The Vine: March 17, 2006
Sars,
Well, if I’m writing to The Vine, we all know it’s a problem with
either guys, grammar or cats…wish I could be more original, but
this time it’s a cat question.
Once upon a time, a boyfriend gave me an adorable, squiggly little
kitten. Fast forward 13 years, the boyfriend is now a scumbag ex and
the kitten is one heck of a fattie, but you can tell which one I still
adore. Over the last few years, Fattie moved around with me a lot —
from apartments with icky dog roommates to tiny apartments where his
litter box nestled in beside the kitchen sink. About a year ago, I had
to go away for six months for work. My best friend watched him for
me, and that went well — I came home to a svelte Fattie from all of
his newfound outdoor hunting abilities and about two days of
resentful “I hate you” tail-twitching about not being allowed outside,
but then all was forgiven.
Fast forward again, and now I am working on the total opposite end of
the country, in a place where I couldn’t take him. So, another friend
offered the perfect solution. She owns a big rambling house in the
country filled with animals and kids. Fatty fit in perfectly, and has
been there for the last ten months.
Now that I am (somewhat) settled, and have a real apartment instead of
staying at other people’s houses, I could conceivably ask for him back.
But I’m concerned that it’s not really the right thing to do.
Pet-sitter friend is attached to Fattie, and well, he’s living the Fat
life — homegrown catnip by the bowl, a yard to hunt in, and a
dominion of other cats to lord over. If he moved here with me, he’d
be apartment-bound single kitty again, because I live in the
mountains and he would be cougar-bait. Every second telephone pole
here has a “missing” poster.
As much as I miss his kitty cuddles, I know I can’t give him what he’s
getting right now — I work lots and go away for long weekends often,
so maybe it’s best for him to grow old at the farm. But I miss my
Fattie!
I’m so twisted about this, I don’t know which is the best thing to do
anymore — leave him where he is happy, or bring him here and hope he
adjusts (again!).
Sars, I’d love to hear your advice.
Thanks!
The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Large Predators
Dear Kim Bauer,
I would leave Fattie where he is. Yes, you have the right to ask for him back, and yes, he’d adjust again — but he’s happy where he is, and so is your friend, and if the kids have gotten attached to him, well, maybe it’s best for everyone involved if you just wish him well.
Another cat wouldn’t replace Fattie, of course, and if you’re not home much, a pet is perhaps not a great idea for you right now…but plenty of cats need homes, cats who have never set a paw outside and would make great friends.
Sarah,
I really haven’t asked anyone for advice on this, but as it still plagues my mind on occasion, I figure I might as well. I apologize in advance, since it will be a long story.
I got married a couple years ago to a guy that I had, mostly, dated long distance. The distance was bearable, as he was in his last couple years at grad school and would move back eventually. With the distance, however, my friends here didn’t get to know him very well, especially since when he was home on breaks, we mostly spent time together and not too much with other people. (In retrospect, not so good, but whatever…)
Enter friend Amy. When Amy and I met six years ago, we had enough in common and became close friends. She was on the “dominant” end of the personality spectrum, and over time, her neediness, self-absorption, and constant drama kind of dragged on me, so although we were “best friends” our contact was sometimes sporadic. However, during the period of time when my man and I were dating/engaged, she and I were hanging out more, and she helped some with my wedding planning, looking at dresses, et cetera. Although our friendship had always been clearly lopsided, she was pretty good and generally paid attention to me as the bride-to-be. We spent lots of time together during the 4-5 months before my wedding.
Because of our long friendship, Amy was to be a bridesmaid in my wedding (in retrospect, again, whatever). Nearing the time of the wedding, she started getting fearful and clingy, thinking I would abandon her once I was married — she still being single. I really had no idea how things might change once I was married, but I tried to reassure her that all would be well, and she would seem okay for a few days.
At my rehearsal, two days before the wedding, tensions were a little high, and when she tried to give unsolicited instruction on where people should stand, my fiancé snapped at her, spinning her into a torrent of fears that I was marrying an abusive, controlling man (like her father). (As I mentioned earlier, she didn’t know him all that well.) She seemed rather subdued at the rehearsal dinner, although at the time I didn’t know about the whole snapping, spinning bit.
On the day before my wedding, I would have liked to relax and spend more time with my parents who were in town and with my sister, but instead I spent hours on the phone consoling Amy about her abandonment issues, trying to dissuade her from believing my fiancé was going to beat me, and pretty much being totally and completely stressed out. I was trying to maintain peace, but it was awful. I was overwhelmed with hurt and confusion that night and feared that my wedding day — and possibly my marriage — would be a disaster.
By the next morning, we had (sort of) resolved things. Amy had talked it over with a married friend and decided she was overreacting. She and I had breakfast, she gave me flowers, and the wedding day was peaceful.
