Dear Sars —

Stumbled across your site last week, and I really like your humor and advice.I’m in a rather unique but frustrating situation and I don’t know what to do — I’d appreciate your opinion.

I’m a 22-year-old straight male, and I have a 22-year-old bisexual girlfriend. We’ve been together for a while now, and things have been great. We’re incredibly happy with each other, we have a lot of common interests, and the intimate side of our relationship is intense.

But we hit a snag last month — she said she wanted to have a girlfriend as well, that she missed “doing stuff” with girls.

Before being me, she had a really serious relationship with a girl, but she broke up with her because she wanted a husband, kids, a family — and she couldn’t have that with the girl.

But now she’s asking me if I’d be okay with her making out with girls, hooking up with girls, having sex with girls — I don’t know if it’s just for physical or emotional reasons that she wants that, but either way I’m really not okay with it.

I’ve been trying to rationalize this to myself for the longest time, and have been having a miserable time at it — no matter how I look at it, it’s still her in someone else’s arms, sharing that intimacy. I feel like if we’re this close, that she would only want me, that I would be the only one providing sexual and emotional pleasure.

Then she asked if I would be okay with it if I were in the room, but I don’t know — I just want us to be more secure and stable in our relationship before we try something like that. Right now I feel like I’m going to lose her or part of her to a girl. Does that make me selfish to want all of her? Either way, if we’re going to try something like that, I wouldn’t want to try it until we’ve been together longer and trust each other more.

So it comes down to this — I want her and only her. But she wants me plus girlfriends on the side. Is it too harsh to ask her to give up girls to be with me? I know she’s bisexual, but to me it feels like a relationship should exclude everyone else, until both parties are okay with trying something else.

As it stands now, we’re still discussing this — but I’m starting to lose faith. I don’t want her to give up girls to be with me and be incredibly unhappy, but I don’t want her to still have girls while being with me because I would be miserable.

What do you all think? Is my way of thinking skewed? Am I asking too much?

L

Dear L,

It’s not too harsh to ask her to give up girls to be with you; you want to be exclusive.But…she doesn’t, so while you can ask her, you should be prepared for her not to give you what you want.

Honestly, I don’t think you have anything to gain by pretending you’re fine with it — you aren’t, and if you aren’t forthright about that, you don’t have the honest, trusting relationship you want anyway.Her offering to let you watch misses the point completely; you feel like it’s cheating for her to sleep with anyone else, regardless of gender, and it’s not that either of you is “wrong,” but if you think of that as an infidelity, why would letting you watch it happen be a favor to you?

If it’s truly a hardship to her not to sleep with girls anymore, well, then it’s up to her to decide whether she can live with it or not, and if she can’t, she’ll lose you.But don’t think that, by giving her what she wants, it’s going to fix anything; it isn’t.The two of you have a basic difference of opinion on whether the relationship should be monogamous and what that means, and that isn’t going to go away.If she’s not ready to commit to one person fully, she’s not, and you should accept that and walk away.

Hi Sars,

What should I do when one of my friends has insinuated herself into
nearly every part of my life? We’ve known each other for years, and
met at a time when we were both different people, people who’ve grown
and changed since then.

These past few years I’ve realized that last
fact, I’ve started to distance myself from her a little, and it’s
mostly because she’s often deeply depressed but refuses to realize it
or seek help and because of that, hanging out with her is no fun.
She’s always been a needy friend, but for a long time now she’s just
whiny, self-centered, and constantly seeking attention. When she’s not
turning every conversation into something all about herself, she makes
occasionally rude or mean comments to others. She has the most
sensitive ego, refuses to own up to any of her behaviour, and the few
remaining friends she has (me included) are tired of her antics.

I’ve
talked with her a few times about how I still care about her as a
friend, but that I’m unable to provide the kind of therapy or
emotional support that she needs. Generally, “I love you, and I’m here
for you if you just want to hang, but I can’t hold your hand through
every crisis you have anymore.” We had a fight about this, with her
disagreeing on what a “friend” means, but the very next day she acts
like it never happened.

