I’ve been told that rinsing my hair with cold water will make it shiny.
It sounds like BS, but it does seem to work. So, does it really work
or have I fallen prey to some psychological trick?

Yours truly,
Growing tired of cold showers

I’m 22, going to graduate school and living about a six-hour drive from my
hometown. My parents’ marriage suffered a long, slow death, probably
beginning when I was in middle school. They finally told me and my brother
that they were getting divorced last Christmas. My relationship with my
father has been really good — we’ve had some really honest talks about our
relationship and my parents’ divorce, and I have enjoyed spending time with
him more than I have in years. My problem has to do with my mother and the
new man in her life.

Two summers ago, I was living away from home for the summer for the first
time. My mother had a conference in the city where I lived, and she asked if
she could bring “Jack,” a man she has worked with for many years, when she
had dinner with me and my boyfriend. I said, “Sure.” Dinner was very
pleasant; Jack is a very nice and interesting man. I didn’t really think
anything of it, but later, my boyfriend asked if Jack was my mom’s
boyfriend. I didn’t think so, but I was (apparently) wrong.

The following Christmas was the first Christmas I didn’t spend with both my
parents. After spending Christmas Day with my dad, I went to my uncle’s
house to spend the day after with my mother’s family. My mom asked me if it
would be okay if she brought Jack. Again, not really thinking of the
implications, I said, “Of course.” Once we got there, it was pretty weird,
because all of my mom’s relatives got gifts for Jack. I guess that’s not
weird, he is the new man in her life, but I felt weird because I had just
found out about my parents’ official divorce and I had no idea that Jack had
a position of such importance. And my mom’s relatives were never very nice
to my dad, so the idea that they would be so accepting and friendly with
this new man makes me uncomfortable.

I graduated from college last May, and both my parents came to my
graduation, but Jack did not. At my graduation party, my mother asked me if
I had any plans to visit my hometown this summer. She said “You are welcome
to stay with us anytime you want to come home.” US? [blissful ignorance
breaking down] “Who do you live with, Mom?” “I live with Jack.”

Oh. Duh.

A couple of weeks ago I asked her what her plans for the holiday were, so I
could figure out what my plans should be. She told me that she would
probably be spending the holiday with her family, but she and Jack had just
bought a cabin in the woods, and they would be there a lot over weekends. Oh. Bought a cabin. Okay.

So, here’s my question, if it hasn’t become obvious. I’m tired of my mother
springing these things on me — this is the important man in my life, we live
together, we buy real estate — as though they were ordinary things. The fact
that I’m tired of it doesn’t mean I won’t deal with it, though, if that’s
what I should do. Is there anything I can do about this? Should I tell her
to be more sensitive? I’m afraid that if I talk to her about it, it will
seem like a confrontation and will make her uncomfortable and won’t be
worth the trouble. Also, I don’t even really know what else she could tell
me at this point. I’ve also seriously entertained the possibility that I am
just overreacting and creating drama. Is this is just how divorce sucks?
Should I respect my mother as an independent adult, and acknowledge that
her relationships are none of my business?

Secondly, how do I treat Jack? Right now, I feel like he is just some dude
that I have to see whenever I want to see my mother. I don’t think I would
mind having a “stepfather” figure, but I feel like he is purposely being
held at arm’s length from me. Do I buy him a Christmas present this year? Do
I continue to half-ignore him, as I think I have been doing? It’s weird that
my mother has family who I don’t have a relationship with, especially since
her siblings and my cousins do seem to have a relationship with him.

Thanks for listening,
Malcontent Adult Child of Divorce

Due to genetics and metabolism, I’ve always been a thin person. In fact, I’m underweight for my height and I don’t really like being this thin, so I’m working on gaining weight.

I have a friend/co-worker who is trying to lose a few pounds. She is constantly telling me how lucky I am. When she is having conversations with other co-workers, she will actually pull me over and make remarks about I’m so skinny and so fortunate, blah blah blah. She’s even told me on several occasions that I’m going to have difficulty giving birth if I ever have children!

These kinds of pointed remarks make me feel very self-conscious and uncomfortable. People at work are starting to look at me like I’m a freak with an eating disorder. I’m aware of how the media creates and encourages this notion that thin = beautiful, but I think I have a right to be offended when someone teases me about my body just as much as someone who is overweight.

Any advice on how to deal/what to say when people make these kinds of comments?

Annoyed

I have two lengthy, intertwined problems that I can’t discuss with my friends, for obvious reasons.

The first problem is with, well, all of my friends. My boyfriend James and I moved in together almost two years ago, and we love to entertain. We both cook and we have a large, interesting, dynamic group of mutual friends who we enjoy inviting over for drinks and dinners. The trouble is that we can’t ever seem to get them to leave. Okay, so dinner usually starts late (around 9 or so) owing to everyone’s crappy schedule, but who in their right mind sticks around until 4:30 on a Wednesday morning? Usually by that point, I’ve just opted for rudeness and gone to bed, while James politely nods and drops hints the size of barnyard animals that he has to work in the morning. Rarely does any of this work, and, particularly on the weekends, we tend to end up with overnighters because our guests are too tired/drunk/whatever to get home.

People, we live in one of the few cities in this country with great 24-hour public transportation! Use it! I mean, we love our friends and we don’t want them wandering the streets intoxicated or anything, but why do they always want to get so drunk and stay so late? Is it the home cooking? Is it the proximity to a beer-stocked bodega and a liquor store? Or could it be our apartment’s happenin’ location? It’s gotten to the point where we try not to have people over at all during the week, just in case. It is interesting to note that, in almost all cases, we are always the hosts (we are rarely invited to others’ homes) and we always get stuck with the cleaning up as well.