Since then our friendship has become very spotty, and now we only talk on the phone every month or two. If she asks if “we” are okay, I just say yes, that things are fine, and we talk again after a couple months. Truthfully, though, she destroyed any hope of a future friendship, since at such an important time in my life, all she could think about was herself — not me, my happy day ahead, my family being in town, whatever. The damage was irreversible.
I had tried to tell her in the past that our friendship needed to go two ways, that I needed her to be interested in my life, et cetera. She did make a slight effort to be a better friend, but after the pre-wedding nightmare, I realized it just wasn’t worth it to me anymore.
Our friendship is basically over, though we still touch base occasionally. On these occasions, I wonder if I should explain why our friendship fizzled — not just because I’m now married, as she probably thinks, but that she was a bad friend and it was her actions that drove me to disengage from her.
So…should I say anything, or just let it go since our friendship is dying anyway? I’m not interested in rekindling something with someone who can’t see beyond herself, but does she need to know what she did?
Thanks,
Still a little angry…and hurt
P.S. Should I tell her that I suspect she stole some of my wedding money? Money came up missing, and the gift card basket had only been in her possession… My suspicions only added to the list of grievances.
Dear Angry,
What do you want out of this? Do you want Amy to admit that she’s an emotional vampire who can’t really exist unless she’s the center of attention, and that she cast a pall over your wedding day with her behavior? Because: won’t happen. Do you want to get the money back by accusing her of stealing it? Because: won’t happen. Do you want her to say the words “I’m wrong, you’re right”? Sing it: won’t happen.
Amy doesn’t get it. She’d “need to” know what she did if you wanted to stay friends with her, but you don’t, and from what you’ve told me about her, she’s not going to “know” it in any meaningful way anyway. Do you really want to protract the drama by introducing a series of accusations and past misdeeds? Or would you rather just have her gone?
You won’t get what you want from confronting her. It’s been “a couple of years”; that’ll do. Cut ties.
Hi Sars,
I was curious about your statement to Kick Me: “…she slept with your ex. I don’t know about you, but where I come from, that is Not Done…” I don’t have any experience with ex-sex situations since I married early (19 years old) without having had sex with another man other than my husband.
I would truly like to hear yours and your readers’ views on having sex with someone else’s ex. Is there a certain protocol to this? Do folks insist on asking permission before agreeing to sex with someone’s ex? What if the person to whom one asks permission is wacko and thus, the cause of the break-up? Does the type of break-up influence whether or not sex with the ex is even considered? Does this protocol apply only to the city in which everyone involved resides? Is it just not done at all, no matter what?
I realize my interest is academic at best, but I have a 19-year-old daughter and since I have no previous experience in this matter, I’d like to be able to give her some decent advice.
Signed,
This sounds like a topic for a thesis paper on Sociology
Dear Thesis,
Before I get into the various corollaries and exceptions, let me give you the primary reason sleeping with your friend’s ex is, to me, Not Done: it’s just common-sense drama-avoidant behavior. There is almost no faster way to complicate your life unnecessarily than by having sex with a guy your friend had a relationship with.
Now, of course, things happen. People get drunk. People fall in love. And of course time passes, too; not that any of my friends is probably going to get on the Biscuit now, because he’s married, but if he weren’t, well, we broke up six years ago, so I think there’s a statute of limitations there, too.
But it’s not about “asking permission.” It’s about understanding that, if permission is granted, the grant is probably not sincere. It’s about trying to avoid exactly the kind of awkwardness and resentment that is the cause of the majority of the letters in The Vine. It’s about knowing that it might make your friend feel small and hurt, and not doing it. And again, everyone makes mistakes and has less-than-perfect judgment sometimes, and if it’s someone a friend dated a couple of times and didn’t to continue knowing past that, or they dated back in college and now everyone’s in their forties, obviously the rule isn’t really in play in those cases.
But…I went to girls’ school, and without enough boys to really go around, I saw this kind of aftermath unfold, like, on a weekly basis, the crying in class, the temperature in the locker room dropping to 20 degrees, and that was enough to last me a lifetime, honestly, because people mature, but the relevant emotions in these situations don’t change much, so…you know, there are three billion dudes on the planet. I don’t so much need to swing a leg over the one my friend still curses when she’s had a couple glasses of wine. It’s just smarter not to stick my hand in that, but if I do, I understand that there will be emotional consequences, they will not be pretty, and I don’t so much get to complain about them.
In other words: yes, there are exceptions, but the rule will make your daughter’s life easier over the longer term, not harder.
If the readers want to disagree, or furnish a more elaborate correlative equation for her to use, they may feel free.
Dear Sars —
It’s about a boy, though not one I’m involved with. And it’s about shopping, though I’m not looking for recommendations, exactly.