Since then she’s slowly been insinuating herself into other parts of
my life. She looks up and hooks up with friends from all my other
social circles, starts taking up all my hobbies, and generally shows
up everywhere I am. When I see her, she makes strange and borderline
condescending comments to me. So when we both “happen” to be at the
same social events together, I’m usually polite and greet her, but
then hang with other people instead. Now she complains that I’m
ignoring and snubbing her. Worse yet, she runs to some of our mutual
friends from the past to dump all of this on.

I don’t want to be possessive of any of my other friends and social
circles, so what should I do? I’d like to minimize contact with her
altogether, but if she’s suddenly interested in knitting, who am I to
stop her from coming to my knitting circle? How do I extricate myself
from her?

Thanks in advance,
Anonymous (sorry, couldn’t think of anything clever)

Dear Anon,

How does she keep finding out about your activities?Because if it’s you who’s telling her…duh.Stop telling her about your activities; stop telling her about your interests; don’t pick up the phone when she calls, and if you must talk to her, stick to generalities and don’t mention any plans or clubs or anything.

You might also mention to a couple of your friends — ones you trust, who maybe feel the same way you do about this girl — that you’d really appreciate it if they’d not share anything with her about what you’ve got going on, because you’re not getting along with her and in fact you feel sort of smothered.

I think she has some problems, but I also think she sounds like a dick, and maybe it’s time for you to start acting like it — not bitching her out or anything, but not pretending you’re still buddies, either.If she wants to run crying to mutual friends, there isn’t a whole lot you can do about that; they’ll probably get tired of her crap in short order themselves, if you haven’t already.

So, start being a lot more cagey about your leisure time; start leaving events when she shows up, or not going to events you think she’ll try to horn in on; start acting annoyed by her.Because you are annoyed by her, and pretending otherwise isn’t really doing much good.

Dear Sars,

Your perceptive comments about NY (I especially liked
the one about the bridal shower) inspired me to
finally write to you.See, I want to be able to enjoy
this city again.

I moved here in March — great new job, expensive new
apartment (with the unobstructed view of the Empire
State…so TV sitcom of me, I know), being able to see
friends who lived here — the works.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I’m exploring my
new neighborhood as the weather lets up one Saturday
when a guy jumps off a 20-odd-story building to his
death and lands as I stand there, on top of an SUV,
across the street from me, ice cream cone in hand.

I can’t forget the noise, the way the body bounced,
how he rolled underneath the car.Standing there was
surreal — the neighbors trying to figure out if they
knew the guy, the tourists snapping pictures, the news
guys bitching that they showed up with their cameras
too late to get any good footage.I felt like I
couldn’t leave, but there was no reason for me to
stay.

I tried talking to friends and family to get over the
experience, but no one had any good advice.After a
while, their suggestions and opinions just made it
worse, so I stopped talking about it.”God put you
there so someone could pray for his soul.””Actually
that’s kinda cool — you only see something like that
in movies!””You have to forget what you saw and just
move on.” “Well, I once saw a guy fall drunk in the
subway and die.” “Don’t think about him — he’s going
to hell.” None of this helped.

Another month goes by, super awesome job takes up all
my life and I rock my project so can relax some, and
now that work is on the right
track, I want to get to enjoying the season, but I
just can’t.If I go near this street (it’s on my way
to work), I hear “…and this is the street where the
guy jumped to his death in front of me” (like Lloyd
from Say Anything) in my head.I kept my eyes on the
police blotter for a while to confirm that he was dead
and that it was a suicide, so now know too much about
the other fucked-up shit that happens in this city and
wonder if something else is waiting for me around the
corner.

So can you think of a NY way for me to come to terms
with this side of the city and go on to enjoy my time
here?I’m not leaving anytime soon and really can’t
spend all my time hiding from what might happen.

Witnessed A Suicide Blond

Dear Wit,

For starters, don’t read the police blotter.Come on.If you get into that evening-news mindset where hidden dangers lurk everywhere and anything could kill you, including cauliflower and not washing your hands, you’ll never get out of bed in the morning; just keep busy.Go to work, hang out with your friends, and give yourself time to toughen up.

