The Vine: May 8, 2002
Dear Sars,
My boyfriend and I have been dating for about a year and living together for about five months.I’m madly in love with him.From the very beginning, we’ve been best friends as well as lovers — one of the greatest things about our relationship was that we had such great communication.
Until recently.
About a month ago, our sex life went absolutely to hell.He just wasn’t interested.He wanted to cuddle.He didn’t want sex.When we did have sex, it was pretty disastrous.I tried everything I could think of — spontaneous blowjobs, backing off in case I was coming on too strong, and so forth — except talking to him about it.I was too embarrassed to ask, “Why don’t you want to have sex with me anymore?”
Things came to a head a few nights ago.I ended up in tears, and we finally talked things out.It turns out that he’s experiencing a lot of job-related stress — this I already knew — and it’s absolutely killed his libido.It explains a lot, including the timing.He still finds me attractive, he said.He just has little interest in sex.
Now, after all that set-up, here’s my real problem: I still feel frustrated and lonely.I miss lying in bed with him late at night, snuggling after sex.I miss the way it felt to know that someone wanted me when I first woke up in the morning with messy hair and sleep in my eyes.
In short, I feel like a really horrible person for thinking about my own frustrations when he has bigger ones of his own.I’m not even sure what question I’m asking, except that I need advice, badly.
Thanks,
M
Dear M,
I’m not sure what you’re asking me, either.Do you want me to tell you it’s okay to feel frustrated and alone?Of course it’s okay.It’s how you feel.
But if you want me to tell you what you should do about those feelings, I can’t.You have to figure it out for yourself.You have to decide whether you buy the job-related-stress excuse; you have to decide how long you want to back off and give him space to cope with that before you start requiring more engagement from him sexually; you have to decide how important that aspect of the relationship is to you, and how you want to proceed.Nobody else can really make those choices for you.
For now, I’d advise you to accept the emotions you’re having, and to keep the lines of communication open with him about them, i.e. “I understand that this is how things are at the moment, but it’s hard for me.”Let it ride for a certain amount of time, and when that time has elapsed, reassess the situation.
Dear Sars,
This isn’t so much a problem as an irk which, if left untreated, could explode in an ill-timed fit of grammatical fury.In your recent appearance on CNN (are we still allowed to say “you go, girl”?), the reporter (resisting urge for sarcastic quote marks) used the word “addicting,” as in “bad television can be addicting.”I have built my life around a few very simple principles, and one of them is that “addicting” is not a word.The term is “addictive.”One can be an addict. One may become addicted.But one cannot addict oneself to a substance.I looked in my admittedly fairly old (ten years) dictionary, and it confirmed my belief.Yet, people insist on using this vile non-word.
I have learned to restrain myself from correcting people (even those I worked with at a drug rehab facility, who should bloody well know better) because I don’t want to be that guy.And my grammar is not always impeccable.Passive sentences? Love ’em.
So, two questions: One, am I right? Or have we just thrown up our hands and decided it is a word (such as, say, “irregardless,” which is in the dictionary but still makes me pop a vein in my forehead)? And two, is there a polite way to tell someone that “it’s ‘addictive,’ jackass” without being a jackass yourself?
Thanks!
Potential Grammar Nazi
Dear PGN,
My dictionary is about the same age as yours, and while there’s no definition for “addicting” per se — and since it’s a form of the verb “to addict,” that’s not surprising — the definition of said verb in the Webster’s 10C reads as follows: “1: to devote or surrender (oneself) to something habitually or obsessively2: to cause addiction to a substance in.”
There’s no further usage note with the entry.My reading of the definition, regarding “addicting,” is that it usually implies a person becoming addicted, i.e. “she’s addicting herself to heroin.”It’s awkward — we’d rather say “she’s getting addicted to heroin,” because that’s the way the verb ordinarily presents — but without getting sidetracked by the reflexivity of the verb and blah blah blah, I’ll say that I don’t think it’s technically incorrect to use “addicting” that way.
I think the same principle applies to “addicting” as an adjective.It’s not the accustomed usage, and because the language already contains the word “addictive,” it feels redundant, neologistic, and to my mind overly cute…but it’s not wrong.”To addict” is the verb.”Addicting” is the participle.We use participles as adjectives.You can’t really compare it to “irregardless,” either; that word may have entered the language, but it’s still wrong on its face, and if you break the word down to its roots and prefixes, it doesn’t mean anything.”Addicting” isn’t wrong; it has a legitimate definition.It’s just kind of archaic-sounding.
As to your second point — no, there’s no way.When I hear “abusage” of that sort, I try to work the correct word or phrase into my own speech, and hope that gets the point across.”God, chocolate is so addicting.””Yeah, chocolate is totally addictive.”But it never works, and it’s generally unwise to point out the poor grammar or usage ignorance of others — especially if it’s not a clear error.And “addicting” isn’t a clear error.Sorry.
Tags: boys (and girls) grammar sex
