Hello, Sars. Love your web site. I’m behind on my work catching up on Ketchup and the old Vine columns. It’s worth every “wasted” minute.

I am actually writing this on behalf of a friend of mine, who asked for my advice, and I’m pretty sure a third party will be needed for this decision.

Regina is a dear friend of mine from college. She and I have always commiserated over Relationship Issues, and the advice we’ve shared has proved to be extremely helpful as we make our way into the Big, Bad World.

Recently, Regina wrote me with a doozy of a problem. She had broken up some months before with her boyfriend of 18 months, Shawn, and the breakup had been a bit expected but emotionally messy one. Regina moved on, eventually to another city, making new friends and basically getting over Shawn. She even began to casually date again. The two of them have been occassionally keeping in touch via email and were updated through the mutual-friends grapevine. I think deep down she still carried a torch for Shawn, as he was her first True Love, but he was across the country and had also found a new — and serious — relationship with another woman.

Not six months after Regina and Shawn’s break-up, she received a mass email from Shawn announcing his engagement to the new girlfriend. We’re not going to get into that. I know it’s been very hard for her, but she knows what problems she has to confront in order to come out of this with the majority of her heart and pride intact.

Anyway, here’s the issue — Shawn invited Regina to the wedding. Regina does not wish to attend, but she cannot find the invitation with the response card (to be sent to the Fiancee’s Parents). She doesn’t want to email Shawn because he will want to know why she doesn’t want to come, and she doesn’t want to give him some paltry excuse and run the risk of letting Shawn know how upset she is that he’s found His One and she’s still getting over hers. She’d rather check the little “no” box and be done with it. So, how best to let Shawn know she’s not coming to the nuptials — without letting go of her pride?

Thanks for your help.

Not Up To Playing Rupert In A My Best Friend’s Wedding Scenario

Dear Not Rupe,

Regina should send Shawn a short but courteous email with her regrets.”I seem to have misplaced the response card that came with the invitation, so…just a quick note to let you know that, unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend your wedding.Best of luck and have a wonderful day. — Regina.”

That’s all she has to do.I can’t imagine that Shawn is so obtuse that he couldn’t read between the lines there, but if he presses, she can plead a vague “previous engagement” for as long as it takes him to get the hint.

The note above has a certain finality to it.If she wants to cut and paste it, she’s welcome to — but, frankly, I don’t think she should feel embarrassed about not going, or about not wanting to go, to her ex’s wedding.If Shawn’s too dense to grasp that maybe it’s not her idea of fun after their break-up, well, that’s his issue.And his wife’s.

Sars —

Recently, my neighbours went on vacation, and I am doing the neighbourly thing — feeding their fish, watering their plants, taking in the mail, and turning on random lights so that it looks like they are home.

I am happy to do this for them, but they will be gone almost three weeks, and I am starting to get paranoid about accidentally locking the keys they left me inside of their house, i.e. locking myself out, so that I can’t do any of these things, and the plants die, and the fish dies, and the mail crowds up, and then they get robbed because it is obvious no one is home…I think about this all day, and it is driving me nuts!

Is it okay for me to get a second front-door key cut, that I would leave at my house, so that if I lock myself out I could use the second key to retrieve the first keys? And if I do this, do I ‘fess up when they come home and give them the second key, or do I throw it away when they return and never tell them what a spaz I am?

Sincerely,
Overly Responsible Girl

Dear Overly,

If it’s really driving you crazy, I suppose you could get a second front-door key cut — it really depends on how you think they’d react to your taking that liberty.But if they didn’t trust you, they wouldn’t have left you with a key in the first place, so as long as you hand over the second key when they get home and explain your reasons for having it made, I doubt they’d have a problem with it.

The fact that you’ve gotten obsessed with the idea of locking yourself out suggests to me that it’s never going to happen now, but if you’d sleep better knowing you’ve got a spare, go get a spare made.It’s not like you plan to give it to your friends or something.

Almighty Sars,

We’re starting an advice column in a magazine that my company publishes, and I’m going to be writing it­- under a pseudonym. Any advice on doling out advice? I read the Vine daily for inspiration, but I’m still kind of nervous about answering readers’ questions.

Anything you can offer would be great.

Sincerely,
Advice Virgin

Dear Virgin,

Based on my experiences with the Vine, here’s what I’d tell you to remember as you start out.

1. Don’t second-guess yourself too much.You can’t know every situation.You can’t have walked a mile in everyone’s shoes.I qualify my responses endlessly so the readers know that I know that I don’t know everything, but eventually I have to bite the bullet and register an opinion.I get stuff wrong and piss people off, but the readers aren’t shy about correcting me — and, really, that’s why people want to read advice columns.It’s entertainment, mostly.

2. Don’t take it, or yourself, too seriously. It’s an advice column, not a sentencing hearing.If advisees don’t like what you tell them, they don’t have to follow your advice.Nothing you say is carved in stone.

3. An advice columnist does as much reassuring as she does bossing.Most times, the writers know in their hearts what they have to do and what you’ll say.But they didn’t write just to get your advice; they want to know that it’s okay for them not to know what to do or how to handle a situation.They want you to tell them what to do, sure, but they also want to know that you feel their pain.That doesn’t mean you can’t lay some harsh truths on them, which you’ll have to do because that’s the job.But they want comfort as well as counsel.I mean, there’s “dump his ass already” — a fine locution which I’ve used a few times in my brilliant career — but more often there’s “I know it’s hard and scary, and you don’t want to hurt him, and you think you’ll die alone, but you aren’t happy and this isn’t all there is to life and you’ve got to move on.”They want another human being with a history of her own freak-outs and fuck-ups to tell them, “Damn, that sucks.Okay, here’s the plan.”

You’ll get the hang of it.

[9/27/01]

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