And you do need to toughen up.I mean, you can’t “enjoy” the city?At all?Seeing a jumper is upsetting, I’m sure, and I’m not trying to say it isn’t, but: 9/11.And I don’t mean that in a “suck it up, new kid” way, although it might sound like I do; I mean that you get past it.Yes, bad shit happens here. Bad shit happens everywhere.Bad shit is happening to someone right now.That isn’t New York; that’s life.You need to trust yourself to incorporate the unexpected, to make room for it in your head.

And that will come; it just takes time.You don’t know the city very well yet; you still live on it more than you live in it, and that makes the possibility that something horrible might happen seem even more overwhelming and intimidating, because it doesn’t feel like home yet.You don’t feel safe here.

The day will come when you do, when an incident like this is sobering for a day and then you go on to other things.It’s not a lack of sensitivity; it’s just a callus you need in order not to melt down from sensory overload around here, but that callus can take some months to form, so again: give it time.

Dear Sars,

So, my wife and I are having a problems with her mother.Here’s the story:

We already have a wonderful daughter, three years old, and in a few months
we’re going to have a son.Happy us!Now, when we were married all
those years ago, my wife kept her name, and I kept mine, and on the
birth certificate we gave our daughter a hyphenated name.However, my
daughter goes by her mother’s last name — at school, when being
introduced, that sort of thing.She’s not ignorant of my name, of
course, and we don’t forbid her to say it or anything like that —
just that, well, her mother’s name gets used in public.Well, now
that we’re having a boy, we plan on giving him a hyphenated name on
the birth certificate, too, except he’ll go by my last name.The idea
isn’t that complicated to us — it’s just that my wife and I want to
honor each of our family’s last names, and give each an opportunity
for something like posterity.

Except, my mother-in-law has attacked this idea as “sexist,”
“ridiculous,” “stupid,” and “rebellious.”And when I say “attack,”
that’s pretty much exactly what I mean.She sneers, she shouts, she
demeans — she’s been, in several conversations, relentlessly
vitriolic about it, until my wife, having explained our decision a
million different ways, becomes completely unnerved.

This morning, in fact, my mother-in-law called my wife at home and
spent a good fifteen minutes screeching that we were insulting our
daughter, that people would assume she’s an illegitimate child.She
tossed around the word “sexist” many more times, although I’m not sure
I understand why — I guess because we’re giving the more valuable
name (mine) only to the boy, thereby discriminating against the girl?
Which just sort of affirms for us why we’ve chosen to handle the name
issue the way we have: my wife’s name is just as good as mine, is
something she associates with a whole history that came before I
barged in on her life, and if our names mean something to us, we want
to preserve them.(Legally, the kids DO have both names, but that
doesn’t console the mother-in-law.)

Neither my wife nor I would ever go up to one of our relatives and
say, “HEY, you took your jackass husband’s last name, thereby selling
yourself to the patriarchy and relinquishing whatever precious scrap
of identity you once held as a woman.”I mean, yeah, we happen to
hold the position that automatically taking the man’s last name, and
automatically distributing that name to all the progeny, suggests a
kind of submission or subjugation with which we’re personally
uncomfortable.But, we also understand that some people want to honor
tradition, that rituals and customs are significant in other people’s
lives.That’s why we don’t wag our fingers in other people’s faces
and insist on some bizarre hegemony when it comes to patronyms and
matronyms.

Heck, there are a lot of interesting ways of dealing with this name
thing.Some of our married friends have chosen new names of
themselves, or made anagrams of their existing names.And many have
gone the traditional route, and that’s all fine, too.Terrific!No
problem!We’re totally okay with what other people decide for
themselves.And if my daughter grows up and gets married and takes
the guy’s name, I won’t necessarily like it, and I might even mention
it, but I won’t berate her and yell at her and call her immature and
ridiculous, either.

But how do we get my mother-in-law to adopt that attitude toward us?
I’ve been racking my brain for the kind of rhetoric that would work
here, but then again, the mother-in-law never explodes at me.Just at
my wife.Around me, she’s all polite and wonderful and
oh-so-reasonable.But I’ve overheard these “conversations” directed
at my wife, and they’re awful — on this subject, and on a dozen
others, too.It’s a pattern of nagging derision, really.