Which brings me to the most common perpetrator of this behavior: our friend Jason. Jason and I met my freshman year of college when we were both cast in the spring play. He and I hit it off at once, and I soon introduced him to James, as they have a ton in common. The three of us get along really well, to the point where Jason and James will hang out “just guys” from time to time. Jason and I have a very brother-sister sort of relationship, which is wonderful because things are complicated enough without any unrequited emotional crap. James and I are very happy together, and Jason is very happy to be our friend. We live at one end of Manhattan and Jason lives at the other, although he works in our area, so he stops over quite often. This is fine, he’s a great guy and we loving having him. When he’s sober.

Jason is a drinker. I’ve known this since college, when he was a major participant in fraternity life. And while I’m no teetotaler myself, I make it a point NOT to drink myself into a blind stupor every time I encounter alcohol. Jason rarely makes this distinction. Additionally, he knows he gets weird and, occasionally, violent when he’s drunk. When the friendship was young, he tried to avoid getting really drunk while around James and me. But since our graduation last year, things have gotten incredibly weird.

It started at Jason’s birthday party, when he got so drunk that he was making passes at me and getting kind of grabby (James happened to be out of town). Things became so uncomfortable that I left him in the care of his roommates and bolted. I had trouble facing him after that, until I ascertained that he couldn’t remember a thing about that night, so I wrote it off to too many Long Island iced teas and forgot about it.

But over the next few months, Jason would show up at our door at odd hours, often already with a few drinks in him. One time, he had cut his head rather badly, and James had to bandage him up. Other times, we would go out together, and I would learn the next day that Jason was so drunk, he had fallen asleep on the subway. Twice he was mugged. Each time, James and I would administer sympathy and mild warnings to tone things down and take better care of himself.

Things came to a head on my birthday. James threw me a surprise party, which ran until about 1 or so, since it was a weeknight. By that point, the only ones in the apartment were James, his sister, Jason, and myself. I had had a little too much to drink, so I excused myself and went to bed. I awoke at 4:20 in the morning to hear Jason shouting belligerently that he was not possessed by Satan, despite whatever James might think. He continued to rail drunkenly for quite some time, becoming angry and leaning towards violence. Finally, I got up out of bed and raced to the bathroom, pretending to puke. This propelled Jason out the door. By now it was 5:40 AM.
I later learned from James that Jason refused a) to stop drinking long after everyone else had left b) to lie down and go to bed c) to go home. Jason had started getting a bit physically argumentative, and James was both afraid to let him stay in our home in such a condition, as well as afraid to turn him out. We found out later that Jason fell asleep on the train again and woke up at the end of the line in the Bronx.

James and I were seriously weirded out, so we avoided seeing Jason for the next month or so. In the meantime, we would get these crazed, drunken phone calls from him in the middle of the night. Finally, we met him for dinner at a restaurant one night, only to find him perfectly sober and completely unaware that anything had gone on. James and I decided that the best course of action would be to pretend that none of this ever happened.

All was going well until recently, when we had a little dinner party. Jason suddenly asked James what they had been talking about the night of my birthday party. He figured it must have been really interesting, since he stayed so late. He had no recollection of screaming about demonic possession or shoving James at the suggestion that he stay the night. James gave him the sugar-coated version of the events, saying that Jason just got really drunk and a little belligerent. Even with the sugar-coating, Jason only believed about half of what we told him, since he had no memory of the event whatsoever. He got a little moody after that, and I tried to curtail the amount he got to drink. Again, everyone had left but Jason, who remained until 2 AM, despite much prodding. He was still coherent, so we trusted him to get home, and the next day he called to tell us he was fine.

We didn’t see Jason again until last night, when he invited himself over. I had called with a question, and instead of just giving me an answer, he said he was in the area and would be right over. I told him, no, that’s okay, we’re hosting a very small birthday party for someone in an hour, please don’t bother. He insisted and showed up anyway, throwing a kink in my preparations and inviting himself to the party, which was only supposed to be for four people. As a result, I had to stretch the food and drink, and (surprise, surprise) Jason got drunk and fell asleep on the couch until he suddenly woke up at one, muttered rudely at me, and barged out.

Sars, Jason is a good friend and a wonderful person, but I can’t deal with him when he’s drunk. Frankly, he scares me: both for my own safety and for his. I am worried that he’s going to get seriously hurt or worse some night, and I would be devastated if I let that happen. I am afraid to be around him when he’s so intoxicated, but I don’t want to let him out of my sight either, and James tends to feel the same way. When we tell him about his behavior, he tends to think we’re exaggerating, or laughs it off. I really want to help him get his drinking under control, but I have a lousy track record with intervening to aid friends. The one intervention I ever organized was for my bulimic roommate, the upshot of which was that she threw all my food out the window (literally), claimed that I was the bulimic one and I was trying to frame her, and finally became so hysterical that I was moved to another dorm room for my own protection. Needless to say, I haven’t spoken to her since, and I don’t want to lose Jason’s friendship. James says I should stay out of it and just try not to encourage him (as if he needs encouragement). Is he right? Or is there something I can do that won’t alienate him? Plus, how do I get people to leave my place at a reasonable hour?

Thanks in advance for what I am sure will be kick-ass advice.

Sincerely,
You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!

Hey! Great website. I have a brief question on etiquette for you, because none of my friends and I can figure out the answer to this question.

So, my friend is a junior, and her boyfriend is a senior. She doesn’t really have that much money, so she doesn’t know if it’s proper to wear the same dress to both Proms (she already went to the Junior Prom). None of us really think it us, but none of us really have very much money either. Should we go thrift-store hunting?

Thanks very much,
Naked at the Prom