The Vine: May 23, 2003
Hello,
I have mixed feelings about my relationship with my stepfather — here’s the
story.
Mom and Stepfather marry when I’m nine. I’m very close to SF throughout my
life — he coaches my sports teams, helps pay for my private schooling, helps
with some college costs, et cetera.However, he is also brutally critical about my
natural father, constantly berating him to my face because my natural father
never financially supported me in any substantive way.I never confront him
about this, but it’s a bad childhood memory.Stepfather and I drift apart,
the marriage between him and my mom is on the rocks, and I spend most of my
twenties putting an adult life together.I spend a few years in therapy dealing
with my depression and examining my relationship with my mom, dad, and SF.
SF and mother divorce (I’m 29) due to SFs drinking/drug problems, Mom’s
anger issues, and general marital misery.I’ve worked through my issues with
Mom, and we are in a good place.I don’t know what kind of relationship I
should have with my stepfather.He is with someone else and seems to have a
new family.We do not call or email each other, but we keep tabs on each
other through my sister (his natural child with my mom).He did call me
around this Christmas to ask what I wanted.I told him he did not have to
get me a gift because we “really do not keep in touch,” but I told him it would
be nice to go out to dinner together.He ended up giving me a generous gift
($) and phoning my mom to tell her I’ll “always be a part of his life.”
I’m not a part of his life.He has a new life, and I don’t really fit.I
feel nervous and out of place around SF, and he seems nervous too, like we’re
faking something.I don’t like the way SF currently treats my
mother or my sister, but my mom brings some of that on herself and my
sister’s relationship with SF is her business.I do not like the fact that
SF has never taken responsibility for his drinking and drug problems, but
rather blamed the whole rest of the world (including me) for not properly
supporting him when he was finally arrested.How could we support him when
he refused to admit he had a problem?It seemed like the support he wanted
was for everyone to act like nothing happened, which is exactly what I did
but in hindsight was not the right thing to do.
On the other hand, this man
raised me and he did a lot for me when I was growing up — doesn’t that mean I
owe him something and should try harder to keep a relationship between the
two of us?Right now we’re in limbo — neither of us does much to keep in
touch with each other, but I did accept his Christmas gift (in an airport
parking garage after coming home from Mom’s), so I can’t have it both ways.
If you asked me what I wanted, I would not want a relationship with SF, but
that doesn’t feel like the morally right thing to do.
Advice?
Sister Sledge
Dear Sledge,
The relationship you and your SF have now sounds like the best way to split the difference.You don’t really want much to do with him — and that’s okay, by the way.You feel how you feel.You harbor a lot of resentment toward him, he’s moved on to another family, and you don’t have the closeness with him you used to, and it’s not a “moral” question; it is what it is.But as it stands at the moment, you don’t have much to do with him anyway.
Again, it’s not about what you “owe” him, and if you really hate him and have nothing to say to him, then you should probably cut off contact — but I sense that you feel more conflicted about doing that than you’ve let on, and that your therapy didn’t address certain issues there.So, don’t do anything drastic just yet.
Just let it ride for now until you sort out your feelings a little more clearly.He did play a big part in your childhood, for better or worse, and while he sounds like kind of a whiny fuck-up, he seems to care about you in his own muddled way, and in order to avoid yanking your sister in two directions, it’s probably best just to keep going as you have — seeing him now and then, but not trying to force any bonding or parent-child relationship you don’t feel.You’ll figure it out.
Hi, Sars,
I’ve been dating this girl for a couple months, and all is going well (thank
you, TWoP Personals).That’s not the problem.The problem is this guy
(let’s call him “Stalker”) she met in a coffee shop before we met.She
wasn’t interested, but hates conflict, so she gave him her number and then
didn’t return his calls, and quit answering the phone when she knew it was
him.
Now, most people in Stalker’s position would take the hint.Not Stalker.
He is STILL calling, weeks later.Several times a day, in fact.Sometimes
continually for five or ten minutes straight.Girl doesn’t want to deal.
This is driving me nuts.I just want to hang out with Girl and watch TV
or whatever, without the goddamn phone ringing all the goddamn time.
I know that ultimately, this is Girl’s problem, and she should grow a pair,
answer the phone, and tell him to stop calling.So, should I keep nagging
her to do this?Keep my mouth shut?Answer the phone myself, and tell him
to buzz off?Tell him he has the wrong number?
He doesn’t know Girl’s last name or where she lives, so I don’t think he’s a
threat, but the constant phone calls are incredibly annoying.
Thanks,
The Girlfriend
Dear Girlfriend,
Too much time has gone by, I think, for her to pick up the phone and tell him to get bent; if he’s still calling and thinking he’ll get a response, and then he does get a response, even if it’s a negative one, it might just encourage him to keep trying.So, as far as Stalker goes, let him tire himself out and give up — but tell her to turn the damn ringer off already.
