The Vine: March 22, 2005
Dear Sars,
I have a gross question and I want to apologize in advance for the gross-ness. I just started a new job about six weeks ago. I like it and can see myself being here indefinitely. The problem is my officemate.
She is a pretty unpleasant, know-it-all, contrary type. I try to be super-nice and complimentary and friendly but she never responds to me with any warmth at all, fine, whatever. I tend to think that if people aren’t nice to me it’s because of me, but I am working on squashing that tendency, I do my best to be nice and open and if people don’t respond in kind, I try to remind myself that it’s their problem, not mine, so this isn’t about me wanting to make her my friend.
The problem is she burps very quietly all day long, filling our shared space with noxious fumes, I have never in my life smelled burps this bad (maybe she’s doing that other thing too, but I can’t even write the “f-word”). Ew!!! There’s nothing I can do, is there? When she was playing her bad music all the live-long day, I politely asked her to turn it off and she did, but I can’t ask her to stop passing various gases, can I? She is my age, 26, and has diabetes. I don’t know if it’s a complication of that or what but, again, ew! She is getting married in October, so I am hoping that she’ll get pregnant and quit soon after the nuptials, other than that I can’t see any way out. Any thoughts at all about what I can do here?
Oh, no! She just let out another one!
Dear Ew,
Speak to your supervisor about the problem. This is an issue of sufficient interpersonal delicacy that you shouldn’t have to handle it on your own, so ask if there’s any way you might move desks, because the smell is affecting your ability to work.
Aside from bringing in a bottle of home fragrance and pointedly spritzing it — which is, in its own way, just as obnoxious — there’s really nothing else you can do.
Dear Sars:
Hi. I hope you can help me. Do you think it’s possible to replace a bridge
once it’s been burned?
I was a decent guy until my first major breakup; then I behaved
reprehensibly. I neither deserve nor expect absolution, but I do not want to
believe that this one month of distress will forever obliterate the previous
three years of friendship, shared experience and love. And if there is a way
to regain some of that closeness, I need help finding it.
We broke up amicably, talking about friendship and remaining a part of each
other’s lives. I was devastated. We had planned to spend the rest of our
lives together, and my world had fallen apart. Taking her at her word that
she wanted to remain friends, I would email her about how I was coping and
trying to move on, but she would not respond.
Then, about a week and a half after the breakup, I panicked about something
that might accidentally be emailed to her. I did something the decent me
would never have considered — I signed into her Web-based email account.
She had entrusted me with her password, and until then it never occurred to
me to use it. While there, I discovered that I could see which of my
messages she was holding onto in her inbox and which she had discarded. I
held out hope that she intended to respond to the messages in her inbox, and
I checked occasionally to see if they were still there.
Then, three weeks out from the breakup, I saw that she and an old college
friend she had a thing for right before we dated were getting close again,
exchanging several emails a day. I should not have known this. But I did,
and I was jealous. I cast about for romantic gestures, hoping to swing her
attention away from him. Mainly that involved a Valentine’s Day classified
ad. She was not impressed and responded with continued silence. In my
anguish, I saw her silence as callousness. Yet I still hoped she was just
trying to frame her response.
Things came to a peak when, a week after Valentine’s Day, I saw that she and
the old college friend professed their feelings for each other. I fell
apart. I told her by email about all that I had been doing and begged her
to call me. This news, of course, made her even less interested in talking
to me. She did respond, by email, but only to point out that I had betrayed
her trust and that she wanted no further contact.
I am devastated and have been thinking of little else besides how I can make
this right. I fear that I can’t. My one idea is to wait about six months and
then write a letter reminding her of all that brought us close to begin with
— the long, easy talks, the trips to amusement parks, the fun times we
spent together. She was my best friend, and I need her in my life.
If you have any blueprints for new bridges, please share them. Thanks.
Wanting to be a Decent Guy Again
Dear Settling For “Sane” Is The Better Choice,
Dude: It’s over. Your relationship with her is over. “But –” No. That’s it. It’s done. She got that; she maintained her distance, she understood that you can’t just downshift into friend mode right away and that, at least for a while after a breakup, no contact is best. You didn’t get that, at all.
Now you’re getting it, big-time, because you crossed a line, also big-time, and she wants nothing to do with you, but what you don’t seem to understand yet is that that’s how it should be. Y’all broke up. I know it sucks, I know it hurts, I know it seems like you’ll never get through it and the only way to breathe without pain is to get back together with her. But that isn’t going to happen, and you have to make yourself understand that, now, today, as you should have before.
I don’t think you hear yourself — the desperation, the nostalgia she doesn’t share, the manipulation you’re planning to deploy in six months, instead of now, which you already tried, and which failed. Do you see what I’m saying? I’m not trying to kick you when you’re down, here, because, again, it hurts, and it’s not like nobody else has ever acted a fool after a breakup, God knows. But she doesn’t share your feelings. She isn’t interested in a relationship with you, of any kind, and it’s because you couldn’t let go and creeped her out.
You say that this is your first major breakup, which might explain the lack of perspective here, but: she’s out of your life, for good. It’s overwhelming, that fact, at first, but you’ve got to accept it anyway and start moving on. If it’s really feeling like you’re going to drown, go see a counselor; there’s no shame in it, and there’s no shame in feeling devastated and low for a while, either. But it is what it is. She’s gone. Enough with the planning to rebuild the bridge, enough with the waiting for her to welcome you back…enough, period, with her. If she were the girl for you, you wouldn’t have broken up; she ain’t, and you did, and it’s time to get a grip on that, for real.
Dear Sars,
I met my current bf in high school, nine years ago. We’re working on year
10 here. We’re not married (or even engaged) yet because he had a
nervous breakdown about four years ago and he dropped out of college. He’s
working on putting his life back together now.
About six years ago, I cheated on him with a high school crush. I was in
college at the time and things had escalated from some emails with the
guy. The relationship lasted in secret for about a year and then I
couldn’t take the guilt anymore and so I just fessed up. I ended the
“other” relationship immediately, though…and we got through it,
rebuilding trust, et cetera.
Things were pretty good for a couple years after that. We had both
agreed that we wouldn’t get engaged until we were both through college,
because who needs the stress of a marriage plus trying to go through
school at the same time? And since I’m a year older, I’d have been the
one to support him while he finished school.
And then…the nervous breakdown. I was progressing in life: graduated
from college, landed my first few jobs, moved out into my own apartment,
all that good stuff, but he was depressed and mentally screwy, social
anxiety stuff, and withdrew from the world for a few years. I was
supportive to the point of becoming an enabler. I don’t nag. Maybe I
should have nagged. But I was always “Oh, don’t worry sweetie, you’ll
get out of this hole and everything will be fine.” Over the course of a
few years, though, I was really starting to doubt.
Finally, the cloud seemed to be lifting, slowly. He got a job at a local
bookstore and even took on a second job at a restaurant, saving up
enough money to pay down his loans enough to get back into college so he
could graduate.
Strangely enough, the week that he took on the second job, I started
cheating on him AGAIN. This guy at work and I started flirting on AIM…and it went from there. He gave me everything that I wasn’t getting from
my current relationship: emotional support for ME for a change (instead
of me being the one to GIVE emotional support), feeling protected and
cared for, and actually going out and doing things. (It’s hard to go on
dates when your bf is broke and feels bad if you pay for anything.)
I know that I should have been FAR more communicative with my “original”
boyfriend. I have problems expressing myself a lot of the time,
especially when I know it’s going to be hard for the other person to
deal with, or hurtful in any way. (Yeah, I know: “So you go run around
behind his back instead?” Argh.)
In January, my boyfriend found out about the other guy through a set of
very strange events that aren’t important. But he forgave me again and
wants to make this work. The two of them have even “shared” me for a
while, while I try to figure out what I want.
But I’m in love with this other guy, too. He made me aware of everything
I didn’t know I needed.
I think that seeing my original bf stay in that “hole” for so long made
me lose respect for him, or something. Sometimes it seems like there’s
something that isn’t there anymore, for me, and I’m not sure what it is.
I’m starting to suspect that I don’t love him “like that” anymore, but
I’m not sure. He’s been my world for a long, long time and it’s
terrifying to contemplate leaving it. His friends have become my
friends, his family all know and love me, and I’m very entangled…there’s a lot to lose: history, compatibility, friends, family…and it
looks like he’s getting back on the horse and making something of
himself. He wants to make this work. And perhaps he can GIVE me all this
stuff that I know that I need now…who knows?
So my questions are: 1) Have I screwed up my relationship with my
original boyfriend enough to make it unsalvageable? 2) How do I figure
out what I want and how I feel? The guilt makes it nearly impossible.
This has been so confusing… 3) Is it stupid to forsake my whole world
to pursue the promise of a relationship with “the other guy”?
I know I’m an awful girlfriend for cheating on him twice. I’ve been to a
counselor a few times and I’ll get to the bottom of that issue, once and
for all.
Thanks for your time,
When Did My Life Turn Into a Soap Opera?
Dear When You Let It,
You don’t need a counselor to “get to the bottom of” anything. The relationship isn’t fulfilling for you, but it’s easier for you to cheat on your boyfriend than it is to leave him, so that’s what you did. There’s not any more to it than that.
You stay with your boyfriend because that’s what you’ve always done, and because he always lets you come back, and because you feel guilty about dumping someone who had a nervous breakdown, because because because. Enough already. You started dating the guy in high school, when you were functionally a different person; you don’t have enough respect for him to stay faithful or to discuss the issues you’re having with him…I mean, these things happen. People fall out of love with each other. People get locked into a situation and feel like they can’t get out of it, so they test getting out of it by behaving badly. You’re a human being, you’re not going to handle every situation like Judge Learned Hand.
But you know you screwed up and you know you have to leave. Do it. It’s not going to get any easier the longer you put it off; you probably should have left after you cheated the first time. I don’t know how it’s going to go with the other guy, and I would strongly advise you not to put too many eggs in that basket, because if you’re coming out of a ten-year relationship, it’s going to have fallout, but regardless, you need to break it off with your boyfriend. He doesn’t give you what you need on some fundamental level, and it’s not fair to either of you to keep pretending that he does. He’s a habit. Break him.
And once you’ve done that, work on understanding that not getting what you need, if you didn’t ask for it in the first place, doesn’t give you the right to treat people like crap, even if they seem willing to take it in unlimited quantities.
Tags: boys (and girls) workplace
