I’m always the one initiating and maintaining contact. Kim freely confesses her horrible correspondence skills, but that acknowledgment doesn’t assuage my frustration.

Even though she is the correspondence slacker, I have to maintain correspondence on her terms. I have been discouraged from sending her letters because they make her feel guilty that someone spent so much time writing her and she knows that she probably won’t respond. She doesn’t mind my emailing her, but, as I said, of late she very rarely responds. If I want to actually hear from her, I have to call her. Again, I usually call her office phone. At times she specifically suggests my calling her cell phone or home phone, therefore I feel rude calling those numbers without her “permission.” (She is terrible about answering her cell phone anyway. And I know that she doesn’t really like receiving calls at home, no matter who is calling.) Because I have to call her office phone, I, obviously, have to call her when she is at work, which presents two problems. One, I have to call her when I’m at work, and I’m supposed to make personal calls on my lunch hour. Two, she often has students in her office and, therefore, cannot talk. Usually when she calls me back –- if she calls me back -– I’m no longer on my lunch hour and cannot talk. Then if I call her back, she’s with a student, and the wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round.

I feel frustrated. Like I’m the only one who cares. I recognize that her life is vastly different from mine –- she has a spouse and a demanding job while I have neither -– but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to want her to call me from time to time. Hell, I’d be happy if she would return a call from time to time. However, I know that Kim is just this way, and I feel like the bad guy for not being able to accept her for the way she is.

So am I being unreasonable? Am I the bad guy? Is there anything I can do? Or must I suffer the frustration to maintain a relationship with someone I like and respect?

Let Down in Louisville

Dear Sars —

My husband and I have been married for almost ten years.We married pretty young (he had to beg the auto rental company to let him fudge his age by two weeks so we’d have a car on our honeymoon), so lasting the first two years — let alone ten! — is quite the accomplishment.Accordingly, we’re throwing an anniversary party soon.

My problem is:Who gets invited and who doesn’t?Which isn’t as simple as it sounds, because nothing ever is, right?

Complicated Attendees Group 1:My maternal cousins.One of my aunts and my uncle married a brother and sister respectively, making them double in-laws.(Aunt A married Uncle B, who is big brother to Aunt B, who married Uncle A, who is little brother to Aunt A.Confused?)My cousins and my cousins’ cousins were all raised together on the West Coast, while my brother and I were somewhat isolated from the tribe on the East Coast.We’ve always maintained close ties to our mother’s family (the “A’s”), but we really only socialize with the cousins’ cousins (the “B’s”) when the “A’s” have invited us to an “A/B” family get-together.

Now that I live in the same state as the “A’s” and the “B’s,” am I obligated to invite the “B’s” to avoid bad blood?They weren’t invited to the wedding, which took place on the East Coast, and there were some grumblings but no overt complaints.The only weddings I’ve been invited to have been for the overlapping cousins who are both “A” and “B”, but if only the overlapping cousins are invited, then the “B’s” may be insulted and I’m really not up for family fence-mending.

Complicated Attendees Group 2:I started my current job about six months ago, and in that time, while I haven’t made any actual enemies (there was a brief run-in with a manager that ended in tears and hugging and we’re perfectly fine now), I’ve become friends with some co-workers and remain, well…a co-worker with others.I support three departments in a small company and have had rescue-the-sanity lunches and heart-to-heart chats with a select few.The question (like the situation) is pretty much the same:I want to invite my friends from work, but am I obligated to invite my co-workers, just to avoid insulting them?

In my heart of hearts, the answer is to invite everyone, because:the more, the merrier.In my wallet of wallets, the answer is to only invite people I really want to see, which, if you count cousins, cousins’ cousins, and cousins’ baby-mamas and girlfriends, shortens the guest list significantly.Likewise, my co-workers (not to be confused with my friends from work).

It’s not as if I dislike these people, so much as I’ve never actively sought their friendship nor had mine sought by them.If I invite them to my party, it changes my budget, but will it change the status quo?If I don’t invite them, am I committing a grievous social faux-pas?Please advise.

Yours,
Surrounded

Hi Sars,

I write bearing a question of name etiquette for either you or your readers. A good friend of mine has a wedding shower coming up and I think I’m going to stray from the registry and get some personalized stationery for her and her fiancé. She has decided not to change her name, and while I’m all for that decision, it has left me in a bit of a quandary with this gift. Is there any way to personalize the stationery that is more couple-y than His Name/Her Name? If she’s keeping her name, are they still Mr. and Mrs. His Name (though I’m somewhat loath to use that as it seems a bit archaic for a 27-year-old)? Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance,
Miss Missive