And make a note of that kind of marked conflict avoidance on Girl’s part.I wouldn’t call it a red flag, but if she won’t tell a guy to get bent when she doesn’t even like guys That Way…let’s just say it’s not irrelevant.
O!Logical Sars!
Since I’m writing to The Vine, it should come as no surprise that I’m having
a problem.I guess that admitting it is the first step…I have a friend,
let’s call her “Gibberish,” and she and I are pretty close.We spend a lot of
time together, and for the most part we get along great (and considering the
time spendage, that’s a good thing).Perhaps due to our exponential amount
of time spent together in just a one-on-one environ, I’m finding it
increasingly difficult to be near her when surrounded by groups of people.
The reason?She acts like a completely different (annoying) person, one
with whom I would rather not spend time.
Since I spend so much time with
her alone, the difference between her two personalities is striking, and, to be
honest, a little disconcerting.She becomes very loud, and attempts to
forcibly insert herself into every conversation, not by contributing
anything insightful, witty, or funny, but just by sheer volume.She also
mentions things that have been said to her in confidence, perhaps in the
hopes of gaining points with the group for presenting them with a morsel of
gossip to upon which to gnaw.I get the sense that she’s very insecure, and
she has confided that in high school she didn’t really have any friends.So
now, because she does, it’s like she’s overcompensating.The way she behaves
is much like a child who acts out because bad attention is better than no
attention, right?RIGHT?
Unfortunately, she doesn’t realise that the way she “performs” wigs me out
and angers me to a certain extent, and that I’m leery of telling her
anything for fear it will be her way of buying a seat at the popular table.
I mean, she’s shared things with our mutual friends that I implicitly told
her not to tell, and yet she forged ahead while I WAS SITTING RIGHT THERE!I told her that was really shitty, and gave her the cold shoulder for the
rest of the evening.Because we share the same group of friends for the
most part, it makes it hard for me to hang out with them without her being
there, and so, in order to spend time with people other than her, we are all
subjected to attrociously obnoxious behaviour.I am not the only one who is
put off by her seemingly Prozac-induced demeanor, but because no one else
spends nearly the same amount of time with her, they’re better able to
ignore it.Another friend, Mumble, also notices how Gibberish flip-flops in
a major way depending on her audience, and has solved the problem by pretty
much avoiding her in one-on-one sitches because Mumble kind of resents her
after group activities.
I guess what it boils down to is: How do I get Gibberish to understand that
her behaviour doesn’t endear her to the group (or myself), but in fact
alienates her as people end up mentally calculating minimum safe distance?
She’s insecure, so I don’t want to rip her to shreds in order to knock her
down a few pegs (as I’ve done to other people who have acted like dicks in
the past).Also, I don’t want her to think my friendship is conditional,
yet I can’t help but feel she acts as two different people, and one of them I
can’t stand.I figure I can tell her to stop telling people about my
private shit or I just won’t tell her important things anymore (gotta love
the ultimatum), but how do I point out that maybe she’s got some self-esteem
issues to deal with?So far I’m still kind of giving her the brush-off
(after a recent horrendous exhibition), but I need to do something soon
before either she (or I) does something to ruin the friendship.
Let the enlightenment begin!
Performance Anxiety
Dear Anxiety,
I wouldn’t call a woman who breaks your confidence, to whom you can’t even talk honestly about the issue, a “close” friend.So you spend a lot of time with her, so she’s insecure — so what?She’s still acting like a fuckbat.Call her on it.(And pursuant to that…did you actually mean to say “explicitly”?Because if there’s anything I’ve learned in my life, it’s that you can’t expect people to take hints, so if you “implied” that she should keep it to herself, you probably should have made it clearer than that.)
You don’t have to do it in a hostile way, but honestly — what’s the drawback?That she won’t want to hang out with you anymore?Because from the sound of it, you don’t really want to hang out with her anymore either, even one-on-one when she’s less needy and bratty, because you resent the fact that she’s going to act up the next time you find yourselves in a group setting, and tell everyone else a bunch of shit you trusted her not to.And if it’s the fact that she might turn around and whine to the rest of the group of friends that’s holding you back…it shouldn’t.You’ve already said that the others pretty much know her deal; it’s not like they’d take her side over yours, and if they do, they get stuck with her and you move on.
If you sincerely want to save the friendship, you need to air the shit out — all of it.Tell her what you just told me.You don’t know why she acts that way, and if it’s because she’s insecure and unhappy, you’d like to discuss it and try to deal with it, but you can’t take her Who’s Afraid Of Gibberish Woolf shtick any longer, and if she pulls that crap once more, she can see you later.Much.
On some level, she knows she’s a jackass, but she also knows, at least so far, that her jackassery doesn’t have any real consequences, because you keep rewarding her untrustworthiness by telling her more secrets and then forgiving her when she blabs them.Stop doing that, and tell her you’ve done so.If she flips and stomps off, her loss.
Dear Sars,
I am happily married to a great guy.I work with a cute boy who I believe
has a small crush on me.Although I’m not interested whatsoever in having
an affair with this guy (we’ve never even so much as had lunch together, and
I have no intention of that ever changing), I find myself tossing him the
occasional flirt.If it seems as though his interest in me has begun
trailing off, I feel the need to keep him interested so I have a back-up
plan if my husband were to leave me or die.Except that I have no reason to
ever think that my husband would want to leave me, and he’s not even in poor
health, let alone terminal.What the hell is wrong with me?
Attention Whore
Dear AW,
I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I suspect that it runs deeper than just garden-variety insecurity about your marriage.You seem to have a deep-seated dread of loneliness and abandonment, which…well, loneliness and abandonment both suck, so that’s not abnormal, but the way it’s manifesting itself is a little too intense.
If you can, get a few sessions with a therapist and see if you can’t get at what’s going on beneath the surface; if you can’t, start keeping a paper journal.Write down your interactions with the work cutie and see what feelings and memories come up from that.Write down your dreams.Try to connect the dots.
Nobody wants to end up alone, but your approach isn’t quite rational.You seem to realize that, so try to figure out what’s really going on.
Dear Sars,
Let me preface this query with “help…PLEASE” (the pretty kind — cherries and all).
I figure that since it hasn’t been that long ago that you were in school, trying to get things done, papers written, and maybe even get some sleep too, that maybe you will have a suggestion as to how to cope with my current predicament (or rather “annoyance”).I have this ex-boyfriend turned friend we’ll call “the Lawn Gnome.”I also have this very time-consuming thing called grad school going on as well.About three weeks ago, I looked at my handy little planner and gave everyone — mom, boyfriend, friends, Lawn Gnome, cat, everyone — a one-week warning to the effect of “I have a cubic buttload of work to do in the next two weeks (five exams, one presentation, and a major research proposal).Please don’t call unless it is an emergency or some other urgent piece of data needs to be passed along, don’t IM me just to chat, nothing…if you want to ask something or just tell me something, write me an email and I will get back to you. But for the love of god please just don’t interrupt me until after the two weeks have passed.”
Now I thought this was pretty clear and straightforward with no ambiguous terms — however, despite the instructions, the Lawn Gnome has called my home and cell phones just about every freakin’ day, and every time I turn on my IM to ask someone in one of my classes a question, or god forbid let my b.f. know I am alive, guess who is sending me a message? Yeah, the Lawn Gnome.
So fast-forward to last night.After four days of me not answering his calls, ignoring his messages, and not calling back, I finally pick up the phone when it rings — I figure, why not, the distraction of the ringing has just made me totally lose my train of thought mid-sentence.So I answer the phone and ask “what’s up.” LG says, “Oh nothing, I just thought you might wanna chat since its been awhile.Besides, I am worried that you have been so unsociable.”So I re-inform him of my painfully busy schedule and my attempt to not blow all my grades. He says, “Oh, well I guess I should let you go.” I say, “Yes, please,” and he proceeds to launch into a story about how he is “thinking about looking for a new…” I stop him and say, listen, I REALLY need to do work — please just email it to me. I will get back to you.
Here comes about 20 minutes ago.My cell phone rings. It’s the Lawn Gnome. I ignore it, but of course, train of thought is derailed. So I check the message and call back and leave a message on his voicemail saying blah blah blah email it to me.So ten minutes later my celly rings again…it’s him again, and again it is costing me long-distance charges for someone I don’t want to deal with to call me. On top of this he sends me an email that only says, “I just had some good news to tell you, it would have only taken like 30 seconds.” GAHHHH!
So here is my problem: I am no doubt about it completely fed up.I’ve gone from wanting to be at least friendly with him to wanting to kill him.How do I make him understand that despite the fact that he isn’t in school anymore and has all the time in the world to piss away once he is out of work for the day, I do not.My day doesn’t end when I get off the metro and walk home.I need to be left alone.In this case, any attempt on his part to be a good friend is actually the antithesis of said title.I’ve hinted, I’ve been blunt, I’ve been nice, I’ve been my typical sarcasti-bitch self. The only thing I haven’t done is threaten to make someone beat him up! I’ve gotten Verizon and the Times to leave me alone, but can’t get rid of this guy.So forget Jesus in this situation, I want to know: What Would Sars Do?
Thanks in advance,
One Agitated Grad-Girl
Dear Ag,
Well, Sars wouldn’t contradict herself by telling everyone to leave her alone because she’s not answering the phone, and then answering the phone.Sorry, dude, but this is your own fault.If you don’t want the phone to distract you, turn it off and check voicemail once a day.If you don’t want anyone to IM you except your boyfriend, block everyone you don’t have time to talk to until you finish your work.It’s that simple.
I mean, you have enough time to call the guy and tell him…not to call you.Because…you don’t have time to talk to him.Huh?And where did you find room in your crushing schedule to write to an advice column?
You’ve spent more time enforcing your directive than you have working.Turn off everything but email and your word processing program and get the work done already.
Tags: boys (and girls) friendships the fam