I think you might suggest cutting off the mother-in-law, because her
behavior is deplorable, but there are two wrinkles with that.1) In
many ways, we do like this woman.I don’t have a problem with
contrary opinions, even strong ones.Our families are very close, and
the father-in-law is more like a dad to me than my biological father.
They have a disabled son together, and we help out sometimes, and
neither my wife nor I want any of that to end.2) In this particular
pregnancy, my wife is having these nightmares and night terrors —
unrelated to all this other stuff — and when I work my overnight
shifts on the weekend, she stays with her parents because she sleeps
better there.We’re looking into counseling, just someone my wife can
talk to about her insomniac-inducing fears, but meanwhile, a cessation
of interaction with my mother-in-law would mean, I don’t know,
quitting my overnight shifts, and at the moment we can’t afford that.
Maybe in a few months, but not now.

Okay, so what I’m actually asking here is this: Should I be stepping in
and saying something to my mother-in-law, and if so, what?The idea
makes me nervous, but I wonder if I should intervene a little.Or, if
I should stay out of it because it’s foolish to come between fractured
mother-daughter relationships, how should my wife proceed?This
stress, this anxiety — she doesn’t need it ever, but she especially
doesn’t need it now, three and a half months before the baby shows up.
What should I be doing?

And if you’re interested in the question: Is it totally, completely
whacked that my wife and I are naming our kids this way?I’m not
insecure about the decision, just curious what other people’s opinions
would be — providing they’re not screaming at us.

Sorry this letter became so long!

Sincerely,
Bracing Myself for Oedipus

Dear Bracing,

You should suggest to your wife that, when the screaming starts, the conversation ends — she can just say, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I don’t appreciate your speaking to me like that, and I’ll have to go,” and hang up.The behavior is unacceptable under any circumstances, but particularly when your wife is having a difficult pregnancy, and particularly over an issue so minor.

If that doesn’t work, you might have a word with your mother-in-law.”You’re welcome to your opinion, but it’s really upsetting to my wife when you talk to her like that and I really have to ask you not to do it anymore.She’s having a hard enough time as it is.”She’s not going to take it well, probably, but at least you’re on the record as having warned her to shut up.

But if this is a pattern of behavior with your MIL, and your wife isn’t sticking up for herself with it?You might just have to stay out of it…and furthermore, while I agree that your MIL’s reaction to the naming is inappropriately angry and judgmental, you should get used to politely handling stupid responses to it.Like, now.You’ve chosen a non-traditional naming scheme; people are nosy and impolite; rehearse a response, ten words or less, a pleasant, flat tone to go with it, because you will have to deliver said response to various people hundreds of thousands of times.

As far as the naming itself goes, I myself would pick a naming system where the ratio of “making my point” to “pain in my ass” was a little better.Doing something unique is fine; not wanting to default to the man’s name is fine; it’s really whatever you want to do, and my whole point in this response is, basically, who cares what I think, do what you guys feel is best and feel good about it. But if I married Mr. Jingleheimer and we had more than one kid, either they’re all Jingleheimers or they’re all Bunting-Jingleheimers or they’re all Buntingleheimers, because life’s too short.

But again, that’s me.You should do what you think is right, but understand that a lot of other people aren’t going to get it, and you don’t have to make them, but you also shouldn’t waste much energy caring.

Hi Sars,

I live in Australia and have an opportunity to work in New York City for two years.It sounds like a fabulous opportunity and I’d love to think it was possible.

The salary is advertised at US $44K plus benefits/bonuses and I was just wondering if you could let me know how reasonable a salary for New York that is…would I be living on the bread line or could I afford to enjoy New York?

Love the site,
Denise

Dear Denise,

Yeah, it’s enough; you won’t have to eat ketchup packets or anything.You won’t be able to get a gigantic apartment (not if you want to live in Manhattan), and you won’t be able to take cabs everywhere, but you can find a decent-sized place in Brooklyn and have enough money left over to eat out and see movies.

But prepare yourself: New Yorkers pay way more in rent, in proportion to our incomes, than citizens of most other cities.You will have to pay $1000 USD a month, rock-bottom minimum, for a decent place to live, so when you do your budgeting, include that.

[9/28/05]

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