About a year and a half ago, I went on a trip down the shore with some friends. J drove, I brought tunes. I left my CD in his car by accident and have never seen it again.
Should be pretty straightforward, and if that was where it ended, I’d be set.
First of all, the CD was a limited edition charity release from a radio station that no longer exists (Y100 Sonic Session Volume 5, if you’re curious — and, just my luck, probably my favorite of the series). So I can’t just run to Sam Goody or iTunes and replace it. Nor can J.
Secondly, J and I have…tension. Tension that our mutual friends agree is at least 80% his fault. Tension that stems from the fact that he wants his women barefoot, pregnant, and anorexic all at once, and I am not nor have any desire to be any of the above — and still have a functional relationship with a guy J otherwise respects. Think I’m exaggerating? He saw a picture of Lindsey Lohan right before her hospitalization and said he thought she was hot and wished more girls looked like that. He thinks God designed women to be mothers, not providers. Seriously. My 20% contribution comes from the fact that I have a low tolerance for bullshit and don’t feel that he respects me in specific or women in general. He thinks I’m a raving bitch. You might say it’s our “thing.” Sars, the expiration date on this friendship is way past due, we know this, and we manage to be civil on behalf of our mutual friends.
After I left the CD, I immediately contacted him, saying, “Hey, I left my CD in your car, could you hold onto it for me?” He replied, “Absolutely.”
Next time I saw him? He forgot to grab it for me. Hey, if I forgot, so can he. No big.
He forgot about four more times before telling me he completely searched his car and it’s gone. I then ransacked my room just to make sure I hadn’t taken the CD home after all and was falsely accusing him. Nope. Still gone.
I said to him, “Look, I just want the CD. It can be my copy. It can be another copy you found somewhere else. Doesn’t matter.”
He agreed, and said he was checking online. This was about a year ago at this point.
Now, I did an eBay search, and it’s true, it’s not the most common listing out there. But it is out there — I know, because I found it today for $20. I’m surprised (no, I’m actually not) that he hadn’t found it sooner. I’m gonna buy it.
But would it be okay, reasonable, petty, whatever to just send him an email saying, “Dude, I found the CD. It’s $20. Can you help me out?”
If you say don’t send it, I won’t, but even if I do, I’m not expecting much (odds are he’ll agree and never send the check, right?). I just want to put to rest another 80/20 issue (I forgot it, he was a jerk about it since then), give him a chance to step up or not as he sees fit, and (in a perfect world) not pay the penalty for someone else’s jerkitude.
So? Do I send the email?
Sign me,
I Want My CD, But I’ll Settle For Respect
Dear Res,
I wouldn’t, no. This is another case of “what you want to happen” vs. “what you can reasonably expect to happen,” and I think what you want is for him to behave courteously and responsibly (which he has a poor record with) and care about something that’s important to you (ditto). What you can reasonably expect to happen is that he’ll give you the written equivalent of an eye-roll, tell you he’s not paying and to get over it, and it’ll turn into A Whole Thing.
It’s just a CD. It’s a CD you really liked, that was tough to replace, but it also became much more than that when it was J’s car you left it in — you’re translating this into a much bigger battle set against the backdrop of your “tension,” and you’re not going to win it.
So, you can send the email if you like, but understand how it’s going to turn out. I’d just buy myself the copy on eBay and hold onto my stuff in his car from now on.
Sarah,
While I have a million-and-five personal problems, I will kindly spare you. I wanted to ask you a totally inappropriate question, actually, and I’ve monkeyed around for a bit so I’ll just ask it: Why don’t you own a vibrator? I only ask because I noticed that you’d mentioned a coupla times that you don’t own one, and don’t appreciate certain “feminist” ( Bust) magazines making you feel like a tool of the patriarchy for not having one. I kind of agree, and I think that Betty Dodson (of “Ask Betty”) is probably just trying to sell us dildos. I mean seriously, ladies are writing in all, “I was raped as a kid and I have intimacy issues” and she’s all, “Buy a vibrator!” And even recommends one of her own products and tells us where we can buy it and everything. I don’t think that relying on an electronic device in order to achieve orgasm makes me a good feminist, and neither do I feel that orgasm is the ether in which I conceptualize the female experience.
I was just wondering if there were a, um, “reason” why you felt that way. Do you feel like it reduces sensitivity? Does it freak out your cats? Because while I agree that a vibrator isn’t a shortcut to empowerment, I sure do like my little guy and was wondering if there were some underlying reason why you don’t have/want one.
I realize this is totally none of my business but you mentioned it so I thought I’d ask. I also figure since you’re a.) smart and b.) not frigid or anything, that there might be a good reason for not using one that I’m overlooking.
So dish.
Not of my buzzzzzzzzziness, is it?
Dear Zzzzz,
You’ve answered your own questions here, I think.
Tags: boys (and girls) cats friendships